“You say one thing and then do something else, never keep
your promises”
As a politician I have, of course, heard that many times
– sometimes justifiably, sometimes not. We are also told that, as seems to be
the case at last week’s county council elections, politicians aren’t listening
to the voters.
For the politician there’s a problem here; if a
particular issue climbs up the list of concerns of voters should politicians
listen and change their policies accordingly or should they say “we can’t
change our policies because we promised something different?”
Then there’s the question of how much difference policies
make to voters when they decide who to support? I ask this because so often
there appears to be a conflict between votes cast and the policies being
pursued.
Take last week’s results in the Lincolnshire County area;
in Boston and the south of the county immigration, quite understandably, was
the key issue but if we look at a couple of other UKIP policies – they want to
see the return of grammar schools – but in Lincolnshire they never went away;
Conservatives on the county council fought tooth and nail in the seventies and
eighties to retain them and succeeded. On-shore wind turbines are almost always
opposed by local communities and the county council has the most robust
policies the law allows but it didn’t stop UKIP campaigning on these matters as
if the exact opposite was the case. Just as an aside it must be noted that
here, as we await the decision on the Able UK planning application for their
South Humber Energy Park to abandon wind energy which promises so much for the
local economy would be disastrous.
Another strange result was in Gainsborough where a
long-standing LibDem councillor lost his seat to UKIP. LibDems are the most
pro-European of the three main parties so why would anyone swop their vote from
them to UKIP? I pose these questions not to criticise how the electorate cast
their votes – they are the masters – but to highlight how difficult it is for
politicians and parties to cope with the criticism that ‘they aren’t
listening’. Actually political parties spend enormous amounts of money in
trying to ‘listen’ and to find out what voters think; surveys, polls and so on;
personally I prefer the supermarket queue.
Another mystery is why Nigel Farage, formerly of the City
of London and public school educated, or Eton educated Boris Johnson seem
immune from the ‘out-of touch, public school boy’ label that the Labour Party
do their best to stick on David Cameron and George Osborne. Is it just that
both Nigel & Boris are engaging characters – which they are – or is there
more to it? When the General Election comes will it be charisma or competence
that triumphs? At a local level will the fact that both I and Austin Mitchell
oppose our membership of the EU lose votes from pro-European supporters in our
respective parties? Or will it be that the only way to secure an IN/OUT
referendum will be to elect a Conservative Government that makes the
difference?
Westminster has, of course, been dominated by the Queen’s
Speech which, after all the splendour, is followed by six days of debate on its
contents. Some have criticised it for being light on legislation – which seems
to assume that all legislation is good; which is certainly not the case.
Undoubtedly the Immigration Bill will attract much attention. It deals with
many of the issues that those voters in Boston were expressing their concerns
about, such as limiting access to public services only to those who have
contributed through their taxes and making it easier to remove people from the
UK who abuse the ‘right to a family life’ section of the Human Rights Act.
There are Bills dealing with pensions, a new Energy Bill
aimed at ensuring prices are fair; others dealing with consumer rights, adult
social care costs, law and order matters child care and much more. But the focus
is still on stabilising our economy and encouraging growth as it should be and
it is the economy that, despite my earlier comments about Europe, grammar
schools and the like, that will determine whether or not the Government retains
the confidence of the electorate in just two years time.
Perhaps it will be the Party that sets out a programme
for dealing with the multitude of issues that face the country rather than
parties that outline the problems but offer no solutions.
