‘All of the Above’ Now
Just prior to the recent local elections I heard a clip from a candidate standing for election in Plymouth
to the effect that if there were a space on the ballot paper where you could put your X against ‘None of the above’
that candidate’ would win hands down!
Whether that is actually true or not, it indicates a situation which we know only too well:
The general public, probably more than ever before, are suspicious of politicians and switched off from politics itself.
They are voting with their feet.
Whilst the Conservative gains in the same elections, especially strengthening their position in the former Labour strongholds in the North of England, would seem to tell a different story,
one which continues an impression of a resurgent interest in party politics generally and an identification with the Conservative party in particular,
the fact the one Labour candidate for the County Council elections in my own Constituency could say
to me afterwards ‘the real winners in this election were Mr and Mrs Non voter’ echoes two things:
One is the continuation of the traditional lack of interest in local elections generally but the other is that there is a more
than significant lack of engagement.
Even the Tory victory in the Hartlepool by election by an emphatic 7,000 votes was still achieved on a turnout of only 42.55%.
This has led to the suggestion that it was not only or as much about voters turning up to vote
for the Tories as about traditional Labour voters not turning up to vote at all.
This is clearly a problem for Sir Keir Starmer and his Party but it is also one about party politics within the democratic process itself.
This brings me to the heart of my own message, as it was in 2019 and as it continues now.
You can read more about this elsewhere on the website and watch the introductory video.
But symbolically it is probably best expressed by the idea of having a candidate who could stand on an ‘All of the above’ ticket.
This is like the ‘None of the above’ message or approach but inverts it so that the negative message which would spoil your ballot paper in actual fact becomes something more positive.
It becomes the positive counterpart which says ‘for goodness sake learn to work together better so that we can have some
problem solving based more directly on the issue itself and all the possible responses rather than the indirect party political ones
already standing in favour of some outcome and against others.
Then we can have solutions that are much more relevant for everyone but without the bias.’
If that sounds like a pipe dream, it is a dream more and more people seem to have in their pipe right now,
not as a result of idealistic dreaming but as a response to the need for pragmatic solutions and witnessing how politicians
go for one another in the public arena.
In response to this the public are saying: ‘No, stop and start again - you are not serving us this way and you cannot be.
You’re not representing us and we want to feel represented. Otherwise we may as well wash our hands of you.’
In the light of all this there is the question how much the recent swing to the Tories is more by default than design,
for all Boris Johnson’s present popularity, and don’t we need some kind of character at this time to provide entertainment and lift the gloom!
But beyond that people want more engagement with personality mixed with serious application across the board.
Otherwise the underlying malaise will continue, much as an apparent resurgence puts a temporary shine on it.
Whatever is happening in the foreground, my argument is that this is taking place against the backdrop of a general loss of faith in politics,
or rather the party political system as we have known and understood it up to this time.
There are the gains being made by the resurgent Greens of course who draw most on the particular environmental concerns of this time and the Parties offering more identification with national as well as natural causes.
So these are the new rallying points and the position is by no means uniformly bleak for labour.
They have strengthened their position in Wales, held their own and even made gains in other places
and are still a monumental force to be reckoned with.
But the unmistakable feeling is that their star is waning as the patterns of industry and aspiration across the nation change.
All this could make the Conservative party the ‘National Party of England - or so it has been suggested - in that it most catches our national mood.
But even they cannot represent everybody unless and until they change their fundamental orientation -
not everyone can be an entrepreneurial winner who hasn’t come by his money any other way –
they remain a political party needing to change.
This website is about the steps we need to take to action the change more generally.
It is important however to understand my own relationship to all this.
I am not an agitator wanting to force political change where there is abiding large scale reluctance or resistance towards it.
I am more about how we explore and cultivate the seeds of change which do seem to be falling from the
wilting heads of the old system and seeking cultivation in a ground upon which more people can stand;
a ground and a way of relating in which more people can feel heard and represented.
This would address the current decline for all it is garlanded by renewed attempts to revive it.
However much we try to give it a shine, it is a fool’s gold and we need something of more real substance.
What is called for expresses itself most where there is argument in place of agreement.
More and more people want to see more done towards building and achieving agreement.
This may well take small local initiatives which experiment with this and try it out in small local groups.
Citizens’ Assemblies are a manifestation of this and a model perhaps to build on but not necessarily to be universally adopted.
I would be interested in working with anyone who wants to work in this way to see what can be achieved:
To confront with honesty and realism the difficulties and to discover more about what is needed to not only overcome them
but grow the potential from within them.
Because something does need to change; that is clear and the more we start from a binary standpoint,
as is almost by definition the case with party politics,
the more hampered we will be in trying to gain a more united perspective.
Ultimately everything is binary in as much as you have to say ‘yes’ to one thing in favour of another.
Or so it can be argued. But when you start out on a binary footing you’re doomed to failure.
This is the reality we now have to confront and the times themselves are asking us to do so.
I’m only saying to anyone who is interested if you want to explore this with me I would be very happy to work with you.
All this seems especially relevant at this time of the pandemic and concerns about the growth of totalitarian tendencies.
The greatest bulwark against authoritarianism is independent thinking.
And above all that is what would be encouraged by the sorts of political forums I have in mind.
But you set out on the road to that when people are allowed to express themselves in pursuit not only of their own preformed agendas
but what they come increasingly to see as being important for the whole.
You can speak to the whole out of your own perspective and observations and bring something invaluable then to the process.
But you cannot dictate from your own perspective what the whole will then look like or the decision it will take.
It is seeing the difference between these two things which itself makes a difference.
And this is the difference we now need to see in the world.
Party politics needs to yield enough to accommodate this and not stand in the way of progress.
I have tried to apply some independent thinking to the virus/vaccination issue and in what appears on my web site.
20.5.21 |