Briefing the election candidates
The triumph of a general election is that anything to do with our national life can be discussed. You can talk to candidates about anything – and they will have to at least seem to listen.
The tragedy is that, generally speaking, we don’t. The debates follow the same tramlines. People are not informed. Candidates stay particularly ignorant. manifestos are written in Whitehall. Differences are bashed out of the parties by the BBC.
New Weather is making its own contribution to the general election campaign with four briefings which can bring you up to speed on four crucial issues:
1. Community energy: keeping the lights on sustainably: community energy formatted
2. High streets: how to keep them vibrant: high streets formatted
3. Community land trusts: keeping housing affordable: community land trust policy briefing
4. Co-production: finding more resources for public services: co-production policy briefing
Please pass them on if you think they would be useful to anyone else.
There are some polarised views on this. Firstly, Paul Roberts view is valid, but only in a small nebmur of cases, and the real issue with this minority is that they are practically unemployable. As someone else mentioned, those in touch with reality can clearly see that UC as proposed is a non starter, hence a Tory council voting unanimously for it to be administered by LA’s. All the evidence shows that is far more effectively handled at a local level, as were DWP benefits before some bright spark decided that it would be more effective for someone in Cornwall to talk to a call centre in Leicester about their JSA claim.The people who are suffering, and who should be the ones listened to are the people who are in the vast majority, try and do the right thing, and are frankly s**t on.James from Devon, who posted earlier is a typical example, and I have every sympathy.