Safe Seats For Career Politicians?
Sometimes I think we are all a bit naive when we give our votes to a local politician. We are naive to expect that our vote will go to a politician that will work hard to represent our wishes and needs. I am sure that we need to take a new look at what representative democracy really means in the light of career politicians. It seems that most careerists will look for a ”safe seat”. Why? To further their career that is why.
Recently in the UK we learnt of a young woman standing for election in Liverpool. She was, quite rightly, asked to do a few radio and TV interviews before the election. This was to be done in Liverpool and for Liverpool people. The simple idea was that local people would have a fair chance to ask questions and to get some answers.
Then the truth came out. This woman knew little or nothing about Liverpool and cared little or nothing about the local folk that would be asked to vote for her in the election. For example, she was asked for her opinion on the ”Spirit of Shankly” and she failed to give a reply. She had no idea what the question was about. Now people in Mongolia or Madagaskar would not be expected to know much about Bill Shankly or Liverpool football club. Even those from London might be forgiven for such ignorance. But in Liverpool this is quite some failure. The woman was quickly found out by the local folk to be a bit of a fraud and a career politician.
What a mess. The question was a good one and an important one for local politics. It asked for opinions on global issues and included American investors and their involvement in pumping up big debts for Liverpool football club in order to make private profits. Alas, the career politician could not answer any of the local questions that related to local issues.
Sometimes I wonder about some of our career politicians in Finland and especially in northern Finland. Can we really elect career politicians under the name of our representative democracy? Can our MEPs really be working as hard as possible for the benefit of those voters that voted them into power?
We will remember all the talk and reporting about a certain Pia-Noora Kauppi. She was reported as using her MEP status to further her own career as a lobby-merchant for certain banking groups. These reports were rather hard in their claims but, according to many, those claims seemed to have merit. You may think so too but, for me, I can hardly comment. In fact I have never met the woman. I have only read the reports.
Anyway my vote is here in the north of Finland. It is to northern politicians that I look towards when asking these types of questions. I try to find out which of our elected politicians from the northern areas actually represent us.
I am in the process of trying to evaluate our votes and voted officials. So far I have not found this an easy task. But I am going to keep on trying. It will not be too long before we are all asked to vote again.
Before I can trust I need to verify. Before I vote next time I need to know the facts.
If there is anyone out there who can help I would be grateful. Just explain clearly what our elected politicians have actually done to represent us in the north. Please write in. Help me.
Steve Bowles
