It’s the turn of West Norfolk Labour Party deputy leader Alex Ware to pen our weekly Friday Politics column...
If you enjoy a gritty police drama, you could do no better than watch series two of BBC’s The Responder starring Martin Freeman as patrol officer Chris Carson.
The series is both set in and filmed in Liverpool and depicts the night time economy and criminal activity of the city.
It contains many elements of police work – drugs, gangs, murder – but also human weakness and frailty, and every character inhabits his or her very own drama.
We can probably all relate to some elements of the narrative. To a large extent, all of us in the UK have been inhabiting our own real-life drama over the past 14 years, a five episode series entitled Chaos and Decline and with leading roles for a succession of shady Conservative characters – David Cameron, Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak.
They are all experienced performers on both the international and home stages. The plot lines of the drama are many:
• Dodgy dealings on a vast scale, through the VIP lane contracts for personal protective equpment (PPE) given to ministers’ mates (and which were subsequently declared unlawful by the high court);
• Antisocial behaviour by Downing Street staff in lockdown;
• Tax avoidance;
• The decline of the UK farming and fishing industries;
• The decimation of the UK’s health and welfare services;
• A fractured transport system.
TV reviewer Lucy Mangan writes that The Responder “remains a study in harm. The harm we do ourselves, to our children, to a society when we deprive it, little by little, year after year, generation after generation, of everything that is necessary for it to thrive.”
We are all real-life extras in the Chaos and Decline show and our parts are our own lives acted out every day.
Our scripts involve us trying to make ends meet, worrying about a negative budget and the threat of homelessness, worrying about the cost of living crisis, worrying about high mortgage interest payments, having to turn to food banks and worrying about the threat of losing benefits through a cruel system in which the weak are prosecuted for an innocent mistake and the wealthy sail off on their yachts.
In the past, we might have tried to escape the grind with a trip to the coast or a beauty spot. But even that is hard going now as we must make sure we read the warning notices on water quality before taking a dip.
Our local water company, Anglian Water, is a privatised firm with shareholders in Canada and Australia. It was recently fined a hefty £2.65m for dumping more than three Olympic swimming pools worth of sewage into the North Sea.
The Conservative governments of Margaret Thatcher privatised the utilities, our “crown jewels” which we should have treasured and protected in the same way we treasure and protect the gold - and gem-encrusted relics housed at the Tower of London.
Norfolk, as one of the safest counties in the country, may not experience the same level of criminal activity as depicted in The Responder but it will still be a challenge to our new Police and Crime Commissioner – Labour’s Sarah Taylor.
Her focus will be on prevention so that fewer crimes take place. She has pledged to work with charities, councils, volunteers and other public bodies to protect young people and the vulnerable.
May the start of her four-year term be series one of a new show - Make Change Happen. By voting Labour at the General Election, we can all ensure our parts in the programme will be a pleasure to play.