Month: May 2024

Why we need a Good Dictator, and our phoney democracy should take a rest

In the immediate run up to the December 2019 General Election, I wrote and published The Makeshift Manifesto, here online and as an e-book that’s available on Amazon.

Even though the political terrain was different, from the point of view that the British Electorate were days away from trusting Boris Johnson with an Election Result that very few saw coming because the Conservatives promised to get Brexit done, the truth of the matter was that many areas of the UKs public policy had already gone massively wrong.

Regrettably, it had been doing so for a time that has spanned many different governments, led by different political parties, before.

Within months, we were all subjected to the stupidity and poor leadership that manifested itself in the form of both the Government and the wider political response to Covid 19 and the Covid Pandemic.

We are unlikely to have experienced all the fall-out and consequences of such levels of incompetence and political delinquency that were set in motion, even now.

However, back in early December 2019, I decided to commit all the things a ‘good’ government would actually do to paper. I then shared it with the world.

Since then, The Makeshift Manifesto seems to have been a popular read. So, earlier this year, as I contemplated the run up to the coming General Election, I began to question whether I should revisit the book and update it to reflect what has changed and where the further problems with Public Policy have developed over the 4+ years of time since the first edition was published.

With the original work set up on a screen and being sat ready to dive straight in, it didn’t take many moments for me to realise that if ‘good’ policy was no more than a wish list at the time of the last General Election, because of the quality  of the politicians we had back then, the uncomfortable fact is that with the political options we have available today, such suggestions would be pretty much impossible to deliver through the current structure of government, in any meaningful way.

I’d written about the concept of and asked the question ‘Is it possible to have a Good Dictator’ before.

But at this point I realised, that without people being open to the change that is possible now and which I covered in the book Officially None Of The Above, or there being some kind of Black Swan event that has the power to change everyone’s minds, the only way that meaningful change could be delivered throughout government, the public sector and within every area of Public Policy itself, would be with pure single-mindedness. The kind that could only be achieved if it was driven and directed by one person with the power necessary to command and dictate that massive scale of change.

I worked this thorough as briefly as it was possible to do so.

Leaning on different books that I have written and published over the past two years that included A Community Route and The Grassroots Manifesto, I also added a policy wish list that would be good for everyone, but that in today’s reality, it would only be possible for Good Dictator to deliver and achieve.

There remains a very big question about whether the individual exists who:

  1. Would have the knowledge and experience necessary to change such a massively broken system for the better
  2. Has the desire, drive, motivation and public spiritedness to see it through
  3. Possesses the ethics, morality and principles to stay true to the public cause, when there would be so much temptation to cast what’s in the best interests of others aside

After completing and publishing the book, I concluded that in times as we face today, where politicians and those who aspire to be politicians don’t see any route other than their own, and the public itself has surrendered to the idea that all ‘public’ problems are the responsibility of someone, somewhere else, if nothing else should change in the way we view the importance of the things that are common to us all, the solution of having a Good Dictator, might end up being the only way forward for us all.

I’m a fan of Clarkson’s Farm. It’s doing a lot for farmers and consumers. But it could do even more

Like most people whose comments I’ve seen, I am a big fan of Clarkson’s Farm. I don’t think there’s one episode of the 22 I’ve already watched that hasn’t ticked all of the boxes for good, all-round entertainment in a field which isn’t exactly full of other big beasts.

In case it’s important, I’ve watched 6 of the 8 episodes of series 3 and the final 2 will probably work their way into the weekend schedule as some kind of diversionary treat.

Just as I’ve previously tweeted in responses to comments and thoughts by the Farming Press and some of the Farmers I follow, my view as someone who has maintained links with Farming whilst I’ve worked for charities, run my own businesses and was an elected local councillor for 12 years, is that the series has done a massive amount in breaching the gap between farmers and the food chain, and the public or consumers. Something that’s very important bearing in mind that it’s where the strongest and most meaningful relationship in the UKs food chain really should be.

Whether we consider Clarkson’s ‘Let’s test everything I can think of’ approach to farming 1000 acres in the Cotswolds as contrived or planned, or quite literally as anyone new to farming with enough money to experiment in every direction might behave, the fact remains that there is real public benefit to this show and what it shares.  

The money spent and the honesty, transparency or insight being provided hasn’t failed to demonstrate just how complex and bureaucratic UK Farming has become, and how difficult being a Farmer in the UK really now is.

What is more and perhaps most importantly, Clarkson’s Farm openly demonstrates that UK Agriculture is at massive risk.

British Farming simply doesn’t generate the income for landowners and agricultural workers that an industry providing one of the most essential and non-negotiable parts of our daily lives really should.

Meanwhile, the shops that sell everything ‘on their behalf’ are achieving billions in profits as a return.

Whilst I’m not sure the leaps in thinking made by Amazon Prime subscribers will have yet reached a point where everyone recognises that there’s probably an equivalent to Diddly Squat in the form of a farm gate farm shop that’s much closer to home, Clarkson’s Farm is shining a light on real-World or rather real-UK Food Security issues that no other rural-life programme has or could.

If there’s anything annoying about the programme at all, it’s the attitude and approach on the part of so many involved, who have probably stood in the way of this very popular series doing a whole lot more for us all.

The reality that not only Jeremy Clarkson, but all UK farmers have to face is that whatever the level of government, whether it’s a local council in Oxfordshire, DEFRA or any department in Whitehall, the whole of the public sector system works in its own particular way.

There is a way of working with everyone who sits within the processes where decisions are made and few Civil Servants and Government Officers will value anyone telling them how anything they have control over or responsibility for, should work. No matter who those telling them are or who they might be.

Wrong as it may be, its just the way that things work.

The problem is made significantly worse because so much of the legislation and directives set at the centre or in London are left ‘open to translation’ at local level. And interpretation can go either way, depending upon many things under consideration which often fall way outside how any logical explanation or understanding would suggest everything works.

Like it or not, Clarkson was pretty much on a date with destiny from the start. It was inevitable that there would be a clash of cultures when it came to working with any formal body.

As a councillor, I experienced and at least tried to console the distress that the feeling of unfairness and injustice of the government system visits on people who are morally correct in their position, but nonetheless feel very let down by the way the technical legality of the system works.

I really do wish that Clarkson might have taken a different approach. He almost certainly could have demonstrated that for both Diddly Squat and an entire Industry that’s now in deep trouble, real success and long-term benefits are achievable, just by stepping back, counting to ten and approaching ‘the game’ in a very different way.