15000

Today I am exactly 15,000 days old. A milestone if ever there was one. As a special treat, the boy decided to wake me at 6.30 am by repeatedly shouting "Good Morning" until I went to his room.

Tomorrow is my wedding anniversary. I need to do something.

Team GB continues to do incredibly well at the Beijing Olympics. As I write this I see a 16th gold medal has been won. Only the US and China have more. Altogether we have 33 medals now, and that target of 41 is looking more and more achievable. Apparently this is our best performance in over a century.

Abby's comment on socialism is bouncing around in my head, "Not everyone in Europe is a socialist". The British certainly don't consider themselves to be socialists. But looking from the other side of the Atlantic, what does Abby see? She sees us paying a huge amount of tax and receiving state healthcare, education, a state run public transport system. How does that compare to the socialist republic of China for instance? They don't have a state run healthcare system, or a proper state run education system. They also have low taxes and the fastest growing economy in the world.

*Blink*

And Europe as an organisation; how does the EU score on the socialist meter? Huge, undemocratic centralised governmental body that redistributes wealth from the richer countries like Britain, to the poorer ones, like Ireland. That actually sounds almost communist, or Robin Hood, depending on which side of the fence you sit. I use Ireland as an example because they received billions in EU grants and then trashed the Lisbon Treaty earlier this year. I could have chosen other examples.

*Blink*

All of which leads me to ponder on just how socialist we in Britain really are. As a non socialist nation we resist Europe with every fibre of our collective soul, and have done so ever since Europe stopped trying to be a common market and started trying to be a government. The British (Labour/socialist) Government, which clearly does not share a soul with the nation as a whole, is desperately pro-Europe. I know what you're thinking; the right-wing Tory party was broadly pro-Europe if you go back 10 or more years. Mrs Thatch certainly was. It's true, I can't deny that and I wouldn't try to, but in those days Europe still showed signs of becoming the trading power that it was supposed to be. And I might add, there was Tory Euro Scepticism even then. I remember Norman Tebbit standing up and telling us that Europe was heading in completely the wrong direction and that we should be concentrating on bringing down trade barriers and nothing else. Dear Old Norman, great product, appalling marketing. Everyone hated him, but he was always, always right, a bit like Rush Limbaugh.

I'd like to think that although the current government is hardcore socialist, thinly disguised in a Blairite tutu, the country as a whole is basically anti socialist. We're just terribly British and too polite to wave banners in the street and shout. Changes lie ahead for Britain. I think the anti socialist nation is fed up with the government tax and spend philosophy. There will be another by election very shortly in Scotland, in Labour's homeland. If they lose the seat, and they might well do, things will begin to change sooner rather than later. There will be louder calls for Brown to go, and there will be deafening calls for a general election which the government just can't win.