It is difficult to convey just how much trouble Government and the provision of Public Services at all levels is now in, right across the UK.
The Covid Pandemic, or to be more accurate, the response of Government and the Public Sector to the Covid Pandemic, has only proven to make an already degenerating situation much worse. And the problems that can be seen in areas such as public transport, social care and the NHS, as well as those that are not talked about such as how the culture within all of it works are now bad enough that services are at growing risk of failing, irrespective of what changes the post-Covid world will now inevitably bring.
What is important to realise is that none of this was at any time inevitable. There has always been a very different way.
The problems that we are and now will experience were avoidable and would have been avoided if we had been led by different Governments made up of politicians who weren’t actually doing politics. But leaders who were focusing only on what was in the best interests of everyone rather than doing the things that would appeal to those they continually look to for their electoral support.
Political Parties did at one time have a very practical function. They brought together majorities of like-minded politicians who were pragmatic enough to realise that by working together within a democracy, it is much easier and much more expedient by working as a group to get things done.
Sadly, like most things that have been created to make a system run more smoothly or more efficiently in some way, the existence of what has become dominant political parties in the UK has been massively abused.
Where once a political group came together as a majority simply to deliver outcomes based upon good aims and intention that were considerate of all, the Political Parties that we see represented across our Westminster Parliament today focus only on decisions which are beneficial to the people that lead those parties or are considered likely to be most beneficial to their supporters and themselves in whatever way.
This is not and never has been an inevitable situation. Politics in its current form is not beneficial to the public at large. Even worse is the reality that the behaviour of these Political Parties has made our so-called system of representative government a closed shop, pretty much from District Level Authorities upwards (That’s the first tier of government where councillor allowances and/or ‘wages’ are paid).
Decisions are made for just about every reason other than those that they should be. What’s right for everyone has become interchangeable and overtaken by what’s right for the decision maker, then people they work with or the people that support them, and everything is being spun or portrayed in the media as if it has been thought through and that the consequences for everyone have been thought through when the truth is that it has all been about anything but.
Decisions are made in isolation. There is no appreciation or understanding that nothing exists with the government ecosystem that doesn’t impact on at least some, if not all of the other things that are going on at every moment in time. Everything being done by government now has the feel of being like a sticking plaster being used to fix a broken leg or even worse. There’s nothing joined up about any of it, and because there isn’t, more and more problems – and mistakes – are being made.
Decisions are not made in the best interests of everyone. Politicians are completely out of touch with the people who elect them. They have no understanding of real life and therefore no capability to even see what the impacts of their decisions upon others will be. There is a complete absence of reality in having a system of representative government which is made up of politicians who cannot, will not and do not want to represent anyone other than themselves – even though they will swear that they are doing everything absolutely right.
We have the wrong people in politics because the wrong people control who gets into politics.
The three main Political Parties have become little more than gatekeepers, keeping out anyone who will not ‘fit in’. Yet their idea of what ‘fits’ is based on their own ideas or philosophies that inspire them and their own experiences of the world. What ‘fits’ to these Political Parties, is a long way from what ‘fits’ in terms of proper public representation for us all.
Politics in the UK is broken. Not because of First Past The Post or the way that we Vote.
Politics in the UK is broken because of the people – and the political parties that we have within it.
Politics in the UK is broken because of the people and parties within it, and that is why our system of Government and Governance is broken too.
We can only fix the problems that this Country is facing by removing the political blocks and therefore the politics that has overtaken every part of government and the public sector across the UK where there are real opportunities to change things for the better and to get things done.
Regrettably, this means that we can no longer go on with the politicians or the political class that we have too.
With the best will in the world, these are generally people who are never going to change. Many of them have never had real jobs. They treat being elected to government as nothing more than a career and are obsessed with career advancement within it too.
They can only be removed democratically at a General Election and by a new form of political movement that speaks to everyone and communicates across boundaries in a way that nothing political has tried or been able to achieve before.
Yes, the next General Election may well become forced by circumstances that this political class can no longer control. Or they could remain in power until at least December 2024.
The challenge that we as voters face, is that we must all think differently, IF we want politicians to behave differently.
Today, the social media platforms are alive with suggestions of existing and new alternative political movements and parties to the ones that we have already got.
But they all share in common one critical thing. They cannot, will not and do not accept that anyone else’s view of all the things we are experiencing might actually be right, and that those other people may be looking at them and thinking and feeling exactly the same things.
It is through the act of seeking to understand and to address all of the issues facing society today that people with different or even opposing views will learn and begin to understand that all of us outside of the political class have far more in common with each other than the very few issues that might appear to divide us.
By tackling the issues that are important and are the priorities for all of us – no matter what they might be – and finding solutions and alternatives that are fair and that are properly and considerately thought through, the people who today see the world differently to us will really start to see that all of us outside this political culture really are in this together, and that together we can take on this political culture, be the alternative that everyone wants and then win.
Change will begin to come sooner than you might think, once that leap of faith has been taken and you become receptive to letting a new way of thinking about politics in.
The Parties that we have today are only safe in the way that they believe that they are, because we collectively believe that they are the only choices that we have.
Yet they are no different to each other. Yes, they may sound different, look different and even come up with different solutions to the problems they tell us we have got. But what we are getting from all of them is exactly the same thing.
Do not place your faith in parties or public leaders who speak strongly and convincingly about one or perhaps just a few things. We have been here too many times before and people and parties like these only win when the decision that voters are making reflects the same topics and the very same things.
The UK public wants change. The British People are desperate for something new. We all need the politics taken out of Government, so that life and everything in the public sphere which supports it can be focused in the ways that it really should be.
The only way to achieve this will be through the creation of a new grassroots-up political party that genuinely represents the interests of All.
Adam Tugwell 