Another email drops into the inbox of The Voice from A Liberal Democrat Organiser Who Wishes To Remain Anonymous. You can catch up with the cheeky chappy’s earlier offerings by clicking here.
The phone rings, as it has a habit of doing when I have my hand wedged deep inside the stuffing machine to retrieve a mangled envelope. I snatch it up, and a voice at the other end says, “Hello, is that the Liberal Democrats?”
“Yes,” I say, personifying the entire party for a moment.
“I’ve got something I want to talk to you about. I think your stance on Gaza is disgusting…”
He continues in this vein for quite a while, enumerating all the things that he doesn’t like about us and asking what I, personally, am going to do about it. Along the way I learn that I am responsible not only for rising knife crime but also the culture of managerialism in the public sector. I suspect he is a little confused by my cheery tone, but it’s not every day I get told that I’m practically omnipotent.
Eventually I get bored of being a deity, and pause his rant by talking in a constant reasonable tone about how important individual action is and exploring the tropes of liberalism. I find that people who rant are generally confused and strangely satisfied if you respond at a tangent to what they’re talking about, as it nearly sounds like you’re going to do something about it. He finally hangs up after I explain that I, as his appointed messiah, don’t approve of managerialism either.
I am, as you might guess, rather used to people calling up and ranting at me now. My days are often full of mad people who’ve seen our office number on a leaflet and want to let off steam. It’s almost a public service. I’ve perfected my outrage to the point where sometimes people ringing in with casework apologise for taking up my time.
Sometimes the outrage is genuine, but it’s rarely directed at the casework itself. A frequent caller (sometimes in person too) is an elderly Irish chap who’s having problems with his wife tripping on paving slabs. I’d reported this to the relevant councillor several times, but nothing had been done. After the gentleman turned up on the day of an election and harangued me for half an hour about the pavement, I finally confronted the councillor about it. The councillor rather impishly replied, “Well, I’m afraid to talk to him. He’s got connections in the Irish mafia.”
People talk about politicians not being in touch with the people, but I rather suspect it’s more about the sort of people who politicians are actually in touch with. It either drives them partially mad themselves, or inflates their ego to the point where, as one former councillor did to a colleague in an adjoining ward, they ask, “Can you do this casework for me? I don’t like talking to poor people.”
So, I beg of you. If you want to make a difference (and you’re normal), go up to your local councillor/MP for a nice chat. You’ll help convince them that not all of the public are actively insane and out to get them, and that politicians aren’t the only (nearly) sane people in the world.
8 Comments
Your branch must be bloody rolling in it! You have an OFFICE! And a STUFFING MACHINE! Bloody luxury! Our “office” is one of our activist’s houses, and we stuff envelopes the old fashioned way, with our poor, bleeding stumps of fingers.
My favourite was the voter who rang up just before midnight early in one campaign to ask whether our candidate Tracey was a real person or not.
I explained that inventing people to stand was probably illegal.
Though on other occasions I have wondered if it might be a good idea …
My favourite -
“Good evening, I’m Councillor Gwyn … etc etc … giving people the chance to raise concerns … any questions or suggestions … etc etc”
“Yes. There’s something very important I want to raise about the Council’s policy. If it doesn’t change its approach it’s going to be the END of ….
…… country & western music in this town”
Autumn 2007 I got a call from a very enthusiastic person who wanted to get involved, having dropped out for ages, but had been fired up once more by our boy giving his great speech ‘yesterday’. Which struck me as slightly odd, a week after conference, but hey.
It was about five minutes before I realised that he thought he’d called my Tory opposite number (which probably would have ocurred to me sooner had I not answered the phone with ‘constituency Liberal Democrats….’).
I’m hoping he got annoyed with the local Tories once more, since they never sent him the membership paperwork he wanted…..
One councillor told me of the most dramatic beginning he had to one of his surgeries.
Couple come in, sit down, look around nervously before beginning, “I hope you can help us Councillor because, you see, it was our sons what did the murder”.
(actually fairly mundane and reasonable request to be rehoused)
20 years old canvass, but not forgotten:
“So, what you going to do for the cwiminals then?”
“Well, we want to put more bobbies on the beat, blah blah etc….”
“Yeah but, what you going to do for the CWIMINALS?”
I once worked really hard to find a young mother in supported accommodation a council home. About a month afterwards her mum rang up and asked me to find her another home because this one was apparently haunted by the ghosts of some members of a particularly troublesome family who live on the estate and were killed in a car crash. I told her that I had enough trouble dealing with the living members of said family and offered my sympathy that the housing ALMO were not taking the request to move seriously.
Your branch must be bloody rolling in it! You have an OFFICE! And a STUFFING MACHINE! Bloody luxury!
Me, I know a helpful printer who charges cost + £2; Printer does the folding and I drive it to the Royal Mail Sorting Office who deliver it Bulk unaddressed. I focus the whole consituency for £3k. Saves so much work!
We have no office.