Hung Parliament Drama...
Here's what I don't understand.Three parties put together well thought through policies on which they hope to build their government. Insufficient seats for a majority leads to two of those parties to negotiate what they once felt were non-negotiable, now together they look for areas of compromise for the national interest.
I am trying to get my head around what this says about what was expressed in their manifestos in the first place, which were surely written in the national interest - weren't they? Perhaps compromise is compromise is compromise. Perhaps national interest is a convenient deconstructable concept. Much can be learned from Jeremy Thorpe and his refusal to sell out - time will tell!
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But then maybe it is party interest and public interest that is deconstructable.
In the wake of this hung parliament, with the ongoing meetings to create government and the protests being staged about electoral reform; perhaps for the first time we are seeing national interest being constructed.
Just a thought...
and they learn and grow in mutual understanding and wisdom through the process?
Is this what we need them to do?
transformational outcome would be great - but in essence they are leagues apart. I still think it will be more of a compromise in order to get the keys to number 10, or in the lib dems case the promise of PR. Anything less would be a selling of their souls :o)
I'm thinking that transformational outcome can only come out of selflessness not agenda however well disguised.
And yet for all this talk, their walk is different. In the house they bicker, capitalise on others' mistakes, make themselves look bigger and the others smaller. And this is across the parties.
We bemoan footballers and rock stars being bad role models but would we rather the politicians were the ones this generation looked up to?
I sincerely hope that this might be a new era in politics, even if it is a slow and bumpy start, and I greet it with excitement and anticipation.
And yet, as a glimmer of hope emerges, all around the vultures ready to pounce. "The Tories are for the rich", "The Lib Dems have lied and turned on their supporters".
Maybe it's a British thing where we celebrate losers and don't want people to do well. Maybe it's the human condition that we want to doubt others even when they seem to want to try something better. Either way, I think as Christians we have to live differently and trust those that no-one else will trust, have hope where it all seems a bit hopeless, and love those that seem unlovable. Even the Conservatives.