Aneurin Bevan is one of Wales’ most famous politicians. You probably haven’t heard of him but you’ve heard of his most famous invention.
He was born in Tredegar and grew up around people with no job, no money, and no hope. Bevan decided he wanted to do something about it.
The trouble was, without power, he couldn’t change very much. So he decided to get into politics and persuaded people to vote him onto the local council. But he still couldn’t make much of a difference so he stood as an MP and persuaded people to elect him to Parliament. But he still couldn’t make much of a difference so he persuaded his party leader to let him serve in the Government. You get the picture?
In government he realised he needed to get into the cabinet. Once there, as Health Secretary he invented the NHS which changed the way we run healthcare in Britain. Even after that though, there were still loads of things he was never able to do. He just didn’t have the power.
America has just elected a new President. You may know that, as President, Donald Trump has great power. he has power over the military, he can make and block laws, and he can spend trillions of dollars but he also has limits on his power. No President has ever finished in office having done everything they set out to do. There are too many obstacles. In fact, often, the harder they try to force change the worse they do.
We don’t need to be in politics to know how tempting it is to try to gather power. Sometimes we try to manipulate people to do what we want or try to gain an advantage to keep control of everybody. The trouble is it’s exhausting for us and leaves everyone else miserable.
