From John Harris in the Guardian this morning:
[E]ach time I have gone back to Walsall, what I have heard people express with the greatest regularity is a yearning for things that ought to be beyond argument: community, stability, an assurance that they will be able to plan for next year, and the year after that.
Harris' augment is simple: it is that British politics is not listening to what people really want. And to hear it you have to go - as he does - to the places where it is being said. It is doing what the economist Danny Blanchflower calls ‘going walkabouts' to ignore the formulas, assumptions and preconceptions and actually observe what is really happening in life.
I have long argued that what people really want in life is enough to live on, to live in community, to have the support of family and friends and to feel that they have a purpose as a result. That's what my whole book ‘The Courageous State' is really all about, in a sentence.
And no one is offering these things in British politics right now. There is simply too much flag waving on left and right for most people. On the right wealth is an affront to many. On the left I get the impression from young people that they want to believe that equality in all its forms runs through the DNA of who they want to vote for, and not be flag waved as an issue because it should simply be taken as a given on which all other politics is built.
A focus on housing, education, health, jobs, local services and invetsment in communities is what the British want of their politics. The rest they will tolerate because the political classes want it. But politics has forgotten it is about people's ordinary lives first.
And politicians have forgotten that ordinary lives matter.
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my condolences Richard,mro.
The SNP hasn’t forgotten. They ‘get on with the day job’ and protect the people of Scotland. Our lives are much better than those of people elsewhere in the EU.
SNP is not perfect of course, because it is composed of fallible human beings, but is the only game in town in British politics at present.
Hence the constant slagging off it gets in the MSM. The main party polity is well aware of its own vulnerability to sudden reverse and is filling its boots while it can. They will reap their ‘reward’ in good time, and our hearts will bleed for them locked inside their gated settlements bemoaning their shrivelling piles of worthless assets falling daily in value. They are already frightened to meet their electorate and nobody has killed any of them yet. They do well to live in fear and the sense of insecurity will rot their already atrophied ‘souls’.
Vince Cable has forgotten.
He’d rather his party stand in splendid isolation and not consider what symmetry it has with Corbyn’s Labour and rule out working together for the good of the people of Walsall and the rest of the country (they had a brilliant ALMO if I remember).
Mind you, it seems that he and is fellow Orange Book fools would still work with the nasty venal Tories.
So that’s that then.
Lib-Dems = Tory Lite (Con-Dems).
My advice to Vincy? Get lost. We have no need for you.
Anyhow Richard, I hope that you are bearing up well.
Day 3 and the reality begins to hit in….
The most challenging part is when you are winding up their affairs and dealing with personal items that cross over into your own memory.
Oh yes….some of that already addressed in the last day or two
His railways books are already coming my way….
We had that interest, and a love of all things to do with lifeboats and the RNLI in common
One day at a time! Remember grief comes in waves too, which lessen as time passes.
I don’t think Corbyn, McDonnell or Rayner have forgotten but the media are desperately trying to drown out their message with every personal slur they can muster. However, having said that, his most important battle seems to be with the PLP who would prefer a continuation of neoliberalism with a so-called human face.
Rod White says:
“I don’t think Corbyn, McDonnell or Rayner have forgotten but the media are desperately trying to drown out their message….”
Yes. We all know that and they have a job to do and if they ain’t up to it they should retire gracefully and stop taking the salary for incompetence, and failure to deliver.
They don’t need you to make excuses for them it’s the only skill they have and they are consummate experts.
“housing, education, health, jobs, local services and investment in communities ”
That’s pretty much what I want too. And space travel, and to find out if we’re alone in the universe. I like the way some people are voluntarily reducing their own wealth to be pioneering space tourists and explorers, which will one day bring down the cost for the rest of us. This leaves government free to provide support for those basics that you mention, where it can’t be provided by people for themselves.
I think your time here is coming to a close
You are beginn8ng to offer more nonsense than anything else
I am have some of my late Father’s railway books.
They somehow keep me connected to him.
That’s real inheritance
Indeed.
But surely “housing, education, health, jobs, local services and investment in communities” is exactly what Corbyn’s Labour Party is offering.
But it is far too hard for people to realise
And that is political failure
Garry Strudwick says:
“But surely “housing, education, health, jobs, local services and investment in communities” is exactly what Corbyn’s Labour Party is offering.”
….yes, but does anybody think they are capable of making good on the offer. ?
I have serious doubts. They have nice ideas and yet their rhetoric sounds hollow because they give no impression that their policy ambitions can be delivered. They are making the wrong noises about process.
Their job is to confound their critics not compromise with them. Sorry no confidence in this quarter.
I am increasingly concerned by the use of the word ‘ordinary’; the OED has as one definition:
“not distinguished by rank or position; of low social position; relating to, or characteristic of, the common people; common, vulgar; unrefined, low, coarse. In later use derogatory.”
And this is how politicians and the media regard the people of this country . Your heading would have been more dramatic had it read “Citizens’ -or Voters’- lives matter”
As a French friend is fond of reminding me: “I am a citizen, you are a subject”
John Moisson says:
“I am increasingly concerned by the use of the word ‘ordinary’;…”
Yep. It creeps into use and sticks.
I quite like the Common Weal ‘All of us First’ strapline. It goes some of the way to restoring balance , but is not likely to make it into mainstream consciousness.
Ordinary or extraordinary? A couple of recent publications may be worth examining. One a manifesto for our relationship with Nature, the other explores ideas for “a new economic agenda”. (and both free to download)
http://www.chrispackham.co.uk/a-peoples-manifesto-for-wildlife
https://www.opendemocracy.net/laurie-macfarlane/new-thinking-for-the-british-economy