The (in)complete thoughts of Alex Bottrill… inspired by Josie Long. Part II

Twitter invites, by its nature, a right to reply. I make absolutely no apologies for wanting to challenge the comments that Josie made, not purely out of disagreement, but out of wanting to grow and cause growth. I want to be shaped and I want my thoughts to be able to shape others, and I agree with something Josie went on to say in her show which was more or less that she wants people her (our) age to engage with politics and not be passive. That is why we spoke in the first place, that is why I went to see her and that is why I am blogging now.

Meanwhile… I turned up to the gig at the comedy box in Bristol, really red faced. This was not because of fear of discovery though. Instead, it was partly because I had played footy earlier and partly because the heating in my car is broken; Its broken stuck on full heat. The room was packed. There were a couple of acts before a break, followed by Josie’s bit, entitled ‘Be Honourable’. The other acts were good too, but I just wanted to hear Josie and I wanted her to make sense to me.

Josie called the Tories ‘Cunts’ to a rousing cheer. I knew it was coming; it was only a matter of time! One thing that she also did, which would have been quite impossible through the medium of Twitter, is to let us into her heart. This is the reason why I came and this is what I wanted to hear. You could sense her emotion and conviction at what she believed. This spoke more than the words themselves and was highly persuasive.

The cuts that George Osborne announced are dramatic. To the wealthy, they are noticeable but to the poor they are really painful. No one I have spoken to or read the work of is pretending that they aren’t. The anger and passion for which Josie slated the cuts and their effects was refreshing, it engaged with me in a way that took me back to how I felt during my experiences of the USA.

I was lucky to be able to study in Chicago for a year and, being in the States as another English speaking country, meant that picking up on the culture, politics and state of society was relatively easy compared with elsewhere. One issue with writing about political themes within the US is that things can vary greatly from state to state, and even from city to city. In Chicago however, I was horrified by some of the inequalities engrained in the school system. The funding for public schools is linked to property taxes based on the value of those dwellings within the same school district as that school. Redistribution of funding for education within the city is not a function of the system, although there have been one or two initiatives at a federal level, for example the 2001 “No Child Left Behind Act”. Despite that, generally, if a child lives in a poor area, attending a school funded by those property taxes, their education will be severely limited.

I have views about fairness and equality that might clash with those of socialists and I’ll come to them and attempt to justify them at some point in this series, but fundamentally, I have great conviction that the opportunities that young people have from the very start will determine their ability to break out of social and economic limits. The form of Conservatism I encountered in the US actually sent a chill up my spine, I didn’t know how to react when hearing the more affluent peoples in a highly polarised country saying “why should I pay for their kids…”. Having had time to think, my answer to that now is: Because they are kids and they are born innocent. That is why we should all pay for each other’s children. There is a Nigerian proverb “Ora na azu nwa”. Translated as: “It takes a village to raise a child.” Anything else is selfish.

So I have just had a dig at the Conservatives abroad, whose policies are somewhat mirrored in the UK, although to a far less extreme degree, but I cannot ignore the reckless policy making of Labour that is probably well-meaning but wrong. How can a whole village raise a child in the UK when Labour have brought in measures to enforce ‘involved villagers’ to have criminal records checks regardless of how trusted they are by the parents. Of course, those who wrote the bill will argue that it is for the child’s protection, but this assumes that we are all guilty of abuse, and, perhaps more damagingly, can prevent children getting the best out of society; individuals will be cautious to get involved in an overly-suspicious society. There has, gladly been something of a U-turn on this matter, but the fact is that even in centre-right-poverty, there is at least the freedom to decide who is safe to look after a child and the freedom to be ‘socialist’ in childcare.

My stance on politics continuously weighs up the over-stratified yet ‘laissez-faire’ – personal freedom Conservative perspective against the draconian yet equalitarian socialist perspective and says: why can’t there be another way?

I apologise for this not being more of an academic or scientific essay, it is reasoned through personal experiences with quotes thrown in to suit. Hopefully it still serves to communicate my stance and it would be even better if it justified it!

To be continued…