When you are up everyone wants to know you ... its a different story when things aren't going too well. When Obama won, everyone wanted to be associated with his success whatever the political spectrum. The Tories developed Big Society and the Labour Party tried to up their game on community organising . Obama's experience is unique and I am not sure could eve be replicated in the UK. I'm off the the UNISON community service group conference tomorrow where I think most will be insecure about their futures. The real news I think will be what position UK politicians adopt after the mid term elections. Is this something that they are committed to or do they view this as some other easy cutting fodders?

Behaving responsibly in the face of unfairness

Children seem obsessed with being treated unfairly. They constantly question whether the treatment and benefits that are laid down out by parents, school or anyone else in the line of fire is delivered fairly.

I guess it’s human nature ... but the issue of being treated fairly is not only a local one or a national one but also a global one. With this release of Obama’s first speech to African nations stressing the role of good governance, it really seems that western nations and particularly Britain after the expenses scandals are in glass houses throwing stones.

Working over this weekend I’ve also been thinking about how to get the clearest message to local people about the need to take action to protect public services when there is such a lot of unhappiness with the quality of them after years and years of sustained cut backs on all from all sides. Some politicians seem to think that it’s just about fighting the cause, however some of the work has to be about taking local communities with us. One of the difficulties is media onslaught from certain prominent individuals about public sector wages and pensions. Although some of it is from the shallow thinking of the Tax Payers Alliance and other Daily Mail readers there all too often pressure from “so-called” friends. Look here for a thoughtful post from Michael Meacher telling it how it is.

Hope

The world is ready for change. We just have to believe it.