A local carpenter is kindly making me a soapbox. At 11am on 6th Feb I am going to stand on it at the bandstand in Battersea Park and speak out my message.
I cannot fight the might of the party machine without you. I cannot do this without those of you who have given up their time regularly in
November and December to canvass for the speeches and the community evening, those of you that have donated time, funds, wine, reading material, a room or garden in a pub, even had your van branded. Without your support the message cannot progress.
We do not have piles of cash but we have something more powerful – a growing support base plucking up the courage to take on Parliament. This is not some subversive plot to undermine the political centre of our land. This is an urgent and critical challenge to a growing culture of greed, the effects of which have started to reach into our homes and, if not arrested, could leave our country vulnerable to dangerous and cruel ideologies. Whilst the parties bicker incessantly and set their sights on the General Election there develops an opening for such movements. One prominent publication printed an article this week titled ‘The Golden Age of Fascism’. Securing political power has become more important than stability. The politicians are looking the other way.
Some of you may be averse to withdraw your support from one of the major political parties. Some of you may be apathetic towards politics in general. Stephen Poliakoff spoke about a film he has made recently
concerning the period before the Second World War in Britain ‘It was a
small band of young Tory politicians who were anti-appeasement and they were menaced by the whips.’ Back then a courageous few helped our country in the face of substantial opposition. They faced an often accusing and disbelieving Parliament and public. Parliament has become so obsessed with itself that it has forgotten its principal responsibility is to the nation. The Parliamentary Standards Bill has been neutuered and ironically the expenses scandal conceals the grave realities of what lies beneath.
Some of you would rightly say that greed has always been around. Certainly we are all guilty to some degree of it. But when has it in our lifetimes (even of the older recipients to this mail) become so dominant in the political class of our country? Before the expenses scandal broke it was 4 Labour Lords who were exposed as being willing to take money to change legislation going through the House of Lords. A headline in the Times in September revealed the mass of Conservative Parliamentary candidates coming from the lobbying industry. The list I have of MPs and Peers using their positions to better their own positions at the expense of the nation grows worryingly and steadily. I am all for experience in the business world before or even alongside a career in politics. What is emerging in our land has very different effects and a more sinsiter trajectory.
Greed courts power as well as money. It encourages infectious distrust and a centralisation of power that breeds strange and destructive creeds.Ponder the CCTV culture and the erosion of society by a pernicious state that, through quangos like the Safeguarding Authority, metes out controlling edicts that undermine community spirit and kindly instinct. If it becomes abnormal to want to help out in a school run or drive some children to football practice where does that end ? The motives may have been good but they have been corrupted. They were intended to protect but they threaten to destroy.
I am still bothered and inspired in equal measure by this quote by David
Selbourne, the political philosopher. I know I have repeated it often and wholeheartedly.’There is no movement, moral or political, and whether left or right, which is strong enough to purge the British body politic of its foulness.’ I then think of Thomas Jefferson, ‘When the government fears the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the governnment there is tyranny.’
A movement has begun from outside the corridors of power. Greed in public office is a stain on our country. It cannot be solved by clever accounting and it will undermine our economy and constitution perilously. We must look to the next generation and what we bequeath. A Parliament that is safe and strong. We must be forceful and peaceful as the abolitionists were 200 years ago.
My pledge is simple. ‘If elected I pledge to fight without surrender for
the removal of greed from Parliament and the return of the freedoms,
rights and privelges that are being taken away from the people of
Battersea and Britain.’
We canvass this week-end and leave from 50 Abercrombie St at 11am. Please come and help or come on the 6th February. Please mail this on to any of your friends in Battersea or elsewhere if you see fit.
