Vote. For Real Change..

It’s election time, again. Time to choose our fifth Prime Minister in five years. Maybe I should apply at this rate? When the most hopeful thing I’m looking forward to is the weather, you know it’s a dark time on these islands. As Thursday 4th July approaches, will anything even change? 

Now as most of you know I’m a Windsorian born and raised, a town that has been Conservative since the 1860’s. Growing up, my siblings and I had access to an amazing education, never worrying about our next meal, when I broke my arm I was treated with the greatest care by a functioning national health service, and we moved into an actual house instead of above the Viceroy. My mother managed four difficult pregnancies and my father became a successful businessman and restaurateur. Life was how it should be in one of the richest countries in the world, living the British dream. 

Now that I am past the age where my parents had me, I can’t help but compare, looking at how bad things have gotten since then. 

The Situation 

Four of my friends left the teaching sector this year, which brings the total to 12 since COVID. A few of them are brilliant, passionate and enthusiastic individuals, and the others aren’t that bad. The one thing that resonated with me when they shared their horror stories was how abandoned and hopeless some of the children are, and how much effort and dedication they had to give those kids a decent chance at life. But because of constant exhaustion, burnout and low pay, they have all had to leave the career they were made for. And the children lose out most. 

Over 20 friends and colleagues I know in the NHS have moved to private or abroad. Again their stories should put us all to shame. Having to use black bin bags as PPE during COVID, corpses piled up in the corridors and waiting lists for cancer patients upwards of a whole damn year. This is not a foreign warzone, this is Britain. 200,000 people died. And because of that trauma, constant exhaustion and low pay, they have all had to leave the career they were made for. And the patients lose out most.

I joined the Bar hoping to tackle injustice and give people a fair chance at life, a world where we are all equal, but our legal services are on their knees. Nationally, only 5% of crime in England and Wales ends up in a charge, convictions for rape are less than 1%. Our prisons are literally full and our police and courts are underfunded and unfit for purpose. If there was ever a time to commit a crime, it is now (I am not advocating this!!) 

We have the most expensive energy costs in Europe. The most expensive train fares in Europe. The most overcrowded prisons in Europe and the most polluted rivers and beaches in Europe. We are literally surrounded by water guys, how did you screw that up? Brexit has cost us £4 billion and the right to live, love and work in 27 countries. Our historic town centres are now betting companies and vape stores, our roads full of holes and our countryside a former shadow of its past beauty. And none of us can afford a house, some of us can barely afford food and rent. We have footballers and charities feeding our children in the fifth richest country in the world and have the largest homeless population in decades. 

How in times of crisis we as a country allowed such pathetic excuses for human beings, who partied during lockdown while we watched on virtual screens the funerals of our loved ones. That laugh and jeer in the Commons while kids go hungry and we’re stuck waiting months on end for a hospital appointment. Where we are saving pennies on the clearing aisle at Tesco whilst the richest 1% in this country increased their wealth by over a billion pounds. Grenfell. Windrush. Partygate. Rwanda. Scandal after scandal. Have they no shame? 

And their depravity does not end at our shores. Our foreign policy, where we are seen as the laughing stock of Europe and sanctioning Palestinian genocide in Parliament. The Tories advocating for the slaughter of innocent children, arresting protestors for calling him a coconut (which he is for the record) and the Leader of the Opposition, a Human Rights Barrister, forcing his own Party to vote against the calls for a ceasefire. It has been 10 months of the worst atrocities humanly possible and we see these images everyday, yet our leaders do nothing. Gaza has the most child amputees in the world and mothers are so malnourished, they cannot breastfeed, and their babies are dying from starvation. That is not ok. We are not ok. 

Time for change 

The last ten years have been brutal on us all. And all of these things a government, a democracy, should have as their top priority, to listen to the people’s needs and work to make it better. Yet we have the most entitled, disillusioned, self-serving mob deciding our futures. And I am sick of it. 

Everything wrong in this country is a conscious political decision, the NHS, the economy, the environment. And before you get there, no migrants are not to blame. They are not overcrowding our health service, they are the ones keeping it afloat, they are not taking our welfare, most do not have access to any of it. Throwing 400 million of taxpayer money into Rwanda will not ‘stop the boats.’ They are scapegoating migrants and refugees to cover up their own failings in government. Do not believe them and if you ever have the displeasure of seeing Nigel Farage in public, have your milkshakes at the ready. 

Politicians are supposed to bring us towards something greater, elected to serve the people’s interests and not their own. But what we have seen is they would rather climb the ladder and burn it behind them. Isn’t democracy supposed to be something good? Where we the people can all have a good education, equal rights, equality, freedom of gender, of religion, a stable job and career, and the opportunity to own a home and start a family. All the things in life that make it worth living, that make it beautiful. And this government has taken all that away. 

Vote 

We need to change. We have to. How much longer can this nightmare go on? Surely if we are a free people, and we get to choose our leaders, and choose what policies work for us, we should be able to make the change we want to see? But what are our choices? 

A Labour Party that has pushed so far right that they are just a different coloured Tory. That instead of desperately needed policy, they give us memes and expel the MPs who actually stand for something? And the other choice is Billionaire Sunak and the Party that has caused the mess we’re in? These are my two choices? I choose neither. 

I’m choosing a party that while I don’t agree with a few of their policies, they atleast have integrity, honesty, actual solutions and ideas to real issues, and the colours not bad either. Even though that vote won’t change the representative of my town, or the overall political landscape, it is my choice to want to hope for something better than the shit we currently have. And because change always starts with something, even if it is just a cross on a ballot paper. 

Because I know things won’t change overnight, but it can one day. So I will continue to attend the Palestine marches every Saturday, continue to stand up for a free universal health service and continue to work tirelessly representing migrants that make this country, migrants like my parents who gave me this opportunity to live and work here. I will continue to exercise my democratic right to vote, and I will be voting on the 4th of July, and voting for what matters to me and those I hold dear. 

And the one thing we all have a duty to, whether we’ve been up to date on politics, this is a part of you, and this is what matters. Even spoil your vote for all I care, or vote for the policies that you want to see. That is the first step, for what is many more to come. 

None of us can change the world on our own, and a simple vote won’t do it, but it is the bare minimum. We need to send a message, with the belief that things will get better if we hold our politicians to account. Because it will get better, we just have to fight for it. 

Praying to God above all. Better times are coming for us all. 💚

And also for an England Win. It’s Coming home lads. 

“I don’t like to get involved in politics,

you say: 

The beheaded child whispers,

me to.”