The general election gives us the opportunity to demand real change
Elections are like islands of hope in a sea of troubles. They seem to increase hope when deep despair is at hand. Last week, whilst doing a Q&A in Falmouth after the showing of the film Someone’s Daughter, Someone’s Son, I was asked whether I hoped for much in the forthcoming general election.
I was not appointed in life to urinate on people’s parades. Nor was I appointed – or self-appointed – to be gooey-eyed over political promises. Rather, to be firmly sensible and not misled by what turns out to be electoral bluster.
So it’s a hard one when, having stacked up so many empty promises, the government finally surrenders to the inevitable and calls an election. And suddenly everything is about promises and hope and political bunting, with manifestos not admitting one squeak of a chance that the promises won’t be realised if office falls into their lap.
No, poverty won’t go away. No, the health service won’t heal itself. No, prosperity won’t be gloriously distributed throughout all constituencies irrespective of where you are geographically.
But we must demand that all things possible are done to repair our troubled society. We must ask for promises even if we know they might not be delivered. Because we have to have a gauge by which to measure achievement.
But unless government and governance themselves are untangled and given new form, then whatever result comes through on election day will not result in the changes and improvements we demand and require.
If the next Treasury remains remarkably similar in shape to the current one then it will not spend good prevention money but will wait until the problems have grown to a point where emergency repairs are required. As I said last week, not repairing the roof means waiting until the roof almost collapses. That is, if the next administration carries on with the policy of all Treasuries since time immemorial – of not ‘spending to save’.
If poverty is not made a central concern but is allowed to carry on distorting the budgets of all our major ministries – health, education, justice, work – then we won’t witness the promises being kept and affording us a new prosperous reality.
Yes, my advocacy of a Ministry of Poverty Prevention – MOPP – is my own noisy call. A central
