We have watched the failure of Carillion, the plundering of pension funds to pay fat cat bonuses and the tightening squeeze on living standards for the lower paid. Conservative supporters celebrated the sale of Council houses to sitting tenants (and many now let them privately as the buyers take their profit): we all now wonder why there is such a shortage of homes to rent. Above all, we perhaps wonder why we keep electing governments which promote austerity.
Part of the problem is that politicians and those with influence seem to think they know all the answers and do not listen. Not listening to residents turned Grenfell Tower from a scandalous misuse of money into a tragedy causing 71 deaths. Whittington Hospital Trust wants to make as much money as possible from its land deal, and does not listen to the concerns of ordinary people about who they choose as partners to make the deals. Islington and Shoreditch Housing Association wants to maximise profit from the St Mary’s Path Estate and risks not listening to the legitimate concerns of existing tenants.
This feeling of infallibility and the inability to listen runs right through UK politics. Former Greek finance minister Yanis Verafakis once remarked that if the progressive left in the UK were serious about taking power, Labour wouldn’t stand against Caroline Lucas in Brighton, just as The Green Party stood down against Labour in Ealing and campaigned for the Labour candidate in a marginal seat. Islington Labour Party has the same problem as the Labour Party nationally: they would clearly like to unseat Caroline Russell, when she is an excellent councillor, generally supportive of good ideas whoever suggests them, but a challenge to their feeling that “Labour knows best” and, not satisfied with an opposition of 1, would like to become an elected dictatorship that listens to nobody.
It is this pettiness, inability to listen and claims of infallibility which turns so many people away from politics and gives the impression that politicians are all the same. However, one thing we all can agree on is that the entire Council is up for election in May this year and that whoever you vote for democracy needs a good turnout to provide opposition and challenge. As Andrew Rawnsley remarked in a Guardian article recently: “The biggest mistake we make about democracy is to take it for granted.”
Mike Crowson
Islington Green Party