We posted this short video on YouTube and other platforms this evening:
Are you radically normal? It's a strange idea, but normal people now hold radical beliefs: that we should be fair, look after each other, tackle climate change and build strong public services. Yet no political party seems to want to talk to you. In this video, I explore why.
This is the transcript:
Are you radically normal?
It's a strange concept to get your head around because surely normal isn't radical, and yet it could be. And it's radical precisely because it seems that no political party in the UK really wants to talk to 'normal people'.
Normal people want fairness and justice.
They think there should be a proper social safety net in the UK.
They believe in state services.
They want a future that doesn't deny climate change so that their children have a chance to survive.
They recognise the importance of coexisting with their neighbours.
And more than that, they actually want those neighbours to live without prejudice.
They believe that everyone should contribute to our society in a fair way, in accordance with their means.
And they actually believe that contributing is important because they know that what the government does is of value.
That is why they want the government to do what it is meant to undertake well, and they want those who work for the government to be fairly paid to ensure that's the case.
The normal don't have a dogmatic belief in the difference between markets and the state because they know each has a role to play, and they believe that each of them adds value.
Normal people don't worry about dogma. Normal people want to live normal lives.
And the shocking fact is that there is now no political party that has truly embraced this idea: particularly the Labour Party, the Conservatives and Reform are a long way from it.
Our politics is in a mess precisely because it isn't talking to people like you, the radically normal.
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Corbyn’s new party?
I tried to watch this, but – for the first time – it came dubbed in French! So I had neither your voice (which was immediately obvious) nor your language (which it took me a bit longer to realise!). I did nothing to ask for this, but if it persists I will have to go back to only reading the text.
I guess that is because you are in France – and YouTube does that
There is, I know, a way around that, but cannot nfiund it right now
Sorry…
In youtube, try settings gear wheel top right of screen, then select captions, and choose between:
Off
Auto translate
English (auto-generated)
I also have cc button on the YT screen that offers similar options. (I have an android/Samsung Galaxy phone).
If you sign in there may be other options but I try and avoid YouTube (or anyone else) profiling me.
The options may be different in France. HTH
Thanks
Thanks Robertj & Richard.
This had never happened before and I am not subscribed to Youtube and prefer it that way).
But I tried again this morning and it was fine – in English directly. Maybe Richard managed to intervene? If so, many thanks.
I did not…
One of those things
Glad it is resolved.
Sorry Richard, Donald Rumsfields, “known unknowns” springs to mind!!!
Normal? I feel that is a questionable point of vocabulary, which belongs to hierarchy. I’m 56 years on this planet and there is nothing normal within the
political sphere. What we need is new parties confronting the norm!
But norms matter: in them we can find a new consensus, and consensus matters.
Well said Richard. The theme is similar to the latest article in the Guardian by John Harris about the Glastonbury crowd. It is clear that the main parties and all the politicos (politicians and the MSM) inhabit a different universe to the radically normal which make up the vast majority of the population. They only engage with us once every five years when they need us to tick our ballot papers to extend their stay in their parallel universe. However, I worry that, as austerity 2.0 kicks in making life for us radically normal even more difficult at the same time as billions are spent on weapons preparing for a potential war and benefitting those in the arms trade, the collective temper of the radically normal will explode and across not just the country but elsewhere (especially the US) civil unrest will break out. Might 2025 turn out to resemble Europe in 1848? Look what happened to Marie Antoinette when she told the people to eat cake. I am genuinely frightened for the future.
I think that is reasonable.
All political parties obviously believe they cannot win enough votes by appealing to normal decent citizens. They have seen Brexit, Trump, and Trump again winning elections which seemed fair enough if you only consider the counting. Behind this curtain, there is a vast amount of money making it all happen. We all know on this blog where that money comes from and what the ultimate objective is. Normal, decent citizens are largely unaware of this. However, they are aware that something is not right about our direction of travel and our politicians also know this, but also need to win the count. I’m pessimistic about politicians being honest with themselves and the voters, fearing that they will lose if they do.
Isn’t strange that this even needs to be articulated. The vast majority of people do have an innate sense of justice and fairness, do care and do know that extreme inequality is like a cancer that is eating away at the fabric of society and, as you say, there is no party out there representing them/us
Thanks
I felt this needed saying.
The house that I live in has Syrians to the left and Bangladeshi to the right. We all get on! Why shouldn’t we? We are people of the earth.!
Personally I believe the government is quite happy with the influx of immigrants for low pay….. Whilst saying we , no longer ,cannot afford services?
I do also see in my hometown of Portsmouth, why people are getting upset . That has to fall to government. Not the state we are in!
I have been following your blog for 7 or 8 years. You write a great deal with which I wholeheartedly agree. Generally your work is inspiring yet, for the first time, I feel angry with you. I do not understand why you ignore the Green Party.
You write ‘no political party in the UK really wants to talk to ‘normal people’. You have written that you are ‘not a joiner’ but ‘political parties’ are necessarily entities that people ‘join’. They have ‘members’. In the past you have written approvingly of Caroline Lucas. I am a member of the Green Party.
The Party strives to be democratic and it’s not always easy but I assert that the overwhelming majority of GP members agree with almost all of your statements about ‘normal people’. Most of what you say is exactly what ‘we’ believe. If there are serious shortcomings, I would like you to specify them. Tell us which areas need attention.
But the party has some deeply alienating economic and social policies still, and that’s because it is captured by a tiny minority who go to its conferences
It really needs to improve its democracy on decision making and make it vastly quicker
Then it might be relevant
It isn’t and can’t be right now
Sorry – but I would vote for it with as much of a peg on my nose as I do other parties
I’m not a member of any political party Richard, but if I were, and perhaps l should be if I am going to try and participate in democracy, it would be the Greens.
So could you tell me, even if only briefly, what their policies are that are so poor? I think Joe Burlington would like to know as well. Thanks.
I have for a long time criticised its economic policy here. It is makinmg slow, and partial, moves to reform. I am not convincved they are sufficient so far to be credible, bit will have to wait and see.
And for many women, the Greens policy on trans is very difficult. All parties face this issue, but the Greens have taken a position that many find very hard, because it denies what many think there are their rights to be rcopgniosed as woemn, and at the same time to embrace trans people. There is an absence of balance and mutuality, in other words, on an issue where both are vital. I can only acknowledge that.
Richard, I applaud this post and those on Monday and Sunday that expressed similar sentiments. In a different context, I wrote these concluding words in a book ‘Mountain People’ published 15 months ago: “The hopes and dreams that the [inhabitants of two Pyrenean valleys] try to fulfil have little to do with trying to make money beyond a sufficient and comfortable livelihood. Nor are they an attempt to achieve more power. They have much more to do with common decency.”
I was not being original. The sentiment has a pedigree, especially in the works of the French novelist/philosopher Albert Camus: The Plague (1947) which was an allegory of the awful state of the world during the first half of the 19th century: “It’ an idea that may make you laugh but the only way to fight the plague is with common decency”; The Rebel (1950) with its critical analysis of what he termed ‘The Age of Extremes’; and his unfinished novel Le Premier Homme (1994) where common decency combines with a rejection of the world such as it is.
Radically Normal: much food for thought, not just in the UK, but in the whole world such as it presently is.
Thanks Gordon
It makes you realise that the concept of the ‘silent majority’ was so abused in the West – all it did really was give vent to a bunch of pro-fascist reactionaries and religious nutcases to the point where now normal people are the ‘silenced’ majority.
‘Radical normal’? Hmmm, I could get used to it, but I would just call it ‘Jesus politics’ as agreeing with Chuck Prophet (Jesus Was A Social Drinker) – this atheist (me) kind of likes the guy.
Ahhh..
When all goes mad, and values are morphed, who is a radical?
Worryingly, the changes to our society are also making our society more vulnerable/fragile. Look at reform/brexit areas of the UK.
Kids there don’t go to WWT. I wish everyone felt they could. Instead our fragmentation means more are being disenfranchised. I wish it wasn’t so ……
BBC News – Children at risk of being recruited by hostile states, police warn
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9dg217glveo
Much to agree with
https://www.facebook.com/JamieDriscollNE
Jamie seems radically normal to me. I’ve met him and posted leaflets through a thousand doors for him.
There will be candidates ready for next years local elections, and if the Green candidate is the most likely to be elected in a particular constituency, they will tell people to vote for that candidate.
In fact that’s exactly what happened in a by-election last week. The Green candidate won, in Newcastle.
The problem is that mostly psychopaths make it to he top and most ‘normal’ people are disinterested & disengaged. I don’t see this changing, ever.
As a Bennite old labour member, values similar to those you espouse in the text above, I was shocked to be described five years ago as ‘one of those extreme lefties that have dragged the party down’ by a much younger member who was on his way to a high position in Unison. I eventually joined the Greens, but certainly locally found them to be very ‘centrist’ as noted above.
Should we found a “Radically Normal Party”?
Oddly, I have a manifesto and draft legislation & a programme – all written. Based on “taking back control of the UK from its foriegn owners”.
Mike
I will be back to you…
Richard
Thanks for the reply Richard. I’m glad to see the greens are changing their economic policies, so some progress there.
As for the trans issue, that is problematic. Some of the behaviour exhibited by the trans lobby has been completely ridiculous and highly offensive.
Labelling anyone who disagrees with them as transphobic, or a TERF, or of spreading ‘trans hate’ is absurd.
I agree re both
The reens need to get this right
That would massively broaden their appeal, I think
I absolutely agree with the ideal you present here. I’ve been in the Liberal Democrats since 1981 and still think it’s the nearest party to that ideal. My main interests have been in environmental issues and electoral reform, and currently I’m doing my small best to nudge it away from neo- liberal economics. We had an awful patch when we were taken over by the soft-Tory Cleggites but have mainly recovered from that. All parties are a mixture; at least, like I think the Greens, members can have real influence on policy – so I keep trying.
:-)7
It seems symptomatic of the tired political system that the core normalised values expressed by a majority of the electorate resonate at a local level, but are considered more extreme the closer they become to Westminster. The reverse is also true. In effect, radical reforms or choices by the government appear inadequate in terms of meeting people’s needs at a local level, and the humane and ethical policies advocated for by many locally, are considered unachievable and extremist by government.
That seems to be true to me.
Excellent video showing clearly how our politics and politicians have been captured to the extent that there’s no mainstream party that represents the vast majority, the radically normal. The Overton Window has been dragged so far right that there’s very little to choose between them. Two parties and a Ltd company all punching down to feed the rich, while ignoring the decent majority and their radically normal demands.
Thanks