Politicians are using the Lockdown to play with our lives like it’s all a game. We need leadership at the top instead of privilege, and that change needs to happen before the UK as we know it is completely wrecked

As you scan the Sunday Newspaper headlines today, you will see that the media is finally beginning to turn on the Government over its woeful handling of the Coronavirus Pandemic and the shameful Lockdown that is condemning more businesses to close and more people to lose their income, jobs and livelihood for every minute, hour and day that it goes on.

There is simply no excuse for the Government having taken the decisions that it has to shutdown the Country and then fail at every step to mitigate the losses and unserviceable costs both to employees and businesses alike for the whole time that the Lockdown continues and then for the resumption period that will follow it beyond.

This isn’t about it having taken time to realise what the Politicians are doing hasn’t and isn’t going to work.

With the Nightingale Hospitals clearly a white elephant vanity project that was all about the headlines that these Politicians could generate with a media which is as irresponsible as they are, the lie has been given to the call to action ‘protect the NHS‘ which was used to manipulate a trusting public into thinking that this attack on liberty and our way of life for years to come was genuinely justified and in our best interests to support it.

It wasn’t in our best interests to support the Lockdown at the start and it is not in our best interests to support the continuation of the Lockdown at any level now.

Our Country is rudderless and set on a path of destruction which is going to take the lives of people not affected by the COVID-19 Virus. Lives that would not ever have been at risk if the Country had not been locked down by the Politicians who are ‘in charge‘.

The Politicians we have today, who sought power through a political system that only favours its own – whatever political party they are from – are not equipped with the experience of life, the understanding of people or the wherewithal to lead anything. They do not posses the basic humanity and selflessness which is necessary for any national leader to have at any time to run a Country like the UK – not least of all during a time of national crisis.

These Politicians come from a political culture that genuinely believes that whatever they tell us will be so.

They have presided over the ascension of money as a god, and bankers, financiers and the heads of big business behaving as if they are the masters of the universe – all whilst everyday people have already paid an unfathomable cost for their shenanigans even before the Coronavirus Pandemic began.

The ineptitude of our Politicians over the Lockdown has now taken this lack of consideration for others into a completely different league.

This whole episode has now gone way beyond the need for basic political reform, where questions needed to be asked and action taken to stop the gravy train from flowing that keeps people who would be genuine representatives of the people from ever gaining public office because their way has been blocked by people driven only by self-interest, ambition, gaining power and the glory they covet which carries with it a level of responsibility that we can now see they have no idea how to use. (apologies – it was all said in one breath!)

We now need this political system replaced – not just changed.

We don’t need any more people who are in politics as a career and have no experience of life outside of think tanks, media jobs and the Westminster bubble beyond School and University.

We don’t need any more people who look good to the media because they have done this or done that, or look good because they represent this community, that community or anything else which is fashionable or politically correct.

Politics is about getting decisions right about every part of life right – not just one.

We don’t need any more people who say yes to all the right people at exactly the right time to keep power brokers happy. Our leaders need to know when and to whom they should say no and they MUST be prepared to do so.

We don’t need any more people who have read lots of books about political and economic ideas but have no understanding of how to deal with a crisis of any kind because that kind of management doesn’t come in a text book.

What do we need?

We need people at the top who put everyone first.

We need people at the top who know how to listen and hear advisors but not be swayed by one perspective when there are multiple voices and ideas to be heard.

We need people at the top who are ready and able to make each decision as it comes, not based on how it looks or how it will play out during an election in 5 years time.

We need people at the top who are not so fragile and insecure that they attempt to control everything and everyone.

We need people at the top who are big enough and confident enough to be honest and communicate to us all the things that they think we don’t want to hear as easily as the things they do think that we do.

We need people at the top who know how to represent others and have the life experience and wherewithal to represent. 

Ultimately, we need to do away with the party political system as it exists today.

We need to have a political party system that works to deliver public policy that works for us all as it should do. Not one filled with political parties whose role has become little more than one to prioritise anything and everything that will enable them to continue to exist and retain power in their own interests.

It would be great if each and every one of us were able to wake up tomorrow thinking as one and realise that the first and most significant step to change for all of us is for every one of us to responsibly withdraw our consent for the Government to continue as it is.

I’ve written in the past about Revolution being the last thing that we need. But times have changed.

The damage that the Politicians we have today are doing, coupled with the reality that the system as it stands will not allow or facilitate the change that we need means that now,  in a time of national crisis, we all must begin thinking about what good government looks like in a very different way to what we may have experienced in the past.

We need everyone and everyone’s interests treated equally.

We need public policy that reflect the views of all.

We need everyone to be treated fairly, even when for some reason, a decision made is something that they don’t personally like because it doesn’t favour them personally in some way.

We need people represented equally whether they are young or old by people who understand the perspective of all others, whether they agree with them or disagree.

The problems that this Government has created will not evaporate the moment that the Lockdown ends.

What the Government isn’t telling us is they have no plan to manage COVID-19 without the use of Lockdowns and the social distancing restrictions they have created continuing until such time as a Vaccine has been identified, tried, tested and rolled out – which could be many months or even years.

This crisis and the ongoing series of new problems that it is creating and will continue to create daily has only just begun.

We need leaders who can get their head down, forget about what makes good headlines and do whatever needs to be done to help us all.

The politicians we have now do not understand and appreciate that being a big beast in politics isn’t about winning a popularity contest. It is about taking decisions that you can justify and are prepared to stand by and see through from the start – when everyone including an unforgiving media says that you are wrong – because you know that what you are doing is right and in the best interests of everyone – even the people who don’t see it and will very loudly disagree.

My regret today as I look at what is likely to unfold in the coming weeks – unless the Government does a U-Turn of biblical proportions – is there is neither the time nor the rational thinking available to address the change in the way and on the timeline that would be ideal in the sense that it would achieve the democratic consensus that it could, should and in normal ‘peacetime’ surely would.

If the public withdraw their consent for the Government to govern, democratic elections will not be the next thing that fills the gap that it will create. Put bluntly, there wont be the time.

And here is the biggest risk. Like the Politicians we have who have attained their power without due regard for the responsibilities that would have, then made decisions that are going to hurt this Country more than they will help, simply because they couldn’t cope with a crisis, many normal people will behave in the same way in a crisis. They will look to the empty vessels that  make the most convincing noise for advice and direction when the shit hits the fan as it is likely to do in the coming weeks.

Without even thinking about it, we could easily see a populist dictatorship come into being in what we had before the Lockdown thought to be a model democracy. It will be led by a person or people around them who will prioritise keeping the power that this crisis will have gifted them – whatever the cost.

It doesn’t seem plausible that the Johnson Government could fall in the coming week but the reality is that if this Government doesn’t change tack on the Lockdown, the financial support it is offering to people and to businesses, and deal with Coronavirus cases as they arise – as it always should have done – then it really could fall.

What we should all hope is that if it happens, is that there is someone ready to step in and turn this all around and then see the whole of the COVID-19 Crisis through as a leader really should, whilst making the changes to the way that the UK works that will make things better for everyone for the long term future – as any good Government should.

In time, what would then be real democracy could then be restored – once the structure of the Country has been changed to work collectively and collaboratively to the benefit of us all, and not as it is now – just for the few.

Let’s hope for a responsible revolution and a return to new and better times which are human and considerate of all.