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:

Would have the knowledge and experience necessary to change such a massively broken system for the better
Has the desire, drive, motivation and public spiritedness to see it through
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.

There’s no such thing as a Poo Bag Fairy!

As both a dog walker and volunteer managing an online community picture and video journal for a local hill in Gloucestershire, one of my pet peeves is other dog owners picking up and bagging the poo from their pets, but then attaching the tied bags to a fence, tree branch or similar, or just tossing them on the ground and leaving them behind.

THERE IS NO POO BAG FAIRY!

We probably aren’t grateful enough that local council employees already empty dog bins that are often filled to overflowing.

But for some of us to then believe that our responsibility to clear up after our own pets in a public place or in the countryside stops as soon as it’s bagged and tied is as irresponsible as it is rude and inconsiderate to others and to the area.

Animals do pick these bags up and farmers have lost livestock that have eaten discarded poo bags in fields where they can reach and pick them up.

As local authorities are only likely to pick up full poo bags as part of a litter pick on the rare occasion they have the resources to make these happen, it is left to community spirited walkers to pick these bags up and walk them to the nearest bin – as the owners should have done in the first place.

Because of the way that social media works, pictures are usually the best way to make a point.

Now that we have AI image generators, I thought I would give this one a try and see what happens.

I don’t know about you, but I think picturing the myth of the poo bag fairy turned out rather well!!!

To deal with society’s problems means dealing with the causes and not just the effects

Every societal problem that this country has, alludes to ways of being, to laws, regulations, public policies and the actions or activities of politicians who have either allowed or encouraged these problems to exist.

These problems are often just accepted as the causes of the problems that we face, in themselves.

Yet the problems that we see are in many cases only the effects of other problems and the real causes of those problems are hidden from view and treated as if they don’t even exist.

The solutions that politicians do come up with fail, because they rarely, if ever, address the real cause.

With the complexity of interconnectedness that exists between every area of public policy, the failure of politicians to address one problem because they’ve used nothing better than a sticky plaster to ‘fix’ it just leads to other problems developing, that successive parliaments and politicians then just attempt to fix in exactly the same way.

Imagine a big ball of used plasters that incompetent politicians just keep kicking down the road and you will have a good idea of what real problems mean to them.

We are in the mess that we are in now, because the effect of one problem has been addressed as if it’s the cause, leading to another problem or more effects of that problem which have then been treated the same. Meanwhile, all the time this has been happening, nobody has ever dealt with the real or root cause.

If we want things to change, we must elect public representatives who understand this and will take the risks necessary to fix all the causes of the problems that society faces – no matter who or what interests are involved, and how resistant they will be to changes that will be fair to all and ultimately benefit everyone.

Image created using Microsoft Designer

We are enslaved by money

What is it that is common to all the things that are happening around us?

What is it that influences everything in life without most of us even being aware?

What is it that really sits outside of us that has fooled us into living our lives in a way that has been conditioned to benefit others, whilst making us all believe that the decisions, we make have always remained our own to define?

The commonality that flows between everything and everyone in this world today is money.

Everyone and everything is connected by the creation of money, its accumulation, its worship.

Life as we know it is run by a money-based system that has conditioned us all to believe that the value of everything in life can be determined by what somebody has, where somebody lives, what somebody earns, what somebody owns.

What few of us realise is that we have all been enslaved by a money-based system. A culture that has affected us all so deeply, it has even taken over the way that we all think.