Peoples Republic of South Devon

The Smaller Things of Politics

June 21st, 2008

posted by Jess Sains

There has been considerable strife over the last few months,as we live in a mainly rural community with many older people in its demographic, about the closure of post offices. Now the Royal Mail has announced which offices will be closing in Devon, the strife is reaching fever pitch in some areas.

The new ‘mobile’ units will not save much money, they say. The community will be destroyed in my village, they cry. I have to get three uses and cross a deadly 60 mile per-hour limit road in order to get my pension, they bleat. Now, I could say this is what comes of making things that are essentially state business in to businesses, but that is not the question I am posing this week; the thing I am interested in is the politics of ’smaller’ things. The things that people seem to really care about, the things that effect them on a daily basis.

Ireland has caused all kind of trouble in Europe, because the people of the Republic have thrown a spanner in the works b voting ‘no’ to the Lisbon Treaty. Ooops. But, by all accounts this is more because the two camps of ‘yes’ and ‘no’ were split on the issue of abortion and neutrality, rather than European consolidation. Now, this all leads in to European consolidation, I know, because it is about Europe having the power to remove Ireland’s archaic attitudes to abortion (don’t get me started, but I have lived in Ireland for ten years and I am half Irish, so I am allowed an opinion).

So, essentially, the Irish are now thinking like those in the UK. I like European money, just not their interference! Margaret Thatcher saw her party crumble all around her on the question of Europe, she left John Major standing atop the last shaky pieces which eventually fell down, too. Macro-politics, Europe, isn’t it? The big questions: sovereignty, economy, neutrality, rights. The United Kingdom has stood solidly against anyone but us having the final say over any of those things for many years. And yet, with the exception of the Iraq war (when we all thought America was making the decision for us…) we as a people rarely get worked up over the macro-political. We are micro-thinkers, seeing mainly what effects you and yours in the immediate. Petrol prices, strikes, post offices.

And yet, we are still reserved. The French would be out there, with the infamous burning squirrels, whilst we were fussing round signing nicely worded petitions for Gordon Brown.

This is because we are all so divorced from decision making now. The Tories tearing themselves apart gave way to New Labour and they have made government more and more centralised, basically, whilst giving piecemeal offerings of autonomy to Scotland, Wales and the North. We all think the real power still lies in Westminster, which it does. Tony Blair has followed in Thatcher’s footsteps in his own Prime Ministerial leadership, making the office more powerful than ever in British politics. Essentially, giving a little bit of power out to ‘the regions’ and to Europe has been an act Edmund Burke would have approved of; it has meant that by giving away a little power the centralised government has retained more for itself, and looked good in the process.

How can little old me, living in Northern Devon, do anything about what goes on in government? So we sign the petitions and feel like we’ve ‘made our voice heard’ by the powers that be, we don’t vote to show how annoyed we are. And then the powers that be say ‘well, you didn’t vote so you’ve got no right to an opinion’. And so it goes round and round… We, the people, cling to the little things that we feel we can effect, whilst government gets bigger and bigger.

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