An Open Letter To Lorely Burt MP

I was lonely, so I emailed this shit to Lorely Burt, Lib Dem MP for Solihull...

Lorely Burt, the MP for Solihull, has received around 800 emails since the [Conservative-Lib Dem] coalition deal was struck. Of these, around two-thirds have been negative, with some activists claiming they have been betrayed by the party. "I have been very busy, and am trying to reply to everyone. I have been sending emails back saying 'Look, this is grown-up politics here.'"

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/may/15/liberal-democrats-grassroots-members


Mrs Burt

First things first, I should tell you that I'm not one of your constituents. But then, given the apparent contempt with which you regard them, I'm pretty happy about that.

Have you ever been a headteacher? You should be. You'd be good at it. Unfortunately - d'oh! - you've gone into politics. Different game, my friend. Different game entirely.

I'm sure you have your own take on your role as a Member of Parliament. Perhaps you see yourself as One Who Knows Best, looking down on your constituents as a parent looks upon an infant, variously indulging or refusing their selfish, perhaps unreasonable demands. In which case, it may surprise you to learn that they see you quite differently. Rather, they see you as One Of Them - a lowly member of the great unwashed (oh, I know!) plucked from a cold, bedraggled mass of human meat to represent them in parliament.

But however childish or infuriatingly negative it may be, this majority of the Lib Dem activists and disillusioned voters who have troubled to share with you their feelings, however silly and idealistic, it's probably unfair to dismiss it out of hand, however stupid it may seem to you, you so deeply embroiled in your frightening world of "grown-up politics", you at the vanguard of this thrilling adventure into the New Politics, you brave, thrusting hero, you!

Don't dismiss them, please. Because however filthy, ignorant and lazy they may seem to you, I feel qualified to tell you, as one of them, they're not.

They're not actually dumb automatons, shuffling blankly towards death, hooked up to a steady, numbing IV drip drip drip of terrible reality TV and pure chicken fat. No. Such people wouldn't be writing to you in the first place. In fact, I don't think they even vote.

Instead, the people responsible for those two negative thirds (that's two thirds) of your correspondence in the days following your party's decision to align itself with the Conservatives are quite the opposite. They are grown-ups. They're intelligent, passionate people who've taken it upon themselves, on a purely voluntary basis, at their own expense, to actively participate in our travesty of a democracy. You know, like we're supposed to, yet so few do.

Moreover, them being - or having been - Liberal Democrat supporters (usually a left-leaning and, well, liberal crowd, in case you didn't know), I think it's safe to assume that they don't feel best represented by this coalition government that you and the rest of your party have helped bring into being, dominated as it is by the Conservatives, a party that many of us have come to regard in our lifetimes as a party chiefly consisting and acting on behalf of greedy sociopaths. A party which consists primarily of rich white men, and exists primarily to protect the interests of rich white men.

Oh dear.

I fear I've slipped into that very same immature, idealistic rhetoric for which you so aristocratically chide the scumbags who elected you to office. But, you know, I have feelings. Ideals. I, too, helped elect a Liberal Democrat MP to office, only to see my precious vote used to put a man into No 10 that I was actively trying to keep out of No 10, and now I - like your correspondents - feel betrayed.

Maybe it's a luxury I enjoy as a mere voter, that I get to feel betrayed, a luxury you don't have. I don't really care. If that is the case, it's a luxury you chose to forgo. Don't blame me and others like me for clinging to it.

So by all means, you ascend to your elevated stage of human development, your impressive, grubby cloud of realpolitik. We'll stay down here, in the mud, with our ideals. And never the twain shall meet. You're lost to us now, possibly destined to be absorbed into the Tory ranks as so many have before you. Or not. Who knows? Who cares? It's a two-party system again. Well done.

But please remember this: the next time one of your constituents takes the time and effort to address you with their concerns, however naive: please, in future, refrain from responding in such a condescending manner. It really isn't becoming.

Take them seriously. It's your job.


Cheers!

Buzz