The importance of being able to knock on doors

APART from the outbreak of war in Europe, last weekend was much like any other weekend. I joined Labour activists and councillors knocking on the doors of people I do not know to listen and talk politics.

In other parts of the Borough our Conservative and Lib Dem counterparts did much the same thing.

All of us will have done so in a culture where the people we spoke to felt totally at ease expressing a variety of opinions about our political leaders, our political parties and the state of the country.

Door knocking like this – canvassing – is an important part of how we do politics in this country.

The laws relating to canvassing are strict in the UK. It is, for example, illegal to pay people to canvass.

While political parties can find almost unlimited ways to throw cash at elections via paid for leaflet deliveries and advertising, law makers long ago recognised that the act of talking to people face to face was extraordinarily powerful.

This part of our political process is protected from someone who could afford to pay for canvassers but who otherwise lacks the support of people willing to talk for them.

For both the canvasser and the canvassed, there is a mutual understanding that both people have equal rights to freedom of thought and expression.

We both also have a vote that we can cast, in secret, for the candidate of our choice. It is all a part of what we call “democracy” or “freedom”.

In the UK, we have our own version of democracy and freedom. It is not perfect and it differs from the many other, also imperfect, systems in most of the rest of Europe. One thing is sure, any of these systems is far better than the brutal, thieving, authoritarian dictatorships that hold power in

Russia and Belarus and which now wage war on Ukraine.

Putin’s war on Ukraine, its aftermath, Covid, the Climate Emergency and Brexit will impact us for decades to come.

We have an ongoing housing crisis, an NHS that was on its knees long before Covid, obscene levels of poverty and a social care system that is close to collapse. We have a cost of living crisis which is about to get worse for many people with a 10% increase in National Insurance coming in April.

Against this background we are in a confrontation that is going to be as damaging as it can be without shots being fired at British troops. Labour’s leader, Keir Starmer, has rightly warned that the British people will have to make sacrifices in respect of the war. The burden of our national effort must not fall on the shoulders of those least able to bear it.

If we want the country to pull together the emphasis must be on ‘together’. There can be no sense of unfairness. No sense that some are more equal than others. No sense that obligations apply to most of the people but not to a favoured few.

Britain emerged from the last major European war with a remarkable sense of shared purpose. The war years had seen not one but two changes of Prime Minister.

After a disastrous start to the war, Chamberlain was booted out by MPs and replaced by Churchill.

Before the war ended, the electorate overwhelmingly rejected Churchill in favour of Attlee. A time of national emergency has never been an excuse to stick with a Prime Minister who is clearly not up to the job.

Starmer has also rightly stated that part of our confrontation with Putin must involve de-toxifying our country of all cash looted by Putin’s cronies and which has found its way into our property market and into our politics - distorting both.

Cash looted from the Russian people should not be used to buy passports, a luxury lifestyle, political access and good PR in the United Kingdom and, indeed, in our borough.

When we, and all parties, next go canvassing, we can be sure that for the time being we have a level playing field.

Wealth, stolen or otherwise, will not be able to buy an advantage in this small part of our politics.

And in that, I think we can all take some comfort.