“Today is a wonderful day” was one of my lines in our village Pantomime. It was not easy to sing with my face painted green and my head poking through a slit in black material in a picture frame. I was the mirror in Snow White. It is not often that reading a newspaper makes me feel cheerful but today does feel like a wonderful day with two really great bits of news in the Observer. It seems the Pope has decided to take a firm stand on Climate Change. I was already planning to go to Paris in December for the talks next year to do my bit. I just hope the Pope can influence our political leaders to take their responsibilities for the future of the planet seriously.
The other really interesting article was on the survey of attitudes of young people from 17 to 25. They are rejecting UKIP and turning to the Green Party. It seems they are not as cynical and disillusioned with politics as is sometimes claimed. When I am asked how I can be an active Green Party member when we have no chance of succeeding, I point out that my granddad was a founder member of the Independent Labour Party before they had any MP’s and my grandma was a suffragette. They must have seemed like idealists to many around them. My granddad never became cynical and he was an idealist until he died at 93. I hope I can say the same.
The younger people who grew up and had their ideas formed during the Thatcher era came to view those of us who were young in the sixties as selfish. We weren’t. We believed we could change the world for the better and set about trying to do so. Thatcher’s children seem to be the group in the middle who are totally disengaged from politics although I’m sure that wasn’t her aim. As a young person I wanted to make the world a better place. I marched and I engaged through my work although I did not get involved with formal politics. At times I am ashamed to say I didn’t vote because there was no party which adequately represented my views. That is one of the reasons I stand for election even when I know my chances of election are minimal. I want to make sure there is a good choice for people who have similar views to me.
When I was at LSE I was the butt of much teasing when I suggested that it might be possible to have a democracy where everyone could vote on every issue. I imagined some sort of electronic system. It was pre internet days and computers had to be housed in large rooms. I wasn’t visionary as far as the technology was concerned but I did not see why people’s views needed to be channelled through the party political system that we have in this country. “Sandy’s theory of democracy” was a great joke amongst my chums for a while. I think about that when I click on to 38 degrees or Avaaz and sign petitions to distant leaders. The Observer survey results tell me that young people are engaging directly using the technology they have available. Those of us who still have some belief that we can change our formal democracy for the better need to persuade them to use the old fashioned ballot box as well as the internet. I hope the young people surveyed today feel that they have the potential to change the world and that they will use all the means that are available.