We really did want a different kind of politics

By Diana Smith

In the months that led up to the general election I spoke to thousands of people in Stafford. It was clear to me that the motives that caused people to vote in the way they did were very muddled.

Many people took the level of public service we had as a matter of course, and did not see that their vote might put it at risk. We are now watching public services being dismantled on a scale and with a degree of ferocity that none of us really expected.

Many people did not understand or distrusted the complex warnings about the actions the Conservatives might take, warnings now exceeded by the actions they are actually taking.

Many people voted in the way that they did because they had taken a dislike to Gordon Brown and wanted one or other of the clean jawed young men who were bidding for his place.

But beyond that there were many people who voted because they wanted something new, different and cleaner. They wanted an end to bickering and point-scoring. They understood a little of the real threats that face us all and they wanted politicians to work together to try and resolve these problems.

It is those people, the people who voted for a change out of hope for a better way of doing politics that will have been hurt most by what happened yesterday, in a rather funereal big tent.

Chris Huhne (Lib Dem) and Baronness Warsi (Conservative) stood together to try and pin all the blame on Labour for the economic crisis and the pain that this government is determined to inflict.

They launched a coalition video which is one of the most unpleasant pieces of propaganda I can remember seeing.

They blustered through a presentation and a question and answer session.

One reason why they may have found this appropriate is this chart of the government’s approval rating:

As people begin to get some indication of the scale of what the government is intending their approval ratings are plummeting and they are being forced onto the defensive.

They clearly also do not want people to be looking too closely at what is being lost.

There was also damaging news being announced by Mervyn King, and the government would have seen the need to throw a smoke screen.

The launch of the Labour legacy video has met with very mixed reviews. Many people see this as a deeply unpleasant form of “old politics at its worst” as this interview indicates.

For those people who voted “for a change” wanting a different, better kind of politics this is hard to take. It is one thing for the Lib Dems to say that they are doing a service to the country by trying to modify the worst excesses of the Conservative right, it is quite another for them to be active and willing partners in rubbishing many of the measures that they actively supported.

A lot of people really did want a new kind of politics. I am one of them. Here is what I want:

· An end to the politics of blame
· An end to the use of half truths
· An end to the demonisation of the enemy
· An end to dogma
· Transparency
· Evidence-based political decision making
· All party focus on the issues
· A genuine willingness to inform and involve the public in informed decision making
· A genuine commitment to a fairer society