A Letter From Labour

I received a letter from the Labour Party today:

I’m going to get straight to the point – I want you to rejoin the Labour Party. I know we may have asked you to come back before, but now it’s more important than ever for the party to be strong so I’m asking you one more time. We need your voice, we need your ideas, and we need your suggestions. Let’s start off by being honest with each other. So, you might wonder, how I’m going to persuade you?

You’re not. Frankly, given the performance of Labour in power, given the erosion of my liberty, given the persistent attempts to poke about in my private life, given the arrant control freakery and the contempt you have displayed for the rule of law, I wouldn’t piss on you if you were on fire, let alone vote for you; so giving you money and rejoining your wretched party is a non-starter, but do carry on:

I thought at first I could try to arouse some memories of how it used to be. Remind you of how things were under the Tories – 3 million out of work, the miner’s strike, interest rates of over 15%? I certainly could mention these things, but it might not quite hit the nail on the head.

Yawn, the old let’s blame Thatcher line. Thatcher left power in 1991 – that’s getting close to twenty years ago. Can we please stop blaming her now?

Perhaps I could tell you about all the new hospitals? How we’ve built or started to build over 100 hospitals in the last 10 years, and that the Tories only built one in their 18 years in government. No? Have you got children? Then I could tell you all about family tax credits, SureStart, paternity leave and trust funds. But maybe that doesn’t fit with you and your life. Not every issue or story resonates with every person, and just listing things that we’ve done is a bit of an insult to your intelligence. So what else can l tell you?

Well, new hospitals are all very well, but the NHS is in a dire state, so perhaps you should adopt something closer to the French system – or, heaven forfend, do away with it and we’ll all go private? I don’t have children, so all my tax pounds get squandered on other people’s tax credits. You are very generously giving us back what was ours to start with – apart from me, because I don’t have sprogs – and expect us to be grateful?

The truth of it is, I can throw all manner of statistics at you, but you might not believe me because whatever I say won’t beat your first hand experience,

Indeed, and my personal experience is of you lot trying to poke about in my private life, trying to tag me like a farm animal and track my movements and I don’t take kindly to it, just as I don’t take kindly to a bunch of managerialists having the effrontery to presume that they know better than I what is best for me.

These days it is so easy to be cynical about things – politics, in particular.

Really? And whose fault is that?

It’s easy to demonise people for one mistake, or to reel off powerful­ sounding headlines about one new ‘crisis’ or another, without thinking about the bigger picture. It’s easy to isolate the negative, whilst we take the positives for granted. What I’m trying to say, is that it can be easy to forget.

One fucking mistake!?! One fucking mistake!?! And I was trying so hard to be polite.

Iraq? Identity Cards? Loss of Habeas Corpus? Summary Justice? Loss of the right to trial by jury? Loss of the right to silence? Presumption of guilt? Policy by headline? Alistair-fucking-arsehole-Campbell? One fucking mistake? You are having a laugh aren’t you? I haven’t forgotten any of it; none of the shabby, control freakery and managerialist arrogance of the Blair regime. Why the fuck do you think I left? Was my letter of resignation not clear enough for you?

People complain that political parties aren’t in touch with the local people, that we are only interested in you when we want your vote, and that what you really want from us is sincerity and honesty – to talk to you when there isn’t an election, when we don’t want something. You just want us to take an interest.

Well, we’re trying. We can’t do this all on our own. Those who criticise have to take some responsibility towards finding a solution.

My God! You arrogant arsehole! You treat us like dirt and it’s our fault because we are cynical. We are cynical because politicians behave exactly as described in the previous paragraph. It is politicians and political parties that must take responsibility here, not those betrayed by them. You want trust? Then go about earning it.

People’s interest in, or connection to politics is waning.

You noticed. I wonder why?

For us to be effective, insightful grounded and ‘real’, we need your help. You need to tell us how to be better, critically and constructively. If you talk to us, we can listen. If you ignore us, we both lose out.

I have. Repeatedly. Both as a member of the party and subsequently. My MP has treated my views with the same arrogant contempt as the party leadership. Nothing I have said made a blind bit of difference when it came to voting away our cherished liberties, so I’ll be damned if I will engage with you any further. The best I can do is use this platform to highlight your behaviour, to make as many people aware of just what charlatans you are, to cost you as many votes as I possibly can.

Change can be difficult, and it is sometimes easier to say ‘I don’t care’. But apathy doesn’t stand for election. Apathy doesn’t ask you for your opinion, your hopes, concerns and fears. Apathy doesn’t give you the chance to make things better, or to do anything.

You think I’m apathetic?

To join, either complete and return the enclosed form, visit labour.org.uk/joinus or call our membership team on 08705 900 200.

Yes, well, you can take your membership form and…