How is your view of the world different to other people?
What will tomorrow look like based on the view of the world you have today?
Would you change the way you view the world if you understood the difference between your view, other people’s views and what they could really mean?
These are all very important questions that most of us are typically too busy or distracted to even consider, let alone ask.
However, the consequences of us not doing so could be very profound, as the future will just happen to us unless we do so
Your Beliefs Today create Everyone’s Experiences Tomorrow invites you to consider a range of the different prevailing ways that people look at today’s world. How they came into being, and what – without change – they are likely to bring into our lives for our tomorrows.
Will you recognise yourself and what your beliefs today could bring to your future experiences?
Will you be happy with everything you believe?
Will you see your own perspective as very different?
Or will you choose to step forward into the future armed with the tools and power for change?
Even though the political terrain was different, from the point of view that the British Electorate were days away from trusting Boris Johnson with an Election Result that very few saw coming because the Conservatives promised to get Brexit done, the truth of the matter was that many areas of the UKs public policy had already gone massively wrong.
Regrettably, it had been doing so for a time that has spanned many different governments, led by different political parties, before.
Within months, we were all subjected to the stupidity and poor leadership that manifested itself in the form of both the Government and the wider political response to Covid 19 and the Covid Pandemic.
We are unlikely to have experienced all the fall-out and consequences of such levels of incompetence and political delinquency that were set in motion, even now.
However, back in early December 2019, I decided to commit all the things a ‘good’ government would actually do to paper. I then shared it with the world.
Since then, The Makeshift Manifesto seems to have been a popular read. So, earlier this year, as I contemplated the run up to the coming General Election, I began to question whether I should revisit the book and update it to reflect what has changed and where the further problems with Public Policy have developed over the 4+ years of time since the first edition was published.
With the original work set up on a screen and being sat ready to dive straight in, it didn’t take many moments for me to realise that if ‘good’ policy was no more than a wish list at the time of the last General Election, because of the quality of the politicians we had back then, the uncomfortable fact is that with the political options we have available today, such suggestions would be pretty much impossible to deliver through the current structure of government, in any meaningful way.
But at this point I realised, that without people being open to the change that is possible now and which I covered in the book Officially None Of The Above, or there being some kind of Black Swan event that has the power to change everyone’s minds, the only way that meaningful change could be delivered throughout government, the public sector and within every area of Public Policy itself, would be with pure single-mindedness. The kind that could only be achieved if it was driven and directed by one person with the power necessary to command and dictate that massive scale of change.
I worked this thorough as briefly as it was possible to do so.
Leaning on different books that I have written and published over the past two years that included A Community Route and The Grassroots Manifesto, I also added a policy wish list that would be good for everyone, but that in today’s reality, it would only be possible for Good Dictator to deliver and achieve.
There remains a very big question about whether the individual exists who:
Would have the knowledge and experience necessary to change such a massively broken system for the better
Has the desire, drive, motivation and public spiritedness to see it through
Possesses the ethics, morality and principles to stay true to the public cause, when there would be so much temptation to cast what’s in the best interests of others aside
After completing and publishing the book, I concluded that in times as we face today, where politicians and those who aspire to be politicians don’t see any route other than their own, and the public itself has surrendered to the idea that all ‘public’ problems are the responsibility of someone, somewhere else, if nothing else should change in the way we view the importance of the things that are common to us all, the solution of having a Good Dictator, might end up being the only way forward for us all.
Diversity, alternative Political Philosophies and differences in Politics don’t promote or guarantee fairness and balance.
Anyone appointed to a position of influence and authority because of the physical, material or ideological difference they have with others is more likely to prioritise those who they most closely identify with – or for want of a better term, prioritise the interests of ‘those of their own kind’.
The benchmark of any system of government and the political system that facilitates or leads it being truly representative, Fair, Balanced and Just, is what the politician or political decision maker does on behalf of the person they know least about, have least in common with or are least likely to understand.
A system of government cannot and will not work in the best interests of all, if it doesn’t consider and treat fairly, justly and without bias of any kind, even the very people we might consider that we have every reason want excluded in some way or to despise.
If you have read this and immediately think of someone or some group of people that you feel to be undeserving of the same care and consideration that you for yourself would like, you can now use that feeling and emotion to understand how any system of governance and politics will quickly be undone.
The ongoing row over second jobs for MPs has certainly proven to be an interesting one. Yet it has also become increasingly concerning, as it has become ever more obvious that so very few journalists, commentators and people working around the political sphere have any real consideration or respect for what the role of an MP and public representative should actually be about.
Arguments in favour of second jobs range from the suggestion that MPs with outside work enrich their links with, and understanding of, the real world, to claims that additional money is the only way to make the role worthwhile. Those against argue that banning second jobs would be acceptable, but only if MPs were given a ‘realistic’ salary.
Nobody seems to have mentioned that being an MP or public representative is not a job.
Being an MP is a responsibility to others. It is not a role that should be taken if the individual concerned cannot guarantee that their responsibility to others will not be compromised by prioritising income, career opportunities, fears, influences of any kind, or any other motivations that put their own needs before anyone else’s at any time, at any level or in any way.
It is part of the human condition that we can only be loyal to one master. MPs are no different to anyone else. If an MP’s priority is income or career at any level, their focus will not be on anyone else.
There are simply no grey areas with this. It really is very black and white.
If an MP can be swayed in their decision-making by any factor that reflects on them personally at any level and in absolutely any way before anything or anyone else, they can be bought. As such, they cannot be relied upon to represent the general public and the voters within the constituency who elected them.
Being an MP or elected politician of any kind requires people who have the life experience, understanding of others and are at a stage in their lives where they can willingly and unswervingly put the needs of others before themselves in every meaningful way.
It is because we have for so long had a Parliament full of MPs on all sides of the political divides who are ruled by self‑interest at some level and in some way that the British political system – and, as a result, the whole of the UK – is in the mess it is in today.
Public service can be the only master of any politician who wants to fulfil the obligations of the role with which they have publicly been entrusted. There simply is no other way.
For as long as we keep electing politicians in this country and allow them to frame their own roles as careers and jobs, their attitude will continue to focus on nothing other than the impact and consequences of their actions for their future and for themselves before anything else.
There will be many who suggest that this is the way the system works and that you can only change the system from within. The regrettable truth is that this is a myth perpetrated solely for the benefit and furtherance of the interests of those already within that system – people who have a massive investment in ensuring that nothing happens that could bring about the comprehensive systemic change that would help and benefit us all.
Sadly, until we all come together and accept that the people leading this country in government, the establishment and the wider public sector are not working to put our collective best interests first, we are doomed to live the same experience. Public policy today is created in all areas of life where decisions have been made not with us as the priority, but with what is important to the people we elected always put first.
We only have ourselves to blame for each and every day that this sordid and perverse idea of democracy continues to rule, impinge upon and inflict avoidable pain and chaos in our lives.
None of the political parties we have on offer today are focused on all of us in the way they should be.
It is we who must make the decision to elect MPs and politicians of all kinds who will make promises and then keep them – because they are in Parliament as politics is a calling or a vocation for them, rather than just an interpretation of a career or a job. One that, to them, is nothing more than getting the maximum return for themselves for the least amount of work.
We need a real choice in politics. We need MPs who understand and genuinely care. We need #ANewPartyForAll for the next General Election.
To achieve this, we need to start thinking differently and begin to build the alternative to the madness we have right now.
The people living and working in Villages and Towns around mid and Northern Gloucestershire and South Worcestershire experienced the worst that inland flooding can throw at us – and for a great many even more, when critical infrastructure was affected and the drinking water supply dried up as result.
Nobody could argue that the impact of the event did not come to the attention and supposed scrutiny of Westminster Politicians at the time. Pictures of RAF Rescue Helicopters winching stranded people to safety whilst hovering against the backdrop of the Cotswold Hills quickly caught international attention. I stood outside the Local Council Offices when then newly appointed Prime Minister Gordon Brown arrived.
At the time, within the immediacy of the flooding event itself, it felt like the powers that be simply couldn’t do enough.
But the moment that the floodwaters receded, the RAF had returned their big yellow flying machines to their bases and tap water supplies were restored, the media’s and therefore the attention of the politicians with the real power to do something meaningful simply drifted off to elsewhere and beyond.
Yes, remedial flood protection work took place here and there – especially in places that are very much in the wider public’s eye.
But the changes made in response to the Floods that year were in many ways little more than being aesthetic.
There was then and has been since no change in the way that Politicians, Government and the Agencies address the causes, influences upon and effects of flooding across the UK – despite many similar experiences for other people and communities across the Country that have already happened and are taking place in Yorkshire and the East Midlands today.
What was clear to me as a Local Councillor at the time of the 2007 Floods here, was that the Environment Agency wasn’t fit for purpose; that flooding was and always would be managed on the basis of so-called tried and tested thinking. And worst of all, that there was absolutely no room for new approaches or original thinking to deal with the problem as the specialists and those who possess the fiefdoms that are public sector responsibility would always know best – no matter what the reality and impact upon real people was or would be that was involved.
And whilst processes and procedures to deal the impact upon families that have to move out of their homes and perhaps live in caravans as a result for many months now appear to have become normalised, the fact that Government has concentrated only on managing the effects of any flooding crisis at the time, rather than dealing with the causes and what lies ahead should be telling us all that we really need to know.
Flooding isn’t a vote winner when there’s no water on the ground
With the shallow, self-serving politicians that we have in power today, the harsh reality we must all face is that in their majority, Politicians and the Political Parties that they represent are not interested in seeing any task through from start to finish, unless they believe that doing so will secure them more votes.
What our Emergency Services, our Military, and the people on the ground will do in Yorkshire and the East Midlands during the current crisis to help people will not be an issue in Westminster once the water has gone and this ridiculous General Election Campaign has passed by.
Addressing the issues that count and will make a difference – that’s Planning Policy, responding to the Housing Crisis, how we address Climate Change and the way that the Public Sector itself actually works, are not and never will be on the agenda for longer than it remains in the news. Or at least not until we have politicians with very different motives and people-first mindset involved.
Planning Policy
Many people don’t understand that Local Authorities don’t make planning law. They just interpret it.
And with rules that come from the centre – rules that sound great because they seem to consider this and sound great because they appear to consider that – we have all been misled into believing that a one-size-fits-all approach to the way that we build in all locations, environments and conditions across this Country can work out for everyone wherever they are in the same way – even with different people with different motives doing the interpretation that is involved.
For instance, the Planning System is itself so arbitrary that floodplains that have been built up and covered with dumped earth and inert debris then qualify as being safe to build on. Yet there is no consideration for the displacement of floodwaters that would have historically rested at that location. Nor is there though given for how that water might flow around this newly created island or indeed what other properties or places would now be affected by what will be both a new and at time of flooding inevitably different water flow.
For the impact of future flooding events to be limited for existing properties, Towns, Cities and Villages to the same levels and impact that they are having right now, Planning rules and the way that we interpret them must change to embrace the increasing likelihood of the black swans, rather than the imbedded mentality of ‘it couldn’t happen here’.
Unswerving technical adherence to manmade rules doesn’t allow for reach and impact of Mother Nature.
Solving problems without creating others must be a priority for all areas of civic life and activity.
The response to the Housing Crisis
Yet another of the political footballs that is currently being bounced around is the topic of which Political Party will build more houses and how quickly they will build them if they should find themselves in power once the Election question has been resolved.
The myth that we need to build so many new houses evaporates the very moment that you consider how much they actually cost.
How often have you seen house prices drop in any part of this Country when a new estate or development has been built?
The truth is that prices of old and new property in the local areas usually rise and like most things where prices and need can be manipulated, profit and therefore greed are the underlying cause.
Building at the levels we have already embraced is already creating a time bomb for potential flooding incidents that would never have had this kind of impact in the past – especially with planning policy as it is.
There needs to be a massive rethink and politicians who were thinking about the people they represent would certainly bring this foolish and ill considered approach to the problem to an immediate stop.
The way to deal with the housing crisis is to make better and more equitable use of the houses and buildings that we already have.
It isn’t helpful to pretend that the only solution is to keep on building more and more, whilst creating many more real ones than the hollow one that it is supposed to solve.
Climate Change
Yes, Climate Change or the Climate Crisis that our young people are now beginning to champion and the way of thinking that they are challenging is a very real part of the flooding problem too.
The weather in this Country and around the World is changing – no matter what your views might be about the cause.
The cold hard reality that we all have to face is that the weather patterns that are here today will take many years to reverse.
But there are steps that we can take to address their progression and pathway to becoming worse.
It is not simply about legislating to change the behavior of people who are already trying to make the best of what can be very difficult lives.
This is where the inexperience and impractical idealism of young people could easily be seen to make a valid argument that is beneficial to us all seem outwardly very wrong. Like Flooding events, protests soon disappear from the minds and plans of the wrong politicians and that is the truth – no matter how wrong.
Sadly, with Climate Change, much of the problem is again about money and greed.
The businesses that have the biggest part to play just need to be led to think differently and see that the profit which is their obsession is still there for them tomorrow as it is for them today. It will just come from them investing, operating and behaving ethically in a very different way.
Industry and money might not be listening now, but that will be different when we have different people in charge.
The necessity of political change that wont be served simply by having a General Election
The complexity of the problems that are contributing to the Housing Crisis, the failure of Planning Policy, Climate Change and Flooding as an issue in its own right will never be dealt with in the way that it needs to be by politicians who are only interested in the outcome of the next Election and how they convince all of us to give them their vote.
If we want the change that we need with the issues that we are facing not just like Flooding, but which we are experiencing each and every day, we must elect different people into Parliament, our Councils and into positions of power who will put people first. Politicians who know what it will take and – most importantly – are actually prepared to do everything necessary to get all of those things that need doing – and not just Brexit – done.
