The Last Ditch by Tom Paine

Bel is Thinking is one of my favourite blogs and this exercise, set by Blogpower’s headmaster, forced me to think why.
I know Bel only through her posts, but I have the impression we have a few things in common. There are the obvious things, such as our profession (she teaches law, I practise it). She “fondly remembers the Thatcher years,” as do I. It’s indelicate to speculate as to a lady’s age, but I suspect we are of a similar vintage. From references on her blog, it seems that, like me, she spent some significant part of her life abroad. Before I found those references, I had suspected as much. There is a quality to her postings about politics and society which puts me in mind of Kipling’s mother’s famous words;

What do they know of England, that only England know?

She seems to see the place in context, as few native bloggers (or native politicians) do.

Bel wrestles with the task of keeping her equanimity. Blogging seems to be a good outlet for the frustrations our badly-governed society inflicts on its more thoughtful citizens. I hope it’s working for her. I certainly know the feeling.

Bel was a fan, it seems, of Eric Forth. Frankly, that’s a box ticked for me. Eric was an MP with charm, humour, style and an irrepressible desire to speak his mind freely, honestly and with both humour and common-sense. Just the sort, in short, with which the Houses of Parliament should teem. It says much of our present parliament of poodles that he was an outsider throughout his time there. Eric was a human litmus test. I don’t ask that you agree with him, but if you would not have wanted to have a drink with him, then – trust me – you don’t want a drink with me either.

Which brings me (not that I agree with all she writes, by any means) to the only jarring note I found in Bel’s blog posts. She doesn’t drink! I almost died to read

I somehow acquired a Ramonet Bâtard-Montrachet 1992, but being a non-imbiber, it wasn’t of any use to me.

For those not in the know, that’s a few hundred quid’s worth of wine in anyone’s money and it finding its way to a teetotaller would have turned me an atheist if I wasn’t already. I hope she found it a good home.

Researching this review, I noted that Bel’s style has evolved over 15 months of blogging. The earliest posts on her blog are longer, looser, more rambling than today’s. Like me, she must write a lot as part of her daily work, yet the exercise of blogging has changed her style; introducing more discipline and structure. This too, I hope we have in common – although she is further down the path. Today, she is one of the easiest reads in the British blogosphere, despite often quite serious subject-matter.

However, I am not sure that any of these factors are the "it" that creates a sense of anticipation when I spot one of her posts.  Rather, I think it may be this. I alway leaves Bel’s blog with a sense of her essential humanity. When working my way out of the rotten Socialist boroughs of the Labour North, I naively expected all my professional colleagues to be the sort of rational, humane and essentially liberal person that I suspect Bel to be.

Sadly, ours is not a liberal age, at least not in the classical sense of that word. British lawyers are just as likely as any other professionals (if not more so) to be Statist busybodies these days. Nor are they immune to woolly thinking. I am sorry to say that some of them are not even averse to crooked thinking and self-deception when it serves their needs.
Not Bel, at least. Her head’s on straight. Give her blog a try.

[Next Blogpower Testimonial: The Cityunslicker]