I usually dedicate my columns to local topics, as I believe that all politics should begin and end in real people’s everyday lives.
But it’s too difficult, and would feel wrong, to ignore the revelations that the Epstein scandal has exposed of powerful men, in a toxic culture, consistently and pervasively treating women and girls in an utterly despicable and inhuman way.
I think that most politicians, including those who I disagree with, and even those who I feel are pushing divisive and toxic lies, are trying to make the world better as they see it.
We may bitterly disagree on what better means or looks like, but their motivation is often still centred on others as much as, or more than, it is themselves.
Even people I agree with and work with, though, often hold on to an idea that I think is poisonous to public service – that the ends justify the means – that an end goal can be so important that it’s ok to use means that undermine its values in order to get there.
In Epstein’s world, we saw people for whom the ends and the means were the same – the end goal was to be the winner in transactions of raw power, and the way they got there was through transactions of raw power.
This ethos is clearly evil and destructive, with no rightful place in our world.
In many countries, these dynamics rule the system.
We in the UK are incredibly lucky that, by and large, our democratic values are better than that.
But we still make mistakes, and in this case, we saw a decision, in hiring an ambassador, that the ends probably justified the means.
The good end goals of public service (such as maintaining a good relationship with the US under Trump) was important enough that it was OK to employ someone who might be embroiled in transactions of power in order to get there.
The only way we can be free of the poison of power is to hold even faster to our dedication to public service.
The ends and the means have to match – the good end goals of public service can only ever be successfully pursued if the tools we use to get there are also good public service.
But this demands a better kind of politics – and it starts with each of us.
Who do we elect? What stories do we read? What ideas do we share? Do we back powerful self-promoters, or do we do the job of championing the quiet public servants?
In the ballot box, the core question we should be asking is about trust.
Would we trust this person with our home, with our family, with our money?
This starts with each of us, and how we conduct our political conversations.
Next time you find yourself in a political conversation, or exercising your democratic rights, there are two questions to ask: Who is worthy of my trust, and can the ends ever justify the means?
