Councillor Tariq Sadiq

Neil:  Do you think everybody in our community is represented on the council?

Tariq:  No, I don't think there is actually any council, or certainly not parliament, where everyone is properly represented.

I think that some communities find democracy - local democracy in particular - they don't probably understand how it affects their daily lives.  They don't get enough information about it and it seems a bit alien to them.  And they might feel that the people that they see on TV or radio speaking about the community don't look like them, and maybe don't understand their problems, so they feel a bit detached from it.

So I think we've got a lot of work to do to try and tell people that the council is there for everyone and that they should get involved and stand for election, and see if they can get elected to the council and help their communities in that way.

Neil:  How do you represent the views of different groups in our community?

Tariq:  Right, obviously as one person you can't know what everybody thinks and what everybody's views are.  But you can make it part of your work to actually make yourself available to talk to people of different communities, from different backgrounds and different religions and so on, to find out what they think - particularly if they're not represented in the council as we've just talked about.

So for example, it may be that people are worried about foreign policy, and you might think that's nothing to do with the council.  But in fact I think the way that different communities think about or are concerned about the way that Britain deals with other countries might affect how much they feel part of the community locally as well - and how they relate to Britain and whether they feel that they're British and their ideas and their views are listened to.

Neil:  Fascinating.  How do you think more people could be encouraged to get involved in politics and stand in elections, so that we have lots of different kinds of people on the council and in government?

Tariq:  I think the kind of thing that you're doing through Promote the Vote is actually a very good example of the way that you can educate people, not just people with learning difficulties, but everyone actually.

I'm really impressed by the way you've organised your website, and how easy it is to understand and learn about the issues and how local politics affects everything that you do in your life.

It is difficult because sometimes people think politics is boring and they don't vote in local elections, and we don't get a very high turnout.

But in fact if you don't vote, then your influence over how your services are provided and how the council uses your council tax is lessened.  That's the main opportunity that you have to influence the way that you think that your money - through taxes - should be spent.