This morning, just before I woke, I had a vivid dream. I was here, in my bedroom, when I was disturbed by noises in the street. There were a small band of Labour Party activists in the street, way-laying school-run parents as the deposited their boys at Ascham House, three doors along at the end of our terrace. Fantasy and reality mingling.
Tony Blair was there, standing below me in the road with a small megaphone. For some reason he came into my house and up to the top floor. There was a small child, seemingly mine, who opened the door to the meditation room. In we went and talked, while the child played around our feet.
What I felt, in the dream and throughout this morning, was a sense of connection, as I talked to him 'in person' , with the person I was then and with that feeling of elation and hope I, and so many, had when Labour won the election in 1997. And the sense of disappointment, betrayal even, at the direction he and 'New Labour' have taken us, and other places in the world, since then. Yes, it's not all bad, yes, a Tory alternative would have been worse. But there was trust and hope and vision. I know that reality will never measure up to vision. But even so.....
I know how I will vote tomorrow morning, and have done for some time. The decision reinforced by Prasada's essay on 'How a Buddhist Looks at the Election'. And there is sadness for the bitter disappointment of so many.
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