Gareth Edwards

29 September 2009

What is it about your political beliefs that put you on the Left rather than the Right?

A belief that the individual is part of a whole that will only work by cooperating and pooling resources.

What do you consider made you Left wing?

It’s right

How would you describe the sort of society you want Britain to be?

One that we have some ownership over, that everyone has a stake in. To be one society, there has to be a level of equality (or less inequality), and it has to look after its own, which is everyone who lives here.

What one or two changes would make the biggest difference to bringing that about?

A new electoral system. At the moment we are held to ransom by about 10% of ’swing voters’, and anyone wanting power feels they have to pander to the ‘centre ground’ (who defines this, by the way?) If PR and real democracy came in maybe more people would be active and involved, and a shift from the right wing status quo might evolve from the bottom up.

Casting the moneylenders out of the temple, to use a religious metaphor.

What most makes you angry about the way Britain is now?

Fat football hooligans in their 40s, and the Daily Mail; both symptoms of the pampered, pointless, self righteous, narrow minded, vindictive streak that runs right through ‘middle Britain’

Which person, event, era or movement from the past should we look to for inspiration now?

1. Syndicalists in Barcelona in the 1930’s: a left wing movement that worked because it was a grass roots one, and didn’t conform to the state socialism vs. free capitalism paradigm that is seen as the left/ right split.

2. Danish wind turbine coops. Early pioneers developed wind turbines for their own use. Through cooperation improved their designs, which, scaled up, are the blueprint for all the large turbines being installed today. At the same time as these pioneers were tinkering, both NASA and BAE tried and failed to design workable wind turbines. Proof that a bottom up, cooperative approach can address a problem better than big businesses.

Position: Welder fabricator

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