Photos by Phoenix

The mobile council

Time to start the album for the Naked Politician project. I’ll add to it as time and events unfold, but these first are from the day that Southwark councillors and helpers went door to door to distribute questionaires to get feedback from Riverside Ward residents. I followed Nick, Andy and Paul, who thought I might find it pretty boring; in fact it was quite insightful. Not without incident either – at one point I was accosted by a resident who (somewhat forcefully) assured me that taking pictures in that vicinity was “against the law… against ENGLISH law…. On a SUNDAY.” Hmmm.

Most interesting for me was seeing something happen that didn’t involve mobile phones for at least… ooh.. an hour. What did people do before mobiles, and, for that matter, Blackberries?

I’m planning to do a dawn ‘til dusk day with Paul before I fly back to Prague, and I’m going to keep a log of the number of calls and the time he spends, because I swear it’s the defining activity of his working week.

Actually, I think I’ll buy him a headset for Christmas. (Don’t tell him and spoil the surprise!) It’s just that I remember learning the ways kings of old popped their clogs, all from activities associated with kinging: one died when his horse stumbled on a molehill and fell on him (or so the others on the hunting party said – not sure quite how popular he was – did it fall, or was it pushed?); one died of a surfeit of lampreys; another from a surfeit of melons… I just worry that in a couple of hundred years reading that our leaders died of low-level microwave radiation from permanently holding low-level microwave radiation emitters to the sides of their heads is going to sound just as absurd.

Me? I want to go from a surfeit of good living. My tombstone’s going to be cheap. Just three words: He was Alive.

Judging a book

Sometimes the truth is unpalatable. Ask Galileo. But once the nettle has been grasped, understanding, progress and revelation can follow. The truth is, Gillian Evans’ new book has neither the catchy title nor the cover of a bestseller; but that just goes to prove the adage about books and covers, because it’s clear this book is causing quite a stir.

I’ll leave it to the social commentaries in the broadsheets to battle it out about the content, but I will say there were some very interesting people at the book launch, and I only wish I’d had time to chat with more of them.

It’s clear a lot of time has gone into the preparation of the book; I guess only time will spell out its legacy.

Taking to the streets

And... we're off. The gathering of 13 disciples left the Angel (pub on the riverside) and went forth to petition the people. Andy, Nick and Paul take to the streets to begin distributing a survey to residents in the Southwark constituency. It's all part of the Sunday service, which is more than we could say for the fish and chip shops when we finished. Back to the pub then.

The Naked Politician

In the words of President Bartlett: “What’s next?”

Well, from drama to politics. With the shooting of Mr Johnson in the bag I thought the next thing in the diary would be Moscow Fashion Week, but hell, there’s still time to squeeze in another completely unrelated project….

There’s an idea I’ve been wanting to pursue for a while, and the possibility of making a start came up today over coffee with my brother. Paul is councillor for the The Tower Bridge Constituency in London, and is very committed and passionate about his responsibilities. We’ve always felt that depiction of politicians in the media is staged, always dressed up in some agenda. We want to undress it.

These are people hopefully doing something they believe in. Take away the spiel and dogma, and who are they? I want to find out. Simple as that. At large in the constituency, back at the office, the moments before, after and in-between. Who are they really? What does a typical day involve? What kind of person wants to take this on?

The everyman modern armour of our elected representatives seems to be spin and semantics. What makes such defensive evasiveness seem appealing or necessary? Let’s see if a picture or several can replace a thousand words and give a deeper insight into the people and the process. And let’s see who steps up to the challenge; I’ll step into the ward if they will step clear of the wardrobe. Watch this space.