Politics Round-up: When the system lets us down

“It’s quite a challenge not to be political.”

That’s what Cherry Healey said, when I did a quick interview with her for my blog this week, and I’m inclined to agree.

You may not be out canvassing for a political party every weekend, but if you care about your children’s education, or their health, or how often your rubbish gets collected, then you are most definitely political.

If you get angry when you see injustice, then that makes you political too.

There have been a lot of angry bloggers this month, but that anger has been put to good use, rallying round to support two other bloggers who had been let down by the political system.

Firstly, I Want My Mummy wrote this shocking post about the awful condition of the social housing that her family was provided with. Then she wrote this even more shocking follow up post.

That was all that was needed for the blogging community to spring into action – partly in a practical way, by providing materials and furniture, and showing up one weekend to help decorate. And partly in a political way, by writing blog posts about the situation, tweeting the local council and MP, and trying to secure local press coverage…

It was great to see bloggers coming together in such a supportive and practical way to help out when someone was let down badly by a failure in the political system – but also good to see them lobbying to try and make sure that a similar failure does not happen again.

Secondly, Manic Mum published this heartbreaking post  about the struggle she has faced to get support since her husband was badly injured last year. Again, the response was overwhelming. Bloggers shared Manic Mum’s post as widely as they could, and tried desperately to get the attention of someone who was in a position to help. They even made the BBC, and that finally prompted a response from Thame MP John Howell. His response was inadequate though, and it looks like bloggers will need to keep up the pressure to ensure that Manic Mum gets the support she deserves.

So there are just two examples of politics in action.

What else has been getting you going? Oh gosh, loads of things.

Being Mrs C wrote a great post responding to accusations that Save the Children’s latest campaign (raising money for children in the UK) is ‘too political’.  It’s Mothers Work got political at the supermarket check out. Three Become Four wrote an open letter to David Cameron about adoption. Babberblog was feeling particularly political and blogged about both the reshuffle AND Julian Assange.  Sara Bran asked why we do (or don’t) put ‘Mother’ down on our CV. The awesome Glosswitch blogged about working parents. Mucky Root took a deep breath and blogged about the end of the world. Mummy Whisperer blogged about WW2. And  Ellen from In a Bun Dance questioned where the role models for women are in newspaper offices.

You see?

Politics is everywhere.

Unfortunately so are crap politicians and failures of the system, but I’m confident that if bloggers continue to make a stand – if we write posts and share posts and cry over posts – we can fix that. We can. You have to believe that we can.

Add any of your own political posts to the round-up below we look forward to hearing your views

About Ruth Dawkins

Ruth Dawkins is a 28-year-old mother and writer who has recently moved from Edinburgh to Hertfordshire. She blogs as DorkyMum on everything from parenting and poetry to politics and photography. Before becoming DorkyMum her jobs included: environmental campaigner, Green Party parliamentary candidate, newspaper intern, and student union president. However, her favourite job was being a climate change ambassador for Ben and Jerry's; a role that involved camping in the Arctic and eating a lot of free ice cream (although not at the same time). When she's not engaging in armchair activism or entertaining her toddler, you can find Ruth wasting her time on Twitter and Facebook.

• Mail
|
• Web
|
• Twitter
|
• More Posts(8)