THE JOYS OF RETIREMENT

Three weeks of retirement  and I'm beginning tp think it's better than being in politics.The main change is that people now talk to me where they'd ignore me as a passing politician. I amble around Grimsby just like any other pensioner and people stop me and say they're sorry I'm going or wish me a happy retirement.

The difference is that they talk to me as a real person where they avoided me as a politician. They're suspicious of politicians, particularly since the expenses scandal,just as they're suspicious of anyone trying to sell them something. They don't want to get involved but now I'm not an object of suspicion any longer just a real person they can relate to

It's wonderful. I go into town and people stop me and ask what I'm going to do in retirement (no idea) or advise me to go on holiday or on a cruise "every day's like Sunday" one said today while another extolled the joys of a hobby. No one talked about the election. No one complained or grumbled No one told me off for my views on anything. They just wanted to relate as they never had before .It's marvellous

I should retire more often..

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In fact Ive worked harder since retirement than I did as an MP because Linda and I are making a film extolling the real Grimsby and showing what a marvellous place it is to counter the picture presented by Skint and by Sacha Baron Cohen's Grimsby which was actual filmed in Tilbury showing us as a kind of hell hole inhabited by fat lady football fans

Great place. Great prospects. So we're calling it GREAT GRIMSBY because that's what our town is. In fact we've found so many good things and good people that its becoming difficult to cram them all in 

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I don't think Labour should get stuck on a pro EU policy. Leave "My Europe right or wrong" to the Lib Dems just because we've decided (wrongly in my view ) to oppose the referendum on membership which we once promised (and gave in 1975) doesn't mean that we have to like every aspect of this shambolic low growth blackspot or that we won't face problems from it when we come into office.

What will we do about the lax tax laws in Luxembourg which allow British companies toi register there and pay very low taxes not those due in Britain. Or what  about the low corporation tax in Ireland or the double Irish escape route, or the dirty deals with Holland? What will e do about the ban on state aids for industry when we try to revive manufacturing in the face of stiff EU competition or about the  open immigration from East Europe which drives wages down and boosts social spending.

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Note that all the promises held out by theTories of no tax increases, various tax cuts and spending improvements  all depend on the economy improving and reaching much higher growth levels by 2018. On present Tory policies it won't and can't. This rash of promises demonstrates only that the Tories are rattled but they only serve to increrase suspicion of politics and politicians

Remember George Bush's daddy "read my lips.No new taxes"

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Whoever advised Cameron to energise and pump himself up for the last week of the campaign made a bad mistake. .The energised Cameron is abusive exaggerating and desperate. He rants on about how small businesses saved the country when it was cheap money and the Bank of England,promises paradise in three years time and generally goes nuts like an amateur version of Boris. Put him back on valium