Eight aspirations

Liberal England has challenged me to name eight aspirations or, perhaps, predictions for the coming year. After some consideration I offer the following thoughts, put forward in great hope but not with any sense of prophecy.

• First: that Mr Clegg should emerge as a man of stature, a statesman for the times, a torch-bearer of liberty.
• Second: that our great party should place itself at the head of a great and popular movement that declares that the promotion of justice and peace overseas requires justice and liberty at home.
• Third: that the same movement should declare that reform is based on a trust of the people, not subversion of the popular will, recognising that reform of public institutions in the interests of the masses is a necessary part of progress.
• Fourth: that representatives of the Labour movement should at last shed the legacy of Mr Marx, not just in their speech and their declarations but in practical recognition that the economy and the populace cannot be ruled by dictat.
• Fifth: that our national church should reverse the 150 years of decline initiated by the departure of Newman and Manning, presenting itself as a herald of virtue and catholic unity.
• Sixth: that families are spared the poverty, misery and loss of property and entitlement that might be engendered if disturbing signs of economic instability come to fruition.
• Seventh: that I can reconcile my unbelief in purgatory with my existence in this peculiar electronic world where words and rhetoric rule over all and the weaknesses of the flesh are hardly present. Is this perhaps an entrance hall into Heaven and the presence of the Almighty?
• Eight: that somewhere in these halls I should chance again upon the gracious presence of our Queen and have the opportunity once again to share conversation and discuss great affairs with a lady of great wisdom and deep religiosity.

I am then challenged to name five other "blogs" who will also name eight aspirations for the New Year, passing along something called a meme, a word which I suspect of having Greek origin as it cannot possibly be the French word. I have journeyed in several directions in this peculiar world of blogosphere and would mention the following who, in my humble opinion, should participate in this fancy. At my age, I am a little slow and a number of my nominees, I fear, have already been "tagged" and may even have responded to this cheerful challenge: Ciceros Songs, What's Left in the Church, Anti-Itchmeditation, John Davies, Talking the Walk.