Let’s hope that 2018 can be the Year of the Worker

I’ve been looking forward to this week for ages. I love that time between Christmas and New Year when you lose all sense of time in the fog of visiting neighbours, eating mince pies, and counting out the darkest hours as you reflect on the highs and lows of the year.

I’m beginning 2018 in a different job, living in a different place and with a brand-new engagement ring on my finger. I could write a whole article about my wonderful fiancé, Michael, but I want my constituents to keep down their Christmas dinners, so I’ll save all the romantic gushing for those poor friends who have to tolerate us at New Year.

Things haven’t always been so merry for me as they are this year though. Last year, the expense of the Christmas season was frightening and upsetting, as it is for most people out there. Wages aren’t rising, yet prices continue to rise.

We want to treat those we love, but making choices is also about making sacrifices. I hope that 2018 can be the Year of the Worker, in which together with unions and other campaign groups we can finally say goodbye to the public sector pay gap and champion pay rises for teachers, train drivers, shop workers, nurses, hospitality staff and all those other jobs that are the backbone of our Kent economy.

Another notable person of Kent, Charles Dickens, also knew that Christmas was the time to celebrate the worker.

When he published A Christmas Carol in 1843, all 6,000 copies of the first run sold out by Christmas Eve. At the beginning of the book, Scrooge’s nephew, representing a new, forwardlooking sort of middle-class businessman, exclaims: “There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited.”

It takes Scrooge all those journeys to Christmases past and those yet to come to learn the same lesson: profit can sometimes be the enemy of joy; to share the wealth is to share the love.

So, it is with love that I write this last column of the year. We remember those we have lost, those we miss and those who are lonely. It is a time of year when we also celebrate a baby who was born in humble circumstances, who came to bring joy and equality to the world. Whatever faith we have, whether we worship in church or not, we can all recognise that the example of Jesus Christ in kindness, generosity and sacrifice, is one that we should all aspire to follow.

Next year will bring new challenges and I promise that I will be battling for you all – trying to end Theresa May’s obsession with austerity; fighting to breathe new life into our moribund NHS; campaigning to end homelessness; championing the vital role that part of Kent plays in our national economy and consciousness and much, much more.

I hope you all had a memorable and joyous Christmas and I wish every one of you a very happy 2018.