The Great Unwashed, Comrade Thatcher.

It's election week at Uni. I had an interesting debate - almost a row - with one of the people standing this week. I told them in 1992 I had 2 posters in my window at home in Brum - one for a theatre production in the Billesley pub - the other for John Major and the Conservative Party. She was horrified.
"How can you create a theatre for the working classes on one hand and yet support the Tories?" she asked.
A bit polarised, perhaps and, eh? Working classes? This maybe proves two points.
1) I was instinctivly creating a theatre for people on a council estate who didn't attend theatre. i.e. MY people. Working class? No one told us that. I was born and grew up on that estate. We were not stupid, but theatre have never asked us directly to get involved. So we didn't. I set up Maverick. Maverick asked. People came. Simple really.

2) Politicians or the political parties didn't ask directly either. Or, for that matter, the unions.

So in an attempt to self educate, in 1991 I wrote to the Tories, Labour and the SDP ( I think it was then.) It was a short letter, asking why I should vote for them.

I heard nothing from Labour or the SDP. But I did have a letter AND a phone call from my local Tory candidate telling me why John Major, "one of us, a grammar school boy," deserved my support. Not the nation, but just little ol' me. And they sent a poster, asking me to display it. And so I did.

So the political grandees, the powers that be, can bicker on the BBC, contradict each other on Question Time. But never forget that ignorance and intelligence are NOT the same thing.

Comrade!
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