Nobody in my experience (and that’s as a parish councillor, district councillor, county councillor and your MP) ever seeks elected office to make things worse for their area or community.

While we all wear different coloured rosettes at election time the broad theme that unites us is to do our level best for the people we represent. I stand as a Conservative and have been elected in 2015, 2017 and 2019 to speak up for the people of North Dorset. I represent, without fear or favour, all residents of North Dorset whether they are eligible to vote, voted for me, voted for someone else or did not vote at all.

It is why I am opposed to any change in our electoral system, not because it favours one party or another, but it means the one elected member has to listen to and represent all shades of opinion not just those with whom they agree or vice versa. There is a very special bond, an umbilical cord if you will, that joins the electorate to the elected. I’m not saying it’s a perfect system but, in broad terms, it works. It also means it’s a system where, having heard all views, you quickly arrive at the position that no one voice/party/group etc is the keeper of the eternal truth. Is always right while the ‘other side’ is always wrong.

I don’t know whether it’s a by-product of the echo chambers of social media, populism or what but too much of politics is painted as good v bad, right v wrong, black v white. MPs inboxes are full of people telling them to do one thing or another.
People advocating diametrically opposing points of view on the same subject with the only shared denominator being that the author believes themselves to be right with no room for doubt or the possibility that another correspondent may have equally strongly held views that take them to an entirely different.

In my experience most political issues are complex. They are resolved by compromise, concession and accommodation. Every Bill I have ever been involved with or followed has its concession strategy. The minister starts from position Ultimate but realises ground needs to be given to get buy- in and ultimate success.

Unbending didactic approaches usually end up on the rocks. It is not a sign of weakness or lack of principle to seek to accommodate or build the biggest tent of agreement. It is, rather a sign of maturity and respect for the other point of view. However, to have that respect one needs to appreciate that there is another point of view and that one’s own, no matter how sincerely held, might not be right. There is a comfort, I appreciate, in the intellectual comfort blanket of black and white.

My viewpoint, for what it’s worth, is that most political solutions are a shade of grey (whether there are fifty such shades I hesitate to comment upon). So, as we rebuild and regenerate as a society let us embrace the respectful and accommodating and put aside the absolutism of populism. We will be a better country if we do.

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