Friday 2nd June

How often do you hear that said?  And I find it quite difficult to understand.  I mean, I am not really interested in cricket – I will sometimes note a score on the news but whether England or Australia win the Ashes makes very little difference to my life.  But Politics?  Come on, Politics is the stuff of life.  What goes on at Westminster, or Brussels, or indeed your local Town Hall – directly affects your life.  Especially if you are poor, or (horrible phrase) just about managing.  But actually even if you are doing okay, if you have a decent pension, a nice house, no mortgage, a good job; or just rich, living on inherited or even earned wealth – Politics matters.  How can you just not care what sort of a world you live in?

But it is true that there are people who do not even watch the News, who are oblivious to events around them, wrapped up as they may be in their own little world.  Or is it something else entirely?  Is this openly stated disinterest in the World, in Politics really a blind, a distraction?  Are they secretly actually watching and judging but apparently not taking any part?  Or are they in their own way ‘living outside the law’, on the surface obeying the petty restrictions that govern our lives, but not giving a flying f…k about anyone else.  And of course, this attitude, those who say that ‘all Politicians are the same’, that ‘they are all in it for themselves’ plays straight into the hands of certain political viewpoints.

The big divide between the parties, and rarely more so than at this election, is between those who think that government should be about letting people get on with it; get rich if you like, trample on others – that’s alright, and if you cannot manage, if you are stupid enough to be poor or to lose your job or be disabled – well, don’t look to other people to help you; and those who think that we are all interdependent and that it is our responsibility as human beings to care for others less fortunate than ourselves.  And I suspect that those who say that they aren’t interested in Politics are really ‘Tory fodder’.  Either they don’t vote, or they go along with the masses, whatever the Newspapers are telling them.  And if they think about it at all they suddenly have to realise that they may actually be accountable for their actions, some responsibility may lay on their shoulders.  So, easier not to vote, not to get involved, not to have to think about it, to say ‘I’m not interested in Politics’.

Well, one day they may wake up and find themselves ill and have to go to a privatized hospital where the minimum will be offered to them unless they have private insurance.  Or they may be made redundant as some large company moves overseas and they realise that there really is no safety net, just a few strings with big holes for them to fall through.

Let us hope it doesn’t come to that…