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"Ladies in Lavender" was showing at the Clocktower cinema in Croydon town centre. Snow whirled round outside. Inside the arts complex the senior citizens of Croydon were gathering to make the most of the cheap tickets for pensioners of the Wednesday screening. Mums with buggies dropped off videos, and school children trailed into the library as the afternoon wore on. This did not seem like a place to look for anger, frustration and alienation, but that is what I found.
Croydon Central is a very average parliamentary constituency. Unlike many places in the country, where votes can be weighed, this is marginal - Labour holds it by less than five thousand votes. The local council isn't one of places where donkeys get elected if they are wearing the right coloured rosette; there is a healthy opposition and elections are hard fought. The proportion of people who take part in elections was the same as the national average in 2001. So if there is a problem with democracy, you'd think you wouldn't find it here.
You'd be wrong. The conventional wisdom about people not getting involved in politics is that the problem is all about voting, it's a problem in pockets of the country where one party dominates and the people who are turned off come from very specific groups, the young particularly.
So why did I, in a genteel arts centre in Croydon, find anger and despair at the futility of participating in existing political structures?
I like to get a good cross-section of people when asking questions like this. Not because I think it adds a veneer of scientific respectability to what is ultimately a vox-pop, but because otherwise you haven't really done your job, digging into people's attitudes. What was striking though, was the anger felt by those who looked and sounded like the backbone of Today's audience, people whose faces lit up with recognition and warmth when I told them who I was working for.
Those smiles turned to puzzled frowns when I asked them; how would you go about changing things?
The question matters too you see. Not just for our platinum-plated presenters crossing swords with politicians every morning, but for mud-spattered reporters gleaning interesting thoughts and views in the street (or a much warmer shopping mall/arts centre/sports stadium). People are usually minding their own business before they are swooped on by the likes of me, so the question should be arresting - but short.
Ever since the slump in turnout in 2001, journalists across the country have been asking voters "Why can't you be bothered?" and unsurprisingly the responses tend to have confirmed the view that voters don't care.
But ask them what makes them angry, what they want to change and how they'd go about it, and the sophisticated nature of people's responses to politics and politicians becomes clear. "You can write to your MP or the newspaper and get it off your chest which makes you feel a bit better, but I don't think an individual can rock the ship of state too much", "I don't envy them their job, but I don't like them either", "They don't come round the doors and ask us what we really want", "If they do consult you it's just to rubber stamp what they've already decided", "I suppose I could vote but I don't think it would make any difference, so I'll just move away from the problem".
The point of being in Croydon was to explore some of the issues that are being scrutinised over a longer term and more rigorously by the POWER Inquiry. Funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the Joseph Rowntree Trust, the Inquiry is spending a year trying to find new ways to empower citizens, give them control back over their lives. Its remit is way beyond the obsession with voter turnout that tends to dominate the discussion at Westminster. The Chair of the Inquiry is Helena Kennedy QC, and I met her in Croydon to talk about what she hopes it will achieve, and listen to some of those voices. Those voices which say over and over again; we're not apathetic, we do care but we don't feel like anyone's listening.
The senior citizens disappeared into the gloom to watch Ladies in Lavender, the school children lumbered off home, and the mums braved the snow on the way to the bus or the car park. As a political anorak I was both heartened and saddened by my afternoon in Croydon; heartened that people still do care, that the apathy explanation didn't seem so close to the mark, but also saddened that the systems and structures that I, as a journalist, find fascinating might not be in such good working order as I'd thought.
Robin Cook gave evidence to the Inquiry that day, and this week Michael Howard will face the scrutiny of the Commissioners, which include Lady Thatcher's former adviser Ferdinand Mount, Emma B from Radio 1's Sunday Surgery, Phillip Dodd, the former Director of the ICA and Barbara Gill, Chairman of the National Federation of Women's Institutes. While the Commission scrutinises experts and listens to voters and on-voters alike, we at Today will be keeping an eye on the progress of the Inquiry, and examining the issues in our own way. Straight after Sarah Montague interviewed Robin Cook on Wednesday we asked for the thoughts of Today listeners about the nature of the problem and what solutions they had. Listen again.
I was still reading through the think pile of emails on Friday - many expressing similar frustrations to the folk in Croydon, others with ideas about what might make a difference. Keep them coming in.
If you want to know more about the power inquiry follow the link;
Polly
Polly Billington is one of the Today reporters.
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