Well, I suppose it had to happen. I'm now watching, pausing and changing the volume on iPlayer, using the Skyfire browser on my Nokia E63 - a Symbian S60 smartphone. Whilst the BBC hasn't managed to get round to officially sanctioning - or perhaps that's engineering - iPlayer to allow the E63 to use it, other technologies, which allow us to use phones to fool webpages into thinking the device in question is actually a PC, actually make the whole debate quite irrelevant.
And this is what I want to do with politics. Pull the rug from beneath those who would use it to suffocate freedoms. Take it out of the hands of the professionals and make space for such activities in the daily lives of ordinary men and women.
Companies love to talk about the wisdoms of the work/life balance. It's now time to factor a third element into the blessed duality - politics. We do, in fact, need a blessed trinity. We need to be given time to get involved. In times of economic crisis, where over-production is in any case an issue, I suggest we should all have our working-week reduced by say five hours - with the proviso that we use these five hours to get involved politically in our local communities. Whether this be as a school or health trust governor, a housing trust partner or, indeed, a local councillor. Or whether this be simply a question of attending the meetings of political parties.
In the past, education was a privilege not a right. Those who had to work missed out on the opportunity.
Today we would look aghast at anyone who chose to propose such a relationship between the precious processes of learning and the wider populace.
It is time for us to be equally aghast that politics should be the preserve of the moneyed and the professionals with the time to dedicate to its practice. It is time for us to be awarded the time we need to practise the profession all of us despise and none of us can do without. It is time for politics to be placed on the same footing as health, safety and continuous learning.
It is time for politics to be an inalienable right - and for society to make space for its exercise.
What say you?
4 thoughtful fixes:
I love receiving comments and feedback and always try and answer constructively. So go on then - fire away!