One of the things which has really struck me about politics is something I first learned as a journalist: how vitally important it is to translate abstract facts and statistics into meaningful stories.
It’s not good enough to be able to convince a room full of economists and other policy experts that the economy is on the right track, for example. We need to be able to show workers and employers up and down the country how the numbers translate to higher wages, better jobs, and stronger public services.
After last week’s Conservative Party Conference in Birmingham, the Government now has a lot of really exciting stories to tell about a broad range of new policies aimed at building a stronger, fairer economy which rewards work and gives everybody the opportunity to fulfil their potential.
Take the Chancellor’s decision to freeze duel duty for the ninth year in a row. This doesn’t just mean cheaper prices at the pumps for ordinary motorists, but it also keeps costs down for every business which uses road haulage to get its goods across the country and out into the world.
Or the announcement of a whopping £38 million in capital funding to make sure that colleges have all the equipment and facilities they need to deliver our new, gold-standard ‘T Levels’.
This is a major overhaul of technical education which will ensure that those who favour vocational education have a choice of modern, well-designed qualifications with clear pathways into skilled employment – a life-changing reform for all the young people who might in the past have felt let down by a system which appeared to privilege traditional academic attainment.
And let’s not forget the Prime Minister’s announcement of radical overhaul and improvement of the NHS’ cancer screening and diagnosis programme, with the aim of detecting 75 per cent of cancers in the early stages (compared to just 50 per cent today).
If successful, that would mean an astonishing 55,000 more people living at least five years after being diagnosed every single year – and it would reduce inequalities in diagnosis as well.
That’s just a tiny sample of the policies that Theresa May and other ministers announced last week. But announcements are just the start: we need to make sure that we’re out there telling these stories too.
Originally published in the Solihull News, 12/10/18.