Dear Prime Minister Please forgive me for not addressing you by name but at the time of drafting this, the election results had not been announced and I didn’t want to presume, writes Graham Bartlett. Congratulations on being appointed and, whichever party you are from, I wish you well. I thought I might take this opportunity to suggest an approach for you to consider while in office, especially if you are serious about making the UK a better and fairer place.
Firstly, from the moment the King asked you to form a government, this ceased to be about you. Neither is it about your party, cronies, sponsors or any other group with whom you are associated. It’s not even just about those who voted for you.
It is about the whole country and wider world. We have seen what damage the opposite approach brings and you have a chance to change that. The UK has become a divided country, split on grounds of privilege, race, gender, ability, wealth, language, religion, sexual orientation and much more.
This produces dire inequalities which lead to hate and mistrust. You can do something about that by ensuring that every syllable spoken, policy produced and law enacted by government recognises how, together, we can make the country infinitely stronger. The fixation with punitive criminal justice policies accepts defeat.
It takes crime as being inevitable and that the only solution is locking people up longer, even for non-violent low level offences. You may wish to invest in bolder ambitio.
