So many people working to build a better world
“THERE’S no concept of customer service anymore. It’s all just advertising and trying to get more money out of you. Even when you speak to a person, rather than some robot, after waiting for ages, nobody listens. Nobody tries to understand what you want, they just set out to charge you extra; when you were already complaining about their disgraceful price rises.”
Disgracefully, I try to avoid the mundane necessities of our household economy, but I couldn’t escape my wife’s frustrated response to the ages she spent trying to renegotiate our car insurance on Friday morning.
Nor, talking to people in general, to fail to hear that huge price rises and the use of communications technology, to actually prevent human beings speaking to each other, is making the quality of our lives considerably worse.
Achieving value for money, having the basic income to pay for necessities, ensuring accountability for customers – and citizens, are basic political problems which we should all be addressing. In a world which may soon be caught between Putin’s reassumption of power last Sunday and the monstrous, narcissistic egotism of a Trump second term, it’s clear that we should all be worried about the quality of our lives, across the whole world.
There really are some fundamental battles to be faced this year. In or out of Russia, or prison, there are brave people who will mourn all those murdered by Putin by continuing to stand up for fair elections and the rule of law.
Come November, whatever their political allegiances, we all need the people of the United States to stand up for their democracy and against those who would seek to overthrow it.
Sometime this year, across the United Kingdom, we should revitalise our own democracy, by actually participating in it. In doing so, we need to counter those elements within the United Kingdom, who would try to turn perfectly legitimate dissatisfaction with the quality of our lives into wholesale disillusion with democracy.
If you don’t know who these people, and their parties are, it’s quite easy to spot them; because they always seek a scapegoat. Invariably it’s people who have recently immigrated to the UK, just a few years ago it was the free movement of people and all the institutions of the EU.
Right now, they are playing on that sense of utter dissatisfaction that our departure from the EU has actually, in part, helped to create.
If you doubt me, you don’t even need to look around, we just need to look into ourselves. While all politics can rightly be said to be local, it’s also true that democracy is global. One person, one vote attends utterly to the human condition and the status of each one of us. As we are each unique, we are also, in so many ways exactly the same, equal in that we all come to the same end, utterly equal across all time and across the world.
Putin rules by warning his people about the malign intentions of other countries. His ally Trump, seeks power by belittling his opponents and trying to raise a border fence against some threat from poor people from the south. If you seek decency in this country, I’d recommend that you look for it amongst those who try to serve all people, whatever their colour, or culture, or creed.
If you have no-one to vote for amongst the main parties, cast your net wider, or stand yourself. If you seek a manifesto, just look outside your own door, to the people struggling with the daily issues of living, the cost, the need for services, the accountability that is so lacking.
If you require friends and supporters, there are plenty, with great potential, among so many who are trying to serve their community, selflessly. With regard only for the needs and the shared humanity of all.
Democratic politics is a really hard road and it can be very long, I wish I had several lifetimes to help bring about the sort of fundamental change that I believe that we all need in this world.
However, if we work together we can make progress.
At the moment I’m working on the issues of democracy; local, regional, national, global with the UK chapter of a splendid international group, Democracy without Borders, for presentation to every candidate in every constituency at the General Election. Yesterday, I joined with colleagues at a wonderful City of Sanctuary meeting in Newcastle, to discuss advocacy for a fair system of asylum.
On Easter Saturday, March 30, I’ll be with colleagues and interested members of the public celebrating the 10th anniversary of our creation of the North East Party at Acre Rigg Social Club, in Peterlee.
There are so many people working for so many aspects of a better democracy, a better world.
We far outnumber the Putin and the Trump supporters and the ghastly right-wing populists of the United Kingdom. We have better arguments and a lot more fun. As well as people-centred policies which can improve the quality of our lives, through fairness and democracy, for all.