Reply to constituent and public sector employee, Wakefield North ward 17.

I was very pleased to receive your letter as you have raised some issues I hold dear. However there are significant other things worthy of further discussion.
In this reply I will try to be as brief as possible but reserve the right to elaborate where I feel necessary. After all, I suppose I'm trying to be a politician - however reluctantly.

Politics, particularly in the UK, is pretty bland, uninspiring fare. It is also dangerously invasive and prescriptive to us as individuals - all our quite normal activities are open to scrutiny and increasing regulation. This forms part of the 'battleground' that is politics today. The bigger picture is The Environment; the root being that people, us, are bad.
Of course it's not all bad, the show goes on and we all go out to earn a crust.

We'd be unwise to ignore the changing ground; part of which is the happiness agenda - lowered horizons, felched history, making do and mend, scrimping and saving. Further, the government is shifting responsibility to private companies and individuals and all within a legalistic framework - Blair's true legacy.

I'm not big on economics but it seems like Brown's predictions are proving amiss. With big projects on the horizon and disastrous, costly wars we can only expect more buck passing and ill-conceived, messy private services and perhaps a government making itself redundant.

I'm no nationalist but this would also seem to be no competition to eastern economies which is likely why the UK is at the forefront of promoting this stuff.
This is a dangerous position but one that also provides an opening.

To answer your questions then -

I'm in favour of us being well rewarded for our efforts - good pay and conditions with security during times of change. That whether privately or publicly employed. We cannot operate with our heads in the sand and just be stubborn. We have to recognise change is happening and not be scared of it. I'd go further and suggest we, the workforce, push ourselves and through doing this we realise who does the work, what gets in the way and see ourselves as agents of change.

As regards public services, I question what we are getting and how it is delivered (under the limiting cover of environmentalism). Public services are now set to be more about the public doing much of the delivering and everything watched and weighed.

If people are interested in delivering a true public service then I will back that to the hilt. However, that requires an open debate and winning the public over to the possibility of being able to make a difference - the 'public' being everybody else, friends, family, neighbours, etc.
That, I believe, will be the only way to make athe beginnings of a lasting and positive change.