Stasis is a choice as is brokenness. We can be maimed and choose to heal or remain where we are. I've helped many move beyond that place and rebooted myself a time or two.
Those who've never learned must want to change and be willing to step outside their comfort zone. You need a lot of patience and thick skin to deal with them. I've done my tenure with them too.
My project days are behind me. I like simplicity and wholeness.
There are plenty of people who appear outwardly to be all together, but underneath are broken.
Of all the years, this is NOT the year to be writing misleading headlines and bunk content. I agree with you - the comments section is HUGELY insightful, and you do kind of hold out hope that someone in Parliament is reading them and taking everything on board. Because I know that if *I* were PM, I'd be replying to comments personally. (Probably not allowed, but I'd like to think I can.)
Everyone has different views of what is misleading and should be classified as bunkum. As an example:
1. The Mail recently published what I thought was an
interesting, and reasonably level-headed article on the UK Government response to the second wave of COVID infections.
2. The Government
then used official Government Twitter accounts to attack the article as 'misleading', without providing any counter argument.
3. The Government was subsequently involved in a
humiliating climbdown.
No doubt the average Grauniad reader considers everything that isn't in the BBC or the Grauniad to be a complete fabrication, and Daily Mail articles to be particularly worthy of derision. My approach is to read everything I can find, and take it all with a pinch of salt. I distrust the Grauniad and the BBC as much as any of the others, because I know that they engage in what I consider to be lying by omission and hiding news they don't like, whereby any news or details that don't fit their narrative are either totally unreported, or buried somewhere in the regional news section where most people will never see it.
I don't think most cabinet members read comments below the line, and they are also probably largely insulated from the correspondence sent by their constituents. And even if they did read the comments, I suspect they would be quite dismissive.
David Blunkett has admitted to being 'uppity' and 'incredibly bumptious' when in power. That would explain how UK Governments become out of touch with the public, leading to their demise. However, most backbenchers are, I think, exposed a lot more to the undiluted, unfiltered views of their constituents.
Love him or loathe him, Dominic Cummings was arguably instrumental in creating a connection with life-long Labour voters, because he understood how working class people think. Does anyone really think an Eton-educated, former Telegraph columnist understands what it's like to live hand-to-mouth? With Cummings now gone, if the Tories now lose that connection with the working class then it's going to be difficult to win another election. Boris's latest fad seems to be a greenwash of government policy, which I predict will be a flop amongst working class people in the North because it doesn't address their day-to-day issues.