Paul McNamee: We elect them. Make them work for us

Last week, a politician in Scotland pressed the wrong button and messed up a major plan.

In a vote in Glasgow City Council, blundering Anne Simpson voted no when she meant to vote yes and a £400m scheme to privatise the IT system – which her party was all for – was sent way back to the drawing board.

Meanwhile, over in Belfast, Trevor Clarke, an MLA, an elected politician in the devolved assembly, said he only recently learned that heterosexual people could contract HIV. Only recently learned. Only recently.

The descent of politicians from places of respect to the same level as estate agents and journalists has been swift.

When you learn about Simpson and Clarke it’s easy to see why the electorate gets exasperated.

But short of a coup d’etat and agreement to live under some sort of dictatorship, that’s what we’ve got.

There is a growing notion that there aren’t enough politicians of heft and vision able to plot future paths for the good of us all. The maligned Tony Blair has talked about the political homeless, about a need find a way to bring back progressive political debate.

There is a growing notion that there aren’t enough politicians of heft and vision able to plot future paths for the good of us all

And no sooner had Ed Balls two-stepped out of Strictly than he was being asked if he’d bring his big brain back into frontline politics. In truth, that doesn’t clear anything up. Rather, it’s uncertain if the call to return means we like our politicians to be intellectual heavyweights or spray-tanned television personalities. If it’s the latter, Jeremy Corbyn really is in the stew.

It does, though, lead to the question of what politicians are actually FOR.

You could point to the great debating skill from Westminster newcomers such as Mhairi Black. But the really important work is happening elsewhere. MPs Behind Closed Doors is a simple TV show that focused on three politicians – Naz Shah, Nick Clegg and Jacob Rees-Mogg – meeting their constituents, trying to help them.

Most telling was when a mother of a child with severe learning difficulties, whose son was out of school because of an administrative cock-up, asked for help. This was a mother at her wits’ end trying to do her very best but hit by red tape and jobsworth refusals. Shah, angry, moved, didn’t say she’d write an angry letter or look into it. She dealt with it. Which goes some way to prove the value of MPs and the fact that they CAN get things done.

One of the great tragedies of the murder of Jo Cox was that she was, by all accounts, really good at this sort of thing. She cared for people; she got things done. It’s reassuring that there remain good elected representatives who want to do the same.

It also proves that we have a broken system in place that penalises people who are simply trying to do the right thing for their families, the families who face difficulties due to illness or disability. While it is good that politicians help those who come to them to work a way through, it’s also true that politicians helped erect the scaffold of problems in the first place.

The denominator in this is us. We have to challenge the inequities, the punishing practices. We have to be the progressive alliance, the voices that rise. The politicians, good and bad, are nothing without us. We must remember that we hold the power.

If you have any comments please email me at paul.mcnamee@bigissue.com, tweet @pauldmcnamee, or send a letter to The Big Issue, 43 Bath Street, Glasgow, G2 1HW

Photo: Parliamentary copyright images are reproduced with the permission of Parliament