The role of the Political Albatross

 

The UK has had an election, but you can find out about that everywhere else on the net. Instead of adding to the pile of discourse, I am once again ignoring SEO 101 by choosing to write about something only tangentially related to the battle for Number 10, the career politician as a phenomenon.

This has been a topic I've wanted to discuss for some time, but never found the right foothold. I still haven't, but thanks to someone else's hard work, I don't have to. A friend of mine showed me a website (https://www.corbyn41years.com/) made to support former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn's bid to stay a Member of Parliament without the backing of his former party. I must stress that I do not know who made this website nor if they have any connection to said campaign, my friend saw it on social media and the interactive map function seems to be broken, it won't let me scroll down to where the authorship information usually is. I am assuming that it was made by a volunteer supporter, but I do not know for sure. Regardless, whoever made this site has my thanks, your list has created a clear foundation to work from. Or at least you would've done had it worked properly*, I'm finding this snapping back really annoying and time-consuming.

The map of Islington North has 26 stops on it. I'm not going to go through all of them, some of them are similar enough that that'd be redundant.

1. Number 5 on the list: "Jeremy's first ever constituency surgery was held at the old Red Rose Centre on Seven Sisters Road in 1983. In the 41 years since then, he has been re-elected X times and has done his utmost to serve constituents and help those in need".
2. Number 6: "In 2015, Jeremy secured the funding for the train line that means you can hop on at Upper Holloway and go to Gospel Oak, or all the way to Barking".
3. Number 7. "Unveiled a state [sic] of Philip Noel-Baker in the Peace Garden, Elthorne Park".
4. Number 8: "After turning a disused railway line into Gilliespie Park, we fought off efforts to close it".
5. Number 15: "Last year, Jeremy stopped plans to close down multiple railway ticket offices.
   
6. Number16: "Jeremy is proud to have joined workers on the picket line fighting to protect their pay and save our public services!"

I could go on, but these are enough to illustrate my concerns. This is a standard CV for a long time MP, especially Number 5, constituency surgeries are a requirement of the job, they're how constituents get in touch with their MPs and petition for help. Holding them is not an achievement for an incumbent. But moving on to the other points above, what this is doing is magnifying the importance of an individual in processes that involve many actors. For example Number 6, I know that Corbyn is a supporter of public transportation, so I don't doubt that he was in favour of keeping the line, but the London overground including Upper Holloway is run by Transport for London, which is part of the Greater London Authority, and MP even one from the governing party (which Corbyn wasn't) has no say on their decisions. The best he could do is support a community campaign.

The statue unveiling in Number 7 is nice but unless Corbyn funded its commission unveiling just means that he was invited to preform a ceremonial role. Number 8 reads like placeholder text, but I've chosen to include it, as I think it's letting slip the truth. The we in that description indicates that instead of "Jeremy" the Titan keeping the park open it was the work of many within the Islington community and which Corbyn played a role. 

Number 15 is what we call a lie. Corbyn did not stop the Tories proposed mass ticket office closures, no individual did, the credit for that should go to a massive nationwide effort involving the rail workers Unions, disability and elderly advocacy groups, large sections of the wider public and the pressure from many MPs including Corbyn, Labour and even a number of back bench Tories who saw the massive groundswell of support for the opposition and panicked. I honestly hope that the Corbyn campaign team had nothing to do with this website, because the gall of taking credit for initiatives like this is sickening.

Number 16, this is far more honest, Corbyn has attended a number of pickets to show his support. But again the praise should go to the picketers, surely?

This is the fundamental problem with career politicians, all of them, regardless of personality or political stances. Their very existence requires them to latch onto wider movements and activism. Their very presence obscures the reality that changes come from below. Hostility and apathy towards politicians is at an all-time high in the UK, but much of it misses the mark by focussing on the perception real or not (but mostly real) that "They" are just cynical creatures out for themselves, we see through Corbyn that even the sincere politicians suck away oxygen. Whoever made this website must be a local resident of Islington and genuinely have wished for Corbyn to keep his seat, but even they have been affected and given power and prominence to a man who at best aided initiatives whose driving forces were in the community and the work force. 

It's a form great man of history in the present day. Don't develop your own capabilities, trust in the chosen few to solve our problems. If we must take action then let us knock on doors at election time, donate to the fund for leaflets, spend our time making websites, all in the service of empowering someone else and given them access to a slither of power so that we trust that they will act on our behalf when the time comes. 

It's just sad.

*In the interest of fairness, my own old blog can creak and break when Google remember to update it.