Month: September 2019

Changing Politics for the better Pt 3: Money

The role of money is now seen and accepted as being a key to every part of life.

For many of us, monetary wealth is a benchmark or reference point for happiness.
Money has been elevated to the status of a god. And we interpret our reality based on what we believe.
Because it has become such an emotionally powerful tool, the role of Money has become imbedded in the psyches of decision makers and is automatically considered to be the key or default factor when all decisions are made.
As such, Politicians make decisions based on the premise that spending more money or simply lowering costs will be the best way to solve any problem – no matter what the non-monetary costs, knock-on effects or consequences for us all are involved.
When it comes to the creation of money and the economy itself, very few Politicians have a genuine understanding of the processes and real responsibilities that are involved.
It is a fact that successive Governments have simply abdicated responsibility for the one area of policy that is guaranteed to have an impact on us all.
They look upon the banking system peripherally and listen to economists who give them the messages that they want to hear.
Often, they interpret and perceive information only in the short or electoral term and are only too happy to allow problems with debt and overspending stack up for later generations. It’s only ever the quick-hit to gain our buy-in and support for them about which we are told.
Beyond the ineptitude of the Politicians, the finance industry has become a law unto itself in these circumstances and whilst capitalism itself is pretty much an intrinsic personal state, untamed and allowed to flourish on the basis of exploiting others and taking value from supply chains without adding any or putting anything meaningful back in, is itself having an incalculably negative impact upon the basic cost of living, and why we are in a situation where going into debt is for many the only way that People can keep going and have ‘normal’ lives where these unseen influences have made basic life too expensive to afford.
We cannot continue allowing anyone with the power to do so, to keep pushing up prices directly of indirectly beyond what it is reasonable for an average salary and typical commitments to afford.
Monetary responsibility must be returned to the hands of Government and not entrusted to the whims of so-called specialists and experts who have no understanding or no desire to understand the impact and consequences of what they do on anyone else, so long as there is a juicy profit involved.
A good Government could begin addressing the difficulties being created in our lives through the miss-use, miss-creation and miss-management of money by:
  • Removing the ability of banks to ‘create’ money through any type of leverage process.
  •  Abolish the practice of spread-betting, hedging or any financial activity which involved speculation or making profits from activities which are at arms length from the businesses or bodies with which the shares they are handling are affiliated with, and so are not in any way actively involved .
  • Create a Law to stop unreasonable Profiteering from any financial or business activity that removes agents and middle men who take value from supply chains simply by assuming temporary ownership and adding fees and margins without adding value to whatever it is that’s involved.
  •  Work with the City to create a new and hopefully temporary set of Regulations to restore ethics to all financial practices and above all refocus the way that publically owned businesses are run to prioritise service and value, rather than returning guaranteed levels of profit to shareholders.
  •  Incentivise banks to speculate on the creation an development of small businesses, placing the emphasis on there being risks involved for bankers too, rather than allowing them to walk away from opportunities that would benefit us all if realised.
  • Create a new People’s Bank which will provide cash-free services to all People who are receiving benefits from the Government of any kind, and will fill the gap in supporting new businesses and projects for growth that the time it takes the banks to transform to responsible capitalism leave behind.
  • Considering a reset of our currency in whatever form that might take, to ultimately bring values back in line with where they should be, so that those with much cannot continue to leave those with very little behind.
  • Introduce a Flat Tax system.
  •  Tax all retail business at the geographical point of sale
  • Remove the ability of commercial organisations or bodies that they have control of to oversee credit ratings and the influence they can have on businesses or individuals of any kind.

Changing Politics for the better Pt 1: Public Sector Reform

The key aim of my discussion on change in politics is to talk about Brexit and the possibilities that it opens up to us more openly, and how a good Government can go about putting the ideas underpinning A New Politics into practical and meaningful form.

In the first instance, it is easy for us to assume that these changes can come about just by changing the way that Politicians think, or replacing the Politicians themselves. But the reality of changing the way that Government and the Public Sector works is so very much more.
One of the reasons it has become so important that we get the right Politicians in place, is because the Public Sector itself has as a result of EU influence and poor political management over many years, become rotten to the core.
The Public Sector has become for many senior officers one big gravy chain with tentacles that reach outwards and far beyond. There is a protectionist culture in place from top to bottom that shies away from responsibility and passes the buck onwards an upwards – usually to consultants who actually add nothing new, rather than simply getting the job done, which is after all exactly what all Government Officers and Civil Servants are employed to do.
Rather than the priority of Public Services being to serve the Public, the focus has become all about the people who are employed within its jobs. The employment rules and regulations and bottomless pits such as the Local Government Pension Scheme are a gargantuan drain on just about every resource.
And it is because it has become so very expensive to employ staff directly and to keep up with the legal obligations to those staff that once were, that significant incomes generated by Council Tax and Business Rates go nowhere near as far as they should.
Poor Management, management based on self-interest and management which is incompetent whilst selling itself as knowing better than elected decision makers is at the core of this rich malaise.
Any original thinking that could find solutions to the problems is restricted by all the rules that being tied to the EU has put in play.
And the rich mix of key positions of influence in the Public Sector being filled by people who really shouldn’t be there, entwined with the incompetence of politicians who are in it for themselves as simply assume that the executive is there to decide what work to do, rather than being there to do as they are told, means that the whole Public Sector System is failing us. Is too expensive to run. And is at the mercy of idiots who have concluded that getting more money from Central Government is the only way to get anything done.
A Good Government will immediately embark upon top to bottom Public Sector Reform.
To begin with it could:
  • Create a new code of ethics and protocol that requires all public employees to fulfill both the obligations and live up to the responsibilities of their jobs.
  • Ban the use of outside consultants, agencies or temporary staff to carry out work that a public sector employee could do.
  • Ensure that Employees and the expectations placed upon them are realistic and where extra is required from them, that they are happy to undertake additional work voluntarily if that is the most sensible way to get things done.
  • Stop councils and other public sector bodies contracting out services to profit making contractors and agencies.
  • Reform and remove the guarantee of the gold-plated pension schemes and put them on a par with those in the commercial world.
  • Reverse the reforms that Gordon Brown enacted to Pension Schemes in 1997.
  • Remove the Working Time Directive and any Employment Rules that mean the employer has to prioritise the rights of the Employee above the execution of the job and the responsibilities that they were employed to do.
  •  Put a fixed, realistic and mandatory pay scale in place for each and every level, role or position, placing the emphasis back on jobs in the public sector including the benefit of putting something back, rather than being all about what the employee can gain from being in the job that they do.
  • Take appropriate steps to stop ambulance chasers and everything that contributes to the culture of blame. Public employees need to know that they are trusted to do their jobs and to adapt to circumstances rather than having to do everything based on a risk assessment first in case they should be accused of intending to hurt others in some way, or do something that could otherwise be interpreted as being wrong

Restoring Democracy Pt 8: The Electoral System

RD1As with most things political today, politicians and activists have the common habit of blaming everything they see as being wrong on something or some factor that is outside of them or outside of their control.

Boiled down to its basic components, this means that when something isn’t working – such as their own ability to get power by gaining or retaining enough Seats in Parliament or perhaps a local Council – they believe that the problem must be with someone or something else, and that the way to fix that problem will be to fix that ‘someone’ or that ‘something’, rather than to do anything else.
Right now, politics is broken.
In fact, politics has been broken for a long time.
Politics has been broken for a lot longer than the Brexit question has been around and Brexit is a symptom of the problem – not the cause.
Yet politicians who do not have power, or the working majorities that provide that power in Government and in our Councils, most often believe that the problem or the reason that politics is broken, is nothing to do with them.
Those politicians with power aren’t worried about gaining power. They only worry about keeping it. And that is why they are obsessive about sound bites and vote-winning policies that will keep them where they are. They aren’t worried about anything that has helped them to be in the position they are now such as the Electoral System.
But those politicians without power don’t believe that the Electoral System has served them and their ideas well.
They believe that it is the system itself that is at fault. Not the ideas that might actually be wrong.
Those politicians without power are the ones that advocate changing the Electoral System from First Past The Post (FPTP) to a form of Proportional Representation (PR) with the overt argument that it is much fairer and much more representative of Voters and their intentions – when it is actually nothing of the sort.
The reason that FPTP isn’t working in the way that those without power would like it to do so, is because the content within our political system – that’s the Politicians, the Parties and the ideas, policies and approach that they espouse – are actually undemocratic or unrepresentative of democracy.
In fact, FPTP is actually working very well. FPTP is working just as it should. Voters are simply giving their democratic support and mandate to the Parties and Policies which they believe in the most.
There just isn’t a majority in Parliament, because no Political Party is showing the leadership, reliability, reason, thought and trustworthiness to be trusted by the majority of Voters as any Party of Government surely should.
PR would actually make the problems that we are experiencing with politics in the UK significantly worse.
PR would consolidate the position of fringe ideas, idealistic philosophies and single-issue Political Parties and make compromise a permanent feature of Government.
Good Government can never compromise on key issues if it is to be responsible to all members of the Electorate as it always should.
Those Political Parties that are unhappy with their ‘showing’ or Electoral Results should be looking at themselves and the policies that they are offering; looking inside themselves instead of outwards and accepting that they and what they do are not representative of a majority democratic view.
That they are in effect, in it for themselves.
No Political Party can itself be perfect. But a Political Party can be professional and considerate of its obligations to others in all that it will do.
The acid test of a democracy is when a majority of people vote clearly for one Candidate or one Party over all others. Because it is then clear that what that Party or Candidate is offering at that specific time and in that Election Campaign, is representative of the real Democratic and therefore Political Tide.
We must retain FPTP in order to return democracy in this Country.
It is the Politicians and the Political Parties that must change.
Once Politicians are doing what they should be under FPTP, Majority Government will soon be restored.
We do not need the permanent state of flux that we would have if PR were to replace FPTP. Majority Government would only ever then be possible through Coalition – which would mean what we actually Vote for will be set aside in compromise so that power can be shared between different Parties that could otherwise never achieve a majority, whilst what we actually voted for will never be in mind.

Restoring Democracy Pt 7: Public Services should only have one master

RD1Meddling with public services has become normal part of a politician’s life.

No matter whether its exerting direct deliberate influence or an indirect consequence of anything else that they have done, Public Services have become unsustainable – not just financially, but also in the way that they are run.
The key to solving the problems that the Public Sector faces is relatively simple. It’s already in the name.
Public Services are literally the provision of services to the Public. That should be the priority, the aim, the reason for doing and how any decisions affecting them should ultimately be informed.
The meddling and imposition of rules over employment, pensions and a variety of other targets which have redirected priorities in order to avoid what would otherwise be legally recognisable employee upset has switched the focus of what the NHS, Councils, Schools, Government Departments and what Quangos are there to do, and placed it instead upon avoiding any kind of problems with staff, who have also become too expensive with all the rights they now have for all of them to remain employed.
This itself is one of the key contributing reasons for the employment of commercial service providers and consultants to do jobs that public servants were previously employed to do. And what you rarely hear mentioned is that these private enterprises are often doing exactly the same job, paying their staff all that they are legally entitled to, whilst making a profit on top for the business owner, yet still cheaper than the not-for-profit public sector provider used to.
The problem with all of these different priorities and providing services using contractors is the master is never the Public itself. Yet they are the reason that all of these organisations exist and why the people doing the jobs are actually employed.
A Good Government MUST return the emphasis of public service to serving the public and take whatever steps necessary to ensure that We the Public are always the priority. Not staff. Not profit. In absolutely everything that they do.
Restoring Democracy Pt 8: The Electoral System

Restoring Democracy Pt 6: Ambition & Direction – not broken promises and being strung along

RD1For decades, generations of Politicians have increasingly become aligned with motivations and priorities that should never be in the make up of the people who are privileged to hold power in Public Office.

Encouraged by a Party Political system that has focused more and more on taking only those steps necessary to secure and retain power, it was inevitable that the Candidates for Political Office that they have brought forward would look at their roles in the same way.
For too long, Politics has subsequently only been about doing what has been deemed necessary or politically expedient to get the result that suits the interests of the Politicians involved.
Politicians are always on message, do whatever is necessary to secure position and elevation and do not often take the risk of speaking out or against the system for fear that they will lose their roles after being singled out and ostracized for being wrong.
The most successful of this current Political Class are in most cases little more than ‘yes men’. And the problem with saying yes to all the right people to get ahead and get elevated is that sooner or later, you have to be able to say no – and especially when you get to the top job.
A career and circumstances like these do not encourage and develop skills of leadership.
There are no skills of decisiveness or understanding of the world outside of politics that politics impacts upon.
All that is wrong with the system has been illustrated by the disastrous Premiership of Theresa May.
When Politicians appointed to Lead us actually have no idea how or what it means to lead and only focus on keeping their power, it is inevitable that it will lead not only to disappointment. It is how significant problems for a Country are made.
We never needed this old politics. It doesn’t work for the many. It only works for the few. It is time for something new.
We now need a generation of forward looking Politicians who are themselves led by Leaders who have ambition for all of us and our Country, not just themselves and what it takes for them alone to get on.
Restoring Democracy Pt 7: Public Services should only have one master