GOVERNMENT
I remember sitting around at university chatting with friends about how useless we thought the government was.
We felt so clearly that if only we were in charge, the world would be a better place. I took this attitude on into adult life, feeling so jaundiced it was hard to muster the enthusiasm to vote because I couldn’t see how it would make a difference. It was only in my mid-40s that I received a letter inviting me to go into the House of Commons to meet with some MPs, Christian MPs. I had recently had a road-to-Damascus mid-life awakening and was now ‘out’ as a born-again Christian in the media and they’d tracked me down. They were gathering like-minded media people to ask their opinions on certain aspects of the media and how it works in reality.
The thing that first struck me was what likeable down-to-earth people they were - humble and eager to listen.
Over the next 10 years, I kept up friendships with one or two of these people and even travelled with them on trips abroad. One such trip was a cross-party visit to Kyrgyzstan. It gave me the opportunity to spend more time with them, hear about their roles and see them in action. The more I was exposed to them, the more my position on politicians began to shift.
I remember in particular seeing the daily postage pile of one MP, which was almost a foot high and included a letter from an old lady who was disappointed that he had not made the ramp into the local library in Honiton slightly less steep for her wheelchair. This particular MP was in the cabinet at the time with huge national responsibility and he was a father of two with all the home-life challenges that brings.
I recently went in and met him for a coffee. He was slumped unusually low in his chair. He explained that the Twitter hate that he and his colleagues were now receiving, was becoming almost overwhelmingly discouraging.
And my perspective shifted again when I got the chance to spend five days shadowing Nick Clegg. He was Deputy Prime Minister at the time in a coalition with David Cameron and we travelled around the country as he dealt with the minutiae of his constituents in Sheffield and the momentous multi-billion pound decisions in brief phone conversations with Cameron and Danny Alexander.
I will never forget waiting in his private office while he was in the chamber speaking in the debate about whether the UK should bomb the Islamic State in Syria or not. I was sitting on his sofa watching him on the internal TV screen when I heard him coming up the stairs. He walked in, slumped in the chair in front of me and asked my permission to take his tie off. I felt I just wanted to give him a hug and say “Thank you for all that you have done and are doing” and for putting up with all the crap that gets thrown at you by people who would not last a week under the pressures of your job.
So I now see politicians in essence as courageous people who need not criticism but encouragement to the same extent. I feel frustrated with people who have not taken a step into the arena of public life but choose to sit on the sideline and ‘slag them off’ as I did as a young man. If I hear somebody having a rant, I challenge them that perhaps they have an unrealised gift to be an MP or civil servant. I also offer to support them should they choose to take a step in that direction - to bring the insights they clearly have to a forum where they can be of some effect. Almost without fail, they shrink back and the conversation goes like this…
“Oh no, not me!”
“Why not?”
“Oh, I could never put up with all the media hassle they get?”
“But if you could get over that issue, would you be up for it?”
“No, I’m too old (or another similarly limp excuse)”
If that’s you – and you’re ready to be courageous, please get in touch.
