Meeting a Politician

Photo from MP Helen Morgan’s website

Last week our MP Helen Morgan came to the local village hall for an hour to meet with constituents.

Her predecessor occasionally met with constituents one on one for about 15 minutes apiece. I met with him. He made the usual noises and sent the usual follow-up letter expressing interest, especially after realizing what I used to do for a living, but that’s as far as anything went. Instead of a minor personal complaint to ask for help with, I brought him something to address the UK’s chronically low productivity, something that would produce returns an order of magnitude greater than costs. He could have made political hay with it. I made some effort to push it, but got the cold shoulder. Eventually he was forced out of Parliament for what you could politely call double dipping. He still doesn’t understand he was forced out in disgrace.

From news and social media it seems Helen Morgan is everywhere, interested in everything and trying to find ways to get things done. I voted for her. One of her campaign pieces was the single best campaign item I’ve ever seen in either of my countries. I wanted to see how she comes across in person.

Earnest, sincere, genuinely interested, immensely patient and rather tired. That’s how she came across. A little over 30 people from the village attended. The room was stuffy until someone thought to open a door and let the breeze blow through.

She took a few minutes to tell us what she had chosen as her primary issues to push in Parliament, why, and what she has done about them so far. Then she took questions. She paid close attention throughout, no matter how mundane the topic or how long people wanted to talk it to death.

Only once did any hint of a pushback show up. It had to do with the way people park and clog the roads around the school when picking up kids at the end of the day, and the way some people drive through there without slowing enough when it’s so busy. The school has an ample parking area that could be used instead. She and one of her case workers described another school with a similar problem where the community solved it themselves, establishing social norms. She was careful to repeat that she will discuss it with our local Council, but they are slow and the other school’s example shows that it can be quicker and simpler to solve it as a community. She was gentle about putting the example out there.

She has hardly any budget to work with. That won’t change precisely because her ethics are the opposite of her predecessor’s. She isn’t intent upon milking the system for herself. A couple of times the contrast with her predecessor got mentioned, although in very British understated fashion and without saying his name.

As you might expect, I wore my FFP3 face mask. Nobody else did. After the meeting, I wrote to her office suggesting that they take a couple of HEPA filters to each meeting on her Summer Tour of the constituency. She’s the type of politician we want. We need to keep her intact.

The meeting was completely dominated by long agitated discussions about street lights, parking, speeding cars, low water pressure, new housing developments and so on. I didn’t speak up. I would have wanted to discuss larger topics which don’t touch emotional buttons for most of the village. I filled in a contact form with my bits of input and an offer to discuss something I can provide which is worth more than what I took to her predecessor. She may be the right person to make good things happen with it.

Politics happens whenever humans get together in a group for one reason or another. It’s how we make decisions and get something done as a group. Nothing beneficial for anyone will happen if all I do about politics is sit back and complain about the way it’s going. So over the years I’ve met with various local Council people, here and elsewhere in the UK, and I met my MP. The previous MP had little interest in uplifting the constituency. This one actually cares. Let’s see whether we can put something good in motion.