arts and design

Look to the future and vote for Labour, says Antony Gormley | Letters

[ad_1]

On Thursday, I will vote Labour. This is why: I am tired of Boris Johnson’s blustery rhetoric, lazy policymaking and mendacious, cuddly Churchill act. The Conservatives have simply run this country into the ground. They have no new ideas. They have failed the most important creative test any of us are set: to think about and make a future. Instead, they choose to look back, resting their policies on the nostalgia for a patriotic and sovereign Britain that is delusory.

When I was at art school we were encouraged to be fiercely forward-looking. Our horizons were ever widening, and questioning the status quo was the norm. I was given the tools to critique the inherited power structures that determined my own, the country’s and the world’s future. This spirit has waned as education itself has become a service industry. Now students are clients paying for a service rather than the seekers of inspiration but more than ever we need creativity and new ideas in a world divided and threatened by climate change.

The young seek fulfilment, not riches. They want a sustainable and responsible world. The old models of capitalism and self-interest have to change in the face of the relative scarcity of clean water and air, rising sea levels, mass migration and failing infrastructure. It is in our power to meet these challenges with creativity and positivity, for them to be a catalyst for change. With Labour’s vision we have the opportunity to use our democratic power to take a new direction. The inspiring but carefully considered and fully costed Labour manifesto lays out a functional plan for a green revolution and the fulfilment of our duty to educate and involve all in the making of a sustainable future.

Boris Johnson will set us on a course for ever greater destruction of all that Britain has been proud of: healthcare for all, education for all and a fundamental respect for the natural world. So please don’t waste your vote on the Lib Dems, or even – and I am sorry to say it – the Greens. The only way to block a Conservative government is to vote Labour. The planet is calling on our collective conscience. We need systemic change.
Antony Gormley
London

Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com

Read more Guardian letters – click here to visit gu.com/letters

Do you have a photo you’d like to share with Guardian readers? Click here to upload it and we’ll publish the best submissions in the letters spread of our print edition

[ad_2]

READ SOURCE

This website uses cookies. By continuing to use this site, you accept our use of cookies.  Learn more