Thursday's Rotherham byelection has attracted plenty of sound and fury. Here, Independent candidate Simon Copley offers a different, calmer approach: drawing on community muscle to solve local problems effectively
Share 13
inShare0
Email 
Here comes the sun - to a Rotherham street packed with solar panels. There's plenty of good going on in the town. Like the sun, it needs harnessing. Photograph: SolarCentury
I once worked for a local charity that was very effective getting alongside disaffected young people. Despite our reputation, we struggled for funding. I suspect we were overlooked because we were too small. It was a case of a local David competing with huge national Goliaths.
Our society seems hooked on big "processes" (policies, programmes, initiatives etc) trying to "fix" problems and the political/commercial elite have vested interests in controlling these and making business from them. However, I don't remember learning much about processes in school history; I did learn about people (Mahatma Ghandi, William Wilberforce, Martin Luther King etc) who inspired and made true changes.
Politics must be more than "fixing" people's problems for them. We need to empower people in communities to find their own answers, improve their own lives and build on the good resources that they already have. Examples abound of major programmes failing to hit the mark, siphoning off huge resources in management and bureaucracy while effective and inspirational people struggle at the coal face. Political and financial decisions need to be brought closer to the grass roots…
Remember who won. David and Goliath by Osmar Schindler (c.1888) In Rotherham, where I am standing in the by-election as an Independent, this approach applies especially to issues like sex-grooming. The communities facing these issues are the secret weapon in the fight because they bring their own moral resources and knowledge to bear. Specialist charities and funders can also be brought in to help tackle underlying issues, keeping things at the grass roots. Third Sector and community groups can tackle many other issues if properly resourced: empty housing, homelessness, youth engagement, debt relief and offender mentoring. Government must be about supporting community and faith groups, charities, and youth organisations who are trying to make their communities better places.
My vision: if Rotherham communities work constructively together to address such a high-profile issue, we will send a message around the UK that Rotherham is on the up. This will be an important step to attracting investment that will address our bigger economic problems.
But, just as big processes miss the mark, so do big parties. The issues facing us are complex; party-politics have become too confrontational, clumsy and downright childish to deal with them. Local and independent-minded people are needed to bring dispassion on debate and passion for our neighbourhoods.
This means I have my own David/Goliath battle to fight. Trying to get elected, an Independent candidate lacks time, resources, bodies and money to take on the big party machines and get the message over. Even when willing helpers step forward, campaigning has to synchronise and compete with jobs and family. And the media frequently overlook the good things smaller parties say in their obsession to comment on the 'ya-boo' antics of the big boys.
Who will win in Rotherham this Thursday? Respect and UKIP are circling vulture-like around Labour, a hapless, dying wildebeest - even the Conservatives fancy their chances of chewing the carcass. The 'vote-red' tradition dies-hard in this particular desert however, and, apparently, Independents "don't have a prayer." But I live in hope that voters will bring their hearts and brains to the booth, not just their traditions. After all, David did beat Goliath…
Simon Copley, 52, is a full time Trusts fundraiser with Good Fundraising, a Yorkshire-based consultancy. He is also an ordained Minister in the United Reformed Church, part of the leadership team at Herringthorpe URC in Rotherham. He is married to Judith with a daughter at Exeter University. He Tweets here.