Dear Editor,
Trump’s every word, every garbled utterance is catapulted round the globe as though he were the oracle, he the saviour of the world. How did it come to be that this orange man-child can spew such hatred, instil such fear, and everyone stops to listen?
I hope that we will be able to look back on this period as a bump in the road as we progress to a more democratic and egalitarian society…
…but just now, the Right has all the levers, controls the narrative and we are being swept along, speeding inexorably towards a future that is, frankly, terrifying.
No-one can blame anyone for wanting change. Here in Britain, many things in society feel like they are broken; the public has been patient, but enough is enough. Too many have lost faith in the old political order. No wonder then that when some seemingly jocular fellow comes along with a simple story about who is to blame – foreigners, benefit-scroungers, woke-ness, the elite – and promises he can fix it, he gathers support.
And so it is, not just here but across Europe and in the USA, that everyone is listening to this far-right narrative which casts your neighbour as your enemy and tells you everything would be much better if we just got rid of them.
Sadly, everyone is listening [or being forced to listen] because no-one else seems to be talking.
Now, more than ever before in my lifetime, we need a new narrative. Our political leaders must find their voices. I want to hear them say, ‘These are our problems, they can be fixed and this is how we can fix them.’
Top of the list? Inequality. In the UK, the rich have got richer and the poor, poorer. The top 20 per cent own 66 per cent of wealth and 36 per cent of the UK’s income, whereas the bottom 20 per cent own 0.5 per cent of wealth and 9 per cent of the UK’s income. Imagine a country where everyone could afford a roof over their heads and food on the table, where their job rewarded them with a living wage, where wherever you live and no matter your background you could get the services you need and are entitled to. In an affluent country such as ours this should not feel impossible.
Let’s stop listening to the hate-filled rhetoric of the Reform lobby and their right-wing buddies. Blaming others diverts attention away from the power-grab they’re engineering, their accumulation of wealth, their desire to control our lives and take away our rights. Let’s all find our voices and shout loud enough to drown out that horrible right-wing bile.
Time for a new vision, a new plan, a new narrative.
Katherine Fox
Somerset
