Leadership
An admission:
Despite coming from a family of committed Liberal political campaigners, I have for many years voted for the individual: for the local councillor or MP I thought would best represent - well, me actually, not The People. And not just because a life in a Liberal family conditioned me to a lifetime of electoral defeat (I live in Surrey...). I always read election literature from all the parties, look up what they say in newspapers and at the hustings (and now, on line or, even though I almost never watch TV, yes, I do sometimes at election time). I guess that is kind of weird actually - because the accepted narrative is that people are 'fed up' of politics and 'distrust' all politicians - whereas I am really interested, and trust almost all of them to some degree until sometimes (rarely, I should say) I am confronted with incontrovertible evidence of their perfidy. I even feel sorry for Donald Trump, for goodness sake, and I am not even American.
Because I tend to be active in the local community - just not politcally - I often get to meet or interact with our politicians, and I must say that in general all are highly committed, active, hard working people whose beliefs are genuinely held. And I admit, I have in the past voted for people whose generalized political views I found abhorrent, because in practice their actions were kind, inclusive, and amazingly effective in ways that I admired beyond words. There is more to a person than what they say: their actions speak too, to me at least.
But this time I hit the wall. (I am in England, by the way, so we have a General Election coming less than a year after a Referendum on Europe.) I joined the Liberal Democrats after Brexit - quite a long time after, as I don't like the Party System - because Brexit hit my own career so hard (there is my selfishness again), and threw away things that my chidren valued and aspired to, and trashed a general trend for the world to become more inclusive, more cosmopolitan, more global, that Sarah and I with our international working lives had valued as an aspiration for humanity. (And please don't tink I am dramatizing - we have genuinely loved becoming, and being, part of Europe and are going to miss it so much it feels like a divorce). So I joined the Liberal Democrats, because in the face of the Brexiteers' taunts of 'shut up and suck it up' they were the only party that said: "fuck you, we don't agree".
So to this General Election, and its theme of Leadership.
I am about to write an email to our local MP - a Conservative. Sarah and I attended, and voted in the first phase of, his selection - which was an Open Primary (for our American friends, we never had primaries in England - our candidates were visited upon us by their Parties). As it happened we didn't vote for him, but don't tell him that. He was, in my only interaction with him, a great local MP - responsive, reasonable, active and effective, on an issue that really mattered to me and to my family. So in my normal scheme of things, that would have played into my assessment of who to vote for: and remember, for me representing me Trumps (pun intended) wider issues - sometimes.
Not that my vote will make a difference - I live in Surrey. But then, in a Democracy every vote matters, doesn't it - every vote carries the same weight, doesn't it? No, OK, it doesn't, not if you lose, but it is supposed to.
But this UK General Election has been remarkable for the theme imposed on it by the currently governing Conservative Party - or rather, by their leader, our Prime Minister, Theresa May. That theme is 'leadership'. In my experience 'leadership' ends in a 't' not a 'p' but that is not the issue here. Theresa May has made this election about herself - about her Leadership - about her. I can't count the times I have heard her say 'me' and 'my' and 'I'. The Conservative Party - sorry, the Theresa May - slogan is 'Strong and Stable Leadership'. So much so that you now only have to say 'strong and stable..' and people laugh.
And you know what? I don't trust Theresa May. You can disagree with me, but there it is - I don't trust her farther than I could throw her. I don't trust her Leadership - not at all.
Now normally that would not matter all that much. I would take into account the deficiencies of the Party and its Leader, but rarely would they counterweigh my assessment of the individual - of the local person who, in my judgement, would best represent me. But this time, they have made it all that matters. So for once I am going with that - and to Mrs May, just so you know, it was you that blew it.
Despite coming from a family of committed Liberal political campaigners, I have for many years voted for the individual: for the local councillor or MP I thought would best represent - well, me actually, not The People. And not just because a life in a Liberal family conditioned me to a lifetime of electoral defeat (I live in Surrey...). I always read election literature from all the parties, look up what they say in newspapers and at the hustings (and now, on line or, even though I almost never watch TV, yes, I do sometimes at election time). I guess that is kind of weird actually - because the accepted narrative is that people are 'fed up' of politics and 'distrust' all politicians - whereas I am really interested, and trust almost all of them to some degree until sometimes (rarely, I should say) I am confronted with incontrovertible evidence of their perfidy. I even feel sorry for Donald Trump, for goodness sake, and I am not even American.
Because I tend to be active in the local community - just not politcally - I often get to meet or interact with our politicians, and I must say that in general all are highly committed, active, hard working people whose beliefs are genuinely held. And I admit, I have in the past voted for people whose generalized political views I found abhorrent, because in practice their actions were kind, inclusive, and amazingly effective in ways that I admired beyond words. There is more to a person than what they say: their actions speak too, to me at least.
But this time I hit the wall. (I am in England, by the way, so we have a General Election coming less than a year after a Referendum on Europe.) I joined the Liberal Democrats after Brexit - quite a long time after, as I don't like the Party System - because Brexit hit my own career so hard (there is my selfishness again), and threw away things that my chidren valued and aspired to, and trashed a general trend for the world to become more inclusive, more cosmopolitan, more global, that Sarah and I with our international working lives had valued as an aspiration for humanity. (And please don't tink I am dramatizing - we have genuinely loved becoming, and being, part of Europe and are going to miss it so much it feels like a divorce). So I joined the Liberal Democrats, because in the face of the Brexiteers' taunts of 'shut up and suck it up' they were the only party that said: "fuck you, we don't agree".
So to this General Election, and its theme of Leadership.
I am about to write an email to our local MP - a Conservative. Sarah and I attended, and voted in the first phase of, his selection - which was an Open Primary (for our American friends, we never had primaries in England - our candidates were visited upon us by their Parties). As it happened we didn't vote for him, but don't tell him that. He was, in my only interaction with him, a great local MP - responsive, reasonable, active and effective, on an issue that really mattered to me and to my family. So in my normal scheme of things, that would have played into my assessment of who to vote for: and remember, for me representing me Trumps (pun intended) wider issues - sometimes.
Not that my vote will make a difference - I live in Surrey. But then, in a Democracy every vote matters, doesn't it - every vote carries the same weight, doesn't it? No, OK, it doesn't, not if you lose, but it is supposed to.
But this UK General Election has been remarkable for the theme imposed on it by the currently governing Conservative Party - or rather, by their leader, our Prime Minister, Theresa May. That theme is 'leadership'. In my experience 'leadership' ends in a 't' not a 'p' but that is not the issue here. Theresa May has made this election about herself - about her Leadership - about her. I can't count the times I have heard her say 'me' and 'my' and 'I'. The Conservative Party - sorry, the Theresa May - slogan is 'Strong and Stable Leadership'. So much so that you now only have to say 'strong and stable..' and people laugh.
And you know what? I don't trust Theresa May. You can disagree with me, but there it is - I don't trust her farther than I could throw her. I don't trust her Leadership - not at all.
Now normally that would not matter all that much. I would take into account the deficiencies of the Party and its Leader, but rarely would they counterweigh my assessment of the individual - of the local person who, in my judgement, would best represent me. But this time, they have made it all that matters. So for once I am going with that - and to Mrs May, just so you know, it was you that blew it.
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