Politics is life

(apology for some of the explicit language used)

I found it strange when people do not vote, or worse when people say “I do not like politics”, “I do not get involved in politics”. I always ask: who controls the air your breathe? Politicians, they set what acceptable pollution levels are, what emissions can be released into the air, what forests (trees give us oxygenJ ) can be cut, expanded or protected. Who controls the water you drink, the food you eat, your mortgage, your wages, your pension, your health and access to health service? It is politicians, and if you do not care about that, then why are you alive!

 

Politics is like an arranged marriage that we all get into without knowing, and we never consent to politicians to fuck us, and they do. Politics is boring, and politicians do their best to make sure it is so. They want you to see it depressing, boring and hard to understand, so you can sign the dotted line without giving it too much thought, because they are happy to do the boring stuff while you can get on with your life, enjoy all the freedoms you have, which they control.

 

 

There is a very good reason why the contract on the App store is six zillion pages long so you do not read it, just sign. This does not mean that Google or Apple will sell your kidneys, but it means you do not fully understand what rights or freedoms you have forfeited. Same with elections, you vote for a candidate, who represents a party, you think you know who you elected, but you have no control or power over what they do in the future. Sounds depressing and most certainly it is, that’s why your interest in politics should not only be restricted to one occasion every 5 years (or thanks to Cameron, May and Jonson every few months). It is an ongoing process, a never finished business, like life, because it affects, no, it controls your life, my life, our lives.

 

The national debt has grown from 1.03 trillion in 2010 to 1.8 trillion in 2019. Your share (and every British citizen) has gone from £16411 in 2010 to  £26599 today. You have incurred 10 thousand pounds in debt (or 50K for a family of five like mine) during the Tory/ coalition government.  Do you feel the benefit of it? Do you feel your life has improved by that sum? If no, then why you allow your debt to increase by that much with no actual benefits? Who benefited if not you, your family or your community? And why are you silent about it? this is an example of many, to prove that no matter how boring you think politics is, its impact on us is massive.

 

Many people say: they are all the same, and to an extent that is right. Illegal wars, tax breaks to banks and billionaires, cosy relationship with the media on one hand and underfunding of our infrastructure, housing and education on the other. But still there is a difference, and if I may be explicit here, but it is like being sodomised or fucked, neither are good, but one is less worse than the other.

 

So, vote, if not because of conviction then out of duty. If not fully in love with the manifesto and the party, then tactically. Speak to your MP, write to them, do everything you can to be a headache to them, a pain in the back, so every time they vote for a legislation that affects you, and most things do, they know that they have to answer to you, they have to justify to you why they voted the way they did, and hopefully then we will have MPs who actually and truly work for us.


Ahmad Baker 24.11.2019