If only there were hustings today

In the 2019 General Election in which I first stood, I admit there wasn’t a coherent alternative to Party Politics; just a protest vote or abstention.  These options accounted for a third of the electorate in Hastings and Rye constituency on that blustery and wet December day. 

The tectonic pressures of entering the #PandemicEra have now reforged #EthicsEconomicsPolitics and opened up something viable as an alternative to Party Politics as we’ve come to know (& distrust) it. 

Listening to the needs of these times I’ve arrived at a formula for effective politics in which the PartyWhip is anathema to the #DeeperDemocracy we need; a democracy in which politicians come to events such as this hustings to problem solve together, not to toe a party line. 

The #GrassrootsDemocracy of which I not only dream, but plan, do & review, combined with the ideas surrounding a #DemocracyOfNeeds ensures that a parliamentary candidate can represent their constituents like never before. What assists something to be done in politics like never before is not social media as we know it, largely a reactive medium, but a shift in consciousness and resolve (#SleepOnIt) so that it is used creatively rather than reactively, and alongside principled critiques,  a social obligation to say what it is for which you stand.

The local versions of the #GrassrootsManifestoes are called the #HastingsCitizenManifesto and for those in the constituency who don’t live in the borough of Hastings, the #HastingsAndRyeCitizenManifesto. Collecting these (4-10point #DreamBig policy proposals) together and giving voice to all the underlying needs my team of mediators will come up with a hybrid manifesto that I will demonstrate, a little later, to be something much richer than mere compromise. 

Compromise is not the essence of searching #BeyondPolarisationInPolitics. What is the essence of the higher third way? What I’m talking of here is a way that actually stands a chance of making an impactful and impressive contribution to tackling the scale of the global problems to be faced. Going #BeyondPolarisationInPolitics requires both a #KinderPolitics and a #DeeperAccountability. I wish to demonstrate how a  #KinderPolitics and a #DeeperAccountability go hand in hand. This can be shown first by the history of the delay in the first 2020 lockdown from 16th March to 23rd March* and then by the history of dialogue and action around safe Personal Protective Equipment or PPE....

*lockdown a week earlier has been estimated by Niall Ferguson as a measure that would have saved perhaps half the lives lost in the first wave of Coronavirus.

Daily Telegraph Attack on Extinction Rebellion Press Blockade - comments abound

And here’s what I added in the commentary below a clear commentator IMHO replying to Janet Daley’s hyperbole:

“Your piece has been called An Epistle; I find it a succinct and fair summary of the situation; only missing the route out, which is a shift in consciousness #BeyondPolarisationInPolitics. Joanna Macy taught most convincingly IMHO of the three aspects of The Great Turning from “The Industrial Growth Society”; only one of which is overtly political, I would suggest. Until we look to inspirational communities living more sustainably for models of respectful ways to co-exist and import the learning into politics, then the level of debate will remain reactive rather than provide a grounded creative route out. Amber Rudd asked me to send her a paper on a government policy for prompting sharing once I’d won the audience over of a Local Plan meeting in Hastings; quality of life can be maintained or improved if only we get serious about sharing & Care4Caring NonMonetary solutions to SocialCare shortages. It’s not rocket science; but the #MoreGenerousMoreSharing that Boris Johnson closed his most Churchillian speech (10th May from 10 Downing Street) has proved to be unsubstantiated; hence my call for any principled Tory to resign the Tory-Whip until Johnson shows integrity in the promise he gave after being returned from death’s door by two migrant NHS workers. Stick to #MoreGenerousMoreSharing and trust those in politics most who ensure their opponents’ voices get heard.”