Politicians and school dinners
Politicians, School Dinners and Bureaucrats -
Word association: if I say to you any of the following words - Politicians, School Dinners and Bureaucrats ? I can be fairly certain about the sort of words you?d respond with, Surprisingly (in the case of school dinners), they have all been highlighted in the election campaign. Politicians, (they can?t be trusted), school dinners (noone likes them) and bureaucrats (they?re a waste of money).
But, as the environmentalists advise us, let?s be careful about what we are throwing away, and who we are rubbishing.
School dinners are easily dealt with, thanks to the imagination and commitment of Jamie Oliver and his one man crusade. That leaves politicians and bureaucrats.
The politicians (they can never be trusted) tell us that huge savings can be made by cutting back on bureaucrats, and they (who can never be trusted) say this because they know what we think of bureaucrats (that they?re a waste of money). But what do bureaucrats make of this when they hear or read this? Haven?t many of them spent their working lives managing and administering to make things happen? Haven?t many of them undertaken extra training to help them improve their performance. We have a bureaucracy in our parish life. It keeps the accounts and manages the processes and we couldn?t do without it. I?m sorry but I can?t allow the rubbishing of bureaucrats when they are facilitating the work of a hospital or managing my case as it goes through the courts.
Which brings us back to politicians. A member of the audience of Newsnight came out with the cliché ? ?you can?t trust politicians? ? at which David Blunkett put his head in his hands ready to tear his hair out. ?I and many others have given my life to politics? was what I think he replied. Surely we can give him and the vast majority of politicians the benefit of the doubt and acknowledge that there has to be a grain of truth in what he said. You?d have to be very cynical to suggest that all politicians are self-serving. What we have seen over the weeks is commitments from our politicians. Commitments to what we as a society hold dear, including education, health care, international development, economic prosperity etc etc. (We like to express these commitments as ?promises? so that we can turn round and say ?you can never trust politicians because they never keep their promises!?)
There are political figures we greatly admire (St Nelson Mandela) and there are political efforts which have brought justice and liberation. We can?t throw our politicians away or rubbish politics. Instead we should make the best of our politicians, politics and their principles.
When it comes to voting we will use X as an expression of our vote. The X can be a sign of commitment ? like the cross of St Andrew thorough which we remember his loyalty to Jesus and his martyrdom. It can be an expression of our personal commitment to the principles and proposals of the party we choose. It can be an expression of trust in our politicians? commitment to us and to those who have been wronged and who need those wrongs correcting politically. Christians are used to regarding the cross as the basis of a covenant relationship. If voters and candidates could see the X as the basis of a covenant relationship between them then we will have taken great strides to making the best of politics and politicians.
David Herbert