The ways in which the formal election campaign and its associated conversations miss out the issues that touch most people, are ones I will come back to over the coming weeks.<\/p>\n
It’s important to start though by recognising that the shared conversations between the politicians and the media rule out a whole series of voices and experiences.<\/p>\n
The impact of welfare reform, which will be a centre piece of the next five years if the present Tory-led Government retain power, is ruled out of discussion by ministers.<\/p>\n
And yet whilst the media may press them on the issue, the headlines focus not on an absence of an answer, but on the skill of avoidance.<\/p>\n
All three of the major UK based parties are in favour of education and all three have a shared commitment to maintaining the new status quo on the roles of academies and trusts rather than local schools.<\/p>\n
Indeed all three are also in favour of the status quo on how the NHS is organised.<\/p>\n
However, they do differ on some things. But it is the shared consensus which is rarely up for discussion. Why? And why aren’t the voices of\u00a0 those that rely on the services (not those who work in them) heard?<\/p>\n
On May 7th local elections will take place too. Here, the absence of a rich and diverse debate is very evident. But does this matter? I think it does.\u00a0Whoever wins nationally on May 7th will be putting in place spending plans which directly impact on local communities.<\/p>\n
It will be City Hall making many of the cuts and therefore we do need to try and make the connections between the local and the national.\u00a0Accountability only works if those that make decisions are open to challenge and are willing to engage with that challenge.<\/p>\n
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The ways in which the formal election campaign and its associated conversations miss out the issues that touch most people, are ones I will come back to over the coming weeks. It’s important to start though by recognising that the shared conversations between the politicians and the media rule out a whole series of voices […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":225,"featured_media":70,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32286],"tags":[32339,32341,32290,32282,32306,30827],"class_list":["post-109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-election-2015","tag-education","tag-election-2015","tag-general-election-2015","tag-i4p","tag-local-elections","tag-nhs"],"yoast_head":"\n