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The Labour Party needs true compassion

Only working-class candidates can really understand the needs, hopes and fears of working-class people, says BERNADETTE HORTON

MANY of you who regularly read my articles in the Morning Star will know just how deeply concerned I am about the lack of working-class candidates and MPs in the Labour Party.

So as well as writing and campaigning on the issue I am putting my (lack of) money where my mouth is and throwing my hat into the Westminster ring as a potential candidate for the Labour Party.

Although I am a little too late for 2015, I will use the time until the next election in 2020 to keep campaigning and standing up and fighting for the working-class people of this country against Tory dark forces, eager to send us all to the workhouse.

It is time for a different way of “doing politics.” For every phone conversation at our local constituency Labour Party, for every door knocked upon I hear time and time again: “They’re all the same. They are all in it for themselves and haven’t got a clue about the lives of ordinary people.”

And aside from a handful of good solid working-class MPs, I have to agree.

If ever there was a time for compassionate politics it is now — standing on the doorstep or at the local Labour office and saying to worried anxious people: “Why don’t we have a cuppa and talk about the problems you are facing a bit more.”

I believe strongly in compassionate politics. It is my core belief. Ordinary people want MPs, candidates and door-knocking volunteers like me to shut up for a minute and listen.

Listening skills are missing from many MPs. They stare dreamily over your shoulder, check their watch and start walking away because the bedroom tax does not affect them.

The fact you can’t afford petrol for the car for the entire month for work and the worry that causes you is a million miles away from anything they have encountered.

Caring for a disabled child or elderly relative is an experience alien to them.

Getting you down as a number on their voting list is more valuable to them than having the compassion, humanity and time to listen.
It’s not “weak” to be compassionate. Neither is it weak to listen and show empathy.

Ordinary people want their MPs to understand how bad things are in their day-to-day lives thanks to David Cameron and particularly Iain Duncan Smith.

But before all Labour MPs grab their tissues and run to their constituents, I have to point out that it’s something you either have in you or not.

Real compassion and empathy cannot be faked or you will end up looking a fraud either on the doorstep or on TV, as working-class people are too canny to fall for “pretend compassion” — think of Cameron and his “hug a hoodie” speech.

Dennis Skinner, for example, is a genuine compassionate politician who refuses take the MPs’ pay rise until all working-class people have had a pay rise.

He refuses to drink in Westminster’s subsidised bars as he feels deeply just how wrong this is at a time when so many are suffering from welfare cuts.

Ian Lavery MP, when speaking about the bedroom tax, said: “We should never forget that these properties are not just statistics. These are people’s homes.”

He understands because he listens and it hurts him to see his constituents’ misery.

I chat to people all the time as a member of Unite Community — a proud arm of Unite the Union no longer confined to workplace members but representing people from all walks of life in our communities.

All I hear is the plea: “We need MPs who have done a factory job, worked in a supermarket, cared for a disabled relative, shop in our shops, don’t just try to look like us but are one of us.”

Indeed, recently an elderly lady complimented me on my dress after me saying I would like to be a candidate one day, as she had had her eye on the same £14 dress in Matalan but felt it was a bit too young for her, adding: “Well at least you’re one of us love and not all fur coat and no knickers like most of the women MPs.”

Her view entirely, of course, but a view echoed in different situations on the doorstep — walk a mile in our shoes.
Compassionate MPs are needed urgently in our communities. Our working-class people have borne the brunt of this austerity going into a fifth year in 2015.

We are austerity-battered, weary, frightened and trying to hang on in there as best we can often living from week to week on zero-hours contracts and a pay day away from losing our homes.

I know this because it’s happening to me too. Last week as my third son started sixth form, HMRC — already cut to the bone with staff shortages — cut all tax credits from every family in Britain with a child starting sixth form or college or a training course.

It meant a £50 immediate cut in income that week — a week when every penny counts as you kit your child out and spend money on bus fares and lunches for their first week on a new part of their lives.

HMRC did acknowledge the huge error which it is putting right “shortly.” That error made me panic over what to cut down on that week, alongside all the thousands of other families affected too.

These “errors” can tip us over the edge into financial peril, we are so close to the cliff edge of austerity.

Alongside compassion and empathy for our fellow man or woman, people are fed up to the back teeth of corrupt politics, corrupt politicians and morally bereft government.

It’s time for honest politics. You may laugh and think me naive, but I believe there is an honest way to do politics and an honest way to be an MP.

If you make an error of judgement, for example, if you make a big cock-up, tell people. “I’m sorry but I got it wrong.” Again don’t say it if you don’t mean it as the people will see through you. Don’t say things that sound insincere or out of the normal kind of way you say things or it all sounds false and forced.

Take David Cameron over Scotland saying: “It’s not about giving the effing Tories a kicking.”
False written all over it.

If, as a Labour MP, cuts genuinely have to be made, be honest, tell people why and explain the situation. Don’t ignore people asking you polite, pertinent questions that mean a lot to them, unless they abuse you. Our concerns must be Labour MPs’ concerns too — or why are they in politics at all?

While I have decided it is right for me personally to enter the political ring, I understand how daunting that could be for others.
It’s the reason the working class is so under represented in Westminster. We are too busy battling to survive to devote time to campaign or try to change things. This is what Cameron and the Establishment relies on.

Labour has shown the way on all-women shortlists. Perhaps it will be time to go further after 2015 and develop a few working-class shortlists or disability shortlists.

Although there is a small financial pot to help future candidates, this needs to be taken to the next level, as lack of finances and having to give up work to campaign are probably the prime reasons working-class candidates are woefully under represented in Parliament.

If you are a carer for a disabled child, as I am, arranging appropriate childcare may be a struggle. Another candidate I know is struggling with sleepless nights caused by gangs on their estate. One is constantly back and forth to school as their child is being bullied. Another can’t afford the transport costs of campaigning in their rural constituency.

Let’s act as a party and support candidates who are struggling. The Labour Party needs the drive, will and sheer determination of candidates who are working class themselves.

It’s much tougher for us to climb into the political arena than for others.

I believe that in this toxic sea of austerity when people are crying out for change, the Labour Party must listen.

It’s not enough to say: “We hear you.” Now is time to say: “We hear you, we will listen to you further, we understand you entirely and we will act.”

I hope ordinary people will one day have enough faith in me to vote and send me to Westminster. It’s a privilege to represent people.
It’s vital that people’s views, their lives, their struggles, are represented by a politician who cares deeply for them.

Bernadette Horton blogs at mumvausterity.blogspot.co.uk.

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