SENSE OF AN ENDING

There is a certain irony I suppose in real life scuppering what I thought I would be doing at this General Election.
Hopes dashed of being a candidate, and with minimal time to do anything much beyond work and sort out family stuff.
I'm preparing to spend the next week working from my sister's home where dad battles on with remarkable determination.
But as I write, an unprecedented cloud of volcanic ash is threatening to destroy my sister's long-cherished plans to fly to New York on Monday from Manchester Airport.
It has been that kind of year.
In the past couple of weeks I have heard more distressing health news - both of other relatives and friends in the local Labour Party.
One, 89, the oldest in our constituency and a grand old chap, is particularly upsetting . But he wants no fuss and no bother because he is of a wartime generation which did not indulge in mawkishness.
Likewise, my dad.
I am under strict instructions from him not to be maudlin - today we handed back the keys to my father's old house. The house where I spent my teenage years and where, less happily, my dad spent 23 years as a widower.
No longer owned by Manchester City Council, it's now in the hands of a housing association.
I am proud to say my father never considered capitalising on his long long residency by buying the property.
He also voted against the recent transfer of Manchester housing stock to an ALMO. Against the policy which was advocated by "Manchester Labour" and its former Leader Sir Richard Leese.
No Schadenfreude, truthfully. We can all make mistakes and I take no delight in such misfortune. But it was another gobsmacking moment yesterday when I heard he had been forced to stand down in what alegedly was an argument over a cat.
Something no-one could in all honesty have predicted and I suppose another indicator of the fact that, as John Lennon said, "life is what happens when you are busy making other plans." And, usually, the news when Fate steps in is not good stuff.

HOW ARE WE GOING TO VOTE?

Intriguingly, the Independent reports today that activists are going to "try and force a vote" on windfall tax at Labour Party Conference. I hope this is so and I will urge our delegate to support but how exactly are we going to "vote" as contemporary motions have been abolished. Presumably, it will be a symbolic vote ? If passed, it will at least show we can raise issues and get them debated. And next year let's bring back contemporary motions.......