We can get what we all want by walking together
Iread that the Labour Party in the UK feels that for the first time it is able to dedicate itself to the interests of the working class, having got rid of its right wingers. Its assertion, “it’s not the triumph of a fringe, but the expulsion of a fringe” got me thinking.
I began to wonder who’s who, in that context, here at home. I have often wondered at the purpose of politics and the cause and effect of democracy.
What defines our core? Who are our majority, really? Who is aligned? What do they want?
After paying for the holidays and the first term of school fees, everyone is a bit broke. I find people nervous, despite the promise of a new dawn.
There’s been serious change and more is coming. We may be at the beginning of our enduring prosperity. We may, at last, answer the call to unity, to overcome the apartness we still live in. We may finally all stand together to fight the pitfalls we’ve experienced from being apart, the fragility of our apartness so obvious in the failures around and between us.
My sense is that we will find that the overwhelming majority of us want the same things. We will find that we can get them only if we work and walk together. It is the fringe that needs to be expelled so that the will of the majority can prevail.
We are beset by partyturned-protest politics — with everyone shouting (some literally) for an early pole position on the grid of the race for the next five, if not, 10 years of government. It is that time when performance has to fight with promise. Incumbents defend track records, challengers only have to imagine better futures.
Amid the jostling for position, the loudest arguments are about what is wrong. That’s easy stuff to roll out. Much harder is to find a deliverable manifesto that anticipates honest, do-able, durable solutions and is prepared for the hard work and difficult decisions that will make things happen.
Our common enemies have already been defined: poverty, inequality and unemployment. There is little merit or wisdom in aspirant leaders restating these problems. The challenge is how we can get things done together, not who wants to be in charge.
Of course, elections are about leaders, personalities, popularity, charm, promise and history, but I’m not sure we have the time for any more mistakes. We need to vote about the rules of engagement for our future, not only who will have a bash at taking us there. This time it has to be more about the policy than the person.
The statistics on our economy paint a picture of looming despair or even economic class war. A nation in as much trouble as we are cannot afford to squabble over who wants what (or who’s got what) instead of searching for the right formula for participation and growth.
The word “partnership” will frequently emerge as the key to the solution. The state, as the biggest player in the economy, will have to come to the party as enabler and participant, however difficult those simultaneous mandates may be to balance. Once the way forward has been agreed we, the people, need to unreservedly back the team chosen to take us there. But it needs to back us as well.
The state needs to invest in us, its people, beyond catch up and keep going, into the risks of future development, playing to our strengths as a country and our mix as a people.
Only by embracing us, investing purposely, locally, will we attract the foreign direct investment we need to lift us up to where the view is clear.
The opportunity is upon us, now. Show us your “to do” list for the next five years now, and your “done” list in five years’ time and we’ll vote for you to govern us for the next 10 years.