Tag: Communities

What is really happening now, that makes ‘The Great Reset’ something that we actually need?

The problem for the politicians, the elites, the people who like trips to Switzerland to have expensive dinners around a table with their chums at the WEF, and ALL the people who remain ambitious to be where they are and just like them – is the system they have created has always been flawed, and because of the things that they have done, it has become inevitable that it is going to completely crash.

  • Nothing is going to work as it has been.
  • The Global Economy and Global Supply Chain is collapsing.
  • The Markets – based on ‘FREE’, non-existent money, are going to crash.
  • Selfish ‘commercial interests have control of all the services, products, manufacturing and services that everyone needs to live and enjoy a basic life – meaning that self-serving individuals and private interests – rather than public representatives – can dictate what qualifies as a ‘good life’ and what should be its £Price.
  • Businesses can no longer sustain the rights and regulations that have been imposed universally, but only work and exist to benefit big companies that are usually shareholder (market) owned.
  • Real life for everyone and the communities that we live in is no longer sustainable, because we have completely lost touch with and don’t even understand the lives and experiences of our own neighbours.
  • We are having our ability to think as individuals labelled as a crime and are instead having our ways of thinking dictated to us by people we will never meet or never know, who appear to speak on behalf of everyone, from an app that everyone seems to have on their phone.

The list goes on. But none of it is sustainable or in the best interests of us ALL.

When the system has crashed – or rather, once enough of us have been touched by any one or a number of the many things that we cherish, suddenly coming to their end, that is the time when we will realise and have the opportunity to understand that none of this is what our lives are really about.

That’s when we will understand and accept that we really do need wholesale change. It is when we will know that the days of the top-down hierarchy have to end.

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Levelling Level | The importance of Community in all things

Our distraction is no accident

If you want people to forget who they are, what they want or what they need, give them bread and circuses.

Surprisingly, these words have been around since Roman times. They reflect one of the key ways of thinking that cynical and poor leaders use to prevent people from revolting and engaging in civil unrest, when things are not going well or as they really should.

During the Covid Pandemic, we were repeatedly misled by the Johnson Government and its ‘nudge unit’, that used behavioural science, to play around with the basic fears that operate often at an unconscious level inside our heads.

By keeping everyone, or rather, the majority distracted from focusing on their own inability to lead, by keeping everyone focused on what we were being told was everyone’s duty to fight for everyone else’s life whilst putting our own lives on hold, they have so far managed to walk away from crippling the UK financially and destroying many people’s futures scot-free.

The programming that the government and the media uses only works, because of the way that our society now works.

People don’t interact with others from an early age in the many different ways that they used to. So, when it comes to learning what’s real, what’s unreal, what makes sense, or what its in our best interests to do, unless we listen without question to family and the people who are close to us when we consider everything, the politicians and the media that support them have within all of us, an open book.

The true cost of Globalisation

The true driver of Globalisation was always the increase in profits for every company that played or that plays a role in the supply chains that are involved.

But the true cost of Globalisation has been the loss of jobs, the loss of skills, the loss of training opportunities, the loss of businesses, the loss of communities, the loss of national self-sufficiency, the impact on the environment, the impact on quality of life. And yes, the list goes on extensively to cover all of the impacts and consequences related to every part of that list which have changed life for everyone – enriching the few, whilst making life poorer in every way conceivable for everyone else.

The introduction of Price controls on foods, goods and services may become essential as this cost-of-living crisis develops. We would be fools to rule out rationing becoming necessary too

Yes, it does feel a bit like being the voice of doom and gloom as I write and produce videos about all the things that are going on and talk about what we can realistically expect as being likely to happen next.

The point is, that if someone like me can see what is happening and what is likely to happen next, the people we have elected as MPs have absolutely no excuse not to do so too.

In fact, our public representatives should be well ahead of the curve in both their horizon scanning and thinking than most.

Regrettably, they are not.

To be fair, the complexity of the growing problems and how each and every one of them interacts with the others is mind bogglingly scary to say the least.

Yet it is the culture of ‘let’s always take the easy option’ that exists, top to bottom within the British Political System, that has made the difficulties that are only just starting for us, significantly worse.

There are many people in this Country today who cannot afford to feed themselves, home themselves, clothe themselves, transport themselves or function normally in any way on the wages or income they have, without debt or benefits – or what is really a subsidy from the Government and therefore everyone else in some way.

Prices of the foods, goods and services that provide the basic essentials for life are spiraling out of control. Living at the standard we are experiencing even today, will soon become unaffordable for most.

Yet the complexities I mentioned above, all come back to just one thing: That the economic system we have today has been developed to benefit the self-interests of the few. That those driving it have continued to push prices up in the pursuit of ever-growing profits for as long as our stupid politicians have printed money and kept handing it out. When instead good politicians would have faced up to reality and dealt with the problems for wider society that have been caused by that same greedy few.

The Covid Pandemic has caused stupid politicians and greedy business and financial leaders to overplay their hand.

In fact, the inflationary spiral they have created together is now out of reach of any form of control they possess. Indeed, the only actions our weak-minded politicians have to address the issues are only serving to make the whole problem worse.

Events, or a coming chronology of them – which will have been caused by so many different profit-driven people with influence behaving in the same way, will combine to make basic food unaffordable where it is available. It will be absent from the supermarket and shop shelves where it would otherwise be not.

Food riots, as the system collapses and the old order makes way for a new one that will work for all will settle the mind of many. Especially the politicians that we have for the time that their waning power remains.

Greed, hoarding and any kind of self-driven prioritisation will have to go out of the window.

That will mean supermarket rationing as we experienced during the early Lockdowns. There will be an immediate need for Government to step in and fix prices along the entire food and essential goods supply chain, so that nobody can use this time of crisis to profit off the backs of us all.

Some of the more economically minded will baulk at the idea of any kind of price fixing, price regulation or price controls, because of its non-capitalist and non-market-friendly nature.

But the reality is that the epoch of easy money and making massive profits by exploiting the many to benefit the already bloated few, is now reaching its end.

A new system will emerge that will be fair to all. But it will not resemble anything that we’ve seen or experienced before.

As we walk the pathway to get there, it will be necessary to ensure that what we still have available – which will plenty for all of us without the influence or intervention of ongoing greed – will be made available fairly to all.

Money as we know it is likely to become only one of many different ways to make payment as change takes place. And it is therefore just as likely that rationing of the essentials that are available will also be necessary for everyone.

The times ahead may prove to be painful. But it’s the future which is possible for everyone once the change has been completed that we should look forward to.

The opportunities for a fair and just way of living, where everyone and everything matters are not just a pipe dream. They really exist and are there for us all.

After the pain, we have much happier times in store.

Using Planning Reform to make it even easier to build houses is the obvious solution for a political class that always takes the easy option without view of the consequences first

Politicians are no longer big enough to tackle or even attempt to address issues that they cannot be sure they can control. It is a fool’s game.

Government has been blighted by very normal, overly ambitious people styling themselves as public leaders, whose greatest skill is sniffing out and repelling any meaningful response to the issues and actions that carry the greatest risk to themselves.

The irony should not be lost on many, that if governments were to apply themselves fully and without compromise to addressing the issues of their time and without fear of any electoral risk to them by doing so, they would have done all they need to get re-elected with a decent majority at the end of their 5-year-term.

Regrettably – and to the continued cost of the British Public, this is not how our politicians roll.

Our politicians take the easy and politically lazy route to managing public policy. They deal with issues in isolation, giving little or no consideration to the impact upon other areas of public policy. They focus on the consequences of their actions only for themselves when they should be prioritising the consequences for us all.

The suggestion that using Planning Reform to make it easier to build houses will solve the housing crisis is nothing more than the siren call of greed. A call to action that will line the pockets of the same financiers, builders and political chums as always, whilst people whose lives are being increasingly destroyed by the exponential growth of personal and private debt also see countless other factors that give quality to their lives smashed unnecessarily upon these hidden rocks.

No human being can be in two places at once. Therefore, no human being needs two places in which to live.

Just as is the case in every other part of life, there is ‘enough for everyone’s need, but never enough for everyone’s greed’.

Money, created by a monetary and financial system that is only fair and equitable to those who have no need for any more of it, should not enable anyone to obtain more than they need to facilitate anything more than the requirements of day-to-day function or living. Certainly not when doing so comes at the cost of preventing others with less from having the same.

With a growing population, there will always be a relative need for the country to build new homes. But increasing home building exponentially, just so the whims of some can be met and the profiteering and greed of others can be fed is no solution to a problem that can be solved politically with better, more appropriate and fairer use of resources that already exist.

You never see house prices fall in the area where a new development is built. But you do see problems with flooding. You see the negative impact on infrastructure like roads, schools and GPs Surgeries.

Excessive building leads to a fall in the quality of life for countless numbers of people, many of them everyday, low-wage people who grew up locally. Real people who are being pushed out by deliberately engineered inflation meaning that the new houses the government and media tells us are being built to help them will continue to be the prized lifetime asset they will never be able to afford.

Whilst the term ‘Reset’ or ‘Great Reset’ has been adopted by both the World Economic Forum and by those who love to hate them, there is indeed no better term that can be used to describe what needs to happen to the UKs and the International Monetary and Financial systems so that life and the ability of everyone to live it becomes something that we all can financially afford.

The disproportionate value of homes, relative to what they are genuinely worth could quickly be addressed to a significant degree by a revaluation and rebalancing of the way money is used and manipulated and how the economy works.

But money itself has to be viewed as nothing more than the unit of exchange that it is, rather than the god-like ‘thing’ that greed and selfishness has allowed it to become.

There are already a range of devices that the Government could use to address second and multiple home ownership. This would immediately improve housing stock availability and remove the need for housebuilding to increase or to continue in the forms that are destroying local communities and the environments around them – when there already exists a much more appropriate choice.

Yet our politicians will not use taxation or bans on multiple home ownership, because it would mean wading through a political minefield that they consider too risky to their chances of re-election. They are therefore deemed to be actions that they must do everything to avoid.

By making public policy decisions in this way, our politicians are failing to do the right thing for the people they represent. Meanwhile they are continually creating more and more troublesome consequences for everyone, which they will then once again do everything to avoid.

This lack of leadership in government and the rejection of responsibility by this political class means that the basics of life for many are simply too expensive to afford.

Restoring Democracy Pt 3: Communities & locality first

Localism became a fashionable term during the Coalition years under David Cameron. Yet the Localism that we thought it was and the localism that it actually was are two very different things.

Like many of the miss-sold and misrepresented ideas about what serves the Public interest, such concepts are sold with sound bites cleverly constructed to give the impression that they will takes steps, if not leaps towards some form of natural justice. But they don’t.
For example, the creation of the Office of Police and Crime Commissioners and Metropolitan Mayoralties was presented to us as giving power back to local areas.
Yes, they give the appearance of having more money coming to benefit the areas. But this take on giving power back to us is a dubious representation at best. Worse still, instead of bringing power back in the direction of the People, it has instead focused it away from the lower levels of Government decision making – or rather those which are closer to us, and instead transferred it into the hands of one, rather than a number of Politicians.
Many People do not realise that there four different tiers of Government in this Country. (Five If you were to Count the European Parliament too)
They are from the lowest to the ‘top’, Parish & Town Councils, Borough & District Councils, County Councils (Unitary Authorities can include all of the responsibilities of the above) and Parliament or Central Government itself.
Like Westminster, Party Politics plays a significant role throughout these tiers of Government and we have the very same problems with Politicians at a local level as we do in London.
Far too many Local Politicians are motivated by self-interest, pursuing their own interests and furthering their own or particular causes.
In some ways, the injustice at work at local level can have an even more meaningful impact upon our lives. Because the decisions taken by bodies such as Planning and Licensing Committees can and do make changes to the environment that we experience every day around us.
When these local decisions are not taken in our best interests – as is all too often the case – the cost for all of us can be particularly high.
Federalism and the model of putting decision making in the hands of local people that the EU presents is even worse, rather than better. It gives the lie to this injustice even further.
Together, the real workings and methodology of Central and EU Government is to implement a set of rules that are so tight, the so-called decision making and democracy that tales place at a local level, is in fact no more than a tick-box exercise for the Officers and Politicians involved.
Removing the rot in Politics and getting good people into Political Roles where they will really fight our corner, will make an immediate difference to how decisions are made locally. It would make life much better for everyone involved.
But the real difference that could and should be made by good central Government – once we have removed the influence of the EU once and for all, is to genuinely give back decision making, influence and responsibility to us and put back as much of it as is possible, into the hands of Politicians and Representatives  at the most local level to hold.
There will always be policies and responsibilities that need to be accounted for at a higher and more appropriate level.
But that doesn’t mean that the Politicians at the top should be the only ones with real or meaningful control.
The reality is that today, the buck stops in London and in Brussels for far too many decisions. Laws are simply interpreted at local level – a process that leads to much misunderstanding and frustration for local People and locally minded Politicians that really don’t have the responsibility and influence on issues that are most pertinent to them – no matter what they are being told.
Getting decision making back to the point where it is as close to the People as possible is an essential part of giving us back a genuine feeling of community, re-enfranchisement and that we can have real and meaningful influence on the world around us.
A Good Government could begin giving us genuine localism by:
  •   Overseeing a clean, secure and permanent Exit from the EU .
  • Abolish the roles of so-called Metro-Mayors and transfer their powers back to more local control .
  • Abolish the roles of Police & Crime Commissioners, re-establishing the local Committee structure whilst taking measures to ensure that political influence is kept at the minimum and that Committee Members are drawn from outside privileged and insider networks.
  • Reverse all processes of centralisation within the Tiers of Government and/or restructure to ensure that decision making and influence is structured and administered in such a way that the emphasis is always upon the quality of service and experience of end-users – always ensuring that it is as accessible as possible, rather than simply being about money, the decision makers and the officers involved.
  •  Return final point of decision making to the level most near to the end user and only use frameworks as a guide unless there are very specific rules such as the minimum drinking age involved.
  • De-centralise powers that have been given to unelected and unaccountable bodies such as the Highways and Environment Agencies. Create more localised umbrella organisations where it is absolutely necessary to facilitate joined-up thinking, but above all ensure that no decision can be taken arbitrarily by any bureaucrat without local representation having genuine influence in the process and if necessary having a veto over changes to or that will affect local infrastructure or property.