Home Growing is essential to achieving Food Security and the aim of the UK becoming Self-Sufficient in Food Production

Young children are now suffering health problems that just decades ago were likely only to be experienced by a much older and very unlucky few. Obesity not only affects a significant part of the population, but it is also being championed as if it is normal, and we are vilified for daring to speak openly about such a point of view.

Like the rise in so many different health related conditions that are seriously compromising far too many people’s quality of life, the biggest proportion of all of them would be no more than an afterthought, if we were to bring back healthy eating and balanced diets in the form of basic and essential foods.

Sadly, the belief that cheap, sweet, salty, easy to buy, quick to eat ‘food’ is healthy for us is a well-crafted and massively convincing lie. We have had this nonsense repackaged by advertisers and the media in the same way that we are being told that if everyone were to consume healthy, basic and unprocessed foods, it would be more expensive than it is for us to eat it as the apparently luxury we have been conditioned to believe that it has now become.

We have been encouraged to eat the way that we eat and to feed our families the way that we do, not because it will benefit any of us. But because the foods, drinks and treats that we have become addicted to make somebody somewhere VERY rich.

What many of us don’t even realise that all of these ‘wonderful’ foods – and even the takeaways that have become a staple diet for some rather than just being an irregular treat – will have travelled many miles and been constructed artificially using ingredients that themselves may have been made in many different factories. They have traveled across continents before the end product you recognise has even been made.

It’s all part of the con called globalisation. A lie we are told we must celebrate and embrace as the legitimised truth. Because globalisation is all about international trade – which is how wars are stopped and how good relationships between different countries are made.

What the Establishment salesmen never talked about, and their pet media ignored, was the reality that jobs and communities have been lost, as well as the livelihoods that went with them.

Stupidly, we never really questioned the whole process because we were taught to become obsessed with speed of delivery, availability and what we still believe to be the lowest cost.

The reprogramming of our buying habits has contributed to or given the excuse necessary for almost all hope of this Country being Self-Sustainable in Essential Food Production being destroyed.

Meanwhile, the equally destructive EU policies that were supposed to be good for our economy within a so-called single market, also represented an advanced politicised form of the globalisation franchise. EU doctrine on food production has progressively made UK Farms all but impossible to run.

Globalisation was good whilst it lasted. Or rather, that’s what the majority of us are still expected to believe.

However, because of many different reasons that only include government responses to Covid, to Brexit, The War in Ukraine and the idiocy of Free Markets and Neoliberalism in the way that everything has been run, the supply chains that crisscross the world are now collapsing.

Forced change and possible shortages too, are only a matter of time.

As part of the so-called Great Reset or Agenda 2030, the solution to this coming problem that the elites created themselves isn’t to go back to basics and focus on localised supply chains. Indeed, whilst they actively ignore the crisis within UK Farming and in other countries where their counterparts are actively taking steps to see highly productive farms destroyed, they are instead telling us that we will all be happy eating ground up crickets and foods that have been made in a lab.

There is no good or humane reason for People to be treated this way, other than it being part of a strategy or plan to ensure that those who hold power over us now, remove our ability to support ourselves in the future.

As the crisis the Elites have created takes deeper and deeper hold, the agenda they are pursuing will ensure they will have and be able to maintain their grip on power, and we will all be dependent to a dystopian system where these few have absolute control. Unless we use the opportunity, their stupidity and greed has created, to take our own power back.

As part of The Grassroots Revolution and the rejection of everything held dear by the leaders of this dying ‘old world’, we MUST embrace a return to the most localised forms of food production and supply chains.

Food production must focus on healthy, basic and essential food items, using the absolute minimum of additional ingredients, so that our basic diets are home-produced, and this system of production is prioritised over everything else, so that the food we need, will always be available to us all in the cheapest and most accessible form.

Regrettably, because UK Agriculture has been deliberately pointed in the wrong direction for a very long time, younger generations of farmers have no working experience of anything like a truly localised food growing-to-production-to-retail system in anything like the way it historically was and will be needed now.

This means that the process of change will take time and that for reasons outside of our control, certain foods may become short.

It is therefore essential that everyone who is able use gardens, allotments, window boxes and whatever form of growing space available to ‘grow your own’. So that there will be sufficient basic and healthy essential foods available, whilst we all get behind our Farmers and develop the resources and cooperatives that will be necessary in every area.

We must do this to ensure that we have Food Security for the UK and achieve the National Self Sufficiency that we would have long since had, if politicians had been doing their job, and the greed and self-interest of the few, hadn’t been allowed to flourish and lead instead.

I have covered the subject of Basic Foods and Home Growing in detail within Levelling Level, the first book in the series leading to The Grassroots Manifesto. To read Levelling Level online or Download a FREE PDF copy, please Click HERE.

Levelling Level discusses the wider issues that we now face, how we got here and begins focusing on many of the things that we and our communities have the power to do.

In Part 3 of The Grassroots Manifesto, a series of Public Policies have been suggested for a new people-centric age. This is one of a number that relate specifically to this issue:

The Grassroots Manifesto | Policy 4 | Food Production, Security & Supply | Home Growing | xviii

Self-sufficiency of people is essential to achieving the aim of the UK becoming self-sufficient in food production and providing the Community with Food Security.

Our Future IS Local

Governments rarely make decisions based on the will of our true majority. It’s time that as much power as possible be returned to us and the majority as its real source

Today, the political decisions that affect us all are being made by a government given its power by 43.6% of those of us who voted during a 15-hour period on Thursday 12^th December 2019.

On a voter turnout of 67.3%, this actually means that the government was elected by around 29.3% of the people of this Country – which in this sense is significantly less that one third of the population.

Few will need anyone to walk them through the list of events and changes that we have faced throughout the period of time since. But the reality is that despite one or two By Elections, we are still being governed by the same government that is responsible in no small part for many of the problems that we have today, as well as many that are yet to come.

We may still be over 20 months away from the opportunity to have a say within the same system, and vote for what will only appear to be different – for changes sake.

Many of you who read this blog will have backed one of the three main political parties in the General Election of December 2019. Of those, there will be those who will happily focus upon what are, to many, the deliberately confusing figures and facts that surround how our so-called democracy works, so long as they favour their own ‘tribe’ and political affiliations – and therefore who either is now, or who they next wish to be in power.

Bizarrely, the greatest travesty of all this goes beyond the ridiculousness of a situation where over 70% of us are not being represented by a majority vote.

Election Manifestos are little more than a glossy brochure that invite us, the punter, to back a horse in just one election race that normally runs only once, every 4 – 5 years. If it wins, that horse will then have to win or get placed in race after race amongst other horses wearing the same colours for the duration of the next parliament. These are votes that we have absolutely no say or influence over – and that’s only if enough of the horses with ‘our colours’ won against all the others in the first round too. Everyone else, is usually just left out in the cold…

The way that our ‘democracy’ works isn’t the easiest thing to explain. And regrettably, the confusion that it causes even the politicians, really only helps those with an interest in democracy and power in this Country in maintaining what is basically a complete sham. Those people are the ones we know as ‘the few’.

If we are VERY lucky, the MPs that we have representing us in the Westminster Parliament today, will have grown up and have at least some understanding of the area in which we live. Regrettably, this is not always the case.

The reality is that today, with the majority of us tending to identify as being Conservative, Labour or Liberal, we have all played a part in allowing and fuelling a system to exist where the decision over who represents us in Government, isn’t made by whoever we vote for on Polling Day. It’s made by people who are members of these political parties, with whatever rules they decide upon for selecting the candidates who will then turn up with a Blue, Red or Yellow rosette, when it’s time for us to vote.

At this point, it’s only fair to acknowledge the debate and proposition for change to the electoral system, to one of ‘Proportional Representation’ (PR) – as is used in some of the local level election processes.

The argument has been made that seats to any government being awarded proportionally will be much fairer. Because PR represents the true picture, rather than what we have with the current First Past The Post system – which on this basis of the above, few of us would be able to argue against the idea that the result is massively skewed.

PR would indeed be a great fix for the situation that we are in today, if fixing the mechanics of the electoral system were truly to be the only point.

Yet there are many more issues that are far more important. These not only include the problems with the need for constant compromise that mean none of us are likely to ever see anything happen that we want. Also the fact that even though we only pay lip service to it now, we would never again be voting directly for one named candidate. Also, the fact that no government will ever work properly if politicians aren’t in-touch and putting voters needs first. Finally, and worst of all, that to make sense of the way that PR actually works, the catchment area for each vote we took part in would become much larger than what are todays recognisable Parliamentary Constituencies and would create even greater distance between voters and the already out-of-touch politicians that we vote for.

The reality is that the democratic system that we have does not work democratically. It doesn’t work democratically because it has been played by the self interest of politicians from all sides over decades or an even longer period of time, in which everything has been changed, replaced or manipulated to make the system we have now resemble something like a closed shop.

Indeed, the democracy we all believe we are a part of and take part in by voting to select our public representatives is little more than an elaborate lie.

Furthermore, within the number of ‘public representatives’ that we supposedly elect to take decisions on our behalf, it is only a very small and potentially unique number of those politicians – at the top of their own hierarchies and internal trees – that have any real influence, power or sway.

Our so-called democracy is to all intents and purposes an autocracy. All the evidence anyone will ever need for this will be the disastrous and wholly unnecessary behaviour on the part of this conservative government in response to the Covid Pandemic, and pretty much everything that has happened next.

If none of this had any meaning for the rest of us, it really wouldn’t matter who we have elected to sit and rule over us at the top.

Indeed, one of the reasons why we only experience typically around 66% or approximately two thirds of those who are eligible to vote then turning out at a General Election, is because those that haven’t bothered to vote have become detached or disenfranchised from the system. And in many cases, they really don’t believe it matters whether or not they vote.

The problem, for us all, is that it really does. Or rather, it would do, if there was any meaning to what we could all agree upon being or constituting a genuine majority vote.

We will not achieve a genuine majority vote for a national government or the decisions that it makes, with the system, the politicians, the parties and the way that they are driven and motivated now.

Decision making is too far away from people – and needlessly so – for it to be engaging for non-political people.

The decision-making structure that we have today has not been created because it’s the best way for it to work. It’s been created and maintained as it is, because it’s the most effective way for just a few to make the decisions that affect us all, and above all, for them and those like them, to take and keep control.

***

Although we are experiencing tough and challenging times that may well get much worse before they can get better, the opportunities for change of a kind that will be genuinely beneficial to all have never been as good as they are now, and will become. However, nothing is guaranteed. Everyone needs to play their part as well as working with others who they may not yet even identify with.

Over the past 12 months, I have published 5 books that cover the reasons we are here, why we need to change, how we can change, and what we will need to do to achieve it. The two e-books that relate to what I have written about in the blog above can be found and downloaded from Amazon for Kindle. Here are the links:

It’s not about more skills. It’s about the lowest wage being enough for anyone to live without help

Of all the points being missed by the political classes, probably the worst as well as the most troubling is the absence of any understanding or appreciation that life is now too expensive for anyone to pay for, working full time and on the minimum, basic or working wage.

Whilst it may be logical to believe that everyone is hardwired to work at and do whatever they can to earn money when they don’t have enough, the next of those points being missed is that if you cannot do the most basic of jobs and still not pay your own way without help, the rubicon has already been crossed when it comes to ‘helping ones self’.

For many, a lot of help or borrowing is the same thing as receiving just a little.

Why should anyone who doesn’t have enough even if they work a 50 hour week, struggle and destroy their life, if they cannot even then gain the benefit of being able to fully support themselves with the self-respect that it gives?

In a money obsessed society, where the politicians and elites are even more obsessed with what that means for them than most, it sadly stands to reason that government cannot think of any problem and therefore come up with any solution which isn’t itself derived in monetary terms.

On the face of it, focusing on getting people earning – and identifying that this can be achieved through the acquisition of new skills, does indeed sound like a genuinely good way to address a small element of truth that exists when answering the question of how to get more of the low paid back into work.

Yet many of the jobs that need to be filled don’t actually need or require people who are not being treated like the adults they are to have any additional skills beyond common sense, being motivated and to be genuinely happy with who they are.

The problem here is very much the difference between what it is when you are required to live to work, instead of being able to simply work to live.

Politicians will continue coming up with diversionary schemes to help themselves, that just make more and more people feel disillusioned with a life where the system doesn’t legislate to allow anyone who so chooses, just to simply exist. They will continue doing so until they and The System that they are promoting, supporting and facilitating is called out for the life, community, country, planet, values and humanity destroying lie that it all is.

When the lowest wage for a working week can pay for all of the basics in life that any person genuinely needs, and the way that government and governance works is to promote and maintain that standard in all things and all it does, pretty much all of the societal problems that are plaguing life and dividing people will quickly cease to exist.

#TheBasicLivingStandard

Why do we need a CBDC when ‘normal’ money is already digital?

If you aren’t asking this question right now, you should be. The Bank of England has announced it is working on a Central Bank Digital Coin and it is likely to be in use in just a few years time. But why?

If you use online banking to move money around, pay your bills, transfer money to someone else, or have your wages paid electronically into your bank account, you are already using digital money within each and every part of that transaction.

Under the guise of simplifying life with easy to use technology, just about every part or function of life is now being ripped away and replaced with a machine function of some kind.

If you don’t believe me, look up the new AI bot that a leading search engine is about to launch which will write pretty much anything and everything that you want it to, and then ask yourself the question ‘If I use this, who is actually in control?’

Conspiracy theories abound in these times. But conspiracies sit out on the periphery and distract. They don’t have a profound affect on life within.

And this is the point. Technology to improve quality of life: YES. Technology to control life: NO!

The problem is that those pushing all of this; all of these changes; all of this ‘progress’ are ignoring the No that all of us would consciously give if we were actually asked, and amalgamating it all so that it equates to exactly the same thing.

We are quite literally being tricked into surrendering our freedoms with a series of lies that make us think that we are the winners as we progressively lose.

The only purpose of a single, universal central bank digital coin is control. Nothing will be private. Everything you do with money will be seen. And it won’t stop there. As the Canadian government did with their protesting truckers, if you do or say anything that someone in control doesn’t approve of or doesn’t like, they can simply switch your money supply off. You should think about what that would mean.

The crypto craze has been fun for those who have played the game and won. But it was based on nothing more than belief. And whilst the original idea that launched cryptos like Bitcoin was decentralised finance, the reality was that it was as pretend, fake or created as the FIAT money it sought to replace.

By buying into the myth that we can get rich by taking bets and speculating on money and currencies that simply don’t exist, we have actively played a part in creating our own living lie. A lie that is about to hurt and damage us beyond repair, taking away anything that resembles freedom of choice and freedom to be who we actually are as it does.

The technology is good. The ownership and purpose is rotten to the core. We need to retake control of the way that everything works before we are all inescapably and completely enslaved within a system that works for nobody other than those who control it.

If any of this makes sense, use cash.

If you are a business owner, reject the cash bribes from card companies and banks to refuse to take cash.

Together, work with your communities to create your own markets, systems of exchange – and yes – digital currencies that are pinned to real value – which isn’t money, but the value that people put into and give to the system itself.

Freedom is our future. Our future can only begin locally and by trusting only the people and the communities that we really know. Our future freedom starts with Grassroots-Up.

Freedom of anonymity is not freedom of speech, yet it serves all the wrong purposes for it to be seen as the same thing

A few days ago, I watched Emily Atack’s BBC Documentary about online abuse. Through all of the inappropriate, to unpalatable, to offensive, to harmful, to absolutely wrong stories and anecdotes that Emily and those she spoke to revealed, it was the words of one of the male respondents in a discussion group that spoke loudest. When asked why men do it, he replied; because they can.

Whilst the behaviour of anyone who causes the kind of mental distress and fear that so many clearly are, needs to be punished appropriately, my real concern is that punishment or focusing upon it as the effect that it is, rather than the real gate opener or cause to this problem, means that the focus is being pushed further and further away from the real issue – which is being avoided, because our politicians don’t want to upset their friends, or attempt to deal with any issue they believe likely will show them in a negative light.

The inability of our entire political class to be the public representatives that they regularly insist they are and that we should all be able to expect them to be, is mind blowing.

Throw a virus they know nothing about into the mix and they can bring life to a standstill in moments. Ask them to take the necessary steps to legislate the removal of the biggest cause of online threats to individuals, and its more than their ‘job’ is worth.

With things as they are today, the failure of the issue of online anonymity and the role it plays in online abuse to gain any real traction, probably means that there are a significant number of online abusers already on a pathway to carrying out much more serious crimes against others.

They will also arguably do massive but avoidable damage to themselves – all because the will and respect for the responsibility to the public they represent isn’t there on the part of legislators (MPs) who could solve this all very quickly.

Indeed, all they would need do would be to make it law for everyone using any kind of social media platform to be registered with an independent body – even if they then continue to publish and communicate under some kind of assumed name.

Yes, that independent body would need to be independent of a system of government that is increasingly displaying dystopian overtures. But it would also need to be independent of the Tech companies, who through their collaboration with the establishment and silent banning of dissenting voices, have already shown that they cannot act with integrity in any matter where they would be self-policed.

Freedom of speech is about the content of words, not who spoke them. Yet in this current climate, the terms freedom of speech and freedom of anonymity have become alarmingly interchangeable when they don’t in any way relate to the same thing.

The failure of the establishment to recognise and regulate to reduce unrecorded anonymity to its absolute minimum literally means that the parallel universe which is the internet and world of apps is a place where behaviour that would already be punishable in the ‘real world’ is being exploited by people online, who believe they have impunity against punishment for doing the same things.

With a disintegrating public sector, court system and police service, surely making it clear that everyone is simple to identify, and potentially has to abide by a code of conduct, even if they are overtly anonymous, would mean that abuse would almost disappear overnight. Meanwhile, those who genuinely need anonymity, would still be able to speak freely – as in any free speaking society, it is only right and fair that they should?

Freedom of Anonymity 7Feb23 PDF_Vers1_13Jan26 Download