Labour plans for a Senate to replace the House of Lords and the Conservative gift of a Directly Elected Mayor for Greater Manchester may outwardly look like serious attempts by the political elite to demonstrate how seriously they wish to reengage with the electorate. But do we really need even more elected politicians, when most of those in the system that we already have are not in touch with the people that they have the responsibility to represent?
Reform of the House of Lords is itself hardly original news. Whilst there are significant questions to be answered about the concept of hereditary peerages when it comes to the attribution of power and responsibility, adding yet another layer of what would essentially be no better, is not going to help anyone, when all that people need is for the political classes that are already in power, is to stop thinking about themselves; finally start to listen to the voters who elected them, and then start acting upon what they have heard.
As seems to have become the tragic and regrettable norm with many politicians, the messages that continue to come from the ascendency of UKIP; from the Scottish Independence Referendum, and from voter disquiet in general are at best – quite literally being missed.
The establishment-shaking popularity of UKIP portrays the current feelings of desperation from up and down the Country, of a population which longs for its political representatives to speak with voices that sound like their own. A genuine desire and practical need for a government that makes us all feel like we are ‘in it together’, rather than being patronised and simply told that we already are. It says very little for the idea of respect when it comes to the status quo.
The Scottish Referendum demonstrated to us in basic terms how the population of just one area of the UK so desperately wants to feel engaged with politicians in a way which leaves the decisions that matter in day-to-day life, in the hands of decision makers who are not only geographically local, but are both seen and felt to be in touch with the needs of the people whom their decisions will ultimately effect.
Scotland’s great advantage in making its voice heard has been the geographical boundary and demographic history which as an identifiable group, has allowed it to become as tribal as the political parties are in Westminster. However, the realities of what our fellow countrymen and women living in Scotland want from British politics is no different to people living in any other area of the UK. We want politicians and leaders who really do put what is best for all before anything else.
Voter disquiet and apathy will not be solved by developing or strengthening a political apparatus that is already perceived by the silent majority, as being rotten from the bottom to the top.
People are not stupid. They know that today’s political system exists to keep the same kinds of people in power – many of whom have no real idea how the people they were elected to serve actually live and survive.
As is the case with the NHS, it is neither the concept nor the physical structure of the institution that is broken.
It is the impractical ideologies, the self-serving motivations and the elect-me-focused policies borne of the people that lead from within the political system that are at fault and fail to serve with objectivity and balance. Misinformed and misguided concepts and ideas that are used to manage and maintain; not for the better interests of the people that the services and systems of government exist to serve; but to prioritise the interests of the people who benefit most from being ‘within’ them.
The five tiers of Government that already exist were not created by accident. The tools are in place to make all the changes which we need, without creating ever more ‘jobs for the boys’, or by installing yet more ways to take power even further away from the very people who want it back the most.
Whether it’s a Parish, Town, Borough, District, County or Unitary Authority that represents us where we live, the only way that people will become interested, supportive and reengaged en-masse, will be when power is returned from Westminster and Brussels, and decisions which always should be made locally, are made locally.
Politicians can come up with as many inadvertently deceitful devices as they like and roll them out through a media which flourishes on the idiocy of it all. But if they really want people to start respecting them again, they are the ones who will have to start respecting the people who elected them first.
image: quotespoem.com
Adam Tugwell 