As we begin 2024, ‘Problems, Problems, everywhere’, might be the opening line for some mythical superhero sent to save us all by using their political superpowers.
The challenge for us, is that the multitude of problems we are facing across the UK are not only real, but the list is also growing too.
One thing we can all feel pretty sure about is that in terms of public representation, legislators or the people we could elect or re-elect to be our politicians, there certainly aren’t any superheroes amongst them.
In fact, none of our politicians understand what the responsibilities of their elected roles as public representatives are and what the power, they have been entrusted with is for. That much we can be certain of, simply because of the way that things already are.
To be fair to anyone who has knocked on doors and entered politics with best intentions when they first stepped forward, very few of them – whether in Parliament of within any of our local councils – have the ability or the time necessary to observe, consider and understand how government and the public sector in the UK actually works. That is, before they are either corrupted and become part of it, or the issues they raise that would genuinely help us just as quickly see them spat back out.
This part of how the British Political System works is important to understand. Because no matter what the problems are that we are personally experiencing with the world around us, or what the problems are that the people in our lives are experiencing with the wider world too, the reality is that it is, or was at some point, the result of what a politician did or didn’t do, when they had the opportunity to behave differently, that has ended up with every problem that we are now experiencing across society.
How government and governance work
The laws, regulations and the governance we have to control everything in life outside of ourselves or our homes, is ultimately the responsibility of the people (That’s us!).
In the democratic system that we currently have, that means that the decisions taken that have created all the problems the UK has are down to the choices made on our behalf by the people we have elected to represented us and in whom we have collectively placed our trust.
It doesn’t matter whether the politicians and decision makers were aware of the consequences of their actions or not.
No person should ever stand for election to a public office, if they lack the ability to take decisions on behalf of the constituency that they were elected to represent. Rather than putting their political party or themselves, first.
Regrettably, we are where we are today. And because the growing mess that we are being pulled into right now has been created over a period of decades in time, the reality is that the problems that poor, misguided and incorrect governance of the UK has created are now too embedded to be easily fixed – No matter what any of the politicians that are currently lining up with the aim of getting elected in the next General Election have said already or are going to tell us as that time gets nearer.
We can no longer continue as spectators in our own story
The UK and the World itself enters the mid 2020’s in crisis. Whilst some of us may feel happy and contented with the lives that we have and might even feel insulated from the World outside of our daily lives or what some would call our ‘bubble’, very few of us can fail to acknowledge the problems facing people, communities, society and our country as a whole.
Whilst we all have the ability to look outwards and say quietly to ourselves, ‘none of this is my problem’, or ‘someone else will sort that out’, the truth we all have to face is that responsibility for the things that have happened, the things that will happen and the things that still need to happen, rests a lot closer to home.
Those of us who are able, must now enter into the process of looking at all of the problems that we have, and what we do to try and address them, in a very different, and very alternative way.
Surprising as it may sound, it is the complexity of the problems and the interconnected nature of all those problems that the UK has that sit in the areas of law, rules and governance that have not only allowed the creation of all those problems, but has also made finding a solution to them difficult to the degree that many believe the solutions that are now necessary, are impossible to implement, in no small part because we don’t believe that we have any control or relationship with them.
Even harder to fathom for anyone genuinely seeking solutions, is that despite the almost encyclopaedic spread of those problems, that we will later discuss in terms of degrees of separation, both the problem(s) and the solution(s) can be identified and recognised for the power and the reach that they have, in what are very simple terms.
It is the simple way of looking at solving the UKs problems that is most difficult to accept. Because the masses of problems and the complexity of all of them surely means that there must be masses of solutions that are themselves very complex by their nature, after all.
What I can tell you, with the life, education, commercial, volunteer, entrepreneurial, charity, government, not for profit, political and thinking experience that I have, is that we all have the same power, as individuals and as members of our communities, to play our part and to change things. And that change all comes down to the way that each and every one of us think.
Regrettably, we must genuinely want to change our minds before we will be prepared to change them. The resistance to that change is where the root to the solution to every problem genuinely lies.
The System or Paradigm that we experience and are living in now
Because life is so detailed, and we are continually drawn into that detail, it is very easy to miss the bigger picture that is at work around us. Not just within one or a few additional layers, but for some of us what might be described as being a multilayered or multifaceted way.
If you were to stand back and be able to look at, review, consider and think about the way that everything in the world beyond your own day to day experience and what you see every day in the world around you works, no matter how detached, how far away or how irrelevant it might feel, that entire picture, the moving parts, the people, the businesses, the communities, the countries and everything else are what is called a system or what some might refer to as The System.
The Solution isn’t in the detail. It’s about The System itself. If we change the way the system works, the details will take care of themselves
The way that The System works or the processes, patterns and behaviours that make The System work the way that it does is called a Paradigm.
Whilst the many solutions to society’s problems being suggested may have been very well thought out, they are usually idealistic and fail in some way, simply because they overlook the practical reality of the way that The System or the existing Paradigm works and affects everything.
The Paradigm that needs to be changed, or shifted, is based on, focused and is developing even now around Money and how everyone thinks about it.
The shift to a new Paradigm and the process that will bring solutions to all the problems that we have will require us to be values orientated and therefore People-Centric instead.
The question we all face, and that our future, the future of our communities, our country and probably the world too rests upon is ‘What will it actually take for enough of us to change our minds?’
Stepping back from the small stuff to embrace the bigger picture
The switch from subjectivity to objective thinking may sound easy when framed that way. But the reality is that if the ability to see everything objectively were as straightforward or automatic as looking at everything subjectively, the World would already function very differently and be a much happier and healthy place.
Chances are that you will have heard and understand the phrase ‘Can’t see the wood for the trees’.
This is a simple way to consider the relationship between detail (being in the trees) and the overview (the view of the whole wood) that is a key part of the journey that now follows in this book.
Although One Rule Changes Everything is about working with the bigger picture, to give the process and solution the meaning required to be both viable and for its longevity to be assured, it is necessary to appreciate how The System we live in today really works by having an understanding and appreciation of what the detail means or what it collectively adds up to first.
If you are ready, it’s time to begin:
This Introduction is taken from One Rule Changes Everything, published on Amazon on 23rd December 2023. To download your copy, please follow the link below:
Adam Tugwell 