For the Cool Conservative it is a no-brainer to embrace Canary Wharf and dump Clacton. We have been told by a fashionable, metropolitan Conservative, ex MP, Matthew Parris, writing in The Times, that Canary Wharf should be the future for Conservatives, and Clacton can be abandoned to Ukip because it is going nowhere. This is obviously a callous betrayal of many good, honest people, for nothing better than arrogant fashion and to ‘be where the money is’.
Clacton, and many other places in our country, could teach Tory Toffs and Cool Conservatives a few lessons about real life, compared with cosseted comfort. Clacton is part of the backbone of the nation, people, who do, or if now retired, did the jobs that make this country tick. Unexciting jobs, all winds and weathers jobs, good times and bad times jobs. This isn’t glamorous or cool stuff, this is in with the dirt and grime stuff. This is to be celebrated and supported, not despised and ignored.
This country was built, not by an elite in a financial centre, but by the hard work of people doing many different jobs, often far from comfortable or pleasant jobs, in conditions that were far from perfect. Yet this seems to have been forgotten or misunderstood by the ruling establishment in their quest for ‘cool’ modernity. Forgotten also is that they need us, for their world and the country to function, as it always has. Prosperity and improved quality of life for everyone are built by the many doing what they do well, not by a highly paid few working in finance.
When cool politicians pose for their dreary photo-opportunities in factories, building sites or amongst us, the people, they look both uncomfortable and out of place. This is understandable because it lies outside their experience and now, thanks to Mr Parris, we know that their thoughts and natural constituencies are elsewhere, amongst an elite world that few from our more mundane existence will ever be allowed to enter.
So if a politician cannot relate to people, how can he or she actually serve them? How can he or she understand our dreams or aspirations, fears, problems and lives? And so, the Clactons get sent to the political scrapheap denied effort and investment; their small businesses sacrificed to big business and red tape; their unemployed left to dependency; their dreams left to wither; their public services left to struggle on; their patient loyalty left unacknowledged. It is a story we see far too often in our country as the political class play at being ‘cool’, modern, hip and part of a Euro-elite.
Well we do know someone who is different, who understands, reaches out to people and knows something about real life; Douglas Carswell who will give the people a voice they have not had for many years.
It could be a great partnership: an MP who really cares with the people of Clacton, and brings to mind GK Chesterton’s words, in the Secret People:
Smile at us, pay us, pass us, but do not quite forget,
For we are the people of England, who never have spoken yet
I was electioneering in Clacton last week, down from the North East in the UKIP minibus. On the doorstep many people were for Douglas Carswell, UKIP, or both. I felt indignant on their behalf about Parris’s snooty remarks; I’m sure he’d spout the same couldn’t-care-less sentiments about my own seaside town. But I’m also sure he’s helped the UKIP cause in his patronising elitist way. At the Campaign office I met supporters from different parts of the country including an Italian couple who had moved to Britain to ‘escape the Eurozone’ and because it is a free country. I thanked them for helping to make it freer still.
Great quote from G K Chesterton – although I find the mood of people like us, up and down the country, resembling closer and closer the mood described in Kiplings ‘The Beginnings’, especially now, in the wake of the Rotherham scandal.
I had to Google it, so here it is for the benefit of other cultural philistines like myself:
It was not part of their blood,
It came to them very late
With long arrears to make good,
When the English began to hate.
They were not easily moved,
They were icy-willing to wait
Till every count should be proved,
Ere the English began to hate.
Their voices were even and low,
Their eyes were level and straight.
There was neither sign nor show,
When the English began to hate.
It was not preached to the crowd,
It was not taught by the State.
No man spoke it aloud,
When the English began to hate.
It was not suddenly bred,
It will not swiftly abate,
Through the chill years ahead,
When Time shall count from the date
That the English began to hate.
It takes a long time, and a lot of abuse, to get the English moving. We did it in 1914 and 1939 with an external enemy, but in 1381 and 1649 the English rose against the iniquities of their own rulers. Is the same happening now?
Sorry – I assumed this poem was well known, so I didn’t quote it.
I have indeed the impression this is happening now, having started slowly, and it’s certainly connected to the rise of UKIP.
I think the groundswell from Rotherham is still rising, and will certainly not abate swiftly.
The nation is now totally fixated on September 18, and this will add to the groundswell, no matter the result, thanks to the way the establishment party leaders have beclowned themselves these past few days.
For me, Kipling’s poem could well be prophetic.