To gently misquote the A-team: If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can contact politicians! That's the message espoused by Scott Colvin in hs extraordinary new book How to Use Politicians to Get What You Want. Scott was on the Today programme on Monday morning telling Evan Davis and Chris Mullin how to do just that - you can hear it again here.
At a time when the gap between politicians and the public is wider than ever, and the fall-out from the expenses scandal has us broadly assuming that all our elected officials are out to feather their own nests like latter-day Big Bill Thompsons (the Prohibition-era Chicago Mayor who pocketed Al Capone's gangster dollar), Scott's book is a revelation.
Politicians may get a bad press these days but they retain a surprisingly high level of power. This book is a compendium of simple, practical advice on how to get the best out of your MP (and politicians in general) to directly improve your everyday life - from involving them in disputes with corporate entities to using them to safeguard local amenities; from getting an energy company to rescind an unfair gas bill to saving your local post office. The best thing is, Scott's system does not even require you to lie, cheat or use violence - it simply asks you to understand what makes elected officials tick and shows you how to use that knowledge to make them help you assert your rights as a consumer and a citizen. Advice that retired Sunderland South MP Chris Mullin may have found useful when faced with a severe case of lost luggage recently.
Too often is the phrase used, but this book really is 'essential reading'. Buy it here now! It might just change your life...