Politics is important. It shapes our lives in innumerable ways. Unfortunately many people feelt that politics is disconnected to them; something that happens in Westminster and has little bearing on their lives. They are right and wrong at the same time: Politics affects every aspect of our lives but most of it does go on away from many of the people in this country.
We're now in a dreadful situation where there is a common belief that all politicians are the same; that it doesn't matter which party is in power and that there is little difference between the parties anyway. The was partly given creadence by New Labour-a party who broke from the traditional image of the UK labour party and introduced progressive policies that were more centre left than any of their predecessors.
Many in the Labour party became disillusioned over their 13 years of power. Many more, like me, became something even worse - complacent. It wasn't that I fundamenatlly disagreed with their policies - 95% of them matched my own values. But over the years the fight (and growing up in the north of England in the 1980 &90's it HAD been a fight) appeared pretty much won. Sure there were some bit clangers of mistakes - Iraq for one, but overall I felt the country was in pretty safe hands.
Over their 13 years in power, I witnessed my world become a much better, nicer, and more hopeful place to live in. Sure Start, the NHS, University opportunities, jobs, decent education, opportunities - the basics were in place and stuff that irritated and annoyed many like me was, in hindsight, pretty small stuff in the scheme of things. You see, I didn't expect my party, my government to get it 100% right. I was prepared to forgive them, or at least undersand mistakes so long as they were broadly in line with my values system. I had hope and opportunity. And I saw many others with this too.
But all of that changed back in May 2010. When the result of the election was a hung parliament I, like many others held my breath to see what would happen. Initially it didn't seem that bad. No one had a majority. The Lib Dems held the balance of power. But they were OK - they talked of fairness, equality, a new politics, seemed to agree with Labours economic approach to the economy - in terms of values, they seemed like good guys.
But that very, very quickly went out of the window. As promise after promise was broken - by both parties. The vain hope that the Lib Dems would soften the Tories vanished fast. In fact, the Lib Dems seemed to embolden and ligitemise the Tories and gave them licence to go further than even Cameron's rebranded, Detoxified party would have dared to go.
And something else happenned. Something that, as an NLP practitioner who knows the important of language, metaphor and framings, piqued my interest. The Coalition very quickly redefined the terms of the debate. While Labour were tied up with their leadership debate, the Coalition begame a very clever and well thought out plan to discredit Labour's economic record. The instandly began to frame the argument for deep cuts and changes to the fundamental principles of British life and democracy as unwanted but necessary emergency steps, steps that if weren't taken, would lead to the end of life in Britain as we knew it.
What's more, the Lib Dems supported and added weight to this argument. They, who had been against fast, deep cuts to public spended immediately fell in line with this frame; Something had changed and we were now in the grip of an economic emergency. If we didn't take immediate, drastic action, we would be brakrupt as a country. AND (in a line repeated so many times it's almost like a mantra) it was down to the mess left by Labour.
Those of us on the progressive side of the argument know that this is nonsense. The majority of economists also agree with this. One of the key strenghths that Labour had in the run up to the election was that in the public's mind, they had managed the economy well. Gordon Brown was a safe pair of hands. Now within a few short months, public opinion had changed; people seemed to have forgotten this so well it was like history has been re-written.
This blog is about how, as progressives, we can reframe the political debate, particularly in the UK. It combines my interests in progressive politics and linguistics, NLP and metaphors. I'm particularly inspired by the work of Naomi Klein, George Lakoff and Drew Westen amongst others.
For me, the key challenge for the UK progressives is how to re-frame the debate and reclaim concepts of fairness, equality and social justice from the right wing Coalition government. It's my attempt to engage with the debate and have a sense of purpose an direction as a progressive in opposition to the systematic dismantling of the welfare state.
Now is the time to take back the arguments, to develop our own frames and influence the Labour party, and the country to redefine what we stand for and how we would like our country to be.
Words shape how we engage with the world. They shape our beliefs and our actions. And it will be words where the battle is won or lost.
Please feel free to comment and engage with the debate. I'm happy to link to other writers and thinkers and welcome discussion and suggestions for future posts.
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