By Meri O’Connell
British politics has become a joke with no punchline and the actions that need to be taken to stabilise the country and reduce people’s increasing fear for the future are being shelved while the Tories engage in acts of national self-harm nightly on our television screens.
Our detached representatives in Westminster are ignoring the harsh realities affecting people living in Reading.
The Labour party can and will sit back smugly with their huge poll lead knowing that they don’t need to offer solutions – they just need to not be the Tories.
And so the cycle of British politics continues.
I’m fed up with the same two underwhelming parties batting the ball of governances between each other, whilst those of us who are involved in local politics find our hands tied by their incompetence and our reputations with the public tarnished by their poor behaviour.
I want to remind residents that not all politicians are the same.
Local politicians are ordinary residents who become active in politics because they want to improve things in their local area. There’s very little money and no glamour involved.
Most councillors I know, regardless of party, just want to make the local services we all need and use work well, things like; social care; bin collections; play areas and parks; streetlights – and, of course, dealing with potholes.
When I was elected in 2012, it was great getting things done in my little patch of the town, but now it takes longer for responses from overstretched officers and increasingly we are told that there isn’t the money or the staff to get things done.
I’ve watched the funds available get smaller and smaller, whilst the need from residents grows larger and larger – and the Conservative government is too busy waging war with itself to care.
Here in Reading, people are worried about the rising cost of food, heating, petrol, rents and mortgages.
People want to know how they can get a home in the town they grew up in; they want action not flip-flopping over the climate emergency we’re facing; they want public services that are not perpetually on the brink of collapse, and they want their council to be financially able to sort out the local issues they raise.
Westminster needs to sort itself out and refocus on the lives of ordinary people.
We, in local government, have done our best to protect our residents from their mess, but after four Tory Prime Ministers and cabinets that vanish before we can put a name to a face, it’s getting harder to do.
We need mature politics, not playground snipping and bullying. We need a complete overhaul of national politics, a shift towards a more collaborative way of governing where different voices are heard, and we work together in the national interest.
I dream of the heady days as a local councillor when we can get back to everyday things, like fixing the potholes.
Cllr Meri O’Connell is the leader of Reading Liberal Democrats and ward councillor for Tilehurst
