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.
No comments:
Post a Comment