Wouldn’t it be better for our politicians to concentrate on what is and isn’t a crime before getting the dog whistle out and calling for the death penalty to be brought back?

If there is one thing that can be trusted from this political class, it’s that whatever the reasons may appear to be for anything they do, the real reasons won’t be the ones we actually see.

Whilst the media carries on reporting everything from Westminster as if all is normal, the issues the country is facing are normal, and all of our MPs are in touch and dealing with anything that the media deems to be important as if that’s normal – the truth is that there is a hell of a lot more going on. And it is being obscured from view by the focus only ever being on the narrative that the establishment wants us all to see.

Horrifying as it may sound to anyone who has a basic moral compass and an understanding between the difference of right and wrong, we only have laws and punishments for breaking them because someone somewhere has already gone through a process of deciding whatever the ‘crime’ might be, needs a rule, and have then gone through whatever process necessary to put them there.

The cold hard reality is that even murder, that most serious of crimes, is only legislated for and punishments applied, because whoever was in charge at the time decided that it should be so. Not because there was a set of rules that existed for mankind to follow at the beginning of time.

It’s important to understand this, as everything we are experiencing now in terms of behaviours being outlawed, frowned upon or made politically incorrect – that in reality are just based on a different opinion and what is deemed incorrect for the times – could very soon become legislated against as a punishable crime.

When you can accept that one opinion or thought is no more wrong than any other, you can soon see the problem with outlawing or rather attempting to outlaw the way people think, just because it’s not the same way that someone else thinks, and that other person then decides that thinking contrary to their own should be a crime.

Outlawing thought is an attempt to exert full control over the person whose thoughts are being outlawed.

People are thinking all manner of things, all of the time. Some of those things IF enacted, would certainly constitute a crime. But thought is not action and action can only become a crime when the right of another to exist freely and without harm or restriction has itself been denied. The key to the whole equation is to always remain conscious that in a free world, this process is and always will be a two-way street.

Careers ruined, social rejection and ‘cancellation’ could soon be considered amongst the lightest punishments possible, if our politicians genuinely now believe that we should return to capital punishment and the death sentence. All when crime isn’t crime, and knee jerk responses that bend to publicised opinion are the only motive that weak, rudderless and morally deficient politicians actually have.

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Where Confirmation Bias rules: Wrongs are invented, investigated and then used to destroy newly created sinners, whilst society becomes ever further divided and broken too

Many find themselves scratching their heads when it comes to asking the question ‘who benefits from wokery?’ Because anyone with eyes to see and ears to listen already knows and understands that it certainly isn’t society or the common good at large.

Of course, in the troubled times that we have been damned by self-serving politicians to experience and navigate, we can always rely on our self-serving and inept ‘leaders’ to pick up any banner that produces enough clicks and adopt it as their next headline cause.

Whilst the Johnsonian Tories have repeatedly proven themselves the conservative sell-outs that they really are, it’s the rudderless Labour Party – still looking for that holy grail of election winning formulas – that retains the capacity to outdo even the most self-serving of its competition, by adopting more and more wokesim, and taking the divisive realities of the rights and diversity culture step after damaging step too far.

The realities that cutting £200 off energy bills without making anyone overtly pay for it being no better than political tit for tat,  when politicians actually have the power to do significantly more to help those in poverty and need besides, it was the announcement from Anneliese Dodds that Labour will end the systemic racism that doesn’t actually exist, that should perhaps fill any one who really fears for the future of our society with an even greater concern.

Labour was, after all, once considered to be the party of the people. Of the working classes. Of fairness and of equality. Of equal rights for all.

Yet in their anger and their resentment of the reality that the ideas their party is founded upon will never genuinely work, and that all the good the labour movement could do a hundred years ago has already been achieved and done, they cannot see that the rights and equalities culture that they helped create is in fact making the problems far worse. A point of balance was reached and a system had already been put in a place years ago, which in terms relative to the way we are governed today, was as good as it ever really could be.

The irresponsibility of statements like that which suggest the existence of problems such as ‘systemic racism’ by politicians who desire to be in government is as bad as it could possibly be.

The words these wannabies use are doing little more than fueling a woke-derived witch hunt that will serve only to make the innocent the worst of sinners. Not because they are bad people or because they genuinely set out to hurt or treat anyone prejudicially. But because they are human and they either aren’t self-aware or really didn’t think.

The rather sorry state and mess that the UK now finds itself in with rights and political correctness isn’t based on anything with meaning in the real world. It’s based on the emotions of people who see themselves as victims in some way. To avoid dealing with their own experience and putting it in a healthy place, they then make themselves the champions of causes they create, that they believe will help and deliver justice for others, whilst liberating their own pain in some way.

Whether positive or negative. Someone or indeed many will always end up being unfairly treated when we use discrimination of any kind.

In the fight that this Labour frontbencher now suggests they are going to enact on a problem that doesn’t exist, you can bet that if they were elected and able to do so, all they will achieve is creating injustice on a much wider scale. All through the displacement of people who have done nothing wrong, whilst introducing systems and tokensim that will create even greater divides in its place.

You cannot and will not remove the divisions that are created by difference, by elevating those who are different with divisive systems that tell those who are not different but are just as different, that their presence is divisive, and they are the ones who are wrong.

If Labour wanted to do something that would help people now, they could do nothing better than to break up their party and start all over again.

None of our Politicians are helping anybody but themselves whilst they block seats in Parliament that could be put to much better use by people who actually want to lead, rather than taking on board every form of tail-wagging-the-dog clickbait, and then proclaim and implement foolish ideas as their own.

Socialism will always fail because there’s a capitalist at the heart of everyone

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.

Physically intimidating Starmer or any MP helps nobody. But all MPs should consider how people now feel about all that’s happened on their watch

It’s easy for pundits and journalists with an agenda to make yesterday’s incident involving Keir Starmer and anti-Lockdown Protestors, all about Boris and the Jimmy Savile ‘slur’.

The story has been part of the headlines for the better part of a week. And the fact that an angry looking mob were using the story that Johnson had hypocritically conjured up in PMQs to attack the Labour Leader makes it all very easy, if not lazy headline news.

There is a rich irony involved in the way that Journalists and establishment stooges grab anything negative with an element of truth to create a narrative that suits their needs but will nonetheless be misleading in the majority of ways. After all, that’s exactly what Boris did when he was trying to use the Savile story as a get out of jail free card when Starmer had him under the cosh.

Mainstream Journalists don’t look for the real story anymore. They look for the one that will sell, ideally within the framework of the narrative that their establishment bosses want sold.

What doesn’t sit well with the establishment today, are the protests now germinating around the World. Set into being or inspired by Truckers in Canada laying siege to Ottawa. Normal working people who are being bullied by their PM, Justin Trudeau.

Whilst it would be foolish to equate the specifics of the rules that have accompanied each and every National Lockdown, the commonality of all of them – right around the World – does equate to just one thing: Massive, unnecessary and avoidable overreach by an out-of-touch and fearful elite. Totalitarian diktats from political ‘leaders’ who are too scared of their own shadow to have the decency to step back from the damaging narratives and destructive measures that they have all created.

This is the point that many of those in charge of this Country and the institutions and businesses that support this form of leadership clearly don’t appreciate or want to understand: There are a lot of very unhappy people in the UK – unhappy about everything that has happened in the past two years – and that number is growing by the day.

The appreciation and understanding that something is very wrong with the way this Country is governed is manifesting at a visceral and sensory level for increasing numbers. People understand that the rot and disease that has engulfed the British Political system is a long way from being only Tory deep.

They know and remember well – contrary to the short memories of the People that Politicians have been able to rely on as ways out of a problem before – that the Labour Party and in fact all of our MPs are up to their bloody necks in either helping to facilitate Lockdowns by doing nothing or by enthusiastically supporting and championing both the restrictions and the ill-conceived Covid Measures that quickly accompanied as each of them was born.

Starmer was an easy target for the Protesters in London yesterday, because thanks to Johnson, he carries a cross very clearly across his back, drawn with a story that is much easier to make sense of and therefore to explain.

The attacks, whether verbal or otherwise, don’t make the wrongs of Starmer, Johnson or any of our MPs, right. And those protesting now or who choose to join them in future, should be aware that by intimidating these moralistically vacuous people in any way, their targets will just see another excuse to award themselves further protections which will be added to the list of draconian measures that are already hurting or have hurt all of us in some way.

That said, there simply are no excuses for what the Johnson Government has done and what the Starmer-led Opposition has encouraged them to do.

The Lockdowns and the restriction of our freedoms were always wrong and unnecessary. But they were also just the start.

The Covid Measures themselves are a major contributory factor in every problem, challenge and difficulty that is on its way.

And as the cost-of-living crisis and the fall in living standards really start to bite, made worse by the financial crash that is also set to come, the chances are that the protests we are witnessing in the UK today, are just a very small taste of what is about to come.

It would, therefore, be prudent for all of our MPs to think clearly and very carefully about the part they have played in all of this; take the responsibility they have been entrusted with to at least begin trying to mitigate some of the growing issues in a meaningful way.

Above all, it’s time for all of our existing MPs to stop pretending that any of this is going to change with just the removal of the PM from his job.

The wonder of Wordle and why this model for gaming and online use should be rolled out and applied to all

Wordle is the latest online fad to capture a new audience virally, exploding into regular daily use as people we know share a screenshot of a colourful grid across our media timelines.

If you haven’t already played Wordle and you like words, you certainly should.

I don’t make such recommendations lightly. The draw of specialist gaming on purpose made platforms from purpose made TV boxes, to an entire culture built up around gaming PCs, and then the games like candy crush that one of our ever-diligent MPs was caught playing in the Commons are, after all, both addictive and habit forming.

Indeed, there is a dark and pervasive reality at work, where gaming and obsessive online activity is providing a seedbed of societal change.

It is one that is being embraced and increasingly exploited by commercial interests using this latent power of manipulation to create massive profits. Not by charging each user massive fees. But by quickly building a massive audience to make ongoing profits from.

Gaming and the opportunities to draw people online are quite literally being exploited by big tech and big money. Unregulated as they are, they are quickly becoming a societal ill which is wide open to being exploited to benefit the few. Meanwhile, the consequences of their unrestricted actions are actively helping to recreate the way that society actually works.

Open-ended gaming and obsessive use of everything online are quite literally creating a cultural shift in revolutionary form, taking us to a place where no social interaction or direct human relationships are involved in daily life.

This is the point about Wordle in its current pre–New York Times form that makes it different. And today’s form of Wordle could and should be used to set the example of how gaming of any kind can be kept in perspective.

What do I mean? Well, it’s simple. The strength of this popular game is that Wordle can only be played from your device once a day (or occasionally twice if your days are very long!).

The worst habit that can really be formed is a daily visit, for just a few minutes at a time. This really is the best example or benchmark of how any kind of online interaction and especially gaming should actually be: universally kept to a sensible and proportionate amount of time.

Right now, we are navigating a period of human history where we are being actively encouraged by technology and the people driving it to forget who we are.

We are knocking on the door of the ‘metaverse’ and visual reality living where we are being told we can leave our ‘imperfect’ human lives behind and set up a new, perfectly constructed existence online that the impractical idealism of this age tells us will be perfect for us all.

Society is being dehumanised so that a few vested interests can profit through the creation of a captive audience, and that audience is becoming ever more captive.

As a result, we are losing the social skills that we once used to enjoy life and interactions in the ‘real world’, replacing them with a false set of principles that are creating problems for us all. As users increasingly forget that the safety and do-as-you-like culture of an online parallel universe cannot be applied without potentially devastating consequences in the world offline.

The difference that the Wordle phenomenon offers us is the example of how to keep things real. To quite literally keep game playing and internet use in perspective by limiting time in a way that also keeps it fun, whilst not damaging the player, the community or anyone else.

Roll this approach out across the board by using regulation to do so and it would be good for us all.

Resistance to such changes would only come from those who have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. That’s either those who are already addicted, those making massive amounts of money from it, or those seeking to use the control offered for more sinister motives.

When it comes to the damage that is being done, none of these reasons are in any way good enough. And those who believe that gaming and the distraction that online virtual worlds offer are the best way to occupy the unemployed or pacify and control the masses for the future need to think again. It is a building block on the pathway to societal destruction and no more.

Right now, the Johnsonist Tories and the rancid political culture behind them are attempting to push through changes to online rules that sound suspiciously like there is a big element of making their own lives easier. Never mind the immediate benefit of diverting the public gaze away from the ‘Partygate’ chaos that has engulfed them all.

The truth is that they would be doing a service for everyone, if they were to look at the much broader impact of online tech.

Instead of cherry picking to create headlines, public representatives should be taking the tough decisions that vested interests won’t like, but will give results which will actually be very good for us all.

Politics & Wokeism now run on the same pretence: Not how things really are, but how things should be

The term Woke feels new and as confusing as it is overpowering. It is presented by those with an agenda to push it as being the unescapable zeitgeist.

It is not. But that isn’t to say it doesn’t feel that way. Especially as there is so much going on across society and politics in particular, which is aligned with arguably the same thinking, ending up with impacts and consequences for us all in a surprising number of very similar ways.

If you took the time to ask everyone how they would like their lives to be and how they would like to experience the world, you would get as many answers back as the number of people that you ask.

In the majority of cases however, what they would have in common would be that they are based on idealism, rather than using life experience as the basis of making an informed choice.

This is how society increasingly thinks about everything today. If you were able to jump into a time machine and talk to people of the same ages and from the same kinds of backgrounds in the years that followed the end of the Second World War, answers would reflect a very different kind of choice. It would be informed from the experience that life can really be dark and terrifyingly hard. Many would have been very practical in their reflections, and the common message would simply be ‘it is great to be alive’.

Hardship is a reliable teacher for those who think they have nothing to learn. And as we approach nearly 8 decades passed since the end of that horrific war, it is a regrettable reality that many from within our younger generations are now obsessed not with what they have, but with how they believe their lives should be – without any respect for the rather large gap that sits between.

To be fair, idealism is a very powerful and passionate motivator, and the real reason why so many of the younger generations are left leaning or more socialist in their outlook. People become more right-wing or conservative in their ideas as they gain more experienced of the real world and adult life.

Today, things have gone much further than that. Many simply do not reflect upon what they have already got, overlooking a vital part of the process that helps us to become self-aware, instead focusing ever outwards for the answers to the questions about life that they have, whilst failing to understand how other people think, because they don’t even look at themselves.

People literally don’t live in the present, but have their thoughts focused in a semi-permanent state of anticipation about where things could be or should be, then falling into the trap of thinking that the desired state or experience is something that can simply be ‘imposed’ either by telling, or coercing people to live or behave this certain way, using rules or peer pressure to see the desired result imposed.

As time has passed since the 1940’s, the mindset that is the approach of dealing with life how it is with practical appreciation and understanding of how it works has been left behind and replaced with the approach of everything can be as it should be, simply because we say that it is – and what happened before doesn’t matter, because this is how its going to be right now.

The switch between the two was for a long time very subtle. It quickly began to affect decision making right at the top, but it wasn’t until the practical realities of decades of public policy being based on impractical idealism rather than practical reality was going to bite back, especially as we reach a point where those pushing this thinking hardest are literally punishing people with a different outlook for simply being who they are.

Even today, some 5 years since the European Referendum where ‘Brexit’ was ‘won’, even the political class itself cannot recognise that the whole European Union ‘project’ was based on a collective of ideas aimed at creating the ideal model of a European Superstate, with systems, procedures and governance not built upon the foundations of how life is for the communities, cultures and whole different Countries that the Bloc is made up of, but literally wiping that all away under the premise of how life should be with the only concession being a slow process of deliberate mission creep that hides the practical reality that imposing impractical reality was the strategy all along.

Brexit was won by the votes of people who have a clear understanding and experience of how life really is, as opposed to the alternative, which was always about endorsing a process which was always going to have serious consequences for the unnamed and unrecognised majority, because you cannot run an entire continent on the basis of how things should be.

At a time when the Government response to the Covid Pandemic is speeding up the arrival of a perfect storm of problems that have been in the making for decades, we are being forced into a culture war between what is and what should be, with seemingly no room left in-between.

Somewhat ironically, it is because we have had so many decades of everything being so good, that the impractical idealists championing woke thinking are able to behave as dangerously as they are doing so. The problem is that without respect for the practical realities of life and how the world really works, we are being set up for a massive fall, just as soon as the bubble bursts, and young people and those who are not appreciative of a more practical way of thinking are going to find the impact of the drop and the changes that it will require particularly hard.

There is nothing wrong with wanting life to be good, fair and the same for all. But the idea that this can be achieved by erasing history and anything distasteful, then making every part of life exactly the same for everyone is a recipe for disaster being cooked up and sent into a hurricane on a ship of fools.

We cannot escape the reality that we are living and experiencing – no matter how hard we might pretend otherwise. Changing it all for the better can only be achieved by looking at it, interpreting it and approaching it all differently. We will not do this by looking outwards and by hiding behind what should be. We have to look at ourselves, our history and the lives that we all live and move forward accordingly. It is we that must be the change.

SPOILER: This Government and its policies will not be stopped democratically before the next General Election. WARNING: Work on a credible alternative must begin now or the UK will elect the same thing again

To Lockdown Sceptics, dissenters and everyone with misgivings about what this Government and the establishment is doing and has done:

It doesn’t matter how right you feel or how right you might be. The Government is not listening to you and will not listen to you.

To do so would be to allow a light to shine upon the misjudgement and ineptitude of an entire political class. To respond and act differently would be to openly admit to the World that they are neither fit for the office they have and are incapable of fulfilling the roles in which they serve.

You may have watched the film The Big Short and seen the portrayal of Mark Baum in the run up to the Global Financial Crisis. Baum couldn’t understand why nobody was listening or acting to prevent what he and his colleagues could see happening. They saw business carry on as usual as increasing numbers of people lost homes and the finance system was about to go over the edge. They faced the massively unsettling reality that everyone who could do something had their heads buried in the sand. People with the power to act either kept the narrative going to help cover up their own actions or to keep receiving the benefits from the position of power or influence they had.

The similarities between what happened leading up to the 2007/08 Global Financial Crisis in the United States and what is happening now in the UK as a result of the way this Government has handled COVID and built its response around Lockdowns is startling indeed.

Similar because there is an establishment narrative at work in the UK today that was set in motion the very moment that Boris Johnson closed down the Country telling us that it was to ‘protect the NHS’.

That narrative has continued ever since. It has led to bad decision after bad decision as the fallout and consequences of each bad decision has in turn had to be explained or countered in some way.

One lie leads to a thousand more. For the Government to admit the truth by dealing with events any differently to how they have been doing so or by changing direction to where things should really be, would be the same as admitting that Lockdowns, the use of behavioural manipulation, social distancing, the money they have spent and many other things they have done were wrong.

You can be reasonably certain that most MPs by now understand that the decisions they have made or have facilitated through their own inaction have bolted the accelerator of the train to the floor, whilst the Government’s inordinate spending has broken the brake lever clean off. The only question remaining is whether the wheels will still be attached as the UK flies off the end of the line and goes over the cliff with all of us still aboard.

Like some demented Mr Micawber having a moment, the Government and the members of the political class that underpins it are falling over themselves to keep this destructive narrative going in the forlorn hope that ‘something will turn up’. They are literally betting the house that events will somehow play out to the end in their favour, allowing them to leave a legacy in the history books telling future generations that they were always in control.

To say that what they are doing and what they have done is the height of irresponsibility wouldn’t even begin to cover it. But this Government and this insidious culture of politicians that are just like them will continue to ride roughshod over our future, right up to the moment that we give an alternative government and form of leadership the majority of our votes.

Yes, there really is nothing you can do to change what is happening right now. That’s not the way that the British Political System works.

Yes, you could create and engage in mass civil unrest. But its success would destroy the existing system, when it’s not the system itself that is the problem. The problem within the system is the quality and motivation of the politicians that we choose.

Yes, the destruction of the system may sound very appealing if you recognise the damage this Government has already caused. But the risk to us all is what could emerge from the inevitable mess and chaos that comes from bringing down Government in this way. The resulting form of Government is even less likely to be one that would work in our best interests. It is very unlikely to be one we have the opportunity to choose.

The power we have to change things is in this moment. The power to change everything that government does has to begin with us changing the things that we have control over today.

We may have only two years or 24 months to wait to the next General Election which could come in May 2023. If the wheels of the train fall off sooner, the wait could be even less. We must be ready if it does.

When the next General Election comes, we need a political alternative on the ballot paper in each and every Constituency that is not only credible but understood and supported by the majority of voters who will be looking for change that they can trust on that day.

That alternative will not come by waiting for someone else to do the work for you or by thinking it is enough just to get onto social media, pick up likes and followers and keep telling everyone how it is.

We all need to begin thinking, acting and behaving like we are already the next Government in waiting. We should be taking every opportunity to share our experiences with others, to exchange ideas and above all, listen to the stories and life experiences that others from all backgrounds are ready and willing to share.

The things that we have in common with each other far outweigh the small number of differences that appear to separate us.

By building a network and conversation that engages the public without the need to always be in the public eye, we can quickly become and be the alternative that the UK, our communities and the people that we care about need.

Bad government is not our destiny. It is our choice.

Change begins with a conversation. Have you thought about what you can do to create A New Party for All?

The Chinese Government’s ruthlessness is a strategic risk empowered by the cultural fear Johnson & Co created to help their own plans for control

Whilst conspiracists and even Governments see the suggestion that China deliberately unleashed Coronavirus on the World as a legitimate hammer to hit them with, there remain simply too many variables and unknowns for a Government as controlling as the Communist Chinese to indulge. That isn’t to say they are neither prepared nor are not already using their ruthlessness to gain a strategic upper hand against the West as our Countries go to pieces because of Coronavirus Policy.

Whilst our Prime Minister likes to think of himself as the Churchill of the modern age, he is presiding over what history is likely to record as one of the most destructive British Governments ever known.

Johnson’s Conservatives have turned a crisis into calamity whilst convincing a significant part of the population that it is no longer safe to live.

If every country around the globe were doing nothing other than dealing with Coronavirus, or rather pandering to the fear of it – as Boris and his Government deliberately are, it would merely be the financial chaos that they have unleashed without good reason in response to the Lockdown they created that would be the biggest problem we face today by far.

However, blame for the genesis of coronavirus, the Huawei 5G question and the South China Sea uncertainties aside, little attention is being focused on China, whilst it is pretty much steaming ahead with everything – like COVID-19 was a meaningless blip it has simply cast aside.

It’s as if China was on the pre-Covid world ‘ship’ with everyone, yet they have carried on accelerating output and enhancing both their economic and industrial situation, whilst all of the western ‘wet’, incompetent and self-serving governments have self sabotaged their own Countries and jumped overboard.

Why does it matter?

It matters because the world is not a happy place. The complacency that has taken over our lives has made both the UK and the wider world an increasingly vulnerable place.

Whilst political correctness and the woke age sees the lives of people cancelled simply for daring to express themselves freely, we have collectively entered a very dangerous time when we literally only see threats from people who dare to offend fashionable thinking and use their voice.

Regrettably, many of the people waking to the threat to our way of living that our own government has caused in their response to the Coronavirus Pandemic are falling into a trap of believing that there is some great conspiracy at work to create a deliberate reset that will enslave us all. Yet the real threat to the Western world is the new world order that the Chinese is already working strategically to impose and fully intends to head.

China is the industrial and economic powerhouse that we should fear, because the Chinese Government see no moral restrictions in their way to achieving anything they want.

Instead our gutless and inept politicians have spent years sucking up to the Chinese Government simply because our own politicians values revolve around money and China appears to be the one Country always ready to help out when there’s a need for ready cash with the seemingly bottomless pockets to go with it.

Beyond the responsibility and the guilt that growing numbers now wish to be attributed to the actions of Boris and Co. there is perhaps an even greater injustice than their catastrophic mishandling of the Coronavirus Pandemic: in terms of national security they and have been and are strategically asleep at the wheel.

There is no reason to not trade with any country if they have goods or services to offer, they we cannot produce in the UK.

Yet the globalist approach that has been part of this neoliberalist age has pushed manufacturing and jobs headlong into the lair of the dragon. Corporate greed and government incompetence have elevated the chase for profits into a different league, playing right into the hands of a regime that uses deception to gain advantage as its default choice.

As the UK and many other countries around the world begin their descent into an economic abyss that there was never a need for us to fall into, let alone be propelled there by the choice and actions of our politicians, the Chinese government is amassing strength in all manner of ways, aided exponentially by this now unavoidable demise of our own.

The Chinese are positioning themselves to exploit this situation to their advantage. They will quickly be in a position to militarily threaten us in the physical world as well as in the parallel cyber universe where their tentacles have spread far beyond our current national capabilities and probably even into our own homes.

Because of what our politicians have done or failed to do, the 1930’s age of appeasement under the threat of Hitler in Europe may well soon resemble a comparatively idle threat when you put in perspective what’s really involved.

Motivating an entire nation that has been brainwashed to fear death from a virus at every step will feel all but impossible to any genuine leader in itself. But having to face overturning the material effect of decades of Neoliberalism and Globalisation too, in order to restore our collective way of thinking, our motivation and our manufacturing capabilities – just so that we can actually respond when WE are the ones being threatened by war (and if the Chinese do not win without a shot being fired first ) – will be beyond compare.

We can only hope that the trajectory we now appear to be on turns out to be false or positively different than it appears. Otherwise the chances are, instead of being a great leader who preserved our freedom at all costs, Boris Johnson will he seen as the prime minister so obsessed with controlling people’s freedoms to preserve his own role that he gave away everyone’s ability to be free by choice.

If you want a change in Government approach and policy, you will have to change the Government and the politicians we elect first

img_7811It is because the politicians that were elected to our Parliament last December are so out of touch with real life that so many people are facing catastrophe at home, in their business or are having the most bizarre and de-humanising restrictions placed upon daily life.

Yet it is the very same reasons that make our politicians so out of touch that they will not respond to the needs of real people, do not have the forward vision to see the catastrophic impacts of what they do, or possess the awareness or maturity to change and adapt so that they do.

Social Media feeds are alive with new organisations, groups and activists that have come into being since the beginning of the Lockdown and have a focus on the people whose existence has at best been forgotten, overlooked or literally ignored by the Government and its policies. Others increasingly centre on the injustice and random imposition of unnecessary social distancing measures that are being used for political purposes right now but pay little heed to the social impact and damage to British life that will inevitably follow.

This is not how a democratic government is supposed to work. But because we have such anger and frustration with the lack of response and the injustices of a system that we have only noticed when we find that we are the ones getting burned, there is a massive disconnect between where we are all now and what steps and what time it will take for us all to turn it all around and get to a place where UK government and the public sector will work for us all as it really should.

Politicians generally become caricatures of their own idea of what a politician should be, no matter the level or tier of government to which they have become elected. The injustices that are now coming to light nationally have been occurring the same, just in different forms right across all forms of government for a significant period of time.

Attempts to change decisions by lobbying, by petition, by legal action will never change the mind of any government that has been constructed in the way that this one has. Any campaign that looks successful will only have succeeded in convincing this political class that change will improve the chances of their re-election from those they already had.

To achieve the change that is right and experience the change that we want, we must play the politicians at their own game. The politicians that we have will not change so we have to change the politicians first.

Yes, you are probably now thinking ‘what about my business!’, ‘what about my job!’. ‘what about my income!’. ‘what about having to wear a face mask!’. These are the problems that we didn’t knowingly ask for and didn’t knowingly invite into our lives. But they are already here and whilst we may not like to admit it, they are here because of the way we have previously voted.

If we want things to be fair for us for the future, it is now that we have to make what feels like a very untimely choice. The choice to replace the politicians and the political parties that we currently have and that it will be no good waiting until 2024 to think about making a start.

All of the arguments and points that groups like Keep Britain Free, Forgotten Ltd and Excluded UK are making are valid and would never have been needed if we had different politicians in power, it was a different world and a different day.

These voices will not be heard by nor change the approach or the wider policies of an incompetent government that was unwittingly put in place to take charge at a time of national crisis. But that energy and the pain that is being experienced by so many now can be used positively to create change for the future if it is redirected, re-channelled and re-distributed right now.

 

Boris’ Commission on systemic racism is a diversion that will not help or change anything

img_6290These are desperate times for the Government. The narrative that Boris is in control of a Country going through a national crisis is still being pumped out through every medium possible.

The truth is the Conservatives are anything but in control and to everyone outside the establishment bubble it certainly shows.

The ‘Black Lives Matter’ protests, the trashing of statues and the far-right response last weekend have shown how weak the Government UK political leaders really are.

Events have exposed the truth that senior politicians and the Police answer directly to mob opinion or the loudest voices that the media gives airtime to.

The regrettable truth is that we are at the mercy of whimsical leaders who are not leading but are themselves being led.

Distraction is one of the key chapters of the political playbook that the current Westminster culture relies on. So, it was perhaps inevitable that Boris would start pulling white rabbits out of the hat so he could start telling everyone that he is once again ‘getting the job done’.

Boris has identified that the problem for him to solve is systemic racism in Government and the Public Sector. He has launched a Commission or race equality inquiry, even though like most politicians, he is unlikely to be consciously aware of the cause.

The hard realty that we must face is that if we go looking for racism in Government and the Public Sector, is it will be found as sure as night meets day.

Yet what we are being pushed to accept as racism by the media and by activists is not all that it seems.

We are being sent on a witch hunt for a prejudice that in its most basic form simply does not exist.

All that Boris will achieve by setting up this Commission is give legitimacy to a dangerous yet widespread whim. One that has power to deliver a solution that has nothing to do with the cause.

Commissions and consultative instruments that the Public Sector use have outcomes and solutions that are all too often designed before they have even been launched.

The upshot of what will inevitably be an expensive project will see newsworthy recommendations made and a series of measures implemented, championed as a breakthrough result for all those concerned.

Yet all the Inquiry will really achieve is the creation of more measures and regulations. Making jobs more difficult, creating more distrust and furthering the resentment that many have about so-called rights and diversity measures that sow greater levels of division between people rather than addressing the very issues that they were created to resolve.

Racism exists throughout Government and the Public Sector as part of a much wider problem within society that the rights and measures that were created to address have ended up making even worse.

Laws, regulations and processes cannot address and overcome the way that people think subconsciously. They will not address the many prejudices that exist not only within the workplace but across life itself.

To address racism and all innate prejudices effectively, every one of us would have to become self-aware at a very enlightened level. Nothing less.

Regrettably, there will always be those who use that awareness to further their own cause.

Intelligence used without love and consideration for our fellow man is not intelligent at all.

The only way to begin to address the racism we experience as people being held back from jobs, opportunities and the basic human decency that we all deserve in any situation is for there to be top-to-bottom reform.

Leaders must lead and demonstrate by example how we all should really behave.

Only then will people begin to think differently about the people around them and the interactions that they have.

Legislation and rule books have their uses. But unless people consider them respectfully and accept that they are there to benefit everyone in every sense, there will always be those who look for and will find the ways around them. They will hide their prejudices in plain sight whilst proclaiming that they are furthering this right or that cause.

The upshot of what Politicians are doing in response to the protests and the momentum of Black Lives Matter, is to keep themselves in power and live to blag their way through and make excuses for their inaction and ineptitude on another day.

Until we have changed the political system and removed the cuckoos who sit within democracy’s nest, we will never be able to begin the process of dealing with the real inequalities that the British People face.

To do that, this Government and the Parties of power must be replaced.

 

Welcome to the deadly age of Groupthink where groups and ‘leaders’ aren’t thinking at all

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Whilst none of the usual suspects have produced work that reflects this from the US, the chances are that when they do, it will show that there has also been a giant leap to the left in political direction since George Floyd was killed by Minneapolis Police.

Polling that has suggested that Keir Starmer is already doing as well as the early days of Blair may well be the reflection of this shift without those same questions being asked. This being the guaranteed landslide at the General Election of December 2024 that Labour supporters so desperately want is however a different question altogether.

Social Media in recent days has been an experience to behold. The cancellation of TV comedies such as the ‘Germans’ episode from Fawlty Towers, the planned removal of statues like that of World Scouting Founder Lord Baden Powell and the boarding up of Winston Churchill’s Statue in Parliament Square at the behest of London Mayor Sadiq Kahn demonstrate just how overpowering the Groupthink underpinning what began as the Black Lives Matter protests is. It also shows how overpowered the Politicians and the Police have actually been.

Yet the speed with which this whole ‘movement’ has gained momentum gives the lie to the solidity of the foundations upon which what the leaders of the protests would hope a direction of travel has been built.

When events are studied in as much detail as we might like to think those advocating anarchy have done so before trashing everything that the UK has been built upon, incidents such as the removal of PM Winston Churchill from a Google Search of British Prime Ministers might have at least demonstrated that those responsible were wise and experienced enough to know that the great man had returned for a second term.

That groupthink has become so powerful that an horrific injustice in a foreign Country where police and government operate in a very different way with openly sanctioned gun use by the police and members of the public is worrying enough.

But the herd-like actions of British people who we might otherwise consider to be very intelligent and above all human, to become violent, involved in public disorder, to damage property or even attack the police on what appears little more than the spur of the moment should tell us that we have indeed entered very dangerous times. This is how inexplicable changes to the collective consciousness of whole Countries or an entire race are created and become formed.

The Government is actively doing all it can to distance itself from the decisions that it has made, now that the impact and consequences of the Lockdown are manifesting and finding their way into the light. But he reality is that public unrest has been all but guaranteed to kick off right from the start. It was just a question of when and what it would be that would set it all off.

That Boris and the Establishment are being led by the nose is only too well demonstrated by the delay and pyric nature of the statements that Government MPs all too frequently now make and by pictures like those of the Labour Leader and his Deputy Angela Raynor ‘taking the knee’ make.

A vacuum now exists in the top tiers of Government, the Public Sector and the Police that shows there is a massive void in public leadership that is begging to be filled. Not by Black Lives Matter or anything else which has so far only really made sense to an inexperienced and emotional few who are desperate for the World to make sense. But by whatever is coming and will come very soon that achieves a critical mass in opinions across society because no matter how hollow, it makes collective sense and comprehensively connects.

For those of us who want and advocate genuine freedom for every one of us to be who we are and be all that we can be without anyone else being able to impose their own ideas of what that looks like as a framework upon us first, these really are very troubling time indeed.

We don’t have leadership in Government, nor across this Parliament as things stand. And whilst this particular dynamic of MPs remains seated and the British Political System remains broken, our future may be imperilled by whoever manages to start talking the right talk, get a media platform and start reaching and engaging the masses with the most clear and compelling voice. Because sadly, as we can see from the front benches at Westminster today, it is more often than not the case that empty vessels make the most sound.

 

Solidarity is not reprisal.

img_6200Very few things make me stop and think quite the same way that the video of looters in the US attacking a shop owner who pleaded with them to stop did so on Monday.

Yes, we can all understand how angry and frustrated normal Americans feel after seeing the way that George Floyd was treated by Police. But crowds making themselves judge, jury and potentially executioner over the proxy offenders they have appointed help no one, least of all themselves.

Nothing justifies an aggressive and violent response. No matter how bad in one particular moment of time those who feel they are being oppressed or mistreated as if they were the victim themselves might feel about what they have heard about or seen on TV.

Fear drove the actions of the Police. Fear drives the actions of those rioting and looting.

The reason that Government systems around the world aren’t working and people of all backgrounds feel injustices like they do is that the politicians in charge are driven by Fear too.

Put yourself in the shoes of a leader for a moment. If your aim is to maintain the appearance of control, which scenario is more likely to unsettle your mind, question your resolve and really make you think twice before you act next?:

  1. Rioters across the US burning cars in showrooms, attacking police and shopkeepers, causing as much damage as they possibly can
  2. Hong Kong residents continuing many months of protest against a regime set on removing their freedom without damaging anything
  3. Thousands of Colorado protesters lying face down on the floor with their hands behind their backs for 9 minutes simply saying ‘I can’t breathe’.

Those that have taken the law into their own hands in the US have handed the initiative straight back to Donald Trump – who had until this week been on the back foot because of his handling of Covid-19.

No matter how broken the system might be, physical reprisal or retaliation at any level simply returns the power to those who appeared to have it all at the start.

Through reprisal, you simply hand your power back to them as you crash to the level below.

The alternative is genuine solidarity. But genuine solidarity is a thinking mans game.

Solidarity is not reprisal.

Solidarity is being the voice and the peaceful action that makes a statement without inflicting any kind of material or physical cost.

In Colorado what do you think the authorities who were in fear of a mob reaction were thinking when the violent protest they expected never came and they instead found themselves observing a peaceful protest that marched straight into their minds instead?

Solidarity has the power to make the perpetrators of injustice and oppression know that they are wrong.

Reprisal against them just gives them the opportunity to demonstrate to everyone else that they were right and you were wrong all along.

The World today is a fragile place. Peace, whether between communities, people and authorities or between whole Countries themselves is no longer a given – if indeed it ever really was.

The Coronavirus Pandemic is changing the field of play around us whilst we stand upon it. We must all start to think differently about what is happening and the roles we can and should play. 

 

The War on Social Media: Is Trump the biggest Social Justice Warrior of them all?

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Fake news is a phrase that we have come to associate with Donald Trump in the same way that we do a machine that Hoovers with Dyson. I’ll bet you can hear him saying it right now.

With the news that Trump is about to take the Social Media Companies to task – now that Twitter has created a button to flag fake news, the threat that the President of the United States could pull the rug from under the new media age is something that should concern us all.

Fake news remains a major problem on streams such as Facebook and Twitter. But fake news is now a constituent part of what Mainstream Media and Governments actively create when they publish or broadcast subjective opinion or personal views, then frame it as being objective or factual content.

We have seen this process in action just this week, with Emily Maitlis editorialising what should have been a journalistic intro to the BBC’s Newsnight Programme on Tuesday evening, giving what was an opinion on the Cummings saga whilst dressing it up as clear fact.

Emily is thankfully a relative minnow in comparison to the World’s heavyweight opinionator Donald Trump. What they share between them is the misuse of a public platform to project the correctness of their own views – or who they represent, clearly opposing alternative points of view, not to mention playing hard and loose with any countering truths.

A wholly objective Trump might have a point about easy ‘reporting’ on Twitter being a retrograde step. Teaching and promoting the art of critical thinking in Schools, Colleges and Universities would be a much more appropriate and reasoned action for any Government to take.

Regrettably, the subjective and Donald first at any cost Trump that we know simply hates the prospect of it being easy and straightforward for any normal person to call him out.

Trump heads towards a late Autumn Election in which he intends to secure a second term. Shutting down Companies like Twitter and Facebook now would simply be with the intent of furthering his own political cause. It is a step that is unlikely to pay the dividends that he intends or would like.

Social Media has been very kind to Trump for as many wrong reasons as there have been right. Trump would do well to remember that now.

Whilst 2020 began with his re-election looking like it was in the bag, his handling of the Coronavirus Pandemic and the rise of Joe Biden make it look anything but certain that he will win.

The difference between now and 2016 is the rules have changed. Social Media has matured. More and more of us know and understand what it is all about.

Yes there are many echo chambers that exist and confirmation bias does have an unkind habit of doing its absolute worst.

But for all the trolling and negativity of this parallel universe that the Internet and Social Media provides us, the positives and the opportunities they offer far outweigh the negatives. That’s as long as our freedom of use is maintained universally, as it was intended and our communication is not censored, coerced or controlled.

Trump is possibly the worst offender when it comes to being the archetypal angry control freak attempting to influence and dictate what others are in his view always supposed to think. The parallels with Social Justice Warriors who visit destruction on the livelihoods and reputations of whoever gets in the way of their agendas are quite startling and we have to wonder if Donald Trump is the biggest SJW of them all? 

image thanks to newyorker.com 

Media ‘celebrities’ are obsessed with being the news rather than conveying it. They hold a big part of the responsibility for the mess this Country is about to be in and its time for opinion dressed as news to stop.

img_5628The chances are you will fall into one of two groups. Those who are watching the endless Coronavirus Show on the News Channels, or those who have all but switched off to the so-called ‘news’ programmes completely.

Watchers will either be cheering on the Government and all it does. Or most likely, they are too terrified by the messages that are playing hour by hour on what feels like autorepeat to miss a single moment or a minute of coverage that could end up making the Coronavirus Crisis even worse than it is already in some way.

Those who have switched off have long since realised how much destruction the Media is causing simply because they are being allowed to portray news in their very own distinctive way.

The Media – or rather the people they appoint to be their face – used to simply be Television and Newspaper Journalists. Not any more.

In their own minds the people who read us the news have become celebrities. They are no longer there just to ask the questions to find the answers that we all want to hear. They see themselves there to be the answer and therefore the news itself.

No better example of this exists than the preamble that Journalist Emily Maitlis gave at the beginning of Newsnight on Wednesday evening this week.

Emily has been lauded on social media for her sermon rubbishing the idea that Coronavirus is the great leveller and spelling out the story for what it is really is. Yet her speech to a captive audience was subjective, very little to do with what critical thinking would identify as news, and in layman’s terms was little more than opinion. All given to us by the shovel load right in the middle of a National Crisis when news and information is the one thing that the Taxpaying Public should be able to expect the BBC to be getting right.

The slant, shading, unsubtle nuances or spin contained within this specific tirade was very much in keeping with the message that the mainstream media has been propagating right from the time that the Coronavirus Pandemic took off in this Country.

A message that is wholly negative (because only bad news sells) and intended to deliberately foster fear about the Virus itself. It seeks to remove the boundaries of context and suggesting that ‘protecting  the NHS’ and the medical or scientific operation to address the health issues relating to Coronavirus are the only thing that the Government response should really be about.

Yes, the BBC and other mainstream channels have been carrying other news about what the Chancellor has been doing. But because they cannot sensationalise the worsening of life experience for the many people who were suffering in this Country already and the exponential rise in numbers of people who will soon live that experience themselves, they pick up these real life stories that are happening and drop it as quickly as they can so they can replace them with their idea of what could be.

Put bluntly in real terms, a newsreader cannot sell you suicide as a reason for you to be fearful in the same way as they can sell you a Pandemic because there is perceived to be an element of personal choice when someone considers killing his or herself, whilst catching a virus offers you no choice and so fear is sold to you in different forms as the only protection that there really is.

What the Media fail to recognise and therefore tragically overlook is that because they have worked so tirelessly to sensationalise the whole Coronavirus Pandemic using words and messages that are in most cases likely to be more than 95% opinion, they collectively hold significant responsibility for driving our Politicians to instigate this Lockdown without consideration for the real consequences.

The speed the Lockdown was imposed and the Government remedies came into being in response to noise the Media was making, provided us all with ill-considered solutions to the financial hardship that the Lockdown has imposed on people of all demographic backgrounds, career pathways and financial positions.

Regrettably we are not being led through the Coronavirus Crisis by the politicians that we should have.

We are being led by politicians who are the product of an establishment that sees no benefit or reason to be in touch with or to understand the people it is supposedly there to govern and care for.

Such is their inability to lead, our leaders are themselves being led by a media that has become wholly adept at creating policy by dog whistle without even knowing that they do so.

If real catastrophe is to be avoided across the uk, the Lockdown MUST be ended now.

However, to make things work as they should to benefit us all, it has become essential that the Media are pulled into line and reprise their true role as the providers of news and information rather than simply throwing out what they think we would like to hear and telling us all that its the same thing as news.

This is not about freedom of speech, freedom of expression or freedom of the press.

Real news should always be reported fully and without spin or angle. The only exception for us not to receive news would be when it is critical for the national interest to not do so.

This is about tackling misinformation and fake news at the highest level.

Make no mistake. Opinion in the place of news is what fake news really is.

The fact that this massive abuse of a position of public influence is considered legitimate doesn’t make what the newsreaders and journalists are doing any better or any more in the public interest than the stories of the conspiracists and social media channels where it is clear that the story being told has been built up on the basis of how the channel or username holder was paid.

The Government MUST stop prioritising the messages that it churns out on the basis of how newsworthy it is. The pre-briefings and copies of speeches that haven’t been given need to stop. Above all, the role of the Media has to be seen for what it is: a conduit and no more.

It is not the end in itself that those working as the names and faces of these Media outlets insist we should believe it to be.

To End the Lockdown in a way that causes the least pain that it can, the politicians need to start ignoring what the Media are telling everyone and start talking to the people who really count. Not just medical people or scientists who they tell us know what to do.

By taking then wider view and considering all elements of this very large equation, that’s how they can find their way to making decisions that are in everyones interests and deliver results that they cannot visualise now, but will turn out to be right.

image thanks to wikipedia.co.uk

 

 

A New Politics

getting-startedA New Politics is something that I have referenced as a term increasingly in my recent Blogs. Just as I have also referred to the ‘Old Politics’ as a term to reference the no longer acceptable form of doing political business which is currently best illustrated by the behaviour of Theresa May, along with the Parliamentary Conservative Party that immediately surrounds her.

Everything that the Conservatives have been doing shows increasing signs that they believe they will be able to return to this approach, repackaged by terms such as ‘One Nation Conservatism’ just as soon as she has gone.

A New Politics is something I have been alluding to, if not using that precise term, for a long while. Just without referencing it in this specific form of words.

A New Politics is also a term that it being discussed more frequently in the media. It was mentioned by the former Chief Rabbi, Jonathan Sacks in his interview with Emily Maitlis on BBC Newsnight on Wednesday evening. Albeit as part of an insightful and frank analysis of the current state of British Politics where like with most examples of its use, he described A New Politics in terms of a location that comes after Brexit has been concluded, rather than offering any idea what it will look like and how it will actually work.

I have been happily tapping away at the keys on my laptop, mentioning ‘A New Politics’ as if it is already a tangible fact and is present a modus operandi, as a manifesto or some other universally accepted term. Of course it is not, and I was reminded of this by a comment posted to my Blog yesterday which specifically requested that I explain what A New Politics is.

So I will attempt to give what A New Politics is to me. What it looks like and how it would work and evolve in greater form.

A new politics is about changing the way that politicians and the people who aspire to be politicians think.

It is about application. It is fundamentally a way of being a politician and conducting politics as a vocation or calling, rather than viewing it as simply a job, career pathway or method of ‘getting on’, which is nothing like the same thing.

It sounds simple at first look. But the reality is that it is anything but simple and is not just about political reform.

Politicians today rarely have the level of awareness of self or of the community, social, business and government environment in which they operate either to look critically within themselves and at what they are doing. Nor do they have the desire or motivation to acquire the skills that will enable them to understand the interaction required of them better.

The Party Political system has reached a stage in its evolution and the management and environmental conditioning of political candidates and frontline members where it is now normal for those taking on elected roles to assume that all problems are external to them and that addressing ‘problems’ external to them is the way that each and every problem is solved.

Because of this external locus in politics, there is a lot of talk about things like changing the Electoral System to PR from First Past The Post and a second Referendum on the Brexit question. It is most notably present in the angry behaviour that is present in the continuing diatribe over Leave vs. Remain and who is – or was- actually right.

But change to our Political System resulting from blame attribution and the change the People are now seeking in Politics are simply not the same thing.

A New Politics must be something that is lived and not only treated as an idea or vision by those who are intricately involved.

It is about the example of good politicians at the top of Government influencing by example.

Of Politicians doing what is right for everyone. Considering the consequences of their decisions not just for those immediately effected. But like the ripple effect upon every part of a widened supply chain for a complex product. It is about considering and working fairly and proportionately for all of those who will be impacted beyond.

A New Politics is the leadership of taking hard, and where necessary unpopular decisions.

Politicians have the responsibility to look up to and beyond the horizon, and be cognizant of everything. Not just that which is obvious or placed in immediate view. They have to be both mindful and respectful of the possibilities and influences that inhabit the ground in-between.

Above all, it’s about seeing an Elected Term as the only opportunity to get things done. Rather than being just a term to secure the result of the next election. And I say this with no intentional hint of irony, given that working hard without fear or emotional tie in to the outcome, is likely to result in the very same thing.

Without repeating a great deal that I have already published, that is about the simplest way to describe what I offer that A New Politics would actually be.

Whilst the reality is that it is exactly what all of our Politicians should now and always have been doing – as it should be for the younger generations yet to come, for some or those with a more kindly interpretation or view of one of the few hard working Politicians that do exist, it may already be their experience and as such not be new at all.

We will have A New Politics when it is effectively the same experience of Politics for everyone.

If you would like to read about my view of A New Politics in more detail and how it would actually begin and then work, I talked about the way to get the ball rolling in Wednesday’s Blog.

I have also written a Book for Kindle that is a guide for people considering entering Politics with the intention of doing the whole thing properly. It’s called How to get Elected and you can read it FREE by clicking HERE, or purchase and download the Book for Kindle HERE.

I also wrote Mutual Aims which is A New Politics outlined as a very basic Political Philosophy in an essay form. Mutual Aims is FREE to read HERE or can be purchased and downloaded as a Book for Kindle HERE.

 

 

image thanks to unknown

 

Belief that cannot stand up to scrutiny or ridicule is a problem for the believer, not those who question it

BeliefLike many people, most of whom remain very quiet and even tight lipped about it, I have a growing difficulty getting my head around the growing fashion for attacks on anyone who questions or ridicules any of a certain set of ideas and beliefs of others, whilst people exercising those same beliefs appear free to inflict them on everyone else, even though they are doing exactly the same thing.

Ask anyone how they would feel about having to keep their own views quiet for fear of being intimidated, ostracised, attacked, having their career destroyed or perhaps a lot worse, and very few will argue the benefits of being in such a perilous situation.

Yet turn that position on its head. Question people with a fixed set of beliefs about how those who don’t share their views should be treated and few of the responses will come out through a mirror which should unquestionably leave the outcome looking exactly the same, albeit in a projected form.

Belief, or what we as individuals voluntarily perceive as the world around us, how it works and the systems we have been conditioned to view as the bedrock that underpins it, is to all intents and purposes, the lifeblood of how the human world operates and functions.

Whether it be the extreme of a religious calling, the fashion trends that we follow, the eating plan that we have adopted or even what forms the basis of our basic road sense as we look to cross in traffic. Our whole experience is underpinned by a series of different beliefs.

Many of these beliefs, such as what happens if we place our hand in a fire are shared.

Others, such as Leaving or Remaining in Europe, what constitutes cruelty in terms of animal welfare, or who is the best film star to have ever lived are very much our own, even though we may appear to share them with others.

The former group, that’s the ‘what happens if we run in front of a car’ type of belief, is a practical, accepted or universally accepted basic truth. One which we will rarely question, and when it is, we would not feel a sense of being put on the spot ourselves or that our own experience is being called into question, because we know it to be true.

We simply have no reason to feel that our views or our integrity are being questioned when it comes to universally accepted basic truths, because we know that to question them is itself based either on ignorance, stupidity, or a reason which once investigated would make sense and never be deserving of a disproportional response.

To be in the latter group however, is to be in possession of beliefs based on our own truths, the sum of our own experiences, and could only ever be arrived at by someone who had walked exactly the same path, had the same conversations, seen the same events, been in the same places at the same times, and interpreted the words, teachings and views of others in precisely the same way as we have ourselves.

Oddly, the reality of the latter set of beliefs in others and what the differences present actually mean are increasingly being overlooked, and considered by a growing number to be of the same value as a universally accepted truth.

They see their own views as being above scrutiny, and of such legitimacy that they must not be questioned by others or ‘non-believers’ on any account.

Reading that back, it sounds more likely that I am writing about the Spanish Inquisition or the logic of the Albigensian Crusade, than I am about the behaviour of the Social Justice brigade or a frightened 21st Century Western Establishment bowing to their every demand, because the prospect of doing otherwise makes them too afraid.

But the transfer of unqualified personal, private belief into the realms of legitimised, common accepted truth is now our dangerous reality. One that we must put in check, before the lack of understanding that underpins it begins to dictate everything in the world around us, how we all behave and everything that we do.

This week we have seen a British Magazine Editor step down for making thoughtless comments in an email about Vegans. Yet another incident which overlooks questions about the role of the accused, the accuser and the ‘court of public opinion’ which has subsequently become involved.

You can be sure there has, is and will be a whole lot more incidents of this kind.

Underlying such events is a commonality of errors. A vein of social misdemeanours and blunders which I am afraid to say have, are and will be at some point committed by us all – often without even a hint of deliberate intent. And none of which we would ourselves be likely to find warranting of any form of punishment or unnecessary trial-by-media of it were just a universally accepted basic truth which was involved.

That some can react so very badly to the direct or indirect questioning of their own beliefs is not itself wrong. But such a level of response to that question, whether it was posed in the form of ridicule, analysis or any other form of scrutiny, does itself ask fundamental questions about how strong or indeed comfortable that individual’s own belief in the subject under question might actually be.

Anything perfect, which cannot be disputed, doesn’t need the protection of any form of belief for it to exist or for it to be maintained.

Belief is what you make it.

Mutual Aims:- The basis upon which a real people’s party would have to operate, function and aspire to genuinely succeed in UK Politics today

MA3There has been much talk of a new Political Party being established in recent Months.

The idea has been branded ‘The People’s Party by the media. But whatever it might turn out to be, coming from the same old, same old world of British Politics as it is today, this name would be at best misleading, because the Public would simply be getting more of those same old things.

To be a genuine people’s party or party of and for the people, any new or reformed political grouping wishing to live up to the expectations of this title, will have to consider, address and deliver on a number of very difficult, but nonetheless key things.

For a genuine people’s party to be successful, their work will not just be about policy alone.

A real people’s party will be all about direction, principles, adaptability and always being mindful and accommodating of the real needs of all of those who form the entirety of the UK population. The place from which all UK Politicians draw their responsibility through the Vote.

Here follows an overview of the key areas where a real people’s party would have to focus its efforts if it has the genuine intention of rein-franchising not just the people that any one party would focus its call for support from, but for every one and every part of our entire population. Each and every Member of the UK Community – one and all.

Politics in the UK today isn’t working for anyone but the Politicians themselves

As I write in mid October 2018, UK Politics has been taken over by Brexit.

Everyone in politics is obsessed with their own ideas and plans, and their interpretation of what ‘Brexit’ actually means.

Many of the political class are simply too busy to see how they have become completely detached from their responsibilities to the Electorate – that’s doing what is right for people like you and me.

We, the normal people outside of the Westminster, media and the political bubbles, feel completely disenfranchised by everything going on around us.

We feel detached from what is going on not only at National level, where we continually find the news and social media out of touch with how we feel. But at local level too, where we are increasingly seeing public services slashed and decisions made by local councils and public service providers that are completely out of step with how we know things should really be.

We have a Conservative Party in Government, but not ruling.

We are led by a Prime Minister who has no idea how to lead.

The Prime Minister is surrounded by a Cabinet of ambitious Ministers who will not put the Country before their own desires to put off governing properly until a ‘safe’ opportunity comes for each of them to launch a campaign to succeed her.

We have an Opposition led by a dangerously idealistic Marxist, who gained the Labour Leadership on little more than a whim.

An anachronism of a time gone by, this is a protest politician who by doing little more than romanticising the values of a philosophy that talks the talk but only delivers pain, has changed the face of the political possibilities. We witness complete incompetence given credibility, and by some very unfortunate mix of luck versus misfortune, a career-backbencher has found himself in perhaps a once-in-many-generations position where the failures of others could see him make the once ridiculous reality and achieve an electoral win.

The answers coming from within the political sphere and the Establishment itself, raise even more questions than they answer.

On the one hand, there is the call for a Referendum on the result of a Referendum which was very clear in what it means. A new Referendum seeks to overturn that result. It’s not sold as that, but that’s exactly what it means.

And then there’s talk of a new ‘people’s party’, being born from the ‘centre ground’. The current or portrayed realities of a self-centred collective, constructed of all of the Political Party’s disgruntled Remainers. A place where the arrogance of a noisy few, set against the genuine will of the people, is manifested in the belief that all they need to do is rebrand themselves to be perceived as being different – yet a process which they are likely to pursue.

Politicians have completely lost sight of why they were Elected, and what the role of being a Representative of the People actually means.

The British Political System is completely broken. It is filled with people who only understand their own words and meaning.

The System is currently incapable of responding to the change that we all need from politics, so that its not just the Politicians, or the Political Parties, but all of us who are experiencing a real ‘win-win’.

Change has never been needed so much, whilst seeming so very far away

The Remainers or ‘centrists’ considering that break away from the Political Parties that only serve their own needs when they are themselves winning, are certainly correct about one thing.

They are right that there needs to be a new political movement. What makes them wrong, is that a new political movement needs to be all about change.

A new political movement needs to be very different and not just something else based on the kind of politics that we are all so very fed up of. Rehashed and rebranded, with the same value set and basically the creation of self serving politicians, in their own image, and created only for the purposes of allowing them to win.

Whilst we are seeing lots of arguments, gestures and words about being different, the people in power now have lost credibility.

They need to rethink the way that they see the worlds of the people they represent from a very different vantage point.

They must accept that the ambitious but necessary task of changing the British Political System is now very unlikely to be the kind of change which can come from within.

The kind of ‘change’ that we do not need in the British Political System

We don’t need any more of the same.

We don’t need the same politicians doing what they have been doing all along, rebranding their ‘new look’ as being different, when its all about them, the people who support them and gearing every decision towards winning the next election. There is already so much work to be done to address all the mess they have made since the last one without stopping for breath in between.

We certainly don’t need the creation of a new ‘people’s party’, only constructed from the Politicians and ideas that already exist. Yet another ‘club’ for the select few, created only to convince the majority of the British People through subterfuge, that when they Voted for a clean Brexit, they were wrong.

The kind of change that we do need from a political party which is going to do the right things

We need a new political movement that cuts across all of the political divides. That crosses the perceptual barriers of politicians who have become bogged down with political philosophy, with tribalism and forgetting what working for the people is actually supposed to be about.

When Politicians are thinking about everyone, there is no left. There is no right. There is no centre. There are no extremes.

There are just a great many different people, experiencing very different lives, with the genuine expectation that Politicians will rule and create policies for the benefit of everyone, rather than getting bogged down with ideas and focusing only on each and every divide.

We need leadership that understands the people that it seeks to lead. Decisions made which are respectful of all the realities which underpin the diversity of all our life experiences. The creation of thoughtful and intelligent policies that consider the overlap with all others. Recognition that addressing the causes of issues as well as the effects of them is the way to ensure fairness and success in public policy – The just aim upon which all political priorities should be founded and underpinned.

We need Politicians to get real. To get with a completely new script. To embrace a change which is not of their own making. Change that is not top-down in its thinking. Change that looks at reality from the grassroots up as the basis of affecting a real positive and cross-demographic transformation.

Above all, we need a model of being, which moves away from the obsessiveness of the political classes to be in control of absolutely everything. An agenda that identifies a direction of travel, a set of aspirations, standards and responsible guidelines to apply to all policy making, rather than getting stuck on every small detail.

We require a political system that will inspire and empower public servants to be all that they can be. To do their jobs properly and to not be obstructed by the fear of falling foul of a rights and political correctness. To be mindful that serving the public is not about personal gain, what looks good, or by avoiding any form of real responsibility, and that by deviating into the realms or protectionism and self-service, they will always be disadvantaging the people they serve.

How a real people’s party will get us all there

To get there, we must be practical about how a real people’s party would have to work and what approach it would need employ to achieve this.

To begin with, we must recognise what is wrong, what the fix will look like overall, and what steps must be taken in Politics for us all to succeed.

The reset requirement – It’s recognising that almost of the problems we have as a Society are about the way that we all think

Everything is relative to our experience.

Some of us feel like things are good.

Some of us feel like things are bad.

Some of us look beyond our own experiences; beyond our own bubbles to the experiences of others and to the realities of lifetimes around us, that we ourselves have never had.

Whether good or bad, everything we do is connected. It is easy to overlook or be unaware that when we ourselves gain a benefit from something, someone else might be losing out as a result.

It’s all a question of distance, whether we perceive that there is a human impact as a result of anything that we do, and whether there has been an impact upon somebody we have time and care about as a result.

Relationships are at the root of everything

The interconnectivity of the world today has already introduced significant distance between people, whatever the relationship between them might be.

Communication and the rise of the Internet is dehumanising relationships, putting reference numbers and categorisations in the place where simple humanity, care and thought for others and the impact of our decisions up until very recently would have been.

When we interact with our friends, families and the people know, we think and behave differently.

These relationships are based on interaction. They are real, they are tangible and above all they are human. They require us to employ the code for the people who are familiar to us and that we care about, that each and every one of us has developed as the way to live.

But once this familiarity is removed, we overlook the presence of this very same reality for everyone else outside this bubble of our own too.

We forget that the need for care and consideration doesn’t just disappear into the ether, as soon as knowing someone personally is one or more steps removed.

When we don’t recognise the value of others as being human, we place no value on the impact of the decisions or actions we take that have consequences for them.

Whilst modern technology and the diminishment of our communities is accelerating this process, it is nonetheless an age-old mistake to make.

A World around us that doesn’t care

Today, this behaviour is being acted out on a grand scale.

It has led to the world around us behaving very differently.

Far too many people are unaware of how making unnecessary profit or higher wages for themselves personally, is likely to result in making things harder for others, particularly where government or a third party interest like a business is perceived to be a middle man, making it very easy to forget that ‘real people’ are still involved.

Many of these self-focused people don’t see the impact or their actions played out around them – so their decisions are only made on the benefit of what is perceived as good or beneficial to them.

In life there are examples of this type of behaviour all around us, and it is regrettably all too easy for us to overlook it when it is behaviour of the people we consider close to us, or behaviour of our own.

To understand the impact of the unnecessary harvest of benefiting from the plight of others, or profiting without adding value to a product or service, we can cast our minds to one example, where things look different, but are relative and very much result in the same things.

The bankers and union bosses who take but don’t add value

Bankers and people working in the financial sector make money by creating debt.

They profit from someone else’s misery, and legally too. But they do so because the distance between them and the people they are exploiting means they have no concept or idea that the instruments or tools they create are pushing up prices for everyone else everywhere, causing distress, pain and misery.

Yet at the other end of the spectrum, Union leaders push for strikes, pay rises and action, framed as ‘it’s them against us’, whilst the impact of wage rises on employers, the frustration and worry caused by delays, the cost of living for others and price rises on the high streets are too easy for them to forget

These two seeming extremes may look different. But the thoughts which drive these actions are relative to the individuals and are very much the same thing.

Aims and principles, not just policies

Becoming an electable force is all about creating a manifesto for change.

A plan which is real because it has direction and cannot be tripped up simply by mistakes or misinterpretation in the way it implemented or rolled out.

Policies themselves must therefore be steps. Not the anchors upon which change itself is rested upon.

Policies must be open to change when they don’t work, further development when they do, and be receptive to all forms of criticism too.

Policies must also be interactive and made consultatively and with consideration for their impact upon other policy areas, without isolation and being collective in consideration and at every thought.

Aims, principles and therefore a genuine constitution are what a real party of the people will need to be secure in its direction, to be certain it knows what it is working to deliver and to be robust and adaptable enough to negotiate whatever terrain and environmental changes it might encounter as it seeks to evolve experiences as seamlessly as possible.

Fundamentally, the priorities of a real people’s party must be about the people, being committed to delivering something better for all. Being aspirational whilst also being practical and recognising that in a world built with free will, you cannot jump from where we are to where we want to be without taking many steps, some of which may resemble very different forms and directions on the roadway in between.

Aims and Principles are therefore the guiding lights that a real people’s party must use, choosing not to be misled by the devil in the detail, allowing through many forms of misinterpretation and interference for genuine direction to be overlooked.

 Law for Law’s sake

A legitimate people’s party that wants to deliver positive and far reaching change which will achieve real balance and true equality for all, will have no option but to tackle the rights lobby and the infliction of political correctness on almost everything that we now do, see and understand.

A real people’s party will also have to strike a balance between the forms of regulation and legal intervention that is required for the greater good, whilst removing the mass of bureaucracy which has not only changed the business landscape, but has been a constituent part of the modification of our culture and behaviours throughout.

A genuinely civilised society must have a framework of law to ensure that people are safe and able to thrive.

But beyond the basic requirement of ensuring that the right of any one individual or small group should never come before that of the wider community, that freedom should only exist as long as it does not come at involuntary cost to others, either in thought or material deed. However they may be applied, rules should only ever be used when there is practical need.

Everything else should be left to common sense, to people taking responsibility for themselves and their own actions, and the real time judgement of an impartial judiciary rather than using case history to create precedents upon which completely different circumstances can be viewed on a basis which is both inappropriate and wrong.

Increasing regulation and over regulation leads to decreasing levels of responsibility.

There exists a growing cultural phenomenon where regulating everything provides the perfect excuse for participants to see themselves as devoid of personal responsibility for anything they do that isn’t already regulated for. They do so on the basis that anything which isn’t covered isn’t regulated, and therefore isn’t covered by the Law.

At a time that so much distance exists between people who are interacting and engaging in relationships of all kinds all of the time, the need has never been greater to encourage and reengage people with the idea that they are personally responsible. That their actions cause reactions and have consequences. That whatever they do or whatever action they might take, just because a law or regulation doesn’t exist to cover a particular act or behaviour, the absence of a rule is not a get out of jail free card and certainly doesn’t make it right.

The saturation of regulation that we have in settings ranging from academia to the workplace, covering everything from how we must treat people during recruitment to the rules covering what bankers can lend as opposed to what they must have access to has allowed far to may people in positions of influence to behave irresponsibly, and to do so with impunity, well knowing that they can be seen to be doing what is expected of them by the rules – and that as such, what they are doing is actually right.

For a real people’s party to deliver on the aim of creating the kind of environment where people can live on a basic wage and do so without having to resort to getting into debt, or progress in their lives, being socially mobile and cross barriers without interference from people who have their own agendas but work around the rules, it is the responsibility of that party to create the environment where prejudice and greed are voluntarily extinguished, rather than a continuation of coercive attempts to do the same.

Brexit offers a significant opportunity to achieve the delivery of an environment where a belief in the good of everyone as part of the wider community exists. Where prejudice is reduced to nothing more than misplaced thought as a reaction to the perception of difference – which in truth is all that it is.

Many of the regulations which have created so many of the cultural problems that we are now experiencing in the UK have been introduced as either a direct or indirect result of EU legislation.

Nobody should be under any illusion that overturning rules which have been sold as being beneficial because they sound like they improve people’s lives will be easy.

Without manipulation or coercion, and by simply doing what is right, people will soon conclude for themselves and understand that no form of positive discrimination is delivered without there being negative consequences, often for many others, on the other side.

The role of Money

If rules and regulations are one of the key challenges which will face any truly legitimate people’s party working for the benefit of all people, the other will be addressing the impact, influence, role and perception of money which at one time or another, we all get completely wrong.

Within just a generation, virtually every profession you could name has lost its pure focus upon ethics and quality of delivery. The lines have instead been blurred for many operating within them by a juggling act between what is expected or what is considered ethically good, and how much money can be justified for doing what they do.

This is part of a fundamental problem for our wider Society which is closely aligned to the issue of the meaning and application of ethics itself.

However, it is also influenced by the lack of control and regulation on profit making from Government. Inaction which has also resulted in the growing presence of agents or brokers introducing themselves needlessly into supply lines, raising profits but adding no value as they do so.

This whole sorry affair, based on an obsession with money is having a significant effect on the cost of living for us all and is making it virtually impossible to create an environment where a genuine living wage could be identified and then maintained.

The freedom of markets from control and responsible capitalism are not mutually exclusive things

There is nothing wrong with wanting to do well. To have a good life and have the money necessary to allow that to happen.

But seeking far more than you could ever need for your own comfort only contributes to sucking money out of the system.

It raises all costs for everyone else who instead of hoarding, are no longer in the position to pay for what they have been used to having already, let alone being in the position to enjoy any more.

It is the prices at the top of the chain which set the financial values on life at all levels below and there is more than enough to go around.

Ethically, the drive to earn ridiculous amounts of money has been facilitated by the lack of regulation on a financial sector which is legitimately allowed to print its own money, creating profit from misery as it would be known if it were viewed directly in a non-monetary form.

Lenders and the sectors or industries they support push many normal people into debt by taking value out of transactions where it doesn’t exist, whilst using money that they never themselves ever had, and then push the same people into other forms of debt just so that they can service, or obtain whatever their diminishing salaries now fail to provide.

The financial industry and the sectors which are aligned with and support it are now farming people for debt.

This is a legitimate racket which must be closed down and de-sanitised by a party which is really working for the people, which respects the benefits of capitalism and growth, but in legitimised forms and not are simple forms of one person making profit by exploiting and riding off another persons back.

The role of Political Philosophy must change to one where ideas are a guide or reference tool, rather than being seen as a way of being

As soon as the word ‘politics’ is mentioned, you will have surely experienced that internal jolt that reminds you where your political loyalties lie.

Many of us are conditioned in our political biases by our upbringing. By the people we mix with and ultimately by the environment that we work in. These are all influences that help us to decide which political direction we are likely to target our votes in.

But how much do we really understand about the political philosophies which underpin key Political Parties like the Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrats?

How much do these ideas really influence the Parties and the way that they are run and what they do every day, rather than being just forms of words that they can use as a backdrop, or more cynically just as a message they can role out at Election time in a blurb which is designed to help them win?

The reality is that the philosophies which underpin, Conservatism, Capitalism, Liberalism, Socialism and regrettably Marxism too, are not practical plans for running a Country or putting problems right.

These ‘Philosophies’ are simply ideas which are based upon the outlooks of very academically inclined or theoretic people, created within very different periods of history and circumstances that are nothing like our own, and in almost every case were idealistic prose which had no understanding of the practical outcomes of applying or imposing them by law in real life.

A good example of how a very basic situation can be completely skewed and effectively rewritten as something completely different comes in the form of the European Referendum Vote, which by a majority gave the instruction to Government, that the UK was to leave.

Within a matter of days, and after the coining of the term ‘Brexit’, what was a direct and simple instruction had morphed into ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ forms, as the Establishment, the opinionators and the thinkers attempted to create meanings which had never before existed, simply because they were motivated to find another route which would suit their own aims. One which they could sell as being that of others, well knowing that their own plan had never been meant by those others as any such thing.

We can learn much from reading and understanding the works of people like Adam Smith, Keynes, Marx and John Stuart Mill.

But their writings were just a snapshot, and not a blue print for implementation in another era and time.

Like all academic work used responsibly, these writers inform, guide and help with practical application.

But these writings are teaching tools. They are very much open to very different forms of interpretation in how they might or could be used in practical plans and should not be considered as either a blueprint or process. They are a resource, nothing more, and there is no benefit beyond.

As we look across the political platforms, and consider what ideas and motivations lie within them all, we can soon start to see that there is much commonality in the depth and background of thought.

It is just the language used and differing communication, wrapped in tribal dress which can encourage us to love a certain perspective of an idea or a policy, which presented differently by others would provide us with nothing to which we wish to respond.

The Political Party System in the UK today has driven wedges between all of us, because Electoral success is derived from the politics of difference, not in working together and using what we actually have in common between all of us, which could in turn be used to deliver something meaningful for all.

What is common between all of us together, can always be used to bring us together as one

To be successful, a new Party of the People would recognise and embrace the true forms of commonality between all of us.

By establishing itself on the basis of what has already been identified as the difference between the ideas that drive it and other existing Political Parties, no matter where in the political spectrum they are perceived to exist – whether left, right, somewhere in the middle or out on the extremes, they will immediately fail, because the priority is not about people, but the gaps and thin air which sits in-between.

Taking ambition out of politics

Passion and ambition are not the same thing. Yet ambition can be misinterpreted as passion and being passionate in your ambition is essential when its all about getting a win.

Politics today has lost its way.

Not because the idea of government and public service is any less valid that it ever has been.

But because the politicians within politics have forgotten what public service is meant for and what being an elected representative really means.

It is regrettably the case that we have reached a point in time where people rarely enter politics to do something beneficial for their communities or the people who elected them.

People don’t seek election to a public decision-making body because they are motivated to deliver something better for all.

And that’s the way that politics should be, with the only ambition being that everyone should be able to feel that they can win.

Politics has become a career pathway, and a system has been created in which the participants are only subservient to the Political Parties which nominate them to represent Seats.

Members and the Seats that they should represent are seen as little more than pieces in a jigsaw to the Leaders of that Party, in a game of arithmetic in which the highest sum of seats, rather than the will of the people is the figure that wins.

To reconnect people with politics, create engagement and policies which really consider what should be, how it could be and what happens to those not directly involved if it is made to be so, a real people’s party must overturn the current view of politics.

A real people’s party must exist on the premise that the politicians that represent it cannot be in politics purely for themselves. They cannot be interested in only making decisions which are beneficial to them, to their careers, or in winning the favour of anyone else they believe will help their ‘career’ and support them to win.

Being a representative of the people is not a right and it is not a job.

Being a representative of the people is a responsibility and a privilege. One that should only be available to those who can see that responsibility to the people who elected them for all that it really is.

A genuine people’s party will be conscious of what it really is.

A real people’s party will be a framework to support the work of politicians who are focusing their efforts on working together, not for personal glory or the next electoral win.

It will be a support network, there to help committed representatives of the people to deliver hard decisions. It will recognise what it takes to win on behalf of everyone at the end when the objective is reached, rather than losing sight of the big picture and becoming obsessed with the small details in policy battles, which litter the roadway in between.

Great politicians and representatives of the people offer the greatest benefit to their constituencies through the accumulation of their other experiences. Through the time they have spent accumulating knowledge of the wider issues around life. In developing the communication and interpretation skills which enable them to explore, to understand and to interpret the experiences of others which they themselves cannot have, and to make reasoned analysis of the many grey areas that sit in between.

A genuine people’s party must select candidates for elected offices based on what they can genuinely offer and bring to the party and its way of being, which is to improve the lives of all people and be beneficial to all.

Selection should never be made simply upon how applicants present themselves or what they can show on paper as a currency which the shallow minds within the Political Parties of today see as qualification in their own image.

A real party of the people will never overlook the true needs of Voters and what it takes a good politician to be representative at all levels. Whether that’s dealing with a constituent who doesn’t know who collects their Council Tax, or managing a fraught relationship with the foreign minister of another country who is demanding that all of us surrender our culture and sense of being, placing our heritage and history in the bin.

A true party of the people, must cast aside any process of diminishing the responsibility of new entrants and be mindful of the responsibilities which each politician has to their own respective seat, rather than demanding a level of loyalty which gives the lie to the idea of democracy itself.

Compromise is not necessary when motivation and delivery are about what’s in the best interests of everyone, rather than just of those directly involved.

 Yes, politicians must group together for the purposes of getting things done. But if decisions are made mindfully on the basis of what’s best for everybody, all will be supportive.

 A new world – Respecting rather than surrendering to technology

One of the areas that a real People’s party must quickly come to populate with ethics and guidelines is the online world.

Today we live our lives in parallel universes with two totally different sets of rules. But there exists a dangerous imbalance of influence which sees the dehumanised rules of relationships created in the space of distance, back-flowing into real life from the online world.

Chaos is the natural state of everything. And when a world of chaos exists in overlap with one which was seemingly ordered, without safeguards being put in place, and through an increasing state of entropy, it is the chaos coming from the other unordered side that will overrule and win.

The aims of a real people’s party must respect the way that the world has changed and is changing, but must also shift the cultural perception that the online world has no barriers, because if it does not do so, then no barriers will exist in between.

Such an approach would be catastrophic with the ever increasing rate of rise in new technologies which are making contact with everyone and anything very simple. But with currently very little in the form of governance to ensure the safety of all, whilst encouraging developments and growth, we desperately need safeguards and devices which create balance.

The EU – Having friends and trading partners is one thing. Losing control quite another. We can only deliver true power locally, if we bring it back properly to its true source and where it begins

Very few of the Politicians who currently represent us genuinely understand the relationship that we have with the EU, and what Membership of the EU actually means.

There is a complete disconnect with both the history and detail underpinning events right from when and how the idea of a United Europe was created, to how EU Policy and its legislation is created and then implemented right across the Block of once independent Countries that now make up its Membership.

Power is steadily being taken away from the people, and centralised not in our capital cities such as Belfast, Cardiff, Edinburgh or London. But beyond the reach of us all in the European Centre of Brussels where democracy doesn’t exist.

However, it is not enough simply to rely on Brexit to deliver the level of change which the no vote against EU Membership instigated.

It wont.

Not because its not the right thing to do. It is, but it is little more than just a policy step and there is much more that a party of the people could realistically do.

Power must be brought back to as close to the people as it is possible to do so. Not through the creation of additional and meaningless additional political structures such as police and crime commissioners and regional mayors which have already had too much time and must go.

But by bringing real power back to County Councils, Boroughs and Districts and to the Towns and Parishes at the most local level, where people can be involved most closely in day-to-day decision making on behalf of our communities, instead of leaving decisions to be made under the umbrellas of polices made in London by people who will never experience the fall out from their ideas, which without practical understanding should be back for determination in our localities instead.

Those who argue that the EU is about democracy and people do not understand the affront to real democracy that it really is. Sold as being about peace standards and equality, its true aim is little more than centralised control. Yet the rise of political parties has done much of the same thing too, and this is why Brexit should only be seen as a step in the right direction and that direction must be bringing real decisions that will effect us on a day to day basis back to the level where those decisions can be made by me and by you.

The Electoral system

If the focus is shifted back to representation of the people, rather than selecting a party machine selling a raft of policies which are only relevant for a brief snapshot of time, First Past The Post (FPTP) will once again demonstrate how it is best suited to the needs of a real democracy.

Proportional Representation will only ever suit the needs of people who are only obsessed with getting elected so that they can impose ideologies on us all, and wherever possible without ever having to come to us for a meaningful Vote.

Proportional Representation is a travesty and a tool created to work the Political System. Popular only because Politicians are failing us all with policies and ideas that we don’t relate to and which are completely out of touch.

A real people’s party will bring power back to the people through genuine representation. Through power being given back through decision making at the correct level and as close to the people as it is practical for it to be. And by ensuring that the best people are elected to represent other people and communities by prioritising the needs of the whole community on an ongoing basis and not by being what appears to be the best choice on one day and behaving like you can do what the hell you like and call it in the best interests of everyone on the other eighteen-hundred-and-twenty-five.

The Executive

A real People’s party will accept that one of the greatest but most meaningful challenges that they will have to face will be the reform public services from top to bottom.

A genuine people’s party will need to do this in order to ensure that government always working for the benefit of everyone is not simply another aspiration which can quickly be written off or denied.

The executive parts of Government, that’s the Civil Service, the Offices of Local Government and the roles which exist throughout the massive number of QUANGOs* must be refocused, reformed and re-tasked in order for a People focused Party to succeed.

Public servants must work within a non-protectionist culture that like the elected offices of this way of being encourages responsibility for others to be accepted as a privilege, not one where public service is treated as a myth, and roles exist as fiefdoms where blame for anything can be passed on to others with no worry about costs, which right now have escalated up into the sky.

*QUANGOs = Quasi-non-government organisations. These are the grey-area organisations like the Highways Agency, The Environment Agency and the Food Standards Agency which are jam packed with civil servants undertaking key work on public things, but effectively run without being answerable to anyone democratically elected.

The role of Media

One of the key elements of making politics what it should be for a real Party of the People, will be restoring the role of the traditional and main stream media (MSM) to carrying wholly factual news, rather than the overproduction of quasi-news programming which presents unqualified opinion and bias as qualified fact.

The assent of fake news as an issue has much to do with the role of the MSM being blurred with the developing role of social media channels where pretty much anything goes.

Well known stations have done this to chase headlines and clicks, which itself is more of a reflection of what commercialism is all about.

But it is not the responsibility of politicians to play up to this, and any collaboration in news sensationalism must be removed as a key part of the communication platform of a real People’s party so that the definitive line between factual transmission and fake news can be restored.

A system where an embargo system allow news channels to consider and even comment on speeches before they have even been delivered and have reached the public domain gives the lie to the legitimacy of the whole thing.

The cosiness has to stop, so that full public trust can be restored, and decision making on behalf of the public no longer viewed as a celebrity game.

From the Grassroots up

Above everything, a people’s party in government will remember and be mindful of one key thing. That every single person in this country has the same value and is as important as the next.

It is easy to become distracted by success, wealth, celebrity and popularity. But these states of experience or being are all transient at best.

Their prioritisation leads to consequences for all. Instead of judging the state of society by how people live and therefore influence at the top, a real People’s party will use the benchmark at which those who are experiencing their most difficult times in life, have had their lives defined.

Quality of life must be defined from the grassroots up.

It’s the metaphorical process of growing from seed to fruit and doing everything to nurture and provide the ideal environment for all who are so inclined.

A Real People’s Party will succeed by understanding and embracing the true reality of Mutual Aims

Ultimately, the priority of any genuine people’s party, should be to fulfil the expectations of the responsibility that they have been given, within the timescale which the electoral system has defined.

Put simply, if a People’s party Government has a five years term their priority should be the fullest commitment on the delivery of priorities, not the next election and the manipulation of public opinion in relation to everything that happens in between.

No matter what difficulties or challenges that a Government might encounter during the period of its elected term, if it is doing everything that it can to meet its responsibilities, its electability at the next election should be a happy consequence as a result of their actions, rather than just being a prioritised and all-absorbing future outcome.

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Improving Social Mobility is about addressing the way decision makers think, not about academic education alone

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The three key misunderstandings and fallacious barriers to Social Mobility are:

  • That Social Mobility issues only affect young people who are in their career development years
  • That the only way to improve Social Mobilty is through ensuring that everyone achieves a ‘full’ academic education and that the attainment of degrees is key
  • That Social Mobility issues relate to the achievement, progress or outlook of the individual and nobody else

With one evolution of the Social Mobility Commission having resigned because of lack of Government support and another now appointed in the image of all the same Establishment ideas, the key issues underpinning lack of progress in tackling the barriers to Social Mobility are still being overlooked and this travesty is set to continue further still.

As is often the case when a cause is given a label, the Social Mobility problem is an issue which has become closely aligned with just one interpretation of its cause. This closes down debate and dialogue about the much wider range of issues which attribute to reducing opportunities. It also excludes consideration of a wider malaise and certainly overlooks the real impact on not only the individuals affected themselves, but also upon the wider community as a whole.

Yes, many young people are overlooked because of the start they had in life. The place in which they lived. The schools which they did and did not attend. The qualifications which they did or didn’t gain.

But the reality is that it is a very long list of factors which prevent any one person from progressing.

The interpretation of someone’s validity on the road to progress and passing these barriers is not simply restricted to that of employers, educators or any of the external gatekeepers of opportunity.

No. The perception of not being good enough to overcome any barrier to Social Mobility can be that of the individual all on their own.

The obstruction to unhindered Social Mobility, is the many prejudices which are not and cannot be managed by regulation or by the methods of review and reform which have become the cultural norm in this Country.

In a society which has learned to make effect synonymous with cause, we overlook the real causes of societal problems and as such have no way to address the consequential effects.

The social justice warriors, the politically correct, the rights lobby and liberal left all congratulate themselves on the strangle hold of regulation which decades of manipulation and social engineering have helped them impose.

Yet the rules which govern Equality of Opportunity in their purest sense have actually made prejudices easier to employ.

Only now, beyond the scope of the processes which assure us that prejudices have been all but removed, they are less likely to be evidenced and hide in plain sight.

Yes, we have regulation against gender and sex discrimination. Race discrimination. Disabilities discrimination, Religion, Age and sexual orientation too.

But in creating these frameworks or safety notes, the idealistic engineers of this ill-considered social plan have provided the perfect opportunity for people to surrender ethical responsibility to being seen to adhere to the set of rules which now exist. They have been given a set of pillars that once worshipped, allow them to do whatever they want to by behaving in ways which legitimately go around these rules or sit somewhere in the spaces in between.

We now not only have a situation where decision makers can quietly be racist, sexist, or are allowed to quietly indulge any other prejudice we might not collectively like. They can continue to do so unimpeded.

The consequences of this ‘big vision’ engineering project create many other problems too. Problems which include disadvantaging the already disadvantaged and building barriers to progress which the very same people will now never cross.

And guess what. Yes. We find again that achievements exist only for the same few to easily win all over again.

Take for example the assault on the education system that the Blair Government undertook, with the overt aim of giving everyone the opportunity to gain a degree.

The result has been the commercialisation of the further and higher education system, leading to the prioritisation of winning fees, rather than focusing on the quality and commercial durability of the education provided. Running education as a business has almost certainly put its future in serious doubt.

It is a process which has already led hundreds and thousands of hopeful young people to begin professional life in serious debt and with academic qualifications which are to many businesses completely worthless.

Yet the debt-laiden graduates only find out too late that these quack qualifications don’t mean much at all to the world around them once they have left the supposed safety of the academic universe behind.

The world of big business and its new world of ‘created roles and specialisms’ has responded to the glorifying of academic qualification over the benefit of time-served experience by recognising degrees as a standard for anybody worth looking at. Not as a way to recognise specialism in itself. But as a like-for-like replacement in recent years for what would previously have been well illustrated by the attainment of 3 A’Levels, and only a few years before that just 5 GCSE’s.

Not everyone is cut out to be a CEO, Director or even a manager and non-academic people bring value to business which only when added to the contribution of real academics can it add up to a formula which is so much more.

The dangerous mix created by this non-stop meddling has fuelled the entitlement culture. Qualification has become more valuable than experience and experience is not of value to those who have qualifications.

Letters on a CV are seen as more important than attitude, motivation, or the many other life skills which business used to intrinsically value, which they now overlook. The system now unwittingly leads them to place applications from people who would should be the next generation of commercial superstars straight in the bin.

It doesn’t stop there, and within a tick box, risk-averse culture where Recruiters and HR Officers – that’s people who have and never will do these jobs themselves – have overwhelming power over recruitment processes, there is an untamed focus on identifying reasons to not even shortlist candidates – usually because they don’t have a degree.

Good people are now denied jobs where they can thrive and the employers and companies themselves never gain access to the wider pool of candidates where the real benefits of selecting people with the right experience rather than just a paper qualification lies.

The consequences of this social meddling are already far reaching indeed and because the UK could never afford to provide education to 21 years as a standard – which in itself was never needed, it was inevitable that a new form of educational discrimination would introduce itself. And it’s the worst one of all. The preclusion from opportunity for even more young people based simply on cost.

Just in this one example of social meddling focusing on education alone, where impractical idealists have tried to impose a system of restrictions based upon no experience that they have or have in no way never known, we can see how far reaching the impact on consequences of quixotic thinking can be.

This is a pattern which is unfolding itself over and over again within all the areas of our lives where lack of consideration has been applied to the consequences of imposing the ‘consideration’ of rights and ‘positive’ discrimination on a society which will always have its own mind and not the one which political busy-bodies which to create for it.

The barriers to Social Mobility are all about the way that we think.

But the change needed and the tools which will enable us to break down those barriers and make that change will only come when decision makers with the power and therefore the ability to oversee that change go through a voluntary process of accepting that they themselves need to think differently.

That change will come about as a direct result.

That change cannot and never will be imposed.

 

Parliament exists to be representative of the People, not the wants of the Government of the day. Reducing the number of MP’s will only increase public disenfranchisement as power is centralised further

download 22In amongst the din of the Brexit chaos, you may detect the odd snippet of news concerning the proposed reduction in the number of MP’s.

Under a supposed process of making representation more fair, by redrawing Parliamentary Constituency Boundaries, the current Government is seeking to complete the process began by David Cameron to reduce the number of Parliamentary Seats.

As has become normal practice with the Political Classes of today, the story focuses on what they want us all to hear. Not what they don’t want us to think.

Hear ‘balance’, hear ‘fair’, hear ‘equality in representation’.

Don’t hear ‘more people per MP. Don’t hear ‘greater distance between voters and their representatives’. Certainly don’t hear ‘redrawing the political geography of the Country to favour one political side’.

Its pretty normal for us all to have political allegiances of one kind or another. Thats the way that the UK has worked culturally for a long time. But whatever side we support, there is nothing positive to be gained by attempting to tip the balance of the electoral system to place one Party in front, with the indirect aim of ensuring that for the opposition, becoming a government will almost always be denied.

One of the greatest struggles of contemporary politicians is understanding why they don’t get support for their ideas and policies. They don’t consider that their policies and ideas might be wrong. They certainly don’t entertain the thought that they are so completely out of touch with the electorate that they represent, that they have lost their way from the pathway that they should be taking. That of ensuring the impact of policies and decisions, and therefore their consequences are considered for their impact upon us all.

Instead they have concluded that it is the system which is broken. It is the system that is wrong. Their solution being that the system should be fixed. That everything will be much better if they can ensure that their own side can achieve a guaranteed and majority win.

It doesn’t matter if its redrawing electoral boundaries, or introducing proportional representation or a derivative form of it. All these ideas are about gaining more control by dubious means, rather than simply doing the job that all of these politicians have been elected to do.

The problem is that each and every step that is taken in this way is ultimately making the disconnect, the disenfranchisement between us, the Government and the Establishment more distinct. It will not make things better. It will give voters even less of a chance to speak.

image thanks to unknown

Trashing distasteful parts of history puts us at risk of repeating the same mistakes in the future, which only the same level of hypocrisy would allow us to then deny

download (14)The debate over Virgin removing copies of the Daily Mail from sale on its Trains in the past week highlighted the worrying trend for people to attempt to remove anything from their sphere of influence which they find in some way unpalatable – doing so without any level of regard for the real cost or consequences of doing so.

Whilst this vogue appears new to many, it has been within our awareness for a good period of time. It hinges on blame culture and the overindulgence of the personal slight. It takes the self-righteous influence of the myopic ever nearer the creation and manifestation of a very twisted and unrealistic worldview.

One of the reasons why it is so unrealistic is because it is built upon the foundation of idealism; that of denying that which cannot be denied.

Even in politics now, we have reached a point where apparently well-educated people with significant responsibility placed upon them by many others, believe and apply the fallacious principle that “if I say it is so, then it will actually be so”.

An eye on the future is however one thing, but looking back turns the same coin on to its other side.

History is planned, created and experienced in the present moment by us all. Yet it is an infinite chain of perspectives or opinions, based upon what are almost always a very small number of facts – some of which even the very people who were present and involved may not themselves have actually known.

That we live in a world where opinion has a level of power which just tolerates the occasional fact should really be far more alarming to us all that it really has become.

That individuals have the power to blight the lives of others, simply because they hold a conflicting view, should be something that concerns everyone.

That others are now trying to rewrite history and remove our heritage is a risk and threat to the future of us all and once completed may never be undone.

Culturally, we indulge the notion that only bad news sells, in almost everything we do – almost to the point where is becomes only the bad news about anything itself that we remember, overlooking many more good-news-stories that are available to us as we do.

The most dangerous of steps now being taken – usually by people who believe that they have been in some way slighted by the actions of people that not one of us has or will ever know – is to apply this approach to history, focusing only upon the bad parts of his story, so that the good which may have come will automatically be overlooked and quietly denied.

The politically correct form of censorship manifesting itself through the attempted removal of historic names from buildings and even trusts, like those of Rhodes in Oxford and Colston in Bristol may look like the delivery of justice to the shallow depths of the egocentric. But in terms of what this action overlooks, it is to all of us as a culture and society – in no way any such thing.

Nobody can realistically refute the pain and suffering that colonialism and slavery visited upon many millions of innocent and powerless people over tens and hundreds of years.

Yet the industry and commerce that both were part of also brought prosperity, wealth and yes – learning to all corners of the globe.

It supercharged the path towards a more enlightened and civilised way of being which itself allows the same individuals the freedom and platform to influence the world around them – for better or worse today.

There is no escaping the dark parts of this Country’s historic chapters. But there are also many beneficial lessons to learn by looking them in the eye – not least of all for the purpose of ensuring that we have enough awareness of what can happen when the conditions for oppression and exploitation are right.

The irony of the drive to trash these parts of history, is that they are being repeated all around us in many ways, albeit wrapped differently today. They may not look the same, but they have very much the same effect emotionally on the oppressed within the quiet of their own minds.

Indeed it is a great shame that the energy and passion focused on the drive for political correctness is not itself redirected to help others who are alive and need real help – but in ways that this same lack of human awareness on the part of social justice warriors leaves them unable or unwittingly unable to define.

People are increasingly being enslaved and oppressed by the world around them, financially, by rights, quixotic ideas and by the bureaucratic systems that political correctness is slowly ratcheting around all of us, like a slow pull on a closing cable-tie.

To try to destroy the lessons of history, whilst overlooking live-time oppression is one of the most hideous forms of hypocrisy in action today.

Focusing on events to learn lessons and use them to help others going forward would be much better for us all than playing a disingenuous game of out of sight, out of mind.

image thanks to unknown