Student, Mancunian, Labour Supporting and Waffle about anything. Its the fighters and believers that change the world.

Several things in the last couple of days, have re-underlined that despite that we elect people for national offices, all politics is local and thats the way it should be. We elect people to serve us, in a myriad of offices, from local councils to the EU, Westminster and the devolved institutions In some places even  the town mayors, all of them have something in common, there put there to serve in the best interests of the local people. It sounds obvious, but then sometimes saying the obvious isn’t.

The issues are always local, the activists are always local, and the people who feel strongly about the things that matter most to them, are naturally local, from trying to work out who they should talk to over gritting, to discussing with amazing levels of passion the things that they think there elected officials are doing wrong. They may be right sometimes, they may even change peoples mind with the passion that they use.

You forget the local issues at your peril, they elected you in the first place and they can very easily not re-elect you if they don’t like what you’re doing, therefore engaging with the local people on local issues should be at the forefront of politics, the fact that people aren’t turning out in local elections as much as used to, doesn’t mean that you should forget them or move them to one side to concentrate on the bigger issues,  you do both. You sit and listen to what matters to them, and you try to solve the problems they have, if they don’t like how your spending their money, they will tell you.  If they want you to do something else, they will tell you one way or another.

Britain is broken, yes it is. It pains me to say it but its broken, its broken in a bad way. Don’t be mistaken and think that this is a new thing though, because it’s certainly not, the blame can’t be laid at the door of Brown or even Blair, they haven’t made it much better though. Yes they have tried with Surestart and the billions of investment in schools, but they’ve been nowhere near the mark, this is a problem thats been there for many a year, the sad thing is there is no quick fix, nobody promising Change or whatever Cameron’s slogan is would get anywhere near fixing it quickly.

This broken Britain can’t be fixed quickly, or if it can nobody seems to be bothered with fixing it, the problems big, the problems been institutionalised and is generational. Why would you go to work when you can earn more by sitting at home watching Jeremy Kyle? Why would you try hard at school when your parents don’t care ? Why would you try to improve things, when nobody can be bothered?

The simple answer to those questions is you wouldn’t and people don’t, I only have to go out my front door and wander around to see evidence of that, people perfectly capable of working, who have never, people not much older than myself with a few kids, screaming and bawling, do many of them want kids probably not but they end up saddled with them, many of them themselves being conceived at a young age. Many of the people I see around me are on some sort of government allowance, naturally its not all of them but most of them get something, most of them have never worked in there life’s yet have more money in there pockets than the people who work day in day out. How is that fair??

It’s wonderful to give us new schools and new hospitals and new shopping centres . But that’s not solving the problem,  it’s simply trying to sweep it under the carpet. What we need to try and fix the problem, is a radical solution, we need to get the long-term unemployed into work, but that in its self is a huge problem there is no jobs that they can do in the local economy, there hasn’t been for many a year. We need to get the basics right- that means we need to be tough on those who claim benefits and then don’t do anything. We need to create jobs that local people can do, we need to remove some of the abject poverty that still exists, we need to improve the schools, we need to be tough. We need skills, and we need more than 8% of people living in Harpurhey to go on to further education.

Quite Frankly we need to do it now or its simply going to get worse.

The 32nd President of the United States of America, Franklin Delano Roosevelt said in his inaugural address in 1933 that “The only thing you have to fear is fear itself” Now FDR was arguably one of the best presidents that the United States has ever seen.

His way of doing politics was transformational for the time, and its got me thinking what Politics should be in the UK, in the midst of what is a highly difficult phase of time. What I come up with is common sense that we seem to have lost sight of amidst slurs, expenses claims and whatever else. We should be governing in the interests of the whole country. From Penzance to Aberdeen, Oxford and Liverpool and everywhere else. We should be making life better, not only for the poor but for the rich as well. For those Bankers and those on income support.

The parties should be working together, for the good of the country. If we need (and I’m not sure if we do) to rapidly get the deficit down, then we should, not because there is votes in it or because its politically expedient to do so, but only if it’s the best thing for the country. If privatisation of the ordnance Survey is in the public interest, then privatise it. If it’s a good idea and it’s from the Left then use it, from the right and centre the same thing should occur. If it’s a good idea it shouldn’t matter where its come from.

There seems to be a stigma of using ideas from the other side because there from the other side, The Conservative party shouldn’t be the “Enemy” , there Her Majesties opposition, they want the best for the country as much as we do, they just have a different way of wanting to do it. Doesn’t mean they don’t want the best for the country or its people, it doesn’t mean that there stupid or idiots. They just think differently…