During the 16^th Century Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire, explorer Hernando Cortez is fabled for the act of burning his ships so that his men would realise and understand that they had the simple choice of success or death.

It’s an interesting story that has found its way into use as a metaphor. Reading this mornings news that the current Conservative Party hierarchy is threatening to boot out any Councillors or MPs who fail to support the Party in the May Elections, one can only wonder if yet again, somebody somewhere is failing to read the script in its entirety, reverting instead to using a threatening jack boot in the forlorn hope that fear is all it will take to dam the parting tide.

Cortez was of course successful. Not because he knew how to lead, or because he understood the basic psychology of others and what it would take to encourage and motivate others to go up against what seemed insurmountable odds and go on to succeed.

No, Cortez was successful because he shared a tangible vision. A direction of travel and a clear understanding of what was to be required and what would be involved.

The Conservative Party today is offering none of this. No leadership. No direction. No vision of where it is going to take the Country. No tangible definition of what is to come.

When the Party itself is already crumbling around its MPs, Councillors, Officers and those left of its sick and tired Members, the threat of excommunication for any of them – even the most ambitious amongst them, simply no longer holds the threat or fear that until even very recently it always had done.

The People, with conservatives of all kinds snugly placed amongst them, now want our democracy restored. They want Brexit in its entirety delivered. And they know that the Conservative Party under May’s tenure leadership is not a political vehicle that is synonymous with any such cause.

Yet the Brexit Party is still placed within the realms of being no more than a protest party, and the European Election that it is poised to fight will be for many the opportunity to underline and shout loudly that Leaving the EU was always what the People intended. It’s just the Politicians who have got the whole thing wrong whilst trying endlessly to convince all others that they were always the few who were right.

If the Conservative Party, nearing its death throws from months of holding down its own self-destruct button, cannot see the rhetorical gesture underpinning what its own Membership is now doing for an Election process that should never have been called, and take appropriate action accordingly, it truly deserves that temporary loan of an ultimately meaningless vote to depart permanently and be gifted permanently to those who may be far from best equipped to provide good government, but nonetheless have the resounding attribute of at least being seen to intend to represent the best interests of everyone involved.

As I wrote in my most recent blog a few days ago, for what’s left of the Conservative Party in any physical sense today, there comes approaching a final and two way choice.

The Conservative Party will either utilise whatever comes from the results of the upcoming Elections to remove this destructive Prime Minister and go forward with a new understanding and appreciation of what conservatism in a 21^st Century UK can be most effective for, or it will continue to look for a solution from everything it has ever known. That which is completely broken, not representative in any way of what a political party should now exist for and not in anyway near to that which the British People now rightly expect from A Government underpinned by true conservative ideals that are fit for our time.

 

image thanks to unknown

Anyone watching the news programmes in the West Country last night could have easily mistaken the coverage of the Climate Change Protests, flagging its origins in Stroud as being flown as some kind of Regional badge of honour.

Questions over media bias aside and quickly swept away into the overflowing pile where it now belongs, the strange-but-true reality of the Climate Question is that there are much greater levels of sympathy for the points that are generally being made than is generally realised. It is simply the case that for most people, the practicalities of life get in the way.

There is an unwritten rule beating away like a heart in the background of all this that says its ok to be as idealistic as much as you like, just don’t get in the way of other peoples lives in a way that suggests that you (the idealist) are right, and that everyone else (the pragmatic) are wrong.

The upshot and punishment of doing so, as the Extinction Rebellion are unwittingly pursuing so rigorously in London right now, is to lose friends and alienate people. The same people that they should not only be looking to win support from, but to work with collectively if not only the Climate Change Question but a great many others are ever, within a sensible timeline, to be properly resolved.

As an end result, aim or destination target, the creation of a fully carbon neutral economy is in itself a worthy aim. But attempting to push Government and yes, the People of this Country into the changes and knock-on effects that would be both necessary and unavoidable to achieve this unilateral target across the UK by 2025 would have impacts that even the most pessimistic of us would not dare to imagine.

There are pages, chapters and probably an entire book covering the family tree of consequences that would follow the implementation of such de facto demands.

When it boils down to it, even the lives of these apparently most idealistic and green-motivated of people would be turned completely on their head by public policy borne within an echo chamber where real world considerations and the question of such things as how the human experience is different for us all are excluded and don’t operate in any meaningful form.

Many Climate Change activists passionately believe that theirs is the only real game in town. But the game they really should be playing isn’t the one they think it is. It is actually the same one underpinning pretty much all of the problems that we as a society, a Country, a Continent and a World have at the base of all political problems.

Yes, it all boils down to pretty much the same cause.

Money, material wealth, self-interest and just about every shade of the same that you can roll out into what appears to be an infinite number of infinitesimally small to gargantuan forms.

Whether its think of ourselves or the accumulation of corporate and fat-cat wealth, it’s all relative and the root cause of it all is fundamentally the same.

Climate Change, like so many other things, will not become the cause célèbre that it needs to be, for as long as the alternative to money being the real power in the world is neither recognised, embraced and therefore not found.

To even begin the journey to that place – which will not be brought into existence by throwing the toys out of the pram, will take a change in thinking that will simply not happen that fast, no matter how desperate the change required may actually be.

Man is by nature a selfish beast. And the argument for addressing Climate Change will not be a priority for everyone until every excuse – whether financial or otherwise – has been dealt with meaningfully and removed, or the whole problem has simply been tested to to destruction and yes – gone far too far.

The genuine, meaningful opportunity that exists today for activists and people up and down this land, is to observe and be open to the reality that removing the sickness we now have in our Politics, our Parliament and all of our public bodies is the first major step to making our own society more mindful of the wider issues at work.

When we achieve the goal of having people in high office and positions of responsibility that consider the consequences of all that they do in terms of everyone and not only themselves, we will be one giant leap nearer the point where the Climate Change Question, whether perceived in isolation or as part of the malaise which faces us all collectively can finally be resolved.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

With all credibility now well and truly gone from this Parliament, it is regrettably all too convenient that some of the architects of the Brexit impasse are already touting the possibility of an inquiry being set up to define what went wrong.

In the age of spin, where the best, most eloquent or most communicable excuses eclipse pretty much every level of genuine truth or non-Westminster reality, it sadly comes as little surprise.

It has, after all, become the default option of poor representatives, to cover their own failures, misgivings and downright self-interest by identifying just about any form of excuse they can find which will anchor a justification for trashing workable plans, ideas that will actually help other people or destroying the credibility and often the progress of others who can actually justify their arguments or what it is they do.

The problem is now so deeply seated within the establishment and the way that both Politicians and public figures behave that very little actually stands up to scrutiny under anyone who can still be bothered to cast a critical eye.

Relationships of all kinds with the Electorate and the Public at large are being obliterated.

Our trust and faith in institution has been abused. But until now, until this excuse of a process for Leaving the EU, the rock had not been lifted upon all the darkness that lies in the system beneath.

It has taken the rebellion of our elected representatives against a clear democratic instruction to show and give the lie to everything that for so long was accepted as credible, now demonstrated as being rotten, actively misrepresented and in no way what it has been presented as, and is in fact, the opposite extreme.

The Will of the People is no grey area. It is not a policy which itself can be negotiated, redirected, chopped and changed. The Will of the People is clear, definite and no excuse can, should or will ever justify any kind of excuse or attempt to ignore it or overturn it, no matter how right or justified the party behind such a move might believe their efforts to be.

It is not for any elected representative to dictate that those who elected them are in any way wrong.

To do so delegitimises the very act of their own election. It indicates that the democratic process leading to their appointment is also flawed and therefore wrong.

It doesn’t matter what these intransigent MPs say, think or do. No amount of time. No amount of obfuscation. No amount of fear mongering will bring legitimacy to their actions or that which they do.

Deep down this rum majority of MPs know this, even if they cannot bring themselves to be open about it and act upon it as they should.

That is why Brexit is where it is.

That is why people are being lied to about Brexit.

That is why we are being sold lie after lie which contradicts the truth that a clean, full, meaningful and no-deal Brexit for the UK will actually be extremely good and much better for us all – the real People across this Country than continued entanglement with the EU ever would.

So MPs, cut the excuses and the bullshit that you have framed our once world-respected political system with as you have smashed it into the ground.

Give us the proper Brexit that we voted for.

Stand back, let us finally Leave on the 12^th of April and do your job to facilitate the Will of the People as your were instructed to do so democratically; as we expected and trusted that you would when we elected you, and as you know deep down that you should.