Irony of ironies, after decades of maxing out and making the most they possibly can from globalisation, whilst pretending that no such thing as a climate crisis exists, our elites have now suddenly grown a conscience – or so it would seem.

Regrettably, as we have come to expect, instead of thinking about the consequences and the impact on everyone else from what they do, the political classes have thrown themselves headlong into an idealistic and wholly impractical race to Net Zero. One that is starting to demand lifestyle and financial changes that are unaffordable and unsustainable for anyone but themselves.

This comedy of errors is playing out daily for all to see. It was illustrated very well on page 4 of today’s Daily Mail, where one article talks about the poor having to ration their use of electricity at peak times. The article next to it discusses the closure of the fracking wells across the UK which were to be the first of many that could have helped keep energy prices low and sustainable for us all, whilst we find practical ways to go green.

There is no question that a climate crisis exists. But it is the greed and profligate exploitation of resources, travel on demand, shipping, low wage and undeveloped economies, as well as our throw away culture where products are literally designed to only last a limited time through planned obsolescence, that are already the biggest and most consistent offenders when it comes to the creation of this very troubling climate legacy which in many ways is set to last.

The way we have been living is unsustainable. But we have been led to believe that there are no consequences for low-cost, instantly available goods of all kinds, because our politicians, media and big businesses have told us so.

Unfortunately, the transition we face from the way we live now to the way that we need to, is not one that is as simple as switching one way of being on or off, or just exchanging it momentarily for another, or passing overnight from A to B.

Yet this is exactly the expectation we are being told that we must accept and adopt when ways of producing energy cheaply are aggressively being switched off without methods of energy production being in place to replace them, that can be relied on, consistently and at all times.

It is very easy for unthinking, self-interested people with influence and power to impose such changes on others who are living lives that they do not and will not ever understand.

These elites are the people who, after all, will not be forced to switch off a power supply or moderate their own use of energy at times of the day when it is perfectly normal for any one of us to expect our power supply to be switched on.

The elites are the ones who do not have to worry about buying expensive battery powered cars, and then charging them with all of the additional costs these processes will involve.

The reality is that the changes that we have to make can only become sustainable by changing the way that we think and the way that we live. We must change the way that we do business and accept that it is no longer going to be good for any of us if we just expect everything we want to be available and to immediately arrive.

It is hideous that instead of facing up to the realities of the situation that they have contributed to and helped to create, our political leaders, the elites and the establishment believe that they can just continue with all of the dangerous processes and activities around the globe that are damaging our World. Just as long as they are seen to be forcing us to take steps that are completely impractical, but publicly demonstrate that they are doing their bit to alleviate the coming climate pain.

The decisions and the choices that the elites have made are the easy ones. They are not the decisions that require hard work. What our Politicians should be doing is looking those who have created this problem and who are profiting from its continuation in the eye and doing the things that need to be done to make them change so that what they do is ethical. Profit must become the happy consequence of industrial activity – not the primary aim as it is today.

Change is a process that cannot be achieved overnight. And whilst we move towards a place where we can all live green, sustainably and without avoidable and unnecessary levels of pain for those who cannot afford forced change overnight, there must be a commonsense approach to using the resources and sources of energy that we have available. One that may not be palatable to the green lobby itself, but will mean that a basic, practical and consistent standard of living remains accessible at all times of the day and night.

It is simply unacceptable to fill growing gaps in energy provision with the lie that energy supplies can always be secured from foreign shores.

With war now likely in the Eastern European Country of Ukraine, the chances are that Russia will use energy supplies as a key bargaining token within a very manipulative strategic game.

The UK must become self sustaining in every way possible as soon as this outcome can be achieved.

Energy must be produced from the sources and resources that we have available to us and that can be generated within and on our own shores.

In an uncertain world we must move away from being reliant upon the delivery of goods services food or any other product that makes us vulnerable because we are out someone else’s beck and call.

Above all, we have an obligation to create and maintain a benchmark basic standard of living for the poor.

We are told by socialists that the socialist experiment has only failed so far, because it hasn’t been done properly to date.

Like most things today, one of the biggest problems that it actually faces is that it has one name that has many different meanings, and the reality is that some of those meanings don’t even overlap, and very few look similar or are actually quite the same.

The truth is that the idea of socialism only works for people when it is perceived to be giving things away or making life in some way easy.

Such generosity is received well by the young (who are inexperienced) and by those who have a chip on their shoulder, an axe to grind or are angry with the world around them and how they see themselves to have been mistreated in some way.

Yet free rides don’t improve lives. They have a habit of just making your existence more comfortable, wherever it is that you are. And if you want to improve yourself and the experience you have, that will never be something that someone else will hand you on a plate.

Lying latent within everyone, is the sense that we can improve and better our situation, and that betterment requires more from us coming from within ourselves, than simply reaching out in any direction with a begging bowl or with open hands.

Capitalism is a muti-meaning and multi-faceted word too. One that misleads in the sense that it is commonly accepted to equate with the desire and greed for money, when the truth is that with morality, ethics and responsibility, it is the industry that capitalist thinking generates which is the powerhouse at every level within our communities that can ensure that each and every one of us has the opportunity for personal growth.

The badges of Socialism and Capitalism, with the meaningless nonsense attributed to them that we have come to know as left and right, are anachronistic and have no place in a balanced and equitable world.

The truth is that if we all adopted the approach of treating all others the same, of treating all others fairly, and of treating all others as we would ourselves wish to be treated the same, the unequitable nature of both socialism and capitalism as we know them would no longer be necessary and we would have a world that was balanced and equitable to all.

Greed, stupidity and the rampant hunger for wealth and power are the root cause of the financial and economic crisis. It might only be the poor right now, but it’s a massive problem that we are all soon going to face.

Politicians are elected and given the responsibilities that they hold, on the understanding that they will address the problems that society faces. Not that they will create more, or make the problems we face even worse.

Yet creating problems and making them worse is exactly what this political class has done.

Creating problems for us is what this political class is still doing.

And in terms of the cost-of-living crisis and the damage the mass spending spree and money printing binge that Rishi Sunak embarked on two years ago, his input and stupidity currently tops them all.

So it is ironic in a very dark and troubling way, that with the rate of inflation he helped to create now out of control, and prices for the goods and services that people need daily to survive, heading skywards and into the clouds, the Chancellor’s solution to bridging the gap between what people have and what people need to address only the obscene rise in energy bills – is to give us a loan.

Yes, a loan. A loan that doesn’t solve the problem. A loan that will still make it impossible to pay the bills each month. A loan, that for many, without help of other kinds or taking on other forms of potentially very harmful debt, will be impossible to pay back even in instalments each month.

Sunak, his Tory chums and politicians from all sides before them have created the mess that the Country is now in.

Politicians have given big business free reign to monopolise what are essential public services and supplies, then legislated to make it legal and pave the way for them to charge and make profit however they like.

With the volume of free money that the Government has pumped into pockets across the economy over the past two years under his stewardship as Chancellor, Sunak has given a green light to all kinds of big business to charge a whole lot more. And they are now doing so, knowing that our incompetent political class think there will be no consequences to simply printing more.

The reality is that however clever our politicians think, and their advisors tell them that they are, they cannot hide the creation of money on the scale they have been printing it in statistics and future figures such as GDP.

The consequences of dodging reality are now there for all to see. Imposed borrowing would only work for those who can afford the monthly payments, IF there were a guarantee that things would now stay exactly the same, inflation disappeared and things could not get any worse.

That guarantee simply does not exist. And as the Tory lack of appreciation of what budgeting to survive when you live in poverty and are already going hungry already shows, this ex-banker Chancellor, who desperately wants to be PM and has absolutely no concept of what an extra £10 a week in relative terms actually means, is about to push many families over a financial cliff. When its actually his responsibility to pull the poorest back up to a level playing field, and where a gap still exists to give them a bridge.

Tackling the vested interests head on and returning ownership of any service which is essential for everyone to live back into a new form of public ownership, is the only way that the problems like the energy crisis can be solved in the long term.

Because for as long as private interests and profit remain involved, the priority will always be making more money and not keeping the vulnerable and the poor out of the cold.

In recent days, weeks and months, we have seen the reemergence of many of the political dinosaurs, taking to their soap boxes to give interviews and speeches proselytizing everything that is wrong, and what in their wisdom we should do now.

If we’d have had a political leader and Prime Minister within living memory who had done all the right things and delivered everything good for this Country that they could, we might now be looking back longingly at their tenure and be wishing that we could call on them to return to public service – knowing that on their track record alone, there would be a good chance that they could pick up and run with the mess that this current political class has made, sort it all out and do some good too.

Whilst such a situation might exist as some future time, it is a very long way from now.

What we don’t need as we face the abys of a systemic collapse and time of massive crisis and change ahead, are any of the wannabe clowns from the past, who have each contributed to the creation of the circus we are witnessing in some way, returning from the depths and giving us the benefit of yet another performance – as if it’s just another annual visit to the same old town.

It has been said in the media recently that every political career ends in failure. But I’m not sure I would agree that is true.

For if we had Politicians who were in our Parliament and in our Councils for all the right reasons, there is little doubt that doing right is what they would actually do.

When politicians are genuinely able, public-serving leaders, they will inevitably leave a legacy behind them that was not manufactured by design. But by the results of what they do.

If the time should come when we experience what true leadership actually looks and more importantly feels like for us all, rather than a continuation of this age of tokenism that benefits the few, then we might need the voices of the past to revisit us to ensure that we secure our future once more.

In the meantime, if voices from the past have nothing helpful to bring to the table, it would be better for us all if they had good manners enough to remain obscured from view.

Those with the money either own the businesses that provide the things that we need or have significant if not disproportional influence upon them and how they work.

In a world now dominated by an obsession with wealth and profit, the motives that drive the businesses which have defining control over the way that industry and the markets work are solely focused on the bottom line. They drive the increase of net profit margins at every turn.

Man cannot have two masters. And any business that has lost sight of why it exists, whether it be to produce the best goods, the best food, the best services or the best experience, it will always be looking to make ways to improve those margins to keep feeding the greed and ambition of the people at the top or those on their way there.

In circumstances where commercial self-interest has consistently pushed an agenda of deregulation and so-called ‘freedom of the markets’, we find ourselves in a financial and economic maelstrom where companies at the top of any marketplace can charge and do what they want. Not because its morally right. But because the laws they have influenced into being, to be amended or to be removed tell them that they can.

The whole downward spiral is presented in the form of a narrative that tells the public at large that the markets will always look after everything if the reach of government is kept to the absolute minimum that it can be.

Yet this narrative fails to tell the same trusting public that it pushes power further and further into the hands and control of the very few who are at the top of this twisted money tree. And that the process of unhindered deregulation only leads to price rises and misery for the people at the bottom whilst the bank accounts swell and gift even more opportunities for control at the very top.

This system is based on the economic theory or philosophy called Neoliberalism. Ironically, even many of those speaking out against the way that Governments are working today, do not understand the realities of what giving control of the system to the bankers and the industrialists actually does.

The only saving grace – if you can call it that, is that the spiral downwards (which the neoliberals believe heads the other way for as long as they are in profit and making money) inevitably leads only to one place: A systemic collapse. Because you cannot break one end of a completely unbalanced society and think for even one minute that the other end of it can maintain its very questionable and unbalanced place.