The Naked Emperors

The Emperor has no clothes on. The odds are the fairy story is familiar. Had it been more realistic, the Emperor would have simply shouted that yes, he was perfectly well dressed and the little boy would have been hurried off by the police, while no else one did anything. We’re nothing like as good at spotting naked emperors as we could be, even when their exposed private parts are pointed out and right in front of us.

Apparently Eric Pickles supported the Environment Agency all along. Never mind that the government has been hacking funding and slashing jobs. We are to believe him, of course.

Labour attacks the Free Schools, conveniently forgetting that they brought in Academies and student tuition fees. We should forget that too. No naked emperors here.

The Tories promised they’d be the greenest government ever, and the Liberal Democrats promised... oh so many things, that vanished as soon as a shot at some power came their way.

What is it with mainstream politicians? Why do they seem to so quickly forget what they’ve said and promised, forget even what they have done? Why do they think they can dress one thing up as another and get away with it? I’ve recently had local politician David Drew trying to persuade me on twitter (with his usual tact and charm) that closing a school doesn’t count as closing a school if you call it ‘amalgamating’. Never mind that Saul no longer has a village school and that children from Saul have to go to Frampton, and that happened under Labour. That’s amalgamation, not closure! Like the boy in the fairy story, I am naive and tactless enough to be able to point and go “but Saul doesn’t have a primary school any more”.

Being naive is important. It is naive to think, in this nasty world of modern politics, that keeping your promises matters, and that hypocrisy sucks. It is naive to think that politicians could lead for the common good and with a desire to make things better. The reality is that they’d rather blame each other for flooding and undertake costly and damaging dredging rather than tackle real problems. I am naive. Shamelessly, deliberately, wilfully naive. That allows me to do two things. I can point out when emperors are butt-naked,  and I can try and enable real change. You’d be forgiven for thinking you'd have to be pretty naive to imagine that the Green Party could really change an institution like Westminster. But here we are, and we do. Our local Liberal MEP is busy trying to persuade everyone how Green he is, clearly he knows that’s going to matter in May, and you don’t mislead people about intending to be the greenest party ever unless you think Green matters.

But the thing is, the lying-emperor only gets away with his tricks if everyone goes along with him. That’s what the fairy story is about. If everyone assembled refuses to hear the lies and the flimsy excuses, and points at what is right in front of them, and refuses to be told all is as it should be when plainly it isn’t... things change. Stand up and point. Let’s not be ruled by any more naked emperors who spin a good line about how nice their trousers are.

Voter Apathy

The negative feedback has started to roll, as political writers respond to Russell Brand’s comments about politics. Unshockingly, the response is to blame Brand for not engaging in the first place.

People become disengaged from and apathetic about politics when they can’t see any point. If it doesn’t matter who you vote for, because the policies are so similar, or if no party offers policies that make sense to you, why vote? If you feel disempowered and just don’t believe your vote will make a difference, that will do it, too. So, where are you going to engage? Clearly not by voting, and anyone who thinks otherwise may be short in the imagination department. You aren’t going to make change by joining a political party, if you already feel marginalised, irrelevant and out of kilter. All that leaves is starting your own. Perhaps that’s realistic if you are wealthy and have a lot of time on your hands, but someone who feels marginalised and powerless won’t go there either, because they already know there’s no point.

If we blame the disaffected, they will stay disaffected.

There have been times when I couldn’t find anyone to vote for, when the parties I wanted didn’t field candidates, and when I found the individual candidates so repellent that really, I didn’t want to encourage any of them. I went to the ballot box with a soiled ‘none of the above’ because I did not want to be counted as someone who did not care. I felt awful. Voting rights for women were hard won, and I take that seriously. Voting rights for the poor took some establishing too. If I don’t vote, I am painfully aware of my many ancestors who could not vote, and I feel like I’m letting them down. But what can a person do if there’s nothing and nobody that inspires them?

Energy bills are rising. The Prime Minister suggests you put on a jumper. Sea levels are rising too. So we’ll be getting an even bigger nuclear power station on the Severn flood plain. People are going hungry and turning to foodbanks, and politicians blame the foodbanks, and the poor. Most of our public services are being sold off to the private sector via the backdoor. Where are the alternatives? Where are the voices of dissent? All the main parties seem to offer is minor twiddling with the system, not radical overhaul. There are women going hungry so they can afford to feed their children and Westminster doesn't seem to care.

If you are a young person who cannot afford a home, cannot get a job, whilst being pushed out of social support, blamed and humiliated for not trying hard enough in a country that has offered them nothing… why would you vote? What is there to believe in? Russell Brand may have been the first person our younger folk have heard in their entire lives who can talk about politics in public and make sense. The answer is not to tell Russell Brand off for not engaging. We need to start thinking about how many people are pushed out to the margins. Not voting might not about being lazy, it might be about despair, or disgust.

Someone needs to sit Mr Brand down and tell him that pretty much everything he was talking about is on the table already. There is a party for radical change, and that cares about not trashing the planet. And we Greens need to up our game, and reach out to more people who feel the way Russell Brand does, not to tell them off for not getting involved, as other parties seem keen to, but to offer them real alternatives. It should be the business of politicians to inspire and persuade people into supporting a vision. It is the politicians who have a duty to engage the voters, not the other way round!

Cut and Thrust Politics

From the latest Stroud News and Journal, I see David Drew excuses being rude on the basis that it is simply part of the cut and thrust of modern politics. While I accept this is accurate, I question whether it’s right, and invite everyone (David included) to consider the social implications of ‘normal’ political behaviour.

It’s worth noting there aren’t anything like as many women in politics as men. This is in part because fewer women tend to come forward in the first place. Aggressive, macho politics where shouting down your opponent is preferred to collaborative or reasoned approaches, may be partly to blame here. This is certainly not a female-friendly culture. Either we have to raise women to be aggressive and assertive like men or we need a culture shift in politics. I’m for the latter, because this is not just about female engagement in political activity.

Domestic abuse and workplace bullying often depend on the basic assumption that it is ok to shout at people, to abuse them verbally, to humiliate, denigrate and shout down rather than showing respect or dealing with issues. Anyone who wishes to justify this behaviour need only look to modern politics for validation. It should further be noted that once you’ve established it is normal to verbally abuse, harass and humiliate, it is a good deal easier to both justify and get away with physical violence. People who have not been abused ask why victims stay. One reason is feeling that the behaviour is normal and deserved. Again, when politicians set such poor examples in terms of respect, it is little wonder women who are shouted at until they are nervous wrecks feel no right to defend themselves from that. Verbal bullying wrecks lives; I believe politicians have a moral duty to set a better example.

We complain about what lousy role models pop stars and footballers are for our young people. I’ve never heard anyone suggest that politicians should be making more effort to be good role models. If this is because we cannot imagine young people would take any interest in what politicians do, then we are failing them. We should be trying to engage the young in society and therefore in politics, or what you get is a lot of Russell Brands who loathe the system and don’t want to vote. What do we do, in politics, to inspire and motivate the young? What examples do politicians set, and what role models do politicians offer? Let’s consider the hypocrisy of a tax-payer funded second home, while the poorest people are facing a bedroom tax. Let’s consider the subsidised eating for well paid politicians, while the poorest are denigrated for turning to food banks. I rather expect Mr Drew to agree that the impact of such hypocrisy is to disengage our young people from politics. But what about the style? What about the issue of shouting people down rather than arguing points? I don’t think children are impressed when they hear playground style bullying from the leaders of the land. The thing is, that on a playground, that behaviour is actively discouraged by teachers.

 

Politicians need to listen as much as speak, probably more. We can’t listen to what people, who are supposed to be the heart of democracy, say, if we’re shouting. Fear of being ridiculed (as I was) and shouted down makes it harder to ask questions and offer opinions in the first place. Anyone feeling downtrodden won’t have the confidence to assert themselves in this modern political environment. We should not be excluding the emotionally delicate, the nervous, the fearful, the downtrodden from political debate by frightening them off before they have even tried to communicate. We have to be able to hear alternative perspectives to our own, and to treat with respect those human beings who think differently. We need to persuade people of the value of our arguments rather than ridiculing theirs. We need to bring people in, not depress them into going away.

Cut and thrust style politics sets up an atmosphere of conflict. Us and them. Win and lose. What happens in that scenario, is that actually, everyone loses, and democracy is undermined. Surely we can do better?

(Cartoon by Russ)

Burning issues in local politics

By Gerald Hartley

There are many reasons to oppose burning of waste - it destroys materials that will become in short supply and could be recycled, and they aren't efficient in how they use the heat. Financially incinerators are a gamble - the facilities require long term contracts which cannot then allow a flexible response to likely changes in waste creation. The alternatives are now favoured by government and the EU which also wants to ban incinerators from burning anything that can be recycled. You might think the Labour Party would have a principled opposition to them by now.

Despite all of this, Worcestershire County Council is going to build an incinerator at Hartlebury. The National Audit Office says it wants to examine the financial deal. Two Green Party county councillors proposed a motion to get it stopped. Here is the Labour Party response.

Labour Councillor Richard Udall, chairman of WCC's scrutiny board, said: "I totally oppose this motion because I think it's unnecessary. If we thought this was needed, we'd have found time. It's been scrutinised for over 15 years, other options have been looked at and rejected, and this motion is designed to pander to a few protesters."

There are real concerns over the health impact of air pollution, and the World Health Authority recognises its contribution to causing cancer. We should be wary of any proposal to put more pollution into the atmosphere. The refusal to consider the dangers of incineration or to look at realistic alternatives, is appalling.

 

Councillor Peter Mc-Donald, Labour group leader, said: "We need this incinerator up and running as quickly possible - we are running out of landfill space and the taxes on it are going up and up."

The evidence is that government taxes on landfilling have worked so well that the UK has met all its EU targets. In a couple of years the UK will have more alternatives to landfill than it needs. Some of that overcapacity will be recycling via MBT plants, but sadly, incineration will also play a big part.

Tory Councillor John Campion said: "He (Cllr Udall) is spot on - it's almost like they haven't got the answer they wanted, so they have decided to come back and ask again. So there we have it. Another Tory/Labour agreement to ignore the local community, do a deal with big business and to hell with the environment, public health and future generations. So hurrah for the Greens for asking again. Mainstream politicians seem to have forgotten that the point of democracy is public service, not serving the few at the expense of the majority.

 

(Photo "Fire" by Federico Stevanin via http://www.freedigitalphotos.net )