[Aussie Irene]

Originally Posted by Margaret Pilkington

Irene, I was talking of the difference between parties as much as the difference between actual politicians.....and although I wasn't around 70 years ago I have been alive long enough to see the change in politicians, with the rise in career politicians, those who have never worked on a shop floor....a mine or an iron works....a real job with a wage packet attached to it

Today's politicians are focused on obtaining a seat in the Palace of Westminster, they will represent any constituency, whether they know anything about it(problems, needs, privations) regardless.
How can you represent a place with heart and passion if you haven't(or don't) live there?

But the main aim of the current bunch...all parties, is to make a nice little nest egg for yourself. Make contacts, gain directorships...so that once your political career comes to an end you can still live the life to which you have grown accustomed.
NO politician ever leaves office poor.

And before someone tells me that my post indicates the politics of envy...I will tell them that I had a very long, happy and satisfying career...doing what I loved and at the same time helping my local community.

I came from a very financially poor family, at a time just after the war when there was no help, no welfare state(or at least one that was just in its infancy) so I understand poverty from a practical standpoint.
I understand that you can only have what you can pay for........the Labour party did not understand that.....it spent money it didn't have and left a debt to be cleaned up by others. This in my book, is unforgivable. It could not be trusted with the finances of this country and so it didn't get elected.

I didn't vote for the Tories.....but cast my vote with the hope that it would prevent the Labour candidate from keeping this constituency...and in that I failed. Am I bitter ? No just disappointed that the people of our town failed to remember the jibes made at them by this man.

Margaret, I fully understand where you are coming from. In fact nearly everyone in those days rowed in the same boat. I just think it would be a rarity to get someone in Westminster, who had come up from the shop floor.