Left or Right?

If anyone is reading this, apologies for being so quiet, especially with all the election excitement. I won't say very much about the local, Scottish and Welsh elections as it is soooo last week now - especially with Tony Blair's resignation expected tomorrow morning. But what it does underline is the need for the Labour Party to really renew itself locally, at the grassroots. I haven't yet made up my mind about the contest for deputy leadership, but I will be listening very carefully to the ideas that are presented at the CSM hustings event... And we have also had election fever across the channel. Depite being won over by their electoral system (c'est magnifique non?) I am unlikely to be convinced anytime soon by Nicholas Sarkozy. Having labelled delinquent youths as 'scum' and having used highly inflammatory language against immigrant communities, he is now attacking the 35-hour week. This is a bit of a pet issue of mine - despite the need to maintain economic competitiveness, I am convinced that our long hours culture has led to a whole host of other problems - relationship breakdown in families, children not seeing their parents and a massive increase in stress-related illness. Do the French really want this?