joe, i really do make a serious attempt on here to be respectful, to not resort to slagging anyone off - and try to imagine i am having an interesting conversation with a few people in the pub. i don't feel i am part of an 'angry horde' nor am i 'rabid' - and certainly not a liberal. (broadly a peace and love socialist type) i do get very bored and irritated with the way threads go sometimes and 'disappear' for a while - but i'm sort of glad that we still bicker on with the occasional interesting ideas.

i'm currently working supporting disabled people in fairly . rural north west england, where i am a union rep for 400+ staff, with one other rep. He, like most other people i work with who have an interest in politics is a UKIP type conspiray theorist who prefers trump to obama and is very keen on brexit ('sovereignty!) he is also a good friend. currently we have agreed to not talk about 'all that' because we just get angry about it but we do get on, support each other and try to support our members effectively. i have to be careful what i say every day as to be eg anti-racist or even pro my union is not as comfortable at work as it is on this form - but of course i struggle to keep quiet about my views.

i have rejoined the labour to support a more left of centre manifesto. this could my last chance to see a bit of socialism in government and i'm working towards this in my local branch and my union.

before this job i worked for a few years in a homeless hostel and will always have an interest in this. 4 people i knew died. every one i worked with was a victim of various forms of child abuse. to me this is the root of many - if not most of the problems we have in society. the fact that these crimes are (or were) often hidden or covertly sanctioned by religious organisations makes me more of an atheist too.

i guess i'm fairly typical of people on here and i'm sorry to bore you but i did find it quite annoying (and lazy) to characterise all us lefties as 'rabid' - everyone has a story and surely there are times for some appropriate anger (expressed with civility!)   

You can't accuse us all of being an 'embarrassingly angry mob' -

Could do better (yes, i'm also an ex-teacher)