What I'm not saying is that all government spending is bad. It's not - far far from it but there is no free lunch as a former colleague of mine used to say. There is no public tooth fairy. Father Christmas does not work on the Treasury staff this year. You can never bail someone out of trouble without putting someone else into trouble.
Let's stop pretending we can arrest our way to safety and security. Despite all the fine work that policemen and women do we have got to find other solutions to deter crime.
Can I just say here how much I hate the word 'pamper'? While pretending to celebrate and indulge women it actually implies that their bodies are so revolting that even their 'me time' must be dedicated to turning them into living dolls if potential suitors are to be prevented from running screaming in horror.
Women can go on marrying and pretending that their boyfriends and husbands are Mr. Darcy or some RomCom dream man. But where's that going to get 'em? Besides divorce court?
A sexual revolution begins with the emancipation of women who are the chief victims of patriarchy and also with the ending of homosexual oppression.
Ageism works in both directions. As a teenager in the public eye people would talk condescendingly to me. When you get older there's this feeling that you have to start carving up your face and body. Right now I'm in the middle ground - I think women in their thirties are taken seriously.
My mother was very strong. Once she picked up a coconut and smashed it against my father's head. It taught me about women defending themselves and not collapsing in a heap.
Intimacies between women often go backwards beginning in revelations and ending in small talk.
Spending two years on my uncle's ranch in Montana as a young man gave me the wisdom and the thrust to do westerns.
No party has a monopoly on wisdom. No democracy works without compromise. But when Governor Romney and his allies in Congress tell us we can somehow lower our deficit by spending trillions more on new tax breaks for the wealthy - well you do the math. I refuse to go along with that. And as long as I'm President I never will.