14.4.23

We must hold politicians to account. Democracy is being dissolved. They must be questioned.

This May, if you have no official identification with a photo on it you cannot vote. This restriction on universal suffrage is new. For the majority of us, with a driving licence, a travel pass or a passport, it does not represent a problem, so long as we remember to take it to the Polling Station when we vote on 4th May. 

Official statistics show that more than 20% of the population do not have Photo ID. And this raises the issue of human rights and of democracy. In a country where there is no significant evidence of voter-fraud, this new rule appears to exclude rather than empower. It can only be experienced as a further shift towards authoritarian governance. 

There is day-to-day experience of heightened anxiety across our society. Agencies, polls and commentators identify growing mental distress, from the increased use of anti-depressants through to rising levels of protest and strike action. The working class is under tension, with continually rising inflation maintaining a daily cost-of-living crisis for most, and the “Bigger Picture” of Pandemics, War and Climate Change impacting our sense of social security, whatever our personal beliefs.

The current political system in Britain is under deep stress. There is evidence that the majority of us feel we have little influence of personal power over decisions affecting our lives. The extent to which we live in a democracy where “the people decide” is in question. Not least, the fresh perception of a political class, a group separated from the People, politicians locally and globally acting  in their own interests and living a very privileged life from the vast majority of citizens. 

We know we are no longer represented. We are not stupid. It is unlikely that anyone can spend a day in a workplace, or in a cafe or bar (if you can afford to go to the pub) or even at a family meal, where there is no mention of the rotten state of politics, and politicians, today.

We know we have to reassert democratic structures and demands. For example, junior doctors and nurses are not simply on strike for more money – they are afraid for the current condition and very future of our health services, and are demanding that the politicians who have broken the system either rebuild our NHS or are kicked-out of office.

The same goes for our teachers, on strike against cuts to school budgets as well as debilitating workloads, our transport workers demanding investment in public services to revive basic public transport, and our civil servants no longer able to subsist on the minimum wage that does not keep pace with food inflation running at 18%. 

This place of strife is not going away. The prices do not go back down even if inflation lowers. Next year the prices will be higher than this year, the wages lower still. More taxes will serve to subsidise the profits of fuel companies and exploitative landlords. The war in Ukraine is expected to expand and deepen, diverting UK tax-money from public services to military spending and further disrupting supplies, raising prices further.

And as importantly, the increase in extreme weather events, unpredictable, disrupting and costly, will only serve to deepen discomfort – home heating unaffordable, mouldy damp winters and sweaty sleepless heatwaves, crop failures and empty supermarket shelves, floods and fires.

We need politicians who are going to be truly representative, accountable and ready to act as tribunes of the people, not parasites. That’s why we are holding a “hustings”, a public Question Time of Plymouth Council candidates, on Tuesday 18th April at 7pm at the Athenaeum Theatre, PL1 2AU. It’s a small contribution to the assertion of participatory democracy, and an important one. But I do wonder if any budding politicians will be prepared to face the People. Will the elections be about them or us? Are they all the same, just in it for themselves? 

Tony Staunton

President, Plymouth Trades Union Council