Funny what grabs attention. An interview I did with a former Labour MP, Chris Mullin, prompted me to write an article for Conservative Home on why it IS important for MPs to get stuck into local campaigns and local activities.
The talented editor of the Conservative Home site called it "The Importance of Being a Fairy Godmother." The title then prompted an hilarious, if slightly spooky Bristol Post mock up of me, with my face planted on a fairy with 6ft long legs, sitting on a chilly looking piece of bark.
I wasn't going to argue, especially since I would very much like 6ft long legs and a nice pair of wings, but the reason why constituency work, and getting involved in getting stuff done with and for the local community is so important is precisely because it can't be done by waving a magic wand.
If it could, it might be nice , but you wouldn't learn anything - and although it's tough, and tiring and frequently stomach-clenchingly frustrating doing it 'the long way' ( no wand), its all that which makes you understand how policy and politics really work in reality, once it leaves that magic bubble of Westminster, where so often people really do think words are the same as actions, and a speech in the House of Commons is the same as a magic wand...
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