Representing the area you grew up in is a privilege, but there are also high stakes. This is the area that has helped to make you who you are, so you want to do good job. It is not enough simply to represent – as an MP with deep roots in the community you want to agitate for change. That is what you are there for. At least, that is how I understood the job description.
I was born in the Small Heath area of my constituency. I grew up here. I went to school here. I live here still. I know the vibrancy of the small businesses that pepper the main roads, and the stories of the people who run them. The classrooms of the local comprehensive, bursting at the seams as a result of its growing reputation for excellence, are all familiar to me; so too is the sense of community and responsibility that means that people look out for each other and check in on elderly neighbours, and the many small acts of kindness that make a big impact.
But I also know the problems that come round again and again. As soon as one problem is solved, another arrives. Or – even worse – the same problem comes back in a different form. These are the nagging thorns in the side of local residents, who year on year lose faith in the political system that is supposed to serve them. And every time the system lets residents down, hope, belief and optimism all take a collective battering.
How much hope has to have been lost before a resident will tell you with a straight face that you're only there on their doorstep because there's an election … even when it's the end of May and the next election is almost 12 months away.
This is a constant refrain. It is time to do something about it. And this is what one-nation politics is all about. When I am knocking on doors in the streets where I played as a child, hearing this frustration is gut-wrenching, because when communities lose hope – when they believe that the system is rigged against them – they also lose the power to effect change.
So how do I, as a local MP, help the community resist this decline in hope, and how do I do my bit to support community power? Despite all the much lauded attempts to give power back to the people – whether through "localism", "devolution" or "choice". The power to get the things done that they want in their community all too often eludes them still.
Honestly, if the community in my patch really had power, would the derelict land at the top of Eversley Road – a place that is a magnet for drugs and anti-social behaviour – still lie idle? No. They would have taken it back from the landowner who bought it hoping to make a quick buck. They would have put it into the kind of use I remember, when kids used to play there, or they would have built more affordable homes on it, for a community which is stretched to bursting point.
But community power, it seems, is in short supply. So, although supporting hope and power may not in the past have been seen as central to a politician's job description, today it is increasingly part of our role. And here Ed Miliband's call for a national renewal in which we can all play our part is a crucial inspiration. Rebuilding Britain can and must begin locally
I have embarked on a neighbourhood-wide engagement programme. Key to its success is revitalising hope in a population that has a pretty low opinion of politicians. And we have found that through working relentlessly on the smaller issues, being present when there's no election in sight, and sticking to some modest but clear commitments, we have been able to bring residents out in droves to talk about how we can change our community for the better; and this has included the types of people we don't always hear from – elderly and middle-aged Muslim women, the teenagers who yearn for community as much as anyone else.
Scratch away at the surface of despair and there sits hope. Once engaged, people in my constituency were quick to move away from thinking that sorting things out was down to me, or them, or the council or the police – almost straightaway the conversation was about we, the collective, all of us together. And as the conversation evolved, scores of people volunteered to come on this journey, though they knew it would not be easy. There are no quick fixes for the problems that plague our area.
Residents have now stepped forward to become volunteer street champions, though a better choice of word might have been street leaders – because that is what they are, and that is what we need. The most important thing that I can do, I believe, is to empower these volunteers by sharing the knowledge that I have gained about how to get things fixed and make things happen.
Ed Miliband's vision of one nation, the belief that we can achieve more through our common endeavour than we can on our own, holds the key to building stronger and more resilient communities. With a little help along the way – my job – community leaders can turn the community's hope into big changes. That's the one-nation job description I'm working to, and, together with the people of my constituency, I am hoping to make a difference in my community – which I am so fortunate to serve.
