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An end to cynicism?
• EUROPEAN election results won’t be known until Sunday, as New Labour, Tories and Lib Dems brace themselves for a demonstration by the electorate of their anger over the abuses of parliamentary expenses.
Members of the “best club in London”, the House of Commons, need a major re-think as we, the people, don’t want spin. Political parties desperate to get their hands on the levers of power must see the current debacle as a tipping point and not an excuse to say: “Phew, we just got away with it!”
A few weeks back you published a letter I sent to MP Emily Thornberry along with an article about my resignation from the Labour Party and my intention to vote Green for the first time in 36 years. I said I “thought I would not be alone”. And, no, I was not alone. How many have recently resigned from all three major political parties?
Your readers might have been amused by the debates and positioning by various political parties that followed in this paper. Ordinary people expressed their anger at broken promises while political parties used this opportunity to either justify their view or abuse the electorate with misinformation, a response I anticipated.
Last week, I got a two-page letter from Ray Collins, the national general secretary of the Labour Party, saying: “Please reconsider your resignation” and going on to apologise about the expenses issue. The signature was computerised so this was a standard letter.
There is a huge opportunity here. We have just witnessed the biggest banking and business collapse in history as the taxpayers, and generations to come, pay for others’ greed.
Then we have had the exposure of MPs who manipulate and defraud their expenses, a crime we would lose our jobs or liberty for in the real world.
Let’s hope those who remain standing for office recognise our feelings of disgust and seek to change the landscape of political and business life for ever. Accountability and transparency should not be empty phrases used to get our vote. This could be the end of cynicism and apathy, not a door left ajar to be filled by prejudiced parties, I for one live in that audacious hope.
Pat Edlin
N1
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