On the train down to Westminster this morning, I was reading "A Remonstrance of Many Thousand Citizens", one of the leveller tracts that was discussed at the Putney Debates. There are some excellent statements there - worth repeating ...
Addressed to MPs were these comments -
"We are well assured, yet cannot forget, that the cause of our choosing you to be Parliament-men was to deliver us from all kind of bondage and to preserve the commonwealth in peace and happiness....but you are to remember this was only of us but a power of trust (which is ever revocable, and cannot be otherwise) and to be employed to no other end than OUR well-being"
Perhaps it's time to revive this idea of MP's being here to improve the lives of their constituents - and not to visit upon them austerity, intrusion and misery.
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