Eyewear supported the Lib Dems in the last election. And, has now switched allegiances, tentatively, back to Labour, who have done the right thing and renewed themselves. I wish to give their new leader the benefit of the doubt. Ed Miliband has got several things right, it seems to me: 1) he has expressed regret for Labour going into Iraq as it did; 2) he admits Labour lost the election and has to be humble and truly listen; 3) he is putting the true middle class (and working class) concerns of the British people ahead of the well-to-do; 4) he supports universal welfare as a principle; 5) he is not knee-jerk anti-union; 6) he signals the end of New Labour and Blair-Brown division and wants a new generation to move on. He is a thoughtful, sympathetic, strong-willed, well-educated, expressive leader, with the "charisma of imperfection" as he puts it. An excellent foil for his equally well-educated and articulate opposite numbers, Clegg and Cameron. The next five years will be interesting times indeed, and in Ed, the UK has found the person to properly and fully counter the vicious ideologically-driven cuts to come.
THAT HANDSOME MAN A PERSONAL BRIEF REVIEW BY TODD SWIFT I could lie and claim Larkin, Yeats , or Dylan Thomas most excited me as a young poet, or even Pound or FT Prince - but the truth be told, it was Thom Gunn I first and most loved when I was young. Precisely, I fell in love with his first two collections, written under a formalist, Elizabethan ( Fulke Greville mainly), Yvor Winters triad of influences - uniquely fused with an interest in homerotica, pop culture ( Brando, Elvis , motorcycles). His best poem 'On The Move' is oddly presented here without the quote that began it usually - Man, you gotta go - which I loved. Gunn was - and remains - so thrilling, to me at least, because so odd. His elegance, poise, and intelligence is all about display, about surface - but the surface of a panther, who ripples with strength beneath the skin. With Gunn, you dressed to have sex. Or so I thought. Because I was queer (I maintain the right to lay claim to that
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