Be more political

I heard a lovely Pause for Thought today on Radio 2 (towards the end of the programme for those wanting to fast forward the iplayer!). Rabbi Pete Tobias was saying the almost unsay-able - that politics and religion should be more closely linked. But his argument was more subtle than it seems.

He was saying that religion should be political in the sense that religious people should be fighting for justice, for the rights of the less fortunate and drawing attention to those who need help. And politics should be more religious in that it should be more about values and right and wrong rather than who did what to whom.

I do not consider myself a religious person but I do consider myself to be moral (as we all do, I suppose). There is a tendency today to be disparaging about politics and to believe that nothing can be achieved through our political system.

But politics isn't innately bad. It can be about getting things done, making a difference, changing society for the good of all who abide by its fair rules. We might not hear much about that in the headlines but that kind of behaviour isn't what makes news. It is the exceptionally bad, the shocking, the entertaining which makes headlines.

And the same is true in the workplace. Workplace politics has a bad name, but there is nothing inherently bad about it. It can be about influencing, using bonds to get the right result which benefits the business, the people who work in the business and hopefully society at large.

I have taken a little flak for my support of workplace politics (I argue in favour of it in my book The Recipe For Success) but I wish we could reclaim the word politics to mean what it should mean. Maybe then, politicians (in parliament or in the office) would have something to aspire to.