There has been a breakdown in our democracy. it started a long time ago when Tony Blair lied to us about the reasons to go to war in Iraq and it has gradually got worse. It is not every politician's fault but there are a number who have really let us down and it goes across parties with expenses scandals, sexual assault allegations and then a failure to listen to residents and respond on their behalf. I would never betray the trust people put in me as an elected representative and I cannot imagine anything more embarrassing or awful than to do something which breaches the position I am put into as a politician.
We have so much to be proud of a nation and we need to end the deterioration of our reputation internationally by getting back to being respected democratic leaders who behave seriously and morally. I think it should be made easier to remove an MP if they have let down local residents and it should be clear that proven misconduct means they step aside. We need to take a no tolerance to sleaze approach.
Politician also need to be very clear about who they are and their values through their election campaign. Voters should be in no doubt about who they are getting and what that person will do for them. It used to be that people simply voted for the party colour and of course that is important if you want to know their ideology generally but there needs to be more scrutiny of candidates before election. I am addressing this with a series of video content and articles which set out my views and plans on all of the key issues. I would keep doing this if elected as well as holding regular in-person and Zoom meetings with residents to discuss those key issues.
Elected politicians should hold regular surgeries and be open to meeting resident groups and businesses throughout their term. A proven failure to do this should lead to them not being reselected to stand for election.
I will come back to this issue but just as a final point for now it is vital we get rid of misinformation and frankly lies. People who put clear lies or misinformation into election literature or meetings to deliberately mislead voters should be held accountable. We can all disagree on issues, tell a story in a different way but anything meaningfully incorrect must be taken very seriously. We live in a world where we are struggling to find truth with social media and 'experts' on every platform and we need politicians to try to avoid deliberately misleading us.
