It’s about the people

Last year, my last post before the Christmas break was a paean to love. I was reflecting a little bitterly on that as I prepare to spend my first single Christmas in seven years having embarked on a rather nasty marital breakdown.

Then I stopped being a self-obsessed arse and remembered the most important lesson that anyone who would like to have a role to play in political discourse: It’s not all about me.

I don’t care about politics to feather my own nest or to earn a fat wage packet. And actually, while you’de never know it from the febrile atmosphere and comments here and everywhere else neither do the vast, vast majority of politicians.

Sure some stray from the path. But most don’t. Because they too have learned that lesson.It’s not all about them either.

Being self-centred in politics is one of the stupidest traits you can have. Because you lose what it is that keeps you able to stay in touch not just with the bits of the electorate that look like you and your friends, but the whole electorate, the whole country. This whole amazing place and the wonderful people in it. Be they Surrey stockbrokers or Wigan call centre workers.

The people are what matters. People I like, people I love, People I have never met and probably wouldn’t like if I did. These all matter equally. All people matter. All people deserve to be treated with respect and dignity.

Most politicians – of all stripes – will agree with that. It isn’t there that we differ. It is how we demonstrate that they matter that divides us. I don’t believe that the Tory attitude to welfare – for example – does treat people with respect and dignity. Tories believe exactly the same of me.

The rise of food banks in the UK is a terrible indictment of a system gone horribly wrong. We should not celebrate the rise in need that has led to this rise in supply. Government policy should be laser focused on ensuring an end to the conditions that force people to need food banks (as well as loan sharks and temporary accommodation).

But in doing so, we should not forget to celebrate the people who have answered the call of need. Yes food banks are a sign of failure, but the incredible generosity that ensure they are run and stocked is something we should rightly be very proud of.

This is what I think David Cameron was reaching for with his “Big Society”. Harnessing that greatness in services of others. But the Tories have backed away from the big society now. Lynton Crosby is pushing them to promote only the smaller, crueller state. The small kindling of a communitarian fire has burned out in the Tory Party.

But in Labour, this has been a year where our fledgling promises to start to empower communities has started to take hold. 2013 has been the year we really started to see our efforts in community organising bear fruit. In 2014, I hope we go even further. I hope we see a thousand, thousand flowers bloom as we work with the spirit we know if in our communities and find ways to make that take flight.

Politics means “relating to citizens”. In 2014, let’s make that mean something. In the meantime – Merry Christmas!