As 2025 draws to a close, I wanted to share with you my thoughts for a better way in which we could conduct local politics for the public good. Perhaps we should see them as my wishes for the new year ahead.
First, I hope we can focus less on the short term and more on the long.
Politicians, locally as well as nationally, prefer to think short term because they are always conscious of the next election. Fear of unpopularity can make them reluctant to tackle the big challenges, leaving it to others to deal with the consequences. If an administration is courageous enough to take on difficult long-term problems, it almost always is attacked by an opportunistic opposition seeking to exploit unhappiness with change and claim that it is unnecessary.
The current administration at Wokingham has tried to buck this trend. We have elections almost every year but have not ducked our responsibility to face up to the council’s financial challenges. We have had to do things we would rather not do, but we know if we don’t do them, the council will become insolvent. A broke council, as a former colleague wisely said, can do nothing to help the residents it is supposed to serve.
We have sought to think long term not short. We have devoted a lot of effort to promoting prevention work and early intervention to stop problems becoming more serious and more costly to remedy. We have invested in schemes that will save money in the future or generate income to help fund services for residents in years to come.
Second, I hope we can work together to meet the challenges we face.
I have tried, as leader of the council, to work collaboratively with other parties wherever possible, offering committee chairs and vice chairs to the Conservative and Labour groups. As a council administration, my colleagues and I have tried to focus on partnership working with external bodies – such as other councils, the voluntary and charitable sector, business, and the University of Reading – and to work collaboratively with users of our services, such as residents in the housing that we own, and those disabled members of our communities that use adult social care services. We have also tried to foster internal partnerships – encouraging a cross-departmental approach to problem solving and a respectful and supportive relationship between councillors and council officers.
Third, I hope we can see a more respectful kind of politics.
Unfortunately, I have noticed – as perhaps you have, too – that politics is becoming more aggressive and embittered. Opponents are increasingly viewed as enemies to be vilified and their arguments dismissed simply because they are voiced by a member of a different political party. This is all related to a worrying tendency to blame others for ills that should not be laid at their door, to demonize groups because they are different.
There is a better way. We would all benefit if we could remind ourselves that opponents are not enemies, but simply people who have a different view of how to address problems.
Politicians have a duty to bring people together, not drive them apart. Building consensus is not easy. It requires patience, calmness, open minds, and a commitment to rational debate. But it certainly beats endless, unnecessary, and damaging conflict.
By Cllr Stephen Conway
