My retirement from Politics

I have arrived at a very sad but easy decision.

Baby #3 from 12 week scan

As of September I will cease to be an active member of the Liberal Democrat party and the unofficial Go-To Medway LibDem guy.

Before people start braying about the collapse of the party or a lack of my commitment I have two words.... Pulmonary Atresia. 

A few weeks ago Sam (my wife) and I went for the twelve week scan of our third (and final) child expecting they would be as healthy as Sophie and Ollie. 

Sadly we were wrong. There was a complication and we were referred to Kings hospital.

They have a condition called Pulmonary Atresia. The right side of the heart that pumps to the lungs is either missing (aorta) or detrimentally too small (ventricle), also the vital Pulmonary artery is blocked and too small to carry blood to the lungs.

The outlook was not good. There is extensive surgery to re-plumb the heart and lungs which can have renal and digestive side effects, physical disability and curtailed life expectancy. 

After two weeks of trying to decide whether to give the child a go or to be cruel to be kind and end it now we went back for another scan.

Nothing had changed but we were told the surgery was actually fairly routine and a curtailed life expectancy actually meant Early adulthood.

Neither of us, despite being pro-choice could bring ourselves to terminate and we felt that it was better to let fate decide and give the baby a shot at life and see what happens.

The baby is due in October and must be born in London where it will be rushed to intensive care and if strong enough be operated on a few days later with a follow up four months later.

The next year will be hard on my wife, my other two kids (especially on Sophie) and the baby. I will do what I've always done and knuckle under and put them first. Baby's health is never going to be great and depending on blood vessel development in the lungs and the success of the operations mean that I will need to dedicate a lot of time to them.

My time is going to be exceptionally valuable and I'm making sacrifices and sadly being an active member of the party is one of them. I feel guilty as next year is going to be vital for the Medway branch but family must and always will come first.

I'll still be blogging on my history blog from time to time (I'm not dead after all!) but this blog will be indefinitely suspended from September onwards I'm afraid.
 

I'm sad to let it go and may post on a very rare basis. This has been a big part of my life since 2010 and want to thank you all for reading.

John's retirement

Medway has known many disasters.

The Gillingham bus station firestorm of 1940.

The explosion of HMS Bulwark.

Mark Stinson's reign as manager of the Gills...

However, the Medway political scene has suffered a great loss. John Ward has retired from political

blogging and tweeting.

When I first started out almost three years ago the lines were very clear of blue, red and gold and John was the elder statesman and former Conservative Councillor. His opinion on things as well as his vast memory and catalogue of information and stats was respected from all sides.

To be honest I understand his decision, I too have considered it a few times recently.

John's decision is a great loss to the Medway Political scene and I will miss his input as I'm sure others will too, but he's not gone completely - check his blog out for animé and other cool things.

Blogger Barrage

The internet is truly a wonderful place.

It is one of the few places you can really say what you mean and really exercise your freedom of speech, after all I will probably never meet a tenth of the people who read this 'blog and only gauge responses by the meagre comments or by the odd angry tweet.

Sometimes a riposte in another local Bloggers site will crop up. Some constructive, which is great, and others not. (I'll come to that tomorrow!)

The problem with politics is that it is a highly mobile situation and fluidic, constantly changing and with a Million and one different view points, even within the big three parties. Libdems are constantly at war with each other over points of policy which is of course the beauty of this party, a polyglot of ideas and theories that are all considered rather than dictated by High Command or by the Unions.

The Blogosphere is very helpful in this expression of ideas but has one major drawback.

To the non-political or casual reader it is a virtual barrage of comments and criticisms.

There is a certain air of constantly returning fire and raining down shells of wisdom, opinion and (dare I say it?) truth upon other 'blogs.

Like real Artillery each of us comes with different types of ammunition, star shells to expose truth and grey areas for other readers. High explosives of facts and figures to bring opinion about and grapeshot for when we're criticising a broader target such as Council/Government expenditure.

But the real danger is that we become deafened by our own noise.

I try to keep an open mind. I mean I am a Liberal Democrat and that shouldn't be forgotten when you read my pages. Obviously my personal bias will lean that way...
BUT I have criticised Libdems in government before and will probably do so again.

I listen to debate and formulate my own opinion based on my view of the facts. I have defended the Conservatives record over "Boris Island" and yet criticised them over train fares. I have criticised the Conservative led council over cutting Care homes but criticised Labour for politicising the whole affair.

Some other bloggers are deafened by their own guns and seem to be on crusade to completely decimate the other parties (usually the Other party) and that their way is the only way.

The problem is the noise of the guns can scare people away and what starts as a reasoned argument or statement can rapidly become a full blown bombardment.

The problem is, its only other like minded people who join the fusillade or spotters like myself who are looking for a weakness in the curtain that ever really pay that much attention.

It is a danger if you believe that yours is a popular opinion, or that you alone are the soul voice of reason because x many people have seen your post. You are still but one voice in the dark, often lost in the barrage of all the other guns.