As a writer, commentator, and former local councillor, I witness the frustration, anger, and despair felt by individuals and groups – such as our farmers – who struggle with a system where politics and government no longer work for them.
I share some of these feelings myself, not simply because their experiences are clearly unjust. But because of the persistent, unwritten expectation from people who are being hurt by all this, that these problems are only temporary.
Too often the problems are dismissed as misunderstandings or assumed to be issues that will resolve once new politicians are elected. Yet very recent history has shown us that changing politicians changes nothing: the downward trajectory of growing unfairness and imbalance continues, remaining at best unchanged.
It is fair to say there is a widespread disconnect between what the public rightly expects from the system and what we actually receive. This gap exists in part because we have been conditioned to believe that government, politics, and the public sector operate in a very black‑and‑white way – clear, predictable, and straightforward in how they function.
Public Perceptions vs. Reality
Whilst this view should be one that we could all rely upon, the reality is very different.
The complexity and mechanics of policymaking and delivery are extraordinarily difficult to navigate – well beyond what most people imagine. And this is before we even begin to confront the thorny issue of corrupt or self‑serving behaviour, whether by a single individual, multiple actors, or indeed by politicians, executives, managers, and officers across a nebulous hierarchy that stretches through many levels and points of influence.
Most people believe that power in Parliament works like this:
An election is called.
We vote for the person we think will best represent us in our constituency (though in practice, most people base this choice almost entirely on political party affiliation).
That representative then decides how to act when a policy comes up for a decision, guided by what is best for us.
If our chosen political party forms the government, the policy is enacted.
And we believe that everything necessary happens as a result of this, because all the public servants working in government departments, quangos, NGOs, and any other service funded – and therefore led – by the government (in other words, paid for by us) simply follow the instructions of politicians. After all, it is the politicians who are the legislators, elected to make those decisions on behalf of us all – isn’t it.
That, in principle, is how public policymaking and implementation across the UK should work. Yet the reality is that it rarely does, largely because:
The hierarchical structures and systems reaching across the public sector are simply too vast – too much “big government.”
Most importantly, very few politicians or public servants actually see it this way.
Barriers to Effective Policy Implementation
Regrettably, the vast and convoluted structure of the public sector, with its top‑down nature and multiple ‘decision makers,’ often distorts the process.
Commands that reach them are reinterpreted, repackaged, and passed along in ways that suit the direction they wish those instructions to take.
As a result, the action at the point of implementation can look very different from the original decision – not because that decision was unclear, but because countless influences and policies, each carrying their own interpretations, reshape and redirect almost everything along the way.
This happens even before the protectionist prejudices of public servants add further obstacles.
The outcome is that two very different results – the one envisaged and the one delivered – can exist under exactly the same name.
And that, of course, is how it works – assuming that what government says it is doing, and has done, truly matches the actions it takes.
Yet the clever use of words and interpretation often means that, even before a decision leaves Westminster, the outcome we expect and the outcome intended are already heading in completely opposite directions.
If this already sounds complicated and conflicted enough, we must also consider what influences our politicians, and how those influences shape their decisions.
We should ask whether the people we see on TV and hear on the radio – the very individuals we elected – are truly the ones sitting at the top, occupying the seats where the ultimate responsibility rests.
The Mechanics of Power in UK Politics
Political parties select candidates to run in elections for Parliament, local councils, and mayoralties (typically only where local decisions reflect the interpretation of national policy once local policy is adopted). More often than not, his is also where elected politicians receive an allowance or salary.
Parties choose candidates who will follow instructions from the party – or more specifically, from senior politicians within it – regardless of the constituency they represent after a successful election.
The area or location itself doesn’t matter. It’s a numbers game: just as the first‑past‑the‑post system (FPTP) elects the candidate (and therefore the party) with the most votes in a given area, Parliament and councils also make decisions based on majority votes. This is why the party with the most seats after an election forms the government or administration – it is assumed that the result of all votes thereafter will fall in line with them and whatever decisions they make.
Locally and nationally, leaders of councils, mayors, and the prime minister become the de facto decision‑makers of their administration, mayoralty, or Parliament, because there is an expectation that members of the party holding power or the majority will always vote the same way and do as instructed.
Any party aligned politician who fails to vote as required by the party risks losing favour. Depending on the importance of the vote, they may be excluded from the party (have the whip removed), fail to be reselected as a candidate, or at the very least be sidelined until they are seen to be behaving as expected.
Whips act as party enforcers, pressuring and often bullying sitting politicians into remembering who put them in their “job” and what they are really there to do and who they are there to do it for.
Leaders and mayors are typically expected to follow whatever the party leadership or prime minister in London demands in relation to national policy, though they retain some flexibility where decisions are entirely local.
Prime ministers are seen to hold the ultimate executive authority over what happens in Parliament. This is why they can appear to function like a president—unless they take deliberate steps to remind everyone that we have a parliamentary system, where things do not always work in that way.
That is how most people working in or around politics and the machinery of government interpret the power structure today.
The prevailing assumption is that whatever Parliament, the prime minister, or cabinet ministers say the government is doing – and why – is usually how everything will unfold, once public servants play their part and make it happen as expected.
However, beyond the reality that political parties typically decide who represents us – even though we perceive the list of party candidates on our ballot papers as offering what a genuine choice – there is also an assumption that anyone elected as a politician, and therefore as a public representative, is automatically qualified, experienced, and possesses the knowledge, understanding, and capability required to carry out the responsibilities of the ‘job’ they have been ‘chosen’ to do.
In reality, while some individuals put themselves forward as political candidates with genuine public service in mind – and possess both the background and, most importantly, the integrity required to carry out the role of being a public representative properly – the majority of those who reach political office, appearing on TV and speaking publicly, do not.
The majority of our politicians sought the ‘job’ rather than the responsibility – even though some have never seen it this way. But they were willing to say yes to anything and do whatever was necessary to secure a position of control, allowing them to appear as though they were leading, when all the time, they have been led.
Yes‑men or yes‑women—it makes no difference. Anyone who advances by saying “yes” to those who hold power over their progress, and never pauses to say “no” when decisions affect the lives of the people they are meant to represent, does not truly understand what it takes to lead.
And any politician who claims they merely “played along” until they were in charge, promising they would then do the right thing, cannot credibly be believed.
Leaders who cannot truly lead depend on those around them. The people with ‘supportive’ jobs offering ideas, suggestions, or solutions that give the illusion they can.
When politicians, especially very senior figures or those ‘singled out for great things,’ have to rely upon others to supply the words that are later seen to come from their own mouths, they become highly vulnerable to anyone with influence who can reach them and exert control in a seemingly ‘helpful’ way.
Influence of External Actors
Unfortunately, the system we live within today is money‑centric, and our entire framework of values is shaped in the same way.
It follows, then, that money, big business, and those who control or are sanctioned by them have become the people – or influencers – that politicians increasingly turn to for guidance and solutions.
This reliance grows stronger as they approach power. Because it is the only way that out-of-their-depth politicians can identify solutions that appear to work within the very system they are supposed to control.
Politicians are just as captivated – if not more so – by big names and high‑profile figures in business, finance, and global governance organisations – entities that are closely aligned and working together with them because of what is perceived to be the symbiotic relationship between government and money.
The same relationship plays out between the most senior public servants and the policy teams for all of the organisations that have real influence. Much of their time is spent behind the scenes collaborating with counterparts who represent the real interests that set government direction.
At this stage, it should be clear that the real forces driving and controlling central government – and shaping both what it appears to do and what it actually does from Westminster – are those who advise, ‘support,’ and influence the government and its subservient politicians.
What we see is little more than a carefully staged performance: a well‑developed display of theatrics and political cosplay delivered by the political classes, rolled out in every direction where real power is supposed to reside, designed to make it seem as though that is how the system truly works.
Remember that the imposters are usually the ones who believe they should be there.
They don’t work for us. They work for them.
Some politicians are certainly honest. Yet even among those, many are either naïve or fail to grasp how the bigger picture operates within a system that is fundamentally corrupt.
This silent corruption stems from the way individuals act. Whether in their own interests, in service of their party, or according to personal beliefs.
In more extreme cases however, there is plenty of anecdotal evidence to suggest politicians have been compromised by their own actions or bought off with promises of post‑parliamentary jobs, directorships, speaking fees, or an endless array of sweeteners.
These incentives encourage them to vote in ways that align with the company they keep in London, rather than prioritising what truly needs to happen to benefit the local people in the constituencies they are meant to represent – That’s people like you and me.
Regrettably, it is not only politicians who are distorted by the distance created by the current system and structure of government across the UK.
Public servants, working across the many organisations and tiers of government funded by the taxpayer, primarily focus on and prioritise the agendas and practices handed down by their employers. Employers who have long forgotten what it truly means to be public service organisations.
Instead, they have fostered a protectionist culture that encourages risk avoidance and discourages anything that might compromise career paths, gold‑plated pensions, or the safety of sticking rigidly to tick‑box processes.
As a result, public servants often shy away from tailoring their workload to meet the specific needs of the very members of the public they are appointed to serve.
Consequences of Leadership Gaps
The simplest interpretation of the events that have led to this system‑wide malaise might be to conclude that no public servant works for anyone other than themselves.
Yet the reality is more complex: institutional factors have long created an environment in which protectionism thrives. Chief among these is the absence of genuine leadership in Parliament and across key public sector organisations – institutions filled with individuals beholden to agendas other than those of the people they are meant to represent.
As a result, the public sector has effectively been on autopilot for a very long time, propelled by inertia and sustained by the convenient myth that everything continues exactly as it always has.
Limits of Leadership Change in Westminster
Many people hope that another change in government will be enough to resolve the problems now facing the country – issues that just as many seem to accept as having been caused by the current Labour government, and in only the 17 months it has been in power.
Sadly, while it would be great for there to be a quick, overnight solution – or a set of solutions – that could be easily implemented and pushed through under some new scheme such as Reform UK’s proposed ‘DOGE,’ the reality is different.
As you may already have gathered from what you’ve read above, the problems are now beyond systemic.
Believing that simply cutting budgets and arbitrarily slashing costs will be enough for the public sector to regain balance and correct itself is, like so many politicians who fail to see the bigger picture, dangerously naïve.
Beyond the rot we have already discussed, one of the truly colossal problems in fixing public services is the influence that money, markets, and big business already exert.
Added to this are external power-centric players such as the EU and global governance bodies like the WHO, UN, and WEF, whose policies and power have become inextricably intertwined with almost everything the UK public sector currently does.
In reality, if Reform were to begin slicing and dicing across the public sphere without coordinating – and thereby subjugating – its policies to the demands of today’s ‘key’ influencers, the strategy it proposes would quickly resemble a game of Jenga. The players might believe they have steady enough hands to start by removing the foundational layers, but the structure would inevitably become unstable very quickly indeed.
The leaders of Reform may yet prove themselves to be the “Jenga Boys” of public policy, As bringing the whole house of cards down almost as quickly as they take power—if that is what happens at the next General Election, is the outcome their rhetoric currently indicates will be most likely if they lead the next government.
Without exception, all of our politicians are currently tied into the system that is backed and pushed by the establishment.
If all they intend to do is reach for sticking plasters and offer superficial fixes, the result will inevitably be the same, and their suggested approach will merely speed the process of collapse up – if it isn’t already complete by then.
Systemic Breakdown: Causes and Implications
The reason attempts to ‘fix’ the public sector as we know it will not succeed is the inseparable relationship it has with everything else beyond government and controlled by the elites – relationships that revolve around money and a financial system that is fundamentally flawed and now destroying everything.
Put bluntly, everything harming people today is a direct consequence of how the entire money centric system operates, and how it has been operating for a very long time.
Whether the collapse comes from factors seemingly beyond politicians’ control, or directly from actions the next government and its leaders are knowingly prepared and brave enough to take, the reality remains the same: the only way to restore balance, fairness, and justice for everyone across all areas of life is if the current money‑centric system is either deliberately brought down or allowed to collapse on its own.
Then – and only then – will the majority of us be ready to embrace the kinds of changes that must take place across every part of the economy, governance, and daily life, so that, in time, something recognisable as genuine sanity can be restored.
If those in power act only in ways that serve their own local interests, why shouldn’t your power remain local and stay with you?
It would be easy to stop here – having laid out the detail of what is wrong – and leave it at that.
Yet if you are reading this, the chances are you already sense that something much bigger and more profound is wrong, even if it defies logic and is difficult to grasp in terms of what exactly those wrongs are. Or rather what the true causes of the problems have been.
The reality is that there is nothing easy to accept about how government and the public sector operate, especially when measured against what any of us should reasonably expect – and what our lived experience increasingly shows us instead.
Members of the public are not alone in their disbelief. The reality we face is that many of those perpetuating the problems within government, politics, and the public sector are acting as they do simply because they are told that this is how everything gets done.
That excuse only goes so far.
Institutional Failure
For many, the real implications of institutionalised failure to take responsibility for those you serve are far from victimless.
They manifest in scandals such as Rotherham, the Grooming Gangs, and the Post Office cases. Stories brought into the light only because many different people, through their lived experiences which they effectively share, revealed events that can ultimately be understood and summarised as being the same thing.
Individuals are being failed by our system of government every single day. Not only structurally and institutionally, but also by the politicians and public representatives who hold local seats across every tier of government.
Too often, they act in ways that serve themselves, rather than doing what is right for the people they are meant to represent.
The damage of distance
The dangerous myth of the digital age – one we have been encouraged to believe – is that every kind of information and guidance we need for life can be trusted to appear on the nearest screen.
While this may feel intimate in nature, it is in fact a remote interface that creates distance not only between us and the sources we too readily trust but also erodes the value of genuine relationships and social interactions that once filled the space in between.
The irony is that politicians and decision‑makers continue to keep everything local when it comes to their own sources of information and guidance.
While this is no excuse for the consequences of their actions – or for the harm caused by the system they have enabled- it does reveal something important.
When people recognise that power rests with them, they naturally turn to local resources and relationships. Face‑to‑face interaction fosters trust in ways that distant sources never can, making it both sensible and effective to rely on what is close at hand rather than on remote influences.
The difference between us and the politicians – and those truly in power– is that they exploit the distance they have created between themselves and the public for their own benefit, all while constructing a narrative that insists whatever they do, and whatever harm they inflict, there is simply no alternative.
They can only do this because we have forgotten that the power they abuse is, in fact, ours.
If we were to recover, restore, and remember the true nature of our own power, we must return to relying on the people and communities around us – those who we can genuinely trust.
After all, the individuals you can look in the eye and interact with every day rarely have the opportunity to abuse that trust, and the behaviour such relationships foster and require makes exploitation far less possible.
A Vision for Local Governance and Economic Reform
Recognising how things could be different – and what it means to embrace an alternative system with all that comes with it – is an essential starting point for us all.
It will help shape or identify both the choices we will make and the responsibilities we must accept when the most obvious signs of collapse begin to appear.
When that moment comes, we will face a choice: to take a different path that restores power to ourselves, or to become fully enslaved and captive to a system that survives only because the power of each individual has been taken away and concentrated in the hands of one—or a few.
Be assured that once you realise you are there, those in control will have already put in place the safeguards necessary to ensure it can never be any other way again.
By now, everyone has heard of Orwell’s 1984 and the dystopian hell it depicts – a reality awaiting those who embrace and continue on the current path, only to discover, when it is already too late, that they have been stripped of all meaningful value.
The alternative is to reject the money‑centric, top‑down, hierarchical, and patriarchal system, that has long concealed the fact it has not only failed us. But has also enabled little more than sanitised or legalised criminal behaviour against us all.
Instead, we must embrace a system that places the dignity and freedom of every individual – rooted in people, community, and the environment – at the forefront of everything that we do.
The Local Economy & Governance System offers a new and alternative perspective, presenting the frameworks and rules that would shape a localised model of democracy and public policy‑making.
This system places what is right at the heart of every decision.
Decisions made by, or on behalf of, the people in each community, whose fates and destinies are inevitably and permanently intertwined.
Key Takeaways
Before exploring further reading and resources, it’s important to reflect on the central insights that we have shared.
The following key takeaways highlight the underlying causes of public distrust in UK politics, the influence of power structure and external actors, and the urgent need for reforms that refocus towards local governance.
These points offer a foundation for understanding both the challenges and the potential pathways toward restoring trust and accountability in public life.
Systemic Disconnect: There is a persistent gap between public expectations and the actual workings of UK politics and government. The complexity and hierarchical nature of the public sector often distort policy implementation, leaving many feeling unrepresented and frustrated.
Power Structures: Political parties and senior figures exert significant control over elected representatives, often prioritising party interests and external influences over genuine public service. This results in a system where decisions are shaped by those with power, rather than by the needs of local communities.
Influence of Money and External Actors: The increasing reliance on big business, financial interests, and global organisations has further distanced politicians and public servants from the people they are meant to serve. This money-centric system perpetuates unfairness and undermines trust.
Leadership Gaps: The absence of genuine leadership and accountability in both Parliament and the public sector has led to institutional inertia and protectionism, with public servants often prioritizing self-interest over public good.
Local Governance as a Solution: Restoring trust and balance requires a shift toward local governance, where decisions are made by and for communities. Face-to-face relationships and local accountability are essential for rebuilding trust and ensuring that power serves the public.
Call to Action: This work urges readers to recognise their own power, reject the current top-down, money-driven system, and embrace local, community-focused models of democracy and public policy-making.
Further Reading & Resources
To dive deeper into the challenges of governance, economics, and reform — and to explore practical ideas for change — these selected readings from Adam’s Archives provide context, critique, and pathways forward.
But it will take something very special to clear up the mess they’ve created
I recently heard it said that politicians are all psychopaths. It may have been in the script of some comedy-based show or drama I was watching. But the sentiment and what it reminded me of from my own experience of being in politics and working with many different politicians really struck home.
Whilst we can be certain that not all politicians are psychopaths, the evidence of our own eyes certainly suggests that the Government is under the control of either psychopaths, people with psychopathic tendencies or people who certainly behave like them; for the simple reason that no matter what the messaging from government and the establishment may say, the impact and delivery of both governance and policy is not focused upon what’s good for the electorate and our communities in any kind of good or human way.
However, before running away with the conclusion that every well known name we hear on the news is a psycho, it might be a better idea to consider the reality that things are more likely to have turned to complete shit, because of the way that the politicians we have behave so badly, selfishly and inconsiderately, and because of the character flaws and traits they typically have in common between them, that are impacting what they do and therefore us, in so many different ways.
Who really wants to be a politician and why?
This is a question that we should all be asking ourselves, a lot more frequently than we do.
The answer – when we really think about this and consider the real mechanics of how the political system puts its people onto the list of candidates on our ballot papers at election time – will soon begin to reveal many of the answers, not only to this, but to many other pressing questions about the way the U.K. is being run, that we all need to know.
Before going further, I will insert the caveat, that in my own experience, many people put themselves forward to become political party candidates with what we might all agree as being the best of intentions.
But that’s as far as any default allowance should ever go.
As even the best intentions can only really be considered for what they are, once we look at each candidate and ask the question ‘The best of intentions for who?’
Who politicians really serve is also an important and very timely question. Because if the current polls and polling are to be believed, the benches of our parliament and councils up and down the UK will soon be filled with people who’ve never been politicians before.
People who have nonetheless stepped up and become candidates for some political party like Reform, armed only with what for many of them will be the sincere belief that they will be the person to break the downward trend of everything we know and once elected will get things done.
But what things will they get done? And the things they aim to achieve will be good for who?
Beliefs built without foundation quickly get blown away then replaced
Few of those who are newbies to politics realise that there is a whole new set of rules at work for anyone and everyone to follow and work with in frontline or elected politics, just as soon as they have walked through the electoral door to an electoral ‘seat’.
By newbies I mean anyone who hasn’t personally held an elected office of any kind, at any level – whether they’ve never been politically active before, been on a pathway, been a lobby journalist or even an activist or commentator of some kind who has racked up millions of likes and followers on YouTube, because their words connect with people in some way.
If any candidate ‘won’ a ‘seat’ by being on a party ticket – no matter which party ticket they aligned their name with to get there, they will be on their own, rejected and probably on their way straight back out of the door, if they don’t do whatever they are told and say yes to whoever seems to be running things, whether they agree with it or not, from the moment the euphoria of ‘their’ election has died down.
Yes, finding common ground with other newbies and giving themselves a group voice can and will give them influence over some things.
But those things won’t be anything that will really change the things that really need to be changed in the way most entrants to politics sincerely intended, before they walked through the ‘elected’ door.
Most newbies, if not all, will find themselves facing a rather stark and deflating reality. That they have the choice of becoming part of the machine. Or at best to annoy their so-called political colleagues by attempting to do what is actually the right thing for the people who elected them and use their own voice – as they were elected to do so. Leaving them with very little they can do, when as a public representative, they should have been able to do so much.
The choice is rarely one that’s thought through consciously by those who have ‘arrived’. And that’s where many of the real problems with this mess of a political system begin.
Politics today is addictive for those foolish enough to believe the spin
Do ask yourself how many elected politicians you see, at any level, who resign the party whip at any point in a council or parliamentary term, and don’t immediately ‘walk the floor’ to join another party.
The reality is that very few do. And of those that do, most will have themselves been pushed out or in all likelihood found themselves questioning the whole purpose of politics; the electoral system and what being there or being part of it is really for – once they have seen the truth of how things really work.
The people who stay or try to move to another party, aren’t people who are there to represent you or I.
Being ‘in it to win it’, ‘staying in the tent’, or anything along those lines is a self serving myth that gives unscrupulous and ambitious politicians the excuse that they are ‘keeping their powder dry’ until it’s the right time – or rather when they get to the top. By which time they will of course no longer recognise any such need.
We have a party political and electoral system that guarantees the top-down functionality that minimises our influence
Politics in the UK isn’t the place for people who have the skills, experience and ability to change the things that need to be changed in this Country, today.
The party and electoral system that we have currently combine to ensure we either don’t get the right people in the majority of elected roles. Or that they are rejected by the party that put them there when there is even the smallest hint that we do.
The reality that any politician joining parliament, a council or entering any elected government role faces, is that the only politicians who are making meaningful decisions – or getting in the way of those that could stop people being harmed in some way, are those who are right at the very top of the top-down hierarchy that keeps them insulated from what people like you and me need.
Some truths about U.K. politics and our Electoral system, today
We say we have a democracy in the UK. Many believe that we do.
But we don’t choose the candidates on a ballot paper that we choose from.
We don’t choose the politicians who take key jobs in councils, in parliament or those who become mayors.
When we’ve voted and the votes have been counted, that’s the last moment that anything we have to say about anything will count or have meaning for anyone. Right up until the moment that the next election is called.
The system works and is controlled by the political parties who are all running in very similar ways to each other, by people with the same motives and same wishes to make it big in politics and be seen to be ‘the one’ who is in charge.
The only people who become political candidates, get elected, then stay, acquiesce, take part and contribute to what is a supposedly democratic form of government today by doing exactly whatever they are told, are yes men and yes women.
People who do and can only do well because they are on message and turn a blind eye to the needs of the people who put them there.
These people aren’t leaders or capable of leadership.
They are fools who live in fear of losing the roles that once elected they quickly perceive as being rightfully theirs.
All the time they are blind and deaf to the true responsibilities of what being a public representative demands them to be.
A downward system that takes everything downward as it keeps going down
The so-called leaders that we believe we currently have are just the latest incumbents on an intergenerational chain of weak, yes-men/yes-women politicians who have continuously said yes until they have found themselves right at the top.
Yet they can only maintain the pretence of leadership by saying yes to any advisor or specialist who tells them what to do, because they are not used to saying, meaning and being prepared to risk everything for themselves by putting those they represent first by saying no.
These people should never possess the power and responsibility they have, as they continually harm others by obsessively running from anything they believe will cause harm to themselves and the roles they now have.
This is not how leadership works. This is not how real change gets done.
These people are out of their depth. They have little or no view of real life or how the world works beyond their own perspective.
The politicians we have today have typically been corrupted by the power and influence that comes from having a role where they confuse having a microphone or camera rammed in their face, from the moment they are elected, as being only because they have been elected. Rather than it being because they are just the latest person to have been elected by voters or appointed by their political piers to carry out a particular role which commands public and media interest, no matter who they are.
Control, feeling in control, being seen to be in control, demonstrating that they are in control. These are the only things that are important to the would-be leaders we have in politics who cannot lead even themselves in any way.
Everyone and everything are a risk or threat to their position, once they reach the top.
So, they surround themselves with politicians who are even weaker and more inept or incompetent than they are.
The even weaker versions of themselves take over from them when their moment in the sun is done.
Then the process of replacing the weak with the even weaker begins all over again.
Fear and Power are a very dangerous mix
These politicians are people just like you and me.
But instead of being different in the ways that their position would make many of us expect, they are fearful in ways that everyday people fail to understand.
The level of fear of loss today’s political class have for themselves also makes them vulnerable to the whims and influence of those they look up to.
Much like an orphan meeting the parent that they never believed it possible to have, being certain that they will be protected in ways that will make them invulnerable against anything bad that they feel might otherwise lay in store.
The reality of our ‘leaders’
Some of those who have stepped into politics and made it to the political equivalent of the C suite without being rejected, spat out, sidelined or becoming victim to the many temptations that befall so many who have found themselves in these positions, and fallen into the trap of believing it was something special about themselves, began the process by being genuine in their desire to do something good.
However, this certainly wasn’t the case with them all.
There are many who have ended up on this gravy train, that has made life so intolerably bad for people who we all pass by in the streets each and every day, for no better reason than they wanted the job and the glory they believed it would give them. Probably from an early age.
But they also had no concept of what political influence can and should enable good public representatives to do.
They therefore have no passion for the responsibility they have and they lack the talent, skill and ability that responsibility to others also requires; that politics done for all the right reason inevitably always involves.
People who could be good politicians and have the selflessness and sense of public service that change requires, are either put off by what they discern as being no better than a circus of egos. Or they soon find out once they have stepped inside the system, that politics in the UK is no better than a fun house at a run-down traveling fair creating irreparable damage to every bit of ground it stands on.
The people who enter and stay in politics today and the people who really think they and only they can make the difference that none of the people they have watched on TV have managed so far, are the fools that have made the UK political system a fool’s paradise where those within believe that they really do know better than anyone else, and that their actions have no real life consequences for us all, beyond the immediate focus of whatever they have been led to believe they are doing.
The truth is that anyone who can say yes, look and sound the part, and not think twice to do whatever is demanded of them, to gain whatever they have been promised as the reward, will fit right into the political machine that exists in the UK today.
The political party or apparent political leaning of whatever the group or movement out in front of everyone else might be called doesn’t matter in any way.
The people who thrive in this system, at the cost of everyone they are supposed to represent, are fundamentally the same.
Uk Politics today is a game for fools, run by fools, that benefits only fools, and treats everyone outside of politics as if they are the fools.
And we need a completely new Establishment to run and deliver everything too
Your politics, religion, ideas, background, age, education or anything else that has, can or will be used to divide us, does not matter when it comes to recognising that for every one of us, there are parts of life that simply don’t work in the UK, anymore.
Whether we are being affected and impacted directly, or the problems we recognise are just something happening to other people or different communities that we can somehow see, we all know that things aren’t working as they should. And the horrible truth is that for some of us, nothing is working at all.
We could go down the rabbit hole of trying to identify, apportion blame and then demand that politicians and government change whatever we identify as needing to be changed. Or, that they step aside so that they can be replaced by whoever we believe will do whatever it is that they either cannot or are choosing not to do.
Indeed, many are doing just that, and already expect that all it will take is just a change in government. So that we have ‘the right people’ in charge.
It’s a nice idea and it’s appealing to many of us. Because this pathway also leaves the real work, commitment and doing whatever it will take to enact change, to someone else.
Unfortunately, we’ve been here before. And very recently too.
In fact, many of us genuinely believed that the downward chaos of all the Conservative governments between 2010 and 2014, which was aided and abetted by the Liberal Democrats between 2010 and 2015, would unquestionably be stopped by the election of Keir Starmer and The Labour Party in July 2024. Because Labour was supposedly offering something new and would know what to do, or in any case could never possibly be as bad as what we already had, could they…
It took just a few months to prove the point that the power of our vote can have consequences that are completely out of our control.
Whilst some seem prepared to make the very same mistakes all over again, the reality is that as things stand today, we can no longer trust anything that politicians promise or offer us as part of an election manifesto. Because they are without fail behaving the same as all the politicians we have ever known and will inevitably go on and do whatever they want to do once they hold the power, we trusted them with.
And once they are elected, they will do whatever they want to whilst telling us that it’s in our best interests, knowing there is nothing that we can do about it democratically until the time of the next election comes around, when we will hopefully by then have forgotten whatever they have done which might then be years before.
Whether we voted or not, millions of us made the mistake of electing yet another group of politicians who are out of touch with real life; are motivated by all the wrong things and above all, have no real control over the apparatus of government and the legislative devices that should be at their disposal. Either because they are too frightened; are being very badly advised or misled; are out of their depth and really have no idea what they are doing and what they could do; or a mixture of them all.
This page is not here to make excuses for this government, the Sunak government or indeed any one of many governments before them both that have harboured and given favour to the wrong politicians and what decades of poor, absent and self-serving non-leadership has given us, whilst we are somehow always the ones who are getting everything wrong.
This page is here to make clear that politicians and the political class that we have today, right across the tiers of government in the UK, are just a part of a much bigger problem. And they are the only part of problem that we cannot otherwise see.
If we need a divorce, we go to a lawyer. If we need our car fixed, we go to a mechanic. If we want and extension built, we go to a builder. If we want a load of bread, we go to a baker. If we want a beer we go to a brewer. But for decades, we have gone to the Polling Stations on election day and chosen who we vote for from a list of candidates that only Political Parties have offered up.
Specialist professionals and tradespeople like these that provide goods and services that we genuinely need, learn a very specific craft. And they get better at what they do, because they spend all their working time doing just that.
Yet when it comes to everything to do with government, governance and how every kind of public service and are systems of rules and regulations are managed and designed across the UK, we currently leave strategy, planning and everything important in the hands of a few people who are always there to represent what they Political Party wants first. So-called politicians who cannot possibly know or understand every part of life they are making decisions upon, and certainly don’t have the leadership skills, experience or awareness to listen, consider and then act appropriately on our behalf, only after referencing all the people that they really should be, whilst being sure that they are being impartial and working in the best interests of everyone at all times, too.
Anyone with a platform, the words and a great speaking voice can sound like a leader. But leadership is about the actions that genuine leaders take and in the case of politics, the actions they take when none of us are either looking or able to see what they are doing; where they are doing it and who they are doing it (for or) with.
In other words, to lead any Country properly, it takes integrity, purpose and a commitment to public service before Party or anything else.
The evidence from what we can see today, tells us that no politician or would be leader in the public eye has this purpose, spirit or a level of integrity that we can put our trust in that in power, they will always do the right thing – even when it might require that they step up and do some very difficult and perhaps unpopular things.
We can all see that genuine leadership and integrity don’t exist within UK politics today.
Unfortunately, both have been absent for so long that the whole system has been so corrupted and become self-serving that it must be completely replaced.
The system is so established with the way it works and operates that it continues appearing to function. Whilst the reality is that in whichever direction we turn and begin to look, every part of it is either dysfunctional or going completely wrong.
The illusion of effectiveness is only held in place by the reality that like everyone else, our politicians have fallen into the trap of believing that every problem can be solved with money. And that if politicians have enough public money available to spend, every problem for them can be addressed. No matter the problems their inability to lead and acts of avoidance using that money will and have meant that we and people in every UK community subsequently face as a direct result of their ineptitude and what they have(n’t) done.
This isn’t a problem that can be fixed with politics or politicians who are just about the politics.
Because politics has become all about the politics and who’s in charge of the political process. Rather than being anything to do with results, outcomes or whatever gets done.
Politics is now the biggest distraction of them all when it comes to the change and scale of change that we need. Because the way that elections and the electoral cycle work mean that we really are just going around in circles, whilst everything gets worse, and we keep waiting for the merry go round to come full circle so that the whole problematic rotation can begin all over again.
Each of us see the problems this country is facing from different points of view.
Whilst conversations about the crisis now unfolding with a range of different people would almost certainly deliver a range of common themes, the emphasis, value or meaning of each of them will almost certainly be different.
However, the one commonality, which isn’t about anything that we all have in common at all, would be the solutions that almost all of us will have based on our own world view, that in the bigger scheme of things, may be in no way similar at all.
Ironically, because so many of us have so many interpretations of the whys, hows and whats that have got us all here, and share them with what will be a relative few, we spend next to no time – if indeed any time at all, thinking about any of the common problems that we all really do share.
We certainly don’t think about the ways we can work together to create a better way of life for everyone and then how we get the leaders and mechanisms in place that will actually get us there.
The devil is in the detail
It really is no accident that the UK is in the kind of mess that it is. Because life has become so very complicated – and deliberately so.
The more detail, the more distracting and the more impossible a solution to just about anything might seem. Even to those amongst us who really can see that the status quo cannot continue and that no matter how bought into the things we like about the way we live – which we want to keep but don’t recognise that they are actually the part of the problem that’s making everything so impossible to fix – we really do need to snap out of the fixation with noise that’s doing none of us any good.
We must recognise that the things that work well for everyone and will work even better for everyone are much simpler than what we have been convinced we need.
It is inevitable that we will keep tripping ourselves up each and every time we think of the next step as being only about putting our own self-interest first.
Unfair, Unjust and Unworkable living, demonstrated best by Tax
Perhaps the best example of how we get lost and misdirected by the detail of what needs to change for us, rather than focusing on what needs to change so that it works for everyone, relates to the question of tax, taxation and everything else that means people like you and I are stumping up cash that we could often do with being able to spend, just so we can live without debt or in some cases rely on handouts or even food banks.
Yes, even framing the ‘tax issue’ this way will make some prickly – and that really is the point.
The UK Tax code is today thought to be over 21,000 pages and 10 million words long, giving everyone the distinct impression that the subject of how the bill for government action and delivery gets paid for (ostensibly on our behalf), needs to be tailored specially to everyone as if bespoke governance is the only kind of governance that’s really fair to everyone.
This is ‘The day when Britons stop paying tax and start putting their earnings into their own pocket’. Or alternatively, the final day of the year when every penny we’ve earned goes to the government – if we start counting on January 1st, which was this year (2025) calculated as being June 11th by the Adam Smith Institute.
The reason I’m using this figure isn’t to piss anyone off by drawing attention to the fact that as an average, we arguably all work for no other reason than to keep the wheels of government turning every year for at least 5 months.
I’m doing so because it may be the only way to look at the relationship all taxpayers have with the government in the same way. Given how easy it is to get sidetracked by the question of what everyone earns!
June 11th 2025 was the 162nd day of the year (as 2025 is not a leap year), and with 365 days in 2025, this means that in comparative terms, people are giving over 44% of their earnings (162 days divided by 365 days), before they can even begin to think about what they need to spend money on, in turn before anything that they might actually want.
For a moment, let’s forget the amount anyone is actually earning for themselves, as we know that some have considerably more than others, whilst many just don’t have anywhere near what it takes to live without struggling to make ends meet, and then take it as read that everyone is giving up 44 Pence in every Pound they earn (£0.44).
After realising just how much of everything we do have taken from wages and then what we pay for that includes some form of tax, it doesn’t take much to realise that government or rather the model of government that we have is simply unaffordable, unsustainable and that we must do everything we can to find a different and much better way to pay for the things that we share.
Regrettably, the complexity of rules and regulations supposedly there to benefit and protect us don’t stop at taxation.
One of the reasons that every part of life, that doesn’t already relate to the question of financial affordability in some way, seems so difficult or restricted, is because our freedoms and therefore our independence from the system and government are already being actively controlled in many different silent rules that have deliberately been put there using the excuses like health and safety, and protecting us or someone in some way.
Even if we aren’t actively being followed around by a police officer all the time the fact that we are aware of and abiding by these rules usually adds up to being the same.
Government isn’t what it should or was ever supposed to be
Whilst many would actually like to see the wealthiest in our society directly paying at least 44% of their income to the government to help run everything outside of our front doors, we still need to keep some perspective when it comes to the obvious question we will come back to in a moment about who pays and begin with the question, ‘Does government actually work?’
Government certainly functions. Even the deepest or most vocally critical of what government in the UK does will find it difficult to argue otherwise.
Because no matter the organisation or service that comes under the rather large umbrella of government, they all continue to do something. Even if they are not delivering what we might agree to be the correct results. And that’s the only reason it can be argued that it all works.
However, functioning and succeeding are not the same thing.
The time is long overdue that we all took a very hard and questioning look at every part of government and decided what, if anything, public services should or could be; just exactly where the scope and reach of government should end, and then and only then, what many believe to be the most important question of all, ‘How whatever government and the public sector does is paid for and by whom’.
Whilst it remains the case that there are services, infrastructure and even public facing roles that every modern society needs to be provided by the community, so that everyone can have universal experiences and opportunities which will always be the same, no matter who, where or what you are, the practical approach to not-for-profit service delivery – which this really should in almost all cases be, is not the same as the public sector and system of governance that we have today.
Every part of government and the public sector that we have today is focused on delivering (political) and therefore biased agendas which will inevitably advantage some people more than others in some way. Or is all about the jobs, terms and conditions for whoever the incumbent employees are who currently have the jobs.
There have always been politicians, officers and suppliers who for many reasons have chosen to advantage themselves in some way, if and where they failed to have the integrity to exercise their roles properly. And regrettably, it’s the position of trust we gave them all that enabled them to behave in such questionable ways.
Yet even more shocking reality that we all face today is that the whole public sector and everything that runs within it is now dysfunctional in terms of delivery in some of the most critical ways.
It has only been able to become this way because decisions have either been made (or not made) at the very top by people who really should have known better, and whose actions have allowed or facilitated everything that serves the public unwinding in this way.
Money before People
Regrettably, like so many areas of life today, the role of money – which stretches far beyond the scope of the tax question that we’ve already considered – is also the key element within the dysfunctionality of government and public services across the UK. Because the poor leaders that we have are obsessed with the idea that the only way any problem can and will be fixed is by having enough money to spend – no matter where it comes from, which is itself is these days even better for some politicians who dare not do anything which could restrict what they are already committed to spend.
Idealism and agendas cost a lot of money. Because their implementation requires the creation of systems, rules and infrastructure somebody wants but nobody needs.
The very perverse outcome from decades of government and the public sector serving itself, its people and whoever or whatever influences them, is that the changes that have been made in every way imaginable to support this are now costing too much for either the Taxpayer or government itself to sustain.
We have a VERY BIG problem. Because nobody in government or who wishes to form one either can or will be honest about the true depth and breadth of the mess that the UK is now in.
With Tax rises thought to be well on their way this coming Autumn, the reality that too many of us face is the 44% (or probably much more) that we are already contributing to this public sector black hole through so many of the things that we buy, pay for or earn, are set to keep going up.
All to cover the exploding costs of incompetence, waste and the furtherance of playing up to what are very dangerous egos. Because somewhere in amongst all of this the point has been lost that government does not and never did have the right to exist over the people that it was created to represent.
For any kind of government to be unrepresentative of the people it represents, would by its very nature and intended purpose mean that it represents someone or something else.
Money: The drug wrecking everything to enrich and empower the few
The way that money actually works, how it is controlled and worst but not least, how it is actually created at will, is the truth that sits behind everything bad, that few of us will willingly believe.
It’s much easier to believe that it is all good rather than even having the potential to be bad – even when almost everyone can see the destruction that money or the lack of it is causing to everyone in some way or form.
At the heart of the money tree and its root and branch system sits the mechanisms that supposedly fund government, but actually do so by doing everything to help grow the volume of money that is in circulation, so that the public spending – and the only way that politicians know how to get themselves out of trouble, can leverage ‘growth’ so that the entire shitshow can be hid.
Unfortunately for all of us, the exponential growth of the ‘money’ that has entered circulation, particularly since the responses of government to the Global Financial Crisis of 2008 and the Covid Pandemic of 2020, has wildly contributed to the inflationary spiral that accompanies such an expansion of available cash.
The creation of money that doesn’t relate to anything else like productivity or output devalues the money and incomes that normal people already have, as well as what they have the ability to earn.
It does so at breakneck speed whilst the real value of everything is funnelled towards those who control and benefit from what is a fully legal, legitimised but nevertheless completely corrupt system that appears real, because they have typically become millionaires and billionaires in the process.
Put simply, the lowest paid and most vulnerable now have zero chance of ever being able to earn enough to live independently of benefits, charity, debt or worse.
For as long as the money madness continues, the bubble containing all of those who are branded as being a drain on the system will rapidly continue to expand.
The leadership void or black hole
When a country has such shit, incompetent leadership, and has done for the period of time that the UK has, it wouldn’t be unfair for any of us to be asking, ‘How did we get them?’ and ‘How did they get to where they are?’.
However, as we all need to realise, very few of us do ask these questions or indeed any questions that are like them. And because we don’t, each time an election takes place locally or nationally, we are, as a majority, making the same mistakes over and over again.
We are chewing at the very same shit sandwich with the bits just wrapped differently with words, rosettes and faces – all hiding the same miserable self-interested and dangerously incompetent content that always delivers outcomes that are the same.
Because we have a very bad, self-destructive habit of going along with the idea that the political fairies come along and give us all a genuine choice at election time – as all good democracies surely would, we have not only accepted that government after government and council after council has worked on all of our behalf. We have also jumped into an elephant trap of our own making that tells us these same fairies will deliver the politicians to choose from at the next election, who will sort out and solve the very same mess that they and their own kind created (with a little help from their friends) in the first place.
Sadly, there are no exceptions to the reality that we must face that there are no real leaders in politics today.
The so-called leadership we see, and what the people we identify as leaders say, is much more likely to be aligned with us hearing and seeing whatever we need to fuel our own confirmation biases than it either is or ever will be about the solutions and outcomes that we might not be ready to hear about, but nonetheless actually need.
Victim or Victimiser: There is no longer an in between
As a society and culture, we are collectively suffering what might be the worst type of addiction of all. Simply because it is majority of us are addicted rather than the few.
Meaning that that same majority is completely out of touch with the realities of what that addiction does and will remain so, until the supply runs out – which is where all those who cannot afford to live independently within the current system have or are beginning to find out.
Money, or rather the way that money is used by those who control the system – and that means government and politicians, who are very much under their control too, has become the key factor in every equation and consideration in our lives.
The role of money and its reach has dehumanised everything to the point where money and the power, influence and control it is perceived to give at every level of life has become more important than the value of life and community itself.
Few realise just how their lives are completely at the mercy of the ability to spend, borrow and achieve the momentary of transitory hit that this money centric, Moneyocracy we inhabit demands of everyone and which is enforced by the barrage of non stop marketing and remote, typical digital pressure which comes at us constantly and demands that we all conform.
Money; what it does, what it can do and what it says about you is the qualification and gatekeeper that runs through every part of functional life and if you are in, you are in and if you are out, you really are all the way out and fully at the mercy of those who continue to be ‘in’.
The tragedy of the system is the ruthless and methodical way that human behaviour has been used against the masses by the few and the experts they pay who understand it.
The sweeties and trinkets that have been flowing towards for decades have only been bettered by what has appeared to be the endless ability to secure more and more credit to buy it with, all the time becoming more and more essential to secure as real earnings and wealth have been stripped by the printing of all this extra ‘pretend’ or non existent money that even relatively wealthy people have no chance of keeping up with.
The irony is that those of us who continue to believe we benefit from what the establishment is doing and therefore acquiesce or go along with it are – through our actions – making those who cannot the victims.
All for no better reason than this whole situation could not exist without the elites treating the masses as a resource that is not real. But is instead just like oil, coal, precious metals, forests, farms, land and even animals – and just something else for those who ‘own them’ to exploit.
We all need to contribute to what we share in life. But real life cannot continue if we are required to contribute everything we have
Whilst we must all accept it is correct for everyone to contribute to the upkeep and maintenance of the systems and infrastructure that serve us all, from the moment we step onto the pavement or road outside of our homes, what we share is not and never should become more important than the right to have a fully independent, functioning and self supported life experience.
The system that we have discussed is at breaking point and cannot continue as it has, or as it is today.
Those in charge don’t know how to do anything other than borrow or tax us. And as the system can no longer sustain the borrowing that idealism and agendas have made necessary, the current government are now looking at everything they can tax beyond everything they already do.
One way or another, the system is going to collapse. Because we are all living unsustainably in a system that itself is unsustainable and at the centre of which is a plague which is the absence of real leadership, replaced with what is instead no better than incompetent management that makes it the most unsustainable part of it all.
Real life and a money-centric economy are mutually exclusive outcomes
Government already costs us way too much – even at 44%.
That’s before we even begin to consider the work and additional value to public service that charities and other nonprofit organisations bring, that we are all in one way or another contributing to too.
The whole model of economics needs to be restructured and redeveloped so that it supports life, rather than feeding off it like the giant parasite that the financial system and the role that government plays in it now is.
A realistic level for everyone to contribute to ‘the community’ would be around 10% – without any form of exception for anyone.
We should also be considering the added requirement that everyone able to work also contributes the equivalent of 10% of their working time and the skills and experience they offer, to help make our communities, their governance and infrastructure work.
Thereby creating real buy-in and ownership for what we all share, whilst drastically cutting the scope and influence of an out-of-control sector, and the ballooning costs that are actually paying for lots of agendas snd idealistic ideas, but very little that is actually about people and certainly nothing that’s doing everyone equally any good.
The identity, qualification and process of finding good leaders
Good public leaders, public representatives and public servants, would not facilitate or contribute to the creation, implementation and furtherance of agendas, ideologies and idealism that doesn’t serve the genuine best interests of those who they have been elected, appointed or recruited to serve.
Yet we have been experiencing decades of exactly that. And we have no hope that this will change if we continue to rely on a system that needs to change giving us the leaders who will then do the right thing when it comes to the delivery of that change.
Contrary to accepted thought, we do not need money to play the role across society that it has been deliberately engineered to do.
Power and control are certainly not a gift that should be secured within the hands of a distant, faceless, unanswerable few who we will never meet and whether intended or not, are treating humanity as a resource and no better than a numbers game that they can do with as they like. All as if they are now, as the result of decades of manipulating the system and bending it to their will, the new gods of everything with everyone else’s destiny theirs and only theirs to decide.
The truth that few see is that the centralisation and push for remote control of everything that globalisation and everything that walks alongside it has been, has been the active and complete restructuring of our society and culture, so that nothing can or will work without the say so and direction of those who make all the decisions.
None of this was accidental. Locality, local relationships, local businesses, local supply chains, local decision making and everything that goes with it promotes sovereignty and independence. It encourages and grows a living environment and cultural model that is good for everyone other than those who want to advantage themselves and be in power or control.
Meanwhile, the downsides of centralisation and everything that goes with it are the for every one of us to see.
However, despite the various attempts, compelling rhetoric and highly credible narratives that work so well when playing up to the addiction for material living that we currently have, there is an alternative and much better alternative to running life and everything that we and our communities need. And the real upside of this real alternative is that it centres completely around putting normal people and our local communities back in control.
The fact that generations of political leaders and those they favour or are influenced by have misused and abused their position to create a system with faux legitimacy – simply by legalising immorality to make it appear moral and therefore unquestionable, doesn’t make it right. And it certainly doesn’t become right, just because those in power today continue to insist and behave as if it is so.
We have a legitimate right to hold power and control over our own destiny.
The power of collective decision making should sit as part of a new structure of governance within our communities, amongst people and representatives who we ourselves select and know we can trust.
A moral obligation arguably also exists to reset the entire system and the various devices such as money and the tools of governance the existing system uses, so that we once again bring the focus of everything in life back to people, to humanity and to creating the best kind of environment that we can to ensure that every person has the life experience that everyone – and not just a selective few should have.
However, nobody else will step up or step in to do this for us – no matter how compelling or necessary this might seem.
Whether addicted or not, the choice and the steps necessary to return power to people and to our communities, and with it the creation of a genuine democracy we can all trust and believe in, are ours and only ours to take.
Nobody in the public sphere today can or will do this. None of them will give us back the influence that is rightly ours. Because they all imagine themselves as leaders who can only lead by having absolute control over everyone and everything else.
We don’t have a roadmap agreed for the future.
But there are plenty of ideas we can share about the outcomes that will serve all of us equally well and in a balanced, fair and just way.
This is where the conversation should start.
The one thing we can be sure of is that real leaders do actually lead. But also know that it is real equality, balance, fairness and justice that applies equally to everyone where the pathway to everything good for everyone really starts.
10 Steps to Vote NONE OF THE ABOVE and make every Vote count too
There’s nobody better qualified to decide what’s best for a community than the members of that Community, itself
The chances are that before you’ve even read this book, you will hear other People criticising or attempting to devalue everything that this book, Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE is about.
They are likely to suggest that only experienced Politicians, Political Parties or People who have been qualified in some other way, are suited to running in Elections and to being in Politics.
The inference or suggestion is that none of us or anyone our communities could select to represent us would have any idea what to do.
The words they use might sound very different to even these.
But any message intended to disqualify you and your community from selecting the People who make decisions on your behalf, will turn out to have exactly the same meaning:
THEY ARE TELLING YOU THAT THE PEOPLE IN YOUR COMMUNITY AREN’T CAPABLE OF BEING RESPONSIBLE FOR THEMSLEVES OR FOR MAKING THEIR OWN CHOICES – AND THAT INCLUDES YOU!
No matter what anyone says to you or to anyone else about Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE, there is nothing they can say that’s negative about the Community making and being responsible for its own choices that can mean anything different or be interpreted in any different way.
Whichever way you look at it, you are being told you aren’t qualified. You are being told you aren’t good enough. You are being told you haven’t got the right skills.
There is no question. These People who know better, are absolutely wrong.
Anyone who says or suggests that someone else knows better when it comes to selecting the People who make decisions which affect us all, is on an agenda of their own. An agenda that has neither the best interests of the whole Community, nor what’s good for you, at its heart.
The decisions that affect us all and the public policies they deliver will always be flawed for as long as anyone involved in making those decisions obtained the responsibility to do so because of some motive that wasn’t focused upon the Community and service to others.
It was about whatever they are part of. Ultimately, it’s all about them.
Today’s Politicians don’t represent the People. They represent themselves, their parties and whoever they aspire to be
Until now, NONE OF THE ABOVE has been a way to protest against and to refuse to Vote for those Politicians who are always someone else’s choice.
More often than not, NONE OF THE ABOVE has been a way to raise a laugh or to make a joke too.
The problem for us all, is there is nothing good, nor funny about a political system that benefits nobody other than the People who directly benefit from the way that it works.
The disease within the Political System has reached the point where no Politician or Political Party makes decisions or pursues any Public Policy that is good for anyone else.
NONE OF THE ABOVE doesn’t need to be just a process or a figure of speech, anymore.
We need to be positive. We need to be proactive. We need to grab the opportunity that is waiting for us to turn this all around, whilst hiding in plain sight.
It’s time for us all to come together as one. To go way beyond being just a protest Vote or a refusal to accept the options we are given in Elections – as if that and only that, is all that We deserve.
We can only achieve this by selecting and providing candidate options in ALL Elections that are OURS.
This is what Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE is here to help you and your community to do.
Before we get started, there’s one rule you need to understand, accept and live by when it comes to everything that is Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE and getting the very best out of this Book:
There’s nobody better qualified to decide what’s best for a community than the members of that Communityitself.
Welcome to Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE.
Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE
NONE OF THE ABOVE will already have meaning to you.
You may also know or recognise it as being ‘Not in my name’, or ‘you don’t speak for us’.
To keep things simple, for now, we will just think of it as NONE OF THE ABOVE.
NONE OF THE ABOVE is the choice made when any Person has the opportunity to Vote in an Election but decides that they won’t.
Because none of the candidates or the Political Parties stand for represent what that Voter feels they and their community need from the Public Representatives they have the choice to elect.
People who are living NONE OF THE ABOVE, might not even bother to involve themselves in Elections.
Then there are those who may have gone to the Polling Station on Election Day, signed in and shown their ID and even have been handed their ballot paper.
They then decide that they cannot or will not Vote for any of the candidates or the Political Parties represented on a list that runs from the top to the bottom of the paper.
Some of those will even draw a line through the ballot paper or the boxes and even write NONE OF THE ABOVE at the bottom of the ballot paper itself.
Then, when the Counting of Votes takes place afterwards, this ballot paper and any others like it will be classified as ‘spoiled’ and no Vote will count.
Whatever the reason you may not have Voted, spoiled a ballot paper, or now found yourself looking for an alternative to Candidates and Political Parties that never seem to deliver on anything they have promised you they will do, this Book is here to help.
Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE is a How to and Information Guide that has been written and published to help and advise People just like you.
NONE OF THE ABOVE is the place where many of us already are
Take heart. You are not alone.
A growing number of People already recognise what the words NONE OF THE ABOVE mean to them.
Whilst the interpretation will differ between us, the reasons for being unhappy and searching for an unidentified alternative to all the so-called ‘choice’ of Political Candidates that we already have, will almost certainly be something that we share.
You may already know that the answers to all of our questions and the solutions we all need are not going to come from any of the Political Parties that we know. They will also not come from any of the new Political Parties or activist groups that already exist and are hungry to be in power, just like the Political Parties that everyone recognises.
Alternatively, you may be at the point of giving a party you have previously supported a ‘last chance’.
Whether committed to change or praying over a forlorn hope, we all know that change has to come from a different place to have meaning and for it to actually be different.
Otherwise, we will continue to ride the merry-go-round of the same Political Parties, knowing that with them, the more things change, the more they stay the same.
You now know you are not alone. But are you really ready to embrace change?
If what you have read is already making some sense or has perhaps just struck an unknown chord, I would urge you to keep going and read through THE ENTIRE BOOK.
Without doing so, you will not be equipped to consider the full picture or achieve the understanding of what Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE has the power to do for us all, as a tool that will work for your community.
Most importantly, you will miss what turning NONE OF THE ABOVE into a Vote-winning option has the power to do for YOU and for your future too.
The formula for a winning outcome from Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE
There are no shortcuts, IF you want your life and the lives of others to improve.
Please read this book through and then decide which parts of it make sense, or more importantly, which parts apply specifically to you and what you feel able to do.
BE HONEST WITH YOURSELF when you read and think about the content you are reading.
If you know what you are reading is true for you, DON’T go backwards. DON’T STOP. DON’T put this book back on your Bookshelf.
If you do nothing, you are standing still.
In a world of constant change, standing still is going backwards.
Doing nothing and going backwards are just the same.
Even if you never do any more than Vote in every future Election, please use this book as the guideline to search out and identify those who will work hard and work honestly for your community and for YOU.
WARNING: Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE is not for you, IF
You are committed to following whatever anyone else tells you to think.
You believe that the only problem is there isn’t a Political Party in power that represents you.
You believe that somebody else will solve all the problems that we have.
You believe that power, position, influence, qualifications and wealth define leadership.
You look down on any other social group, no matter what the difference between you might actually be.
You are not prepared to take part in something that helps others as well as yourself.
You cannot accept that change for everyone begins with you making the most important change first.
NONE OF THE ABOVE is for you, IF:
You are looking for answers and solutions to the problems we ALL have.
You know that those answers and solutions to our problems will not come from the so-called leaders that we have or are today being offered.
You can focus on what we share in common with each other, rather than what divides us and is very quickly tearing us all apart.
You accept that if we keep doing the same things as they have always been done, things will inevitably stay the same.
You accept that IF change that is good for us all is going to happen, we all have a role to play in being that change.
You accept that REAL CHANGE BEGINS WITH YOU!
To be able to Vote NONE OF THE ABOVE, your participation is ESSENTIAL
What you may have realised as you read the bullet points above, is the essential ingredient of us all being able to Vote NONE OF THE ABOVE is YOU!
One of the biggest problems that we face together is the apathy that years of political inaction, broken promises, the spread of manufactured fear and the use of outright lies from Politicians and the Establishment have created.
People genuinely believe that there is no alternative to the mess that we have now.
People feel that there can be no change, because it’s the same People who will always be in control.
People believe that the best we can hope for will come by voting for the alternative that the Establishment gives us. That the alternative candidates and parties we are given, will somehow get something right or allow at least some change to happen that could at the very least prove to be some help.
Sadly, it’s all smoke and mirrors.
This story of ‘who and what will win the next Election’ that we are all experiencing in the news and media, is no better than a confidence trick – even when People from outside of the Establishment appear to be involved.
NOT because there is some kind of conspiracy.
But because everyone who is in power or believes they deserve to be in power today, thinks in exactly the same way.
What could Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE really be? What can Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE become?
Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE has the ability to be and to deliver the answers and the solutions that we are all looking for. Because the PROCESS, METHOD and AIM it offers will return your power and begin helping us ALL to take control back from the Establishment, from the moment that you accept it will work.
Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE is the process of embracing the UKs broken political system and bypassing all the parts of it that are sick.
Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE is a clear pathway to ensure all that’s wrong with British Politics can no longer affect, influence or even brainwash those People who volunteer with good intentions, to become Public Representatives, ensuring that all the diseased thinking can be sidestepped until it has all been replaced.
Once the majority of us have accepted Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE and what it represents as the only honest and fully democratic way for communities to be represented properly in any Election, the battles and the war for Freedom from useless and self-serving governance that many don’t even know we are fighting, will then have been won.
Warning: for change to happen you must think and act differently. Leaving change to everyone else is thinking the same way as you have been all along.
You must be the change is itself one of the most important messages within Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE and every book that relates to it.
Regrettably, we have become accustomed to the idea that somebody somewhere else will always sort out the problems that affect everybody else.
Strangely enough, we then don’t understand why help doesn’t come for us when the problem is now ours and we are the ones experiencing the pain.
It’s time to join the dots up.
Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE will only work if you and People like you dare to change the way that you think.
Then, we must ALL act to create the change, removing the power from other People’s hands, taking back control of OUR OWN POWER.
Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that the way things work now is the only way. Ask yourself the question, ‘Who is the only beneficiary from you or anyone else believing and thinking like that?’
THE CURRENT SYSTEM IS BROKEN. IT DOESN’T WORK FOR YOUR COMMUNITY. IT DOESN’T WORK FOR YOU.
IF WE WAIT FOR THE PEOPLE WHO BROKE THE SYSTEM TO FIX IT, THE FIX THAT COMES WONT BE MADE WITH YOUR COMMUNITY OR YOU IN MIND.
ONLY YOU CAN FIX THE WAY POLITICS WORKS FOR YOU.
TOGETHER, WE CAN ONLY TRUST POLITICS IF IT IS RUN BY PEOPLE WE TRUST.
THE ONLY PEOPLE WE CAN TRUST IN POLITICS FOR OUR FUTURE WILL BE PEOPLE FROM OUTSIDE OF THE SYSTEM LIKE ME AND LIKE YOU
The negative stuff (That we cannot avoid)
Regrettably, presenting an alternative to what we have already got in Politics wouldn’t be complete with at least touching on the reasons why the Politicians that we have and The System that brings them to the ballot paper isn’t working for any of us.
Strange as it may seem, because of how bad things have become in Politics, telling the truth or being realistic about what is happening will always be treated as or considered to be negative by some.
Objectively and in reality, being negative and being realistic are two very different things.
Whilst it makes it sound like we are engaged in a war (which some People genuinely now believe that we are), we really do need to know and understand our enemy, before we can create or implement the methods and practices that mean we will ultimately win.
However, the reality is that in the majority of cases, the Politicians and People who have created the problems we have and who will continue to create them, IF we do not replace them with People who have the integrity and purpose to represent us, are not bad or evil People.
They are simply lacking awareness. They are selfish. They are without moral principles. They have a very restricted or self-serving view of what humanity is and the difference between wrong and right.
If many of them were able to see life in a different way, they could, in time, become just like any friends we have.
There is nothing wrong with them, except for how they behave and what they fundamentally believe.
Who are ALL OF THE ABOVE?
You may not realise or even understand it. But because Politics or rather our Politics is about what we believe at an individual or personal level, it also means that we identify ‘our Politics’ as being part of or who we really are.
Regrettably, this means that most of us find ourselves getting emotionally tied into the way we think politically. Especially if we have historically identified with a Political Party, group or ‘tribe’.
Even now, if you have been tribal in your approach to Politics in the past – and it won’t matter if you’ve Voted Conservative, Labour, Lib Dem, Green, UKIP or any of the names we associate with the broken Politics of today and the past – the chances are that deep down, you still feel some affiliation with that Political Party and hope that they will soon ‘come right’.
It’s time to accept that they won’t.
And it’s not like any of them haven’t had chance after chance to be the change, time and time before either.
Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE can only work if we consciously disassociate ourselves and keep disassociating ourselves with the Politics of the past (today) and our past political thinking – whether it’s in respect of our own outlook, or those we have previously thought of as being ‘the enemy’, who you are probably by now beginning to understand have much more in common with us than anything meaningful that any of us should be allowing to drive us all apart.
When the People who lead us are out for themselves, how can we expect anyone else to behave differently?
We cannot continue to make allowances for and place our trust in People who have asked for our support and taken it. But then misused the power that we have entrusted them with, and behaved as if what they want and what’s good for all of us are one and the same thing.
Equally, we cannot afford to waste years on new, up and coming Politicians, Influencers, Activists and Political Parties who tell us they are different. But by the very act of telling us what we should think, are demonstrating that if we treated them as a real alternative, that when elected and in power, they would then behave in exactly the same ways as the Politicians we already have.
There are good People within all Political Parties and plenty of them are genuinely well meaning. But few of them really understand the responsibilities and the power that they have been given, and what being a good Public Representatives means.
Without the knowledge and leadership skills that public office should always require of those holding such responsibility, it means that the People we have running the Public Sector and the whole country right now and for the foreseeable future – without change, are the last People that any of us should knowingly elect to Public Office and put in charge of whatever happens next.
At best, we live in a mediocracy where everyone we elect is out for themselves.
With the challenges that we now face. mediocre leadership is simply not good enough for our communities or for ourselves.
The ‘Establishment’ Political Parties and Tribes
We are all being failed by the Public Representatives we have elected as representatives of Political Parties.
It is inevitable that ‘Party Politicians’ will always be expected to put the interests of their Political Party and the Establishment they are part of first, before doing anything that would be good for anyone else.
Any Public Policy that works out well for any of us today, is just a happy coincidence.
There is very little good that comes from Public Policy for People that was directly intended or put into being through a fully considered process and genuine choice.
The Establishment Political Parties and Tribes include:
The Conservative Party (Also known as The Tories or Tory Party)
The Liberal Democrats (Also known as The Lib Dems)
The Labour Party
The Scottish National Party (Also known as the SNP)
The Green Party
Plaid Cymru (Also Known as The Welsh National Party)
The Outsiders or The Political Parties and Tribes from ‘Outside’
Many are already placing their hopes in new and less established Political Parties, activist groups and movements as being the way of change.
These political vehicles may appear to be different, speak with different words and with different voices.
But the thinking that drives them and the way that the Establishment or mainstream Political Parties think about Public Representation is regrettably one and the same.
The Outsider Political Parties and Tribes include:
The SDP
Reclaim
Reform UK
UKIP
ADF
Not Lib/Lab/Con
Vote Freedom
AND many others.
All of them are regrettably missing the point that the Outsiders’ strength lies in focusing on what we all have in common. Not by championing their own ideas, or anything else that just creates more of a divide.
Remember: Nobody serves everyone’s purpose when they are only serving ideas that are their own, and if they wanted to put you and your community first, they would be doing so already.
Why ALL OF THE ABOVE will NEVER work for your community and certainly won’t work for you
Have you ever had a politician who represents an existing Political Party come up to you, and without telling you what they already stand for, take the time to ask and make the effort necessary to actually listen only to what you think?
The greatest flaw that all Political Parties and Political Groups that already exist today share, is that any good they could be doing is quickly erased by the fact they are all pulling in their own specific directions.
None of them stop to think about what it would mean to be unified. To be working together. To have the ability to speak and to represent us universally with one and just one voice.
Established Political Parties and Speakers ALWAYS have an Agenda
Established Political Parties follow ideologies or philosophies that are idealistic, or formed around the thinking of the People who lead them.
By their very nature, Political Parties do not take account of the needs of everyone.
Political Parties will always be aligned with or have biases towards a specific group. Usually, one or more that serves its own purposes, or is aligned or identified with its own key demographic groups.
The way that Politicians would usually account for the way that Political Parties and groups work is to say that they are focusing on the important issues of the day.
There is always an inherent undertone that silently speaks ‘we represent the true majority’. The statement is presented without any evidence. But it is treated by many as credible, just because of the platform that the media or social media platforms have given them.
The problem is, existing Politicians and Political Parties aren’t credible. None of them can be relied upon. Because once anyone is motivated only by ‘what is important to them’, they can soon be led and influenced by anything else that is presented in such a way that is equally important to them.
Whilst this thinking is already the cause of great public harm, the reality is that it is human nature.
It’s what very stupid People do when they find themselves with power and responsibility that they are not equipped to handle appropriately.
It’s time for you to be the change, so that your community can do so too
The future of Politics is about everything working well for everyone. Everyone must therefore be involved in choosing that future.
Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE recognises and responds to the flaws that exist within the accepted idea that the only way the existing political system in the UK can function is by having it controlled and populated by Political Parties and Politicians who tell us they are there to work for us all, but only have their own interests in mind.
Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE proposes a genuine alternative pathway to electing the Politicians we are given, as being the way to ensure that the Public Representatives we elect are genuine, and always put the interests of the Public and the Communities they represent first.
Your Role in Our Future – You want to be an active part of the change
You’ve read this far. You are interested in taking part. You just want to feel convinced.
At this point, you will probably fall into one of two groups:
You will either be thinking ‘I’d like to take part and do something’.
Or you will be thinking ‘I’ll wait and make a choice when it’s the next time to Vote’.
If you are already thinking that you will take part and make a contribution because the content of what this book suggests makes sense to you, please remember that the real change we are about to begin working towards doesn’t look like anything you are used to. Nor does it resemble anything that you have already seen or already know.
If you are ready, please keep reading the TEN STEPS to Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE that follow in Part 1, next.
Your Role in Our Future – You just want to be able to Vote
If you are still thinking that the only time that any of this will matter is when it comes to the next Election and the time that you are next required to go out and Vote, I’m afraid it’s time to face a certain truth:
Waiting for change will always mean that change will not be something you take part in. Change will certainly come, but it will be something that happens to you.
Even if you are one of the many who will only see your real contribution being that moment when you pick up the pencil and ballot paper and draw a cross in a box to make your Vote, change requires that you do not remain passive between now and when the next Election comes.
Please do read through all of Part 1 and the TEN STEPS, so that you understand and can identify what the process of change will look like when it reaches your community.
Please then continue and read Part 2 which has been written for those of us who still see their contribution to the future as being no more than a Vote.
Follow the Plan. Learn from the Plan. Improve on the Plan. Share the Plan.
Before we get into the real opportunity that is awaiting you and your community, and the details and STEPS of what you can do to play your part, it is worth mentioning that the alternative pathway offered by Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE is one that you are being invited to follow and to learn from.
But not only that. I am also making a very explicit invitation with an expectation that you can find ways to improve upon Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE and that you will then share what you can then offer with all the other Communities like yours, too.
I am grateful for the opportunity to have been able to bring together the experiences and insights that I have had, to help others – IF they want that help.
You are about to open the door to being able to share your own experiences too.
Thank you and good luck.
Part 1: For the Change Makers – Whoever you are
This section outlines a PROCESS of STEPS that many of us within all of our local communities MUST take, if we want the existing ‘democratic’ and ‘electoral’ systems to work for all of us.
Doing nothing other than making a choice from the Candidates we are given by somebody, somewhere else will only ever continue to be an endorsement for ALL OF THE ABOVE.
Nothing will change.
The motives of the existing Political Parties and the behaviour of ALL the Politicians already within The System – as well as that of those who aspire to be there – are the reason that British Politics is completely dysfunctional and broken.
In the longer term, the electoral system and system of democracy that we have must be completely reformed so that public representation is in touch with everyone and is always provided by the most appropriate and best-suited People that we could ever have.
However, for Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE to succeed as quickly as possible, we have no choice but to focus on what we have the power to do NOW, so that we can begin the process of changing everything as quickly as we can.
How we will be able to Vote NONE OF THE ABOVE in the existing system
The good news for everyone is that change of the kind we need, is possible to begin working on now.
NOT through creating civil unrest or by forcing some kind of revolution, as some People genuinely believe – where the outcome is never guaranteed because it’s out of our control.
But by stepping outside of the system that the Establishment expects us never to question. By looking at the whole ‘electoral wood’ differently. Then using the map of the trees that the Establishment has given us, whilst navigating our own path through with new way of thinking that will enable us to take back our power and then put all the self-serving plans and strategies that have enslaved our democracy, into the bin.
Yes. WE CAN make the current system work for us.
The difference between what we have and what we could have, is that WE MUST select, appoint and then Vote for OUR OWN CANDIDATES to run in each and every Election.
We MUST reject anyone or any candidate that is offered to us by anyone other than our own communities and accept that is OUR DEMOCRATIC RIGHT AND CHOICE.
Forget the Date of the next Election. Work to Vote NONE OF THE ABOVE begins right now
When I say, ‘We need to change the way We think’, it is important to understand that this ‘change in thinking’ is about the entire way we look at things, or even the lens we use to look at it. It is not as simple as moderating or adjusting our view of just one thing.
A good and very relevant example of this is the way that the majority of us think about Elections and how Elections actually work.
Most of us have not been actively involved in Politics or Political Campaigning. So, we immediately fall into the trap of thinking and believing that the only time that Political Campaigning matters, is the same time that everyone else who is out there trying to get themselves elected, is around about our local areas and knocking on our doors.
What many of us then fail to realise is that ALL OF THE ABOVE will have their eyes and thoughts on the next Election, right from the very moment that the results of the last one have been confirmed.
In fact, so obsessed with getting elected or reelected have ALL OF THE ABOVE become, that their obsession with influencing the People they believe most likely to Vote for them in the future, is one of their priority considerations in just about everything that they do.
Put yourself in other People’s shoes
I have had the experience of campaigning for both myself and for other candidates in a number of different Elections.
One of the most important things that I learned was that not enough People will take outsiders or challengers and what they have to say seriously, IF it’s only after the Election has been called that the door knocking begins and the new messages and concern show up.
Matters that concern the Community are ongoing. They are real and they are relevant each and every day. Just like the issues that have an effect or an impact upon you.
It is the same for everyone. So, if you turn up at other times too – as anyone who genuinely cares about their community is supposed to, People at their doorsteps will see a lot more value in the new experience for them that you offer, when you ask them to share their concerns.
Patience is necessary, as well as being a virtue
Some People – and a growing number of them too, will engage with what you are doing from the very moment that you first knock on their door. But for others, the process will take time.
The self-interest and cynical behavior that has ruled and broken Politics right across this country, for so long, has done a hell of a lot of harm.
From this point alone, it should be obvious that building up a relationship and developing trust with someone and something new, is bound to take time.
So, it doesn’t matter whether the next Election is a Local Election or a General Election. Nor does it matter if it is going to be held in 4 months or 4 years’ time. The right time to begin the process of engaging with Local People is RIGHT NOW!
Forget whatever the Councillors, Mayors, MPs and Political Parties are doing
Another idea that we must get over is the one that tells us it’s only the Politicians who are already elected that have any power, when it comes to influencing anything that’s going on.
They don’t. And it’s self-sabotaging to think this way. Because in the same breath, it’s easy to fall into the trap of assuming that nobody will pay attention to anyone else.
That’s bad enough. But the real risk to changing everything for the better is the next idea to arrive.
The one that suggests we have to listen to and respect what anyone who has been elected or has a position of authority has to say.
WE DON’T.
Respect & Trust MUST be earned AND be credible too
Sadly, the way the Electoral System works today doesn’t mean that we can rest assured that candidates are skilled, experienced, in touch with our reality, or in any way capable of speaking for us or making any decisions on behalf of us all.
Not only this. The reality is that even the ‘majority Votes’ that ‘winning’ candidates attract for Council and even Parliamentary Seats are themselves representative of just a small fraction of just the People in our communities who are eligible to Vote.
This means that the genuine majority of the People who you are about to communicate with, already feel that they are not represented by the politician(s) your community has already got.
Speak and make promises in the same way that the Establishment and the Outsider Parties already do, at these doorsteps, and the People you are reaching out to will see right through you, almost as quickly as you can blink.
Speak honestly and openly, and share your care and compassion for change, for People and for the Community – from your heart, and the People you speak to will take you seriously, right from the start.
It’s what we all have in common that is key
We have much more in common with others than anything that divides us.
Yet we allow those differences and the beliefs that we have about each other to take over and rule our lives as if the commonality that we share doesn’t even exist.
Politics is so divisive because it is reflective of who each and every one of us believes that we are and what we stand for, deep down inside of ourselves.
With the problems across the UK and the World that generation after generation of poor Politicians have created, it’s no longer possible or responsible of us to leave the Politics for the Politicians.
And it won’t be, until such time as we once again have a political system in place that we can rely upon and trust.
The culture of Politics that is dividing us all is representative or a reflection of the broken system and the disease of self-interest and the thirst for self-advancement, influence and power that has stepped into democracy’s place.
It simply doesn’t matter if you have seen yourself as being left-wing, socialist, right-wing, capitalist, conservative, eco-friendly or as wearing any similar kind of label up until right now.
The tribal badges that a self-interested political system has conditioned us to wear, have also been the banners that we have allowed to trip us up by defining how we feel about and how we perceive many others too.
For what it’s worth, those others have gone through exactly the same process on their part, too.
Politics today is not based upon, driven or motivated by anything good for us and for our communities, as it always should be.
Left, right or from somewhere in between. This broken Political System focuses on keeping power away from the People and absent from within the communities where it should be.
It continually funnels and focuses OUR POWER on People, both seen and unseen, who make the real decisions that we have no influence over, right at the top.
Our power will be immediately returned to us by recognising the parts of life that are common to everyone, and by focusing our collaborative efforts to bring equitable access and provision of the things and experiences in life that we genuinely share.
If you haven’t realised already real community is not just an idea. It is a way of being.
For instance, we don’t need a socialist or a capitalist to introduce their political ideologies into the processes which deliver our food – BUT THEY DO!
And it’s the same with everything else that these People touch!
The only motivation that genuine representatives of the People need in order to get everything they do right, is to maintain their focus upon what’s in the best interests of EVERYONE, when it comes to Public Policy that has any impact upon the essential areas of life that we have in common and share.
The things which are essential to provide and maintain happy, healthy, safe and secure lives for everyone, within a system that is truly balanced, fair and just, don’t need any kind of political ideology to deliver them.
We just need to focus on working together and on collaborating in union, so that what we all need, and not what only some of us want, is all that government and our system of governance gives us – and then stops there.
It’s time for our journey to that place to begin. And you have the opportunity to play an important part at the start!
Your role – IF you want it, is to reach out, listen and learn
Yes, it does rather sound like the line from those great Mission Impossible Films “Your Mission, should you accept it…”. The similarity between taking on challenging tasks should also not be lost.
But there is a decision that needs to be made. And the action that follows that decision needs to be taken by many of us, IF we really want to be able to Vote and successfully elect Candidates in every Election who are NONE OF THE ABOVE.
So, your role – IF you want it. Is to reach out, listen and learn from the other Local People from in and around your community. And to then be open to whatever happens or whatever comes next.
The bigger wheels, within wheels, that will soon be at work
Conversation and collaboration with People you don’t normally speak to but see or pass regularly isn’t really all that hard. Because you already have that shared experience in common.
If nothing else, it’s always nice to be able to put a name to a face.
Reaching out and by beginning a conversation which is all weighted towards other People speaking and sharing their thoughts and ideas about what’s happening, and what they believe our structures of government should prioritise and do, will begin the process of opening up a local and Community focused world.
You will not only take the first essential steps of helping to create a new Community-wide and all-inclusive movement that will quickly have the power to influence and change.
You will also immediately begin to learn about life from very different perspectives and see how we all experience the same things very differently.
Yes, there is an agenda that we will all be working to, from the moment you begin.
It’s no secret and we’ve already shared it.
The agenda is to get good and genuine Public Representatives elected and working with many others. So that our Councils, Public Organisations and our Parliament are being run by People who not only understand us and have our best interests at heart. But have the wherewithal necessary to understand all the different parts and functions of the Public Sector, to be able to fit them all together so that everything in the public sphere works for the benefit of us all, as it always should do.
Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE has an AIM, that will be achieved through a METHOD, which will be the result of you and others like you following a PROCESS from the moment you start.
THE AIM: Community agreement on Candidates who are Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE
The only thing that gives Political Parties an edge or an advantage over anyone else is that they are already organised and have systems and procedures in place.
Yet the disadvantage to us all is that they are selecting and offering us candidates under the pretense that they will represent us, when they will always prioritise the party choice.
The AIM of Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE is your Community making a decision upon who represents all of you together. Then going on to support your Public Representatives to be elected and to then fill and fulfil every relevant democratically elected role.
Please do not fall into the trap of believing that’s what you and every Voter like you already does, each time that you go into a polling station and Vote.
The candidates that are listed on the ballot paper in elections now, were not selected by your community.
They were selected by someone else, using criteria that benefits a very specific group of People and whatever they stand for or believe in.
Therefore, ALL OF THE ABOVE don’t represent the views of the Community, they represent the views of someone else.
REMEMBER: The only way that communities will be represented by the People who are best qualified to represent that Community, is for the Community to select and appoint those candidates themselves.
THE METHOD: Community Meetings and interaction where we select Candidates to represent us all
To bring all of the People that make up your community together, means bringing all of them together – ideally at the same time within a Community Meeting.
As pretty much all of the existing Political Parties and Politicians already know, the circumstances when a whole Community will come together in one place at the same time to listen or to even discuss issues that affect them are very rare indeed.
Yet the reason for this apathy, disconnectedness or disenfranchisement, isn’t one that’s hard to address or get over.
It just takes a lot of effort and genuine commitment to the Community – and that’s why the existing Political Parties don’t do this – because respect for what the People really think and what’s important to them isn’t something that any of the existing Political Parties either believe in or currently even try to do.
The METHOD is holding Community Meetings where everyone from within your community has the opportunity to interact and play a part in the process of selecting the Candidates who will become Councillors, Mayors, MPs – and ANY kind of public representative that public Elections within the current system dictate that there will be.
There is significant added value and additional benefits that will come from bringing your community together without the agendas or motives of any organisation that already exists
Yes, we quite clearly have Communities that already exist in geographical terms. They are where we all already live.
We also have groups of People who share certain or specific things in common. Like their religion, their working background, or perhaps a sport that they have played or follow as a spectator or on TV.
But it has become increasingly rare for any of us to really feel any kind of affinity with the People with whom the only thing we clearly share is our locality, in the sense that living together and sharing life together is an essential part of making the things that surround our everyday lives much better than what they already are.
It is the humanity that comes from engaging in direct relationships within our local areas and local communities that have the ability to really help us to find genuine happiness, as well as giving us the ability to discover and appreciate who we genuinely are.
There are no substitutes for the benefits that being part of a vibrant, caring and above all human Community will have for you and for everyone.
Above all, the benefits from coming together to ensure that the decisions that will affect us and that will have an effect upon everyone, are made by the right People, who we have selected, qualified and appointed, alongside everyone else who will be affected by whatever they will then do, will be incalculable for us all.
THE PROCESS: Engaging with your Community in a series of TEN STEPS
So, you’ve read this far. We are now at the most important part of the journey to Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE.
That is, IF you are ready and committed to taking the steps necessary to play your part in creating change, whilst welcoming everyone who is open to it to share the ride.
There are TEN practical STEPS to creating the momentum and energy that will engage your community.
We are going to use the METHOD of bringing everyone in your community together, so that your community can achieve the AIM of selecting your own candidates for EVERY Election in the future.
CAUTION: It is important, as you proceed from here onwards, that you focus on what we have discussed in this book, and upon continuing with the PROCESS of TEN STEPS We are about to go through.
THE TEN STEPS
STEP 1: Give your Community Meeting a recognisable identity.
STEP 2: Get a free email box set up.
STEP 3: Set up your Community Meeting Social media accounts.
STEP 4: Get posting and post as often as you can.
STEP 5: Get at least 12 People you know from your community signed up.
STEP 6: Knock on doors and talk to real People as often as you can.
STEP 7: Collaborate wherever possible, accept help and support from whoever you can, always be prepared to work with others BUT ALWAYS QUALIFY THAT SUPPORT.
STEP 8: Arrange your first Community Meeting.
STEP 9: At your Community Meeting, let the People use their voice.
STEP 10: Hold meetings to identify your community representatives and agree what happens next.
We will now move on to cover each of these TEN STEPS of the PROCESS, providing the METHOD that will allow us to achieve our AIM.
Some things to bear in mind first:
You may be alone right at the start.
But others in your community may also start as you are about to do so.
The opportunity to join with them and others who want to actively contribute to the creation of these new structures for our communities will come along very quickly, IF you remain focused from the start.
So, don’t worry or give unnecessary thought to how you collaborate with the wider Community over a larger area – for instance, if it should be a General Election that is next called.
If everyone who begins as you are about to, is committed to the PROCESS and doing it right, the linkups, system of union between communities and working together at a broader level, will soon fall into place too.
STEP 1: Give your Community Meeting a recognisable identity:
Your immediate thought may well be ‘That doesn’t sound very hard!’
Yet giving your new Community Meeting a name that will have as much meaning with just a handful of local People involved, as it will when everyone has just Voted your first Community Representative into an Elected Office is very important indeed.
Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE is about what you all have or what you share in common.
So, the obvious thing to everyone when you first start, will be using or rather incorporating any local place or area name that local People will recognise and identify with the area of the Community in which you all live.
The chances are that in most places, some existing organisation or savvy web user will have grabbed the precise name of your community area. (e.g., @London is already in use!)
If the actual name of your area is available for any social media username or domain name, it’s worth avoiding anyway – in that form.
Once things get moving and others can see there is interest building in what you are doing, using just the place name could be considered by some to be a declaration that you already speak for the Community.
My suggestion is that you use your community area or place name and then add either ‘CM’ or ‘NOTA’ after or before or use a word that describes what Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE is all about, such as ‘Together’ or ‘United’.
For example, the area I grew up in is called Churchdown in Gloucestershire, UK. So, the name I would then use would ideally be ‘Churchdown NOTA’ or ‘Churchdown Together’.
Continuity and recognisability are important across the different platforms that you are about to use. Everyone uses social media and the internet differently. But they all need to be able to identify with something that reaches across all of them the same.
Before committing to the name you will use, PLEASE work through STEPS 2 & 3, and check that the same Usernames are available for you to use first.
This is a particularly good thing to do early on. Because it could be one of the easiest ways to work out if someone else is already working with Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE, in your community too.
Things to be aware of:
You will probably use your local area name, with ‘Community Meeting’ following it as our e-mail username in STEP 2. But @communitymeeting would already be too long to become a username on one or more of the social media platforms that you are about to use.
Groups that represent different parts of your local community or interests that are shared between a number of local People may already be using words like ‘together’ as a prefix or a suffix within their proper name or a social media username.
A quick visit to any linked social media or web pages should quickly make clear who any group using one of these names is, and whether you are both working to create a Community Meeting of the Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE kind.
What you are about to do, is not about you. It’s all about your community. So, don’t use your name as the name for what will become your Community Meeting.
You may technically ‘own’ or ‘control’ everything you create or do whilst you are working alone. But the end result will only ever belong to the Community.
If you feel uncomfortable with this, please give further consideration to the reasons you feel that way before you decide if you want to proceed.
Even if the name of the area or place you live in sounds like it must be unique, there is a good chance that the name will exist somewhere else in the UK or beyond.
If you should find that the name you would like to use already is being used elsewhere, don’t worry. Just add an abbreviation such as SW if you are in the South West, or perhaps something like the first two or three letters of your postcode area – which in the case of Churchdown would be GL or GL3.
STEP 2: Get a free email box set up
If you are going through the TEN STEPS in order, you will already be aware that STEPS 1, 2, and 3 fit very closely together.
It may seem that setting up a FREE email box and address for your Community Meeting would be better as STEP 3.
But if you are doing everything as suggested, you will soon understand that you will need your e-mail address to get your social media platforms set up with your Username and/or to validate your set up too.
There are a number of FREE email options available to you and it may be the case that you already have a FREE box that has come with your Phone set up, or perhaps you have one with Bing, Google or a company like Yahoo.
Most of them will allow you to set up a second box reasonably easy if you do. All you need to do for instructions, is follow the help options or do a search on any related search engine facility.
My own preference would be to use Google or Google mail. The functionality is excellent, and the security seems to be great. This is not a recommendation. But the reality is that this whole PROCESS is about making your journey to the doorstep as easy as possible, and it will only get longer if we overcomplicate things.
When you are setting your account up, please use the name of your Community Meeting as the username.
Then, when you are setting up the details that will appear when you send any emails, I would suggest using your Community Meeting Username, the same.
Things to be aware of:
If you are nervous about mail being read or hacked, don’t be.
If you are following the TEN STEPS and you are doing so for the right reasons – which are what’s best for your communityand putting Local People first, you are unlikely to ever do anything that anyone could accuse you of being wrong.
Transparency is actually key to everything you are going to do.
There are no secrets being shared here in this book or as any part of Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE, that I am unhappy for any existing Politician or Political Party to see.
If existing Politicians and Political Parties were ready to embrace these ideas and live by them, there would be no reason for anyone else to make the effort and try – BECAUSE IT WOULD ALREADY BE BEING DONE!
If you decide to set up a signature template, DO NOT add your private telephone number unless you are happy to receive unsolicited calls on it.
There is no need to provide a telephone number. With so many other ways that you can (and will) be able to offer People so that you can be contacted directly, there’s really no need to do so, unless you are happy to do so, or you are able to use a dedicated phone.
STEP 3: Set up your Community Meeting social media accounts
There are a range of different social media accounts and platforms that are available, and the list is growing.
To keep things as practical and as simple as possible, my suggestion is that in the first instance you concentrate on setting up FOUR different social media accounts.
These are:
Twitter
Facebook
Instagram
WordPress
You can easily add others social media platforms such as Tik Tok, Blogger, Rumble, YouTube, Telegram etc. if you have good reason to believe there is enough demand.
But right now, this is all about making the best use of the time that you have available and the PROCESS of getting the AIM of OfficiallyNONE OF THE ABOVE known by as many People across your local Community area as possible.
Usernames
If you haven’t already done so, please CHECK that the Username you have for your Community Meeting is available for ALL of the social media platforms that you intend to use BEFORE you start signing up to any of them.
This way, you can secure usernames that will be the same across ALL of your social media platforms.
Remember CONTINUITY and RECOGNISABILITY are KEY!
Twitter
It is very useful to have a presence on Twitter. Chances are that there will be a smaller number of members of your local Community who will use and interact with your posts on Twitter. But it’s also likely that this is where you will generate more interest from outside – which is important for networking and getting help from others too.
The trick is to keep your messages factual and short, or just add a short description and use Twitter just for posting your Facebook, Instagram and WordPress links.
Facebook
You may already have a Facebook account of your own and you can use that as the doorway to create a Facebook Page.
Facebook is where you are most likely to pick up support from members of your local Community very quickly.
My advice would be that you treat your Community Meeting page on Facebook a bit like a central hub, which links to everything else.
Facebook is good for editorial, pictures and for posting links and I would suggest that you take the plunge and use them all, as often as you can.
Please make sure that anything you post anywhere else is linked to your Community Meeting Facebook Page too.
The functionality of Facebook Pages is fantastic. So, if you just follow the guided tour after your Page is initially set up, you will immediately get a taste of what a great Community connection tool it really can be.
Instagram
Instagram is a much more visual tool that a lot of People really like, simply because the content or the stories revolve around pictures and visualisation helps how people think.
If you can record what you are doing with pictures and add a few words to tell the story as you do so, you will be amazed at the support that you will soon find.
Instagram is owned by the same company that owns Facebook and you can set up your Community Meeting Instagram account so that it immediately posts to Facebook too. However, please be aware that it does not work that way, the other way around!
WordPress
If you are unsure how to put posts together that will interest and engage other members of your community when you begin, perhaps writing and publishing a journal of what you are doing and what you have experienced will be a very good way to start.
Blogs of the kind you need to write don’t need to be long. They just need to be factual and relevant in every way that you can make them.
WordPress will also allow you to repost material or blogs from other WordPress sites if you want to.
WordPress is the blogging platform that I currently use to support everything I write, and it’s where any resources I will be making available to share with you will be found.
Setting up
All of these social media platforms take just a few minutes to set up.
Some suggestions:
Use a picture or pictures of a location or landmark that everyone in your community will know and relate to – One that isn’t a private residence, a business or includes People or private property that can be identified within it.
Use a free app such as Meme Maker to add your Community Meeting name and do any basic editing you may need, to the picture or pictures before you use them.
Write a short bio and use it for all four of them. For example, ‘Bringing Churchdown together so that public decisions are made for us all, the same’
Where you can, immediately set up posting links between your different social media platforms, so that when you post to one, you immediately post to all (For instance, if you write a blog in WordPress, the set up will allow you to automatically post to Facebook, and Instagram does the same thing too).
STEP 4: Get posting and post as often as you can:
As soon as your Community Meeting social media platforms are up and running, you should begin posting and sharing everything that you can or have the time to, online.
People from across your community will be interested in what you are doing from the moment that you begin work.
However, the key to success is what you then do to keep those same People engaged and interested, and then thinking about what more they could and then want to do, to help you.
What kind of things you should post:
People you don’t know will respond very well when they feel like you are talking to them, rather than at them.
A really helpful way to approach writing anything to post on social media and online, is to treat it like you are having a normal chat or conversation with someone that you already know – just without anything that would be too familiar or personal. (For instance, leave out bad language, irony, sarcasm or anything that people who aren’t used to the way you speak might not ‘get’ or understand)
You don’t need to write loads to engage People either. Short and punchy lines or just a couple of paragraphs are more than enough, IF there is a message worth sharing included.
Use your Community Meeting social media platforms to post:
News:When you’ve launched, when you have set up something like a fundraiser for People to use, when you’ve made contact with another Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE group, when a member of the community volunteers and is taking on a specific responsibility or role AND when Community Meetings have been arranged.
Questions:You should ask People what they think about things you are doing and speak as if you are already addressing the whole community – no matter how many People are already involved. Remember that the Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE pathway to creating functioning Community Meetings is all about engaging and listening to everyone who wants to speak and participate across the local Community – so give them that chance from day 1!
Updates:Tell everyone what you and those working with you have achieved. For instance, if you have made a commitment to visit a certain number of houses to talk to local People by a certain date, tell everyone how you are getting on. Or share other updates about how other Community Meetings are getting on.
The kind of things you shouldn’t post:
Remember that your Community Meeting and everything you create, set up and achieve belongs to the Community from the moment you begin.
It’s therefore very important not to blur the lines and make anything you post about you, what you are doing when you are not working on Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE, or anything personal to you, such as talking about the things that you like.
DON’T use your Community Meeting social media platforms to post:
Anything Personal: DON’T use the platforms you have set up for your Community Meeting to post ANYTHING that is about you or anyone else personally.
Anything about Public Policy or Politics: The whole point of Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE is the creation of the circumstances where we are able to Vote for People to represent us all as Public Representatives who have been chosen by the Community and whose integrity in fulfilling their responsibilities is something we can trust. Policy itself is the next issue, once we have Politicians running government that we can trust. So, if the focus shifts away from listening and the commitment to the order that these steps have to come, your only success by making policy statement or making an endorsement of a policy of any kind, will only be to divide People at precisely the wrong time.
Rules for using social media as a successful Community building tool:
Here are some general rules that will help you to build a good reputation for your Community Meeting, to stay happy and to build good relationships across your social media platforms, with anyone worth building them with online:
ALWAYS approach social media like it’s a one-to-one conversation with someone you already know.
Don’t do or say anything to anyone online, that you wouldn’t be happy to do or say directly to their face, in real life.
NEVER MAKE IT PERSONAL. Even the People on the internet who are rude are reflecting only how they feel about their own life and the world. ITS NEVER ABOUT YOU – but it soon will be, IF you are the one to initiate any kind of abuse or attack!
If you are unsure of whether you should post whatever you’ve written, DON’T POST IT!
Don’t present opinions and views as fact to anyone. It’s possible to get into legal trouble if you do, and you never know who will see what you have written or published, and People will be very quick to call you out!
Don’t lie or make things up – especially if you have received a comment or read something that makes you uncomfortable.
Don’t post when you are feeling emotional or are under the influence of drink or drugs.
Always answer polite and constructive questions. There will be more People who will be genuinely interested in what you are saying or doing than there will be those who only have bad things to say about anything or anyone.
NEVER make promises that you have no way of knowing that you can keep.
If you are asked a question and don’t know the answer, be honest. Don’t even attempt to blag your way out. Find a way to engage directly if you can and let them know that you will find the answer and get back to them.
Ignore anyone who only has negative things to say.
DO NOT use the number of likes, shares, followers or any other kind of statistic that’s openly available as a way to tell you how successful your efforts have been. Alone, they NEVER accurately correlate with what People are really thinking. The reality is that if you only ever succeed in openly engaging one person, that one person could be connected and then tell your story to the whole world!
Don’t share links to anyone or anything that you don’t trust or are not fully aware of and know to be relevant and helpful to Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE.
REMEMBER: Unless you have done something you shouldn’t have, People only attack and criticise the work and efforts of others online, when they have nothing useful or of benefit to anyone else to say. Keep doing the right thing by everyone, and you will soon be shocked by who this cap actually fits!
Don’t publish any picture of anyone who can be identified from that picture, unless you have their permission to do so. You should get that permission in writing wherever you can.
Don’t publish information that will identify People directly, unless it relates to material that already exists in the public realm – In which case, publish the link, so readers can see what you are referencing or referring to.
Don’t publish anything on your Community Meeting platforms that promote the views of any organisation or any individual in any way, other than your Community Meeting, itself.
Things to be aware of:
Remember that you need to keep the AIM, METHOD and PROCESS of Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE in your mind at all times.
ALWAYS CHECK THAT EVERYTHING YOU HAVE POSTED THEN POSTS AS IT SHOULD, WHERE ITS SUPPOSED TO, AND THAT ITS POSTED ON TIME!
STEP 5: Get at least 12 People you know from your community signed up
Although the PROCESS is all about getting People from within your local Community to Meet up and work together, the PROCESS is also built upon the foundation of getting your message to begin working on its own, without you having to do all the work.
One of the easiest ways to get your Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE messages to start engaging other members of your local Community and to begin working for you remotely too, is to focus your first efforts on getting local People following, liking and sharing all of the social media platforms you have set up.
Clearly, the more follows, likes and shares you have, the bigger the number of People who will see your posts will be – even if they don’t like, share or follow themselves.
Because of the way that social media and search engines work, there always seem to be a number of follows, of likes and shares that need to be hit or achieved before pages reach a magic moment or what some would call a critical mass, when new or additional followers and likes just seem to start arriving and adding up, all by themselves.
From what I know and understand at the time of writing, you will help yourself greatly if you can immediately share your Facebook page with at least 12 People from your local Community who are friends with you on Facebook, who then follow or like your Community Meeting Facebook Page, and then like and share posts with all the People they know, as you publish them.
It’s not critical for you to do this, at this point. But it will certainly help and add to your confidence, if you can secure this support in what you would be able to call a ‘quick win’.
STEP 6: Knock on doors and talk to real People as often as you can
Knocking on doors and talking to real People, face to face, may prove to be the biggest, but also the most rewarding challenge that you will face, as part of the PROCESS to create the METHOD of delivering the AIM of Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE.
Before you let yourself worry about something silly, such as asking yourself ‘what are these People going to think’, please bear in mind that everyone, including you, likes to be asked what they think or how they feel about the things that are important to them.
Not only do People like to be asked for their views and opinion. There’s no better place to give your views and opinion, than at the doorstep of your own home.
When to call or knock on doors
The best times to knock on doors and find People in and most likely to be available and happy to speak to you will be between 6 and 8pm on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays during a normal working week, and on Saturday mornings between the hours of 9am and 12pm.
You should always avoid houses where it’s clear that parties or other meetups of some kind are underway.
Don’t go out knocking on doors when you know that big sporting events or other things are on TV that a lot of People are likely to want to watch.
What you should always say
At some point during any conversation – preferably as a start, you must always explain who you are, what you are doing and why you are doing it.
You aren’t knocking on the door to preach a message. You are there to listen and learn.
So, keep your explanation as brief as possible. But make it long enough so that your reason for being there makes sense in a way that anyone will be happy with and able to understand.
For example, you could say something like:
“Good evening, my name is Adam and I live in the next road to yours. I’m growing concerned about the decisions being made on our behalf by Politicians within our Local Councils and the Government and am in the process of reaching out to other local People to share our experiences and see if we feel the same. I was wondering if you have any concerns about any of these things you would be happy to share yourself and then see if theres anything we can do together and with others from the area to try and address the problems we have in common?”
The Dos
DO:
Introduce yourself in terms that make sense of who you are – For example, “I’m Adam and I live in the road next to yours, I often see you when I’m at the bus stop…” etc.
Ask People to share their views and what concerns them.
Say that you are concerned about what’s happening with government and public services because of the People who are elected to run them and that you want to learn and understand how other People in your Community feel, and what the issues are that are important to them. But again, don’t start talking about what YOU want to happen or see.
Make clear that you are not working for, on behalf of, and are not affiliated with any existing Political Party or movement.
Share with the People you speak to that what we have in common and what we share together is more important than any ideas that divide us or that have been tearing us all apart
Bring focus to the way that the political system works, being the problem that needs to be fixed BEFORE we can then focus on getting the policies right.
End by sharing with them that you are looking to arrange a new type of Community Meeting to bring People from across the Community together, so that we can all share our ideas and experiences and then agree what we can do next.
Suggest there will be opportunities for anyone and everyone within the Community to help and take part and do more if they want to. But the most important thing is participation and sharing the message so that everyone can be involved and take part if they want to.
Ask if they would follow and share your social media addresses.
Take their email address if they are happy to stay in touch with you directly.
The DONTs
DON’T:
Don’t treat someone else’s doorstep as your own personal soapbox or use the opportunity to grandstand or ‘big up’ the part you are playing in any way.
Don’t abuse the gift of time that anyone is prepared to give you.
Don’t share your own views and experiences UNLESS you are asked to and only then, keep it factual and don’t include your views or what you think should be done.
Don’t criticise ANY of the Political Parties, organisations, any public figure or anyone who you believe to be setting a bad example or to have done anything ‘wrong’. You are running your own race and when it comes down to the example of what not to do in Politics, they have already won…
Don’t make anything up, lie or stretch the truth about any topic you discuss.
Don’t make promises you cannot keep.
Don’t waste their time or yours. If it is clear that the Person or People you are talking to, are already committed to supporting an existing Political Party or movement of some kind. You will not change the mind of anyone who isn’t already open to the idea of change.
Information you should always provide
If you knock on someone’s door, it’s just polite and courteous to give them your name.
If it is clear that the person or People you have called on are interested in what you are doing, don’t end the conversation or leave until they know about your Community Meeting social media accounts, and they have the addresses so that they can follow, share and like.
Do not be afraid to provide any of the details you have prepared whilst you have been working to hold a Community Meeting. If you are following this Guide and the TEN STEPS, you will have no reason to hide anything that you have published.
The reality is that once momentum starts building behind what you and what others like you are doing, there will be People involved or supporting existing Politicians and Political Parties who will see Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE and the idea of a new form of Community Meetings as a threat.
Let them.
The future of your community is for the members of your community to decide.
Not them.
Things to be aware of:
The most important thing to be mindful here, is that you do not have the right to be heard on someone else’s doorstep.
If it should become apparent that your call and presence at someone’s door is not in any way welcome at any point, turn around and leave immediately.
Always do so politely, and especially so, if you are already talking to someone when you become aware of this.
Never worry about how many houses you call at in one session. If you were out knocking on doors for just 4 hours and spend 15 minutes at each door you call at listening to what People who matter like you on their doorsteps have to say, you will have connected with more People in that one session than any of the existing Political Parties will have done so by taking the same time to deliver one of their glossy leaflets through the letterbox of every house on a giant housing estate.
STEP 7: Collaborate wherever possible. Accept help and support from whoever you can. Always be prepared to work with others. BUT ALWAYS QUALIFY YOUR SUPPORT
You may begin working on the Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE PROCESS alone. But you should do so knowing that for your own and everyone else’s efforts to be successful, it will soon be necessary to pool efforts with others who are thinking the same way as you.
Help will come in many different forms and from many different directions, IF you get to work and just let your faith in the PROCESS take care of the rest.
If an Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE Community Meeting has already been established locally
If you should find that somebody else has already began working in your local area to build a Community Meeting using the Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE PROCESS, this is great news for your area.
Anyone who is genuinely committed to developing a community response to the problems we face will be happy to collaborate with others who are clearly setting off from the same starting point and viewing the process of changing the way that we do Politics in the UK in the same way.
Even if somebody has already begun work to develop a Community Meeting locally, there is no reason why you cannot get started on your own, IF you genuinely believe that it will help the local Community for you to focus on an even smaller area to begin with.
However, there is also a lot of truth in the suggestion that ‘many hands make light work’.
If you get in touch with whoever is also working locally and tell them that you intend to follow the Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE PROCESS too and that you are open to collaborating, the chances are that an honest and open conversation will soon let you know how you can combine efforts and reach more People in less time, by pooling your efforts on the same campaign.
Offers of help when you knock on doors
It may not happen straight away. But once you get used to knocking on People’s doors, introducing yourself and why you are there, and then listening to what the People have to say, your confidence and passion for what you are doing will begin to shine through in a way that just your words alone will not.
You shouldn’t be surprised if People you talk to at their doorsteps are then immediately receptive to the idea of getting involved and helping you in some way – or in some cases, actually asking you there and then what they can do.
Whatever you do next, if someone is interested in helping or has made a firm offer of help, you should:
Exchange contact details and make sure that they have the details and usernames of all the platforms you are using.
Ask them what they would like to do to help.
Ask them if there is anything they are NOT happy to do.
Discuss the possibility of meeting up again quickly, so that you can arrange the next steps.
Provide them with the links to find Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE on Amazon and Online and suggest that they read the whole Book all the way through.
PLEASE ALWAYS REMEMBER that volunteers are NOT employees.
Like you, People who are genuinely prepared to come and work with you and collaborate with us all to build Community Meetings will make effort and give their time for nothing. BECAUSE IT IS IMPORTANT TO THEM.
That means that whatever they do, really does need to be something that they are happy to do. So, it is essential that you don’t push anyone to do anything they are uncomfortable with doing, ESPECIALLY if it’s something that you are not keen on doing yourself.
If someone wants to help but just wants to write blogs for you or deliver leaflets once the first Community Meeting is arranged, let them do whatever they want to and be appreciative of even the smallest thing they have done to help.
Check the priorities and background of any volunteers who ‘come out of the blue’
As Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE begins to build interest from local People within your Community, it will also gain interest from People, Politicians and Political Parties who are invested in The System we already have, and with a commitment to resisting any kind of meaningful change.
It’s quite possible that you will be offered help from People like this which isn’t really help at all. And if you are not aware of who or why someone has approached you out of the blue, there is a chance that they want to get involved with what you are doing using an offer of help, but with every intention of hindering or even stopping you from achieving all that you have set out to do.
As a matter of course, you should always do a thorough social media and internet search of anyone who offers help or wants to collaborate with you in any way.
Whilst the reality of what it takes to deliver Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE will always uncover those who are not committed to Community Meetings and what they will deliver, you cannot leave checking out who is volunteering to your first impressions.
The chances are that your focus could easily be on more important things than what they are doing, once you have put trust in them to do whatever they say. Sadly, the time it could take to see them for who they really are could be longer than it takes for real damage to have been done.
British Politics is broken because it works this very way, today.
Offers of Help you should always avoid:
People who have active or recent links to existing Political Parties.
People who are already Politicians or who work or are linked to Local Authorities.
People who don’t have any kind of record available when you search them out.
People with details and profiles online that appear to be unestablished or very new.
Anyone whose ‘story’ doesn’t match what they or anyone who has introduced them to you has told you.
Refusing the wrong kind of help:
It is quite possible that you will receive offers of help from People with a background like that we have just discussed, or that you have become aware that they are unlikely to be genuine in some other way.
Whether an offer of help is genuine or not, if you find that you need to decline or reject that offer for any reason at all, you should always do so properly, and be polite when you do so.
People who want to involve themselves in anything for the wrong reasons often have very fragile egos. They will become angry and problematic if they are given just the slightest excuse to do so.
Avoid giving them that excuse.
Things to be aware of:
Collaboration is essential between People and groups, when what is good for us all and for the whole Community is at stake.
Until now, different People and groups who have focused on political ideas and activism of one kind or another have happily allowed their own ideas to get in the way of the things in life that are most important to us all.
Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE requires that we think about what’s really important to everyone in a very different way.
You will enjoy the whole PROCESS if you are open to working with and collaborating with others. You will soon be making many new friends of People you already know, along the way!
STEP 8: Arrange your first Community Meeting
Once you have started to build up a list of local People you have had direct contact with who are interested in supporting what you are doing and in taking part, the next step is to arrange your first Community Meeting.
Holding Community Meetings is the METHOD to achieving Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE.
For the first meeting, aiming to have as few as between 30 and 50 local People in attendance is likely to be all you need.
This means you won’t have to wait too long before you can be confident of numbers, and it is likely that there will already be a pub with a function room or a community building of some kind that can be booked either free of charge or for a very modest fee.
The chances are that you will already have somewhere appropriate in mind.
Booking a room
Most Meeting Rooms that can be booked by members of the Public will have information about booking them online.
Look up the details and check the availability. But only proceed if you are happy with the terms of hire and that you already have the funds available to cover any Room Hire Costs.
Please avoid any venue that requires a Room Hire Fee, if you cannot cover the cost, if someone has not already volunteered to pay or donated the fee, or you haven’t already received enough in any Crowdfunder you may have set up.
A pub will be just as good as a dedicated Meeting Venue, and with the difficult times that we are all experiencing right now, you may find that your local Pub Landlord will be very receptive to the idea of having a group of local People come in!
Wherever you decide to hold your first Community Meeting – don’t go ahead unless and until you know that the venue management is happy first!
When to hold your first Community Meeting
It is essential to make it as easy as possible for as many members of your local Community to attend EVERY Community Meeting that you hold.
In time, it could easily become clear that enough People are available to attend meetings at a different time. But in the first instance, you are most likely to have the biggest attendance possible if you arrange your first Community Meetings on a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday evening, with a focus on the main business being conducted between 7 and 9pm.
Please avoid any dates when you know that there is any kind of event, like a local school parents evening or a big sports event on TV that will draw People’s attention elsewhere.
In time, it won’t matter. But to begin with, this will be the most effective way to get the maximum number of local People involved.
Make sure you let EVERYONE know
Whether they attend any of your Community Meetings or not, it is important that you let everyone in your community area know and provide notice of when and where the first one will be held.
You don’t need to drop leaflets or contact everyone directly when every Community Meeting that follows is held – as a notice by email or across all of your social media platforms for these will do.
However, for any subsequent Meeting arranged when any important decisions will be agreed – and in particular, when a Vote upon candidates to represent the Community in Elections is going to be held, you MUST make sure that everyone has been told.
It doesn’t matter if some People choose not to attend, or for some reason are unable to do so.
But it is essential that when something important is happening, EVERYONE in the Community has been informed or what is happening and has been offered the opportunity to be involved.
You only need to have put a leaflet through every door. But you must be sure that this has happened, so that no matter whether you have had direct contact with every household in your community area or not, EVERYONE has at least been made aware.
If you cannot achieve this for any reason, you should not go ahead with any meeting where any important decisions are made.
Otherwise, it is always possible that someone can say that they haven’t been informed about what your Community Meeting is doing, and that could cast doubt upon the legitimacy of the whole process.
The legitimacy of your Community Meeting can only be guaranteed if it is clear that everyone has a choice to get involved.
That said, don’t worry if you experience an existing Politician or someone like them or linked to them making accusations that they weren’t told what was going on.
As long as you know and can confirm that everyone has been contacted, they won’t have a leg for their argument or accusations to stand on.
Something important for you to bear in mind:
When you book a Meeting Room or Venue, it’s really important that you check that the owners or managers are happy for you to hold a Community Meeting.
There is nothing wrong with what you or any of us are doing.
However, many different Community buildings will be under the control of People like existing local Councillors, and People just like them, who are heavily invested in the current System and the way that it all works.
Many of them will not want to be seen to be supportive of what you are going to do.
They will make any excuse to stand in your way or object to your use of what is a community owned asset that was actually intended for just the kind of purpose you intend to use it for.
If you come across People who behave like this and misuse their position and the responsibility they have been entrusted with, you are just experiencing the kind of behaviour that Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE is working to remove from everyone’s way.
In the meantime, don’t sweat it or worry about it if small-minded and selfish people try to get in the way. There are plenty of other options and plenty of other ways to succeed.
Things to be aware of:
You do not need to have everyone signed up or committed to attending when you have your first Community Meeting. But you do need to have at least taken every step possible to ensure that they are aware.
Holding your first Community Meeting and then reporting back to other members of the Community about it will almost certainly prove to be a very useful way to help get even more People involved in the future.
So, it could be a good idea to be working on STEP 8 as soon as you start – as long as you are confident doing all the things you need to, and in keeping the momentum up too.
STEP 9: At your Community Meeting, let the People use their voice
Your role is that of being a facilitator for your Community Meeting. Not the voice of your Community Meeting itself.
When you met local People from across your Community in STEP 6, you explained who you were, what you were doing and why you were there, and then you listened as the Person or People told you what they think.
It is important to understand that your role at your first Community Meeting will be very similar again.
The strength in the PROCESS, METHOD and AIM of Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE is helping everyone in your community to take back their own power.
To do this, we must give everyone back the opportunity to speak, to use their own voice and to be heard.
The agenda for your first Community Meeting
The real agenda of your first Community Meeting is to begin the process of bringing what appears to be a very different group of People together. They can then begin the process of recognising the value of what they all have in common, and what they share, together. All in one room.
There is a good chance that amongst any Community Meeting, and particularly if the meeting is one of the first, there will be a Person or People present who will be happy to sound off very quickly, IF they don’t get the opportunity to take over. Or they believe that there is more value in doing things a different way.
When you begin and you speak for the first time, it is very important that you create and share a few brief ‘house rules’ with everyone.
These could be something like:
That by being here, and by taking part, we ALL agree that:
This Community Meeting is for everyone and as such, everyone will have the opportunity to speak – IF they want to.
We will all commit to listening to what every speaker has to say.
When we want to comment, our comments will be shared in the sense of looking forward and how ideas can be built and improved upon, rather than being negative and critical or focused on the past.
If we don’t understand someone else’s perspective or we believe that in some way it doesn’t make sense, we will respectfully ask them to explain their perspective further and ask them to do so using their experiences – if they are happy to share.
That we all remain polite, respectful of others, and above all else, we won’t speak across others and will wait for our turn.
You will be surprised by just how engaged everyone will quickly become, once they know that not only will they be heard, but everyone will be listening to everyone else with the same open mind too.
So that every member of the Community who is present is treated as fairly as can be, it might also be a good idea to follow a format and talk everyone through what that will happen as each person speaks, before you begin.
This might be something like this:
Everyone will have the opportunity to speak.
We will go around the room in order but will be happy to begin with anyone who is particularly keen to speak first.
When it’s your turn to speak, please share your name and the area of our community where you live.
Please also share with us if you already have a role within our community too.
We would then like to hear your thoughts on any issue which is concerning you, along with any thoughts about how people affected could be helped.
We would also like to hear your thoughts on what your ideal public representative should be experienced in and able to do, before we make a Community Decision upon whether to endorse them, and then support them when an Election is called.
The most important thing to do is to make sure that everyone who wants to speak has had the opportunity to do so – no matter how long it takes.
It’s always worth being patient.
Don’t let anyone talk about forming or agreeing Policy at this stage:
As we discussed in STEP 4 when we talked about posting on social media, this is not the time to do anything other than listen to what everyone has to sayand what experience they want to share. It’s not the right time to get into the details of Public Policy itself.
The overall AIM of Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE and the Community Meetings that you have brought into being, is for your community to select the very best Public Representatives that it can and then endorse and support them until they have successfully been elected. That is the right time for any discussion about Public Policy to begin.
If any kind of effort to reach agreement on a political position takes place at this stage – even if it’s about who and what, or how something is wrong, you will very quickly find that cracks will appear in the support you have been working so hard to grow.
No matter what the topic might be, even words that suggest People have to get behind an idea that might polarise opinion at this point, will be enough to derail your efforts.
People need to experience that Community Meetings not only have the power to bring members of your local Community together. They MUST also see and then KNOW that collaboration of this kind can yield genuine results too.
This will not be achieved until your Community Meeting has selected, endorsed and supported candidates and they have been elected – When People will see that Politics established on commonality rather than separation and difference, is a real alternative and choice.
Things to be aware of:
Communication is a two-way street.
Being a good communicator is as much about being able to listen and hear everyone when they speak or understand them through whatever it is that they do, as it is to speak, write or publish your words, yourself.
A public meeting is a very different environment to somebody’s own doorstep, where most people will feel safe. Many of the People who felt very comfortable talking to you one-to-one, will become hesitant to speak, when the opportunity comes to speak in front of ‘everyone’.
This is a very human and normal response. So don’t push anyone to speak if they don’t want to.
Also bear in mind that the experience of being in a group can make some People feel boxed in. If they think for any reason that what they have said could be viewed in some way as being wrong, they might easily become defensive too – which in some cases might appear they are becoming angry.
What you should have achieved when your first Community Meeting reaches its end
Your first Community Meeting is only the first. And it could be the first of a great many to come.
Let’s hope so. Because agreeing and then arranging your next Community Meeting will be one of the first and most meaningful ways that you can measure your success and see the result of the effort that you have put in.
By the end of the first Community Meeting, those attending should know and understand:
The primary AIM of Community Meetings is to qualify, select and then support candidates who are members of your local Community to stand in every upcoming Election as the candidate or candidates who have been chosen by the Community, to represent the Community and to speak and Vote on its behalf.
The dates and timelines for the next Parish/Town, Borough/District, County/Unitary Elections covering your area (where they are relevant), and any pointers you might then be able to provide about when the next General Election might be.
The role that each and every member of the local Community is being invited to play in selecting Community Candidates for upcoming Elections.
When the process of selecting Community Candidates for the next Election is likely to begin.
The date of the next Community Meeting.
What everyone who is already contributing to the PROCESS will be doing next.
How everyone can keep up to date, keep in touch and do their bit to build the Community Meeting, so that as many People as possible are ready and able to take part, when you all come together and meet next time.
You should arrange the next Community Meeting as soon as possible and hold meetings as frequently as possible thereafter.
Be prepared to have small interim meetings online, using software like Microsoft Teams or Zoom, if this will be helpful to anyone – and particularly everyone who is making an active contribution and taking part as a volunteer.
Depending upon how well attended your last Community Meeting was and when the next Election will be, you should begin taking steps and discussing the process you will use to select your Candidates as part of a special Community Meeting that you might be ready to hold next time.
Please be aware:
Your Community Candidates cannot begin working on their Election Campaign, or the pre-campaign work that they will need to, UNTIL your Community Meeting has Selected and Endorsed them.
STEP 10: Hold meetings to identify your community representatives and agree what happens next
The AIM of Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE is to have Candidates on every ballot paper in every Election who have been selected by the Community – so that there is a legitimate and qualified choice.
Selecting your Candidates for Endorsement will be rather like being an employer who is setting up and managing a recruitment process.
The key difference will be that there isn’t one person or two, but potentially an entire Community of local People that will be making the final decision and choice.
Because of the clear need and requirement to respect and protect personal data, some of the process may need to be undertaken by a committee that is appointed by your Community Meeting, which can then make a recommendation or perhaps offer several People who can then speak to the whole Community and answer questions that will help everyone to settle upon the final choice.
The most important part of the Candidate Selection process will be the very first job your Community Meeting will have to complete.
This will be to identify, agree and implement the framework or terms under which your appointed committee will then makes its recommendations or present its final choice.
Some things that you should all discuss and consider:
No person should automatically be precluded from consideration to be endorsed by your Community as a Candidate for reasons other than those which would disqualify any person from becoming a registered candidate in the relevant Election to be held.
However, a successfully Endorsed Candidate should, at least:
Already reside within the Community that they would represent or live very close by.
Offer experience of life which has enabled them to understand the priorities and behaviour of others, from across different social and demographic groups.
Offer sufficient experience of holding responsibility of some kind, within business or some other organisation, where they have demonstrated an appreciation of how organisations and services work.
Be patient and caring for others, with a clear ability to listen, understand and empathise whilst remaining objective where different perspectives and experiences may be involved.
Have confidence and the ability to speak and explain real life concepts to others objectively and to present alternative options in a way that is accessible to all and basically makes sense.
Possess evident self-awareness and the ability to consider the impact of their actions upon others, as well as the likely actions of others upon themselves, all in ‘real time’.
Be aspirational rather than idealistic. And practical but not negative in their demeanor and approach.
Have skills and knowledge that would clearly be beneficial to the Community, when used in a relevant political role.
Be driven by public service, rather than by personal ambition of any kind.
Your Community Meeting should avoid selecting a Candidate, purely because:
They are popular or already have some kind of ‘standing’ in the Community.
You like them.
They sound credible and appear to know ‘all the right things’.
They already have a ‘following’ of some kind.
They seem to have a lot of ideas.
Under no circumstances should your Community Meeting be asked to consider any person for endorsement as a Candidate, if:
They are a current member of any Political Party or activist organisation.
They are a sitting / elected member of any Council, or Parliament or of any other publicly appointed or elected body.
They have been a member of any existing Political Party within the past 5 years.
To be fair, finding People who have the most appropriate kind of experience and approach who actually want to be involved in Politics, given the way that things are and how they have been, won’t be the easiest task. At least right at the very beginning.
However, finding the right People from within your local Community is certainly nowhere near impossible.
The PROCESS will be made much easier by following each of the TEN STEPS to Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE, as rigorously and as diligently as you can.
The reality is that once People start to become aware that there is a growing, non-political option that’s all about doing what’s right for everyone, many more good People will be interested in coming forward to serve on behalf of our communities than those who are prepared to take the risk that Politics offers them right now.
Choosing your Candidate Selection Committee
Choosing the members of your Community Meeting who will sift through, research and initially interview potential Candidates for Endorsement is just as important a job as selecting the Candidates to stand in Elections themselves.
As with Candidate Selection, the ability to be objective is key.
Selection Committee Members must be able to look at every part of the information they have and go in search of and be able to consider it without letting their own experiences and biases get in the way.
You will need at least three People and preferably five or even seven to take on this role.
Of these, it may become apparent that one member will have more of these attributes and as such may be well placed to take on a chair or facilitator role, where they can point out where certain things may have excessive influence on how Candidates are perceived in some way.
Transparency
Whatever process you decide upon and whether you have a Candidate Selection Committee or not, there is absolutely no reason to hide anything, other than any personal information that it is only right and that it might be necessary to protect.
Please research handling personal data and The Office of The Information Commissioner if unsure.
When your Community Meeting has agreed and set the Terms for Candidate Selection, these should be published in full online, with links highlighted and made available across all of the social media platforms that you are using and making available publicly.
It is essential that the process your Community Meeting uses to select, and Endorse Candidates for Elections is clear, agreeable and fair to everyone – with the balance of fairness always weighted towards the Community as a whole, rather than what will be helpful to any particular Candidate.
PLEASE REMEMBER: Public Representation IS NOT A JOB. IT IS A RESPONSIBILITY.
For this reason alone, it is essential that no part of this whole process is compromised by entertaining even the smallest bias towards what any individual involved within it may want.
Presentation, Questions and Answers
No matter the process your Community Meeting decides upon to get there, the final decision and therefore the Endorsement of a Candidate by the Community, MUST come from an overall Vote of the Community Meeting itself.
Whilst the Candidate Selection Committee may have made a selection, or ideally presented several preferred choices for the Community Meeting to make its choice or choices from, it is essential that all those members of the local Community taking part in the final Vote have had the opportunity to see the ability of the candidate(s) to represent them, demonstrated BEFORE that Vote takes place.
One of the best ways to achieve this, beyond an open Question & Answer session, will be to ask the final candidates to talk through their understanding of a complex area of public policy that the Community Meeting has already identified as being important.
Then ask them to go through, in detail, and explain their understanding of each and every aspect of that issue. How they would go about finding a solution, and what their considerations for reaching a choice of solution would then be.
How many Candidates does your Community Meeting need to Endorse?
This may sound like a silly question to ask at first glance, as many of us are used to the idea that we Vote for one person to represent an area in any Election.
That’s certainly true for Parliamentary Elections when we are voting for an MP to represent us.
However, it’s not always the case for Local Elections when Councillors are being elected.
So, it’s not unusual to be electing 2 different Councillors or perhaps even 3 at the same time – meaning that Voters will need to choose that number of candidates to support when they actually come to Vote.
By rule of thumb, the more local the Council or the smaller the geographical area it covers, the more candidates – and Votes on one ballot, local People could have. The very first time I was elected as a Councillor to a Town Council, my Seat was one of 6!
Therefore, your Community Meeting will need to endorse the same number of Candidates for the number of Seats or Vacancies to be filled, that there are.
This information will be available from your local Democratic Services or Elections department and more information about the different Councils and the Tiers of Government can be found on my FREE to read, web version of How to get Elected.
REMEMBER: The AIM of Community Meetings with Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE is to provide all Voters with the exact number of Candidates to fill any elected positions that are vacant within our current System of Government.
The Community Meeting will select those Candidates through the Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE process, just like the Political Parties use their own processes to.
The VERY BIG difference is that Candidates endorsed by Community Meetings will be selected to be genuine Public Representatives who work for and on behalf of the Community. Rather than being Candidates who will always be working for someone, somewhere else and out of sight, with an agenda that isn’t in yours or your community’s best interests.
The Vote
When it comes to the final Vote of the Community Meeting and the Candidate Endorsement itself, the Vote to achieve this MUST be conducted in the fairest way that it can be.
On the face of it, it would appear that the easiest way to be assured of legitimacy would be to work with a simple show of hands.
However, when everyone can see what everyone else is doing, it can too easily mean that ‘group think’ or fear of offending or upsetting certain People from within the local Community can get to work. This is something you will always need to be mindful of.
Remember, if the PROCESS and METHOD are compromised at any stage, then the real AIM of all of the work and effort made will not have been achieved. The Community WILL NOT have the chance to be represented properly and legitimately in the way that it should.
Therefore, passing a ballot paper or slip of paper with the name(s) of each candidate listed to each member of the Community who is voting, and asking them to place a tick against the name of one of the proposed candidates listed, will almost certainly be the right way to complete the voting process and to ensure that it has been fairly done.
Supporting The Candidate
Once your Community Meeting has endorsed your Candidate(s), the work doesn’t end there.
The process of supporting your Candidate(s) to connect with everyone across the Community is your next essential step.
You should use all of the social media platforms that you have to make People aware of who your Community Meeting has Endorsed, and therefore who has the Community Meeting’s qualified support.
Preparing for Elections
It is important to remember that Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE is neither a Book nor a Guide for Election Candidates, once they have been Endorsed by a Community Meeting will need to do as part of an Election campaign itself.
Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE is about the creation of circumstances where Candidates for Elected Public Offices have been vetted, selected, approved and endorsed by the Community to be on our ballot papers as a ‘recommended for, by and on behalf of this Community’ choice.
In time, being Endorsed by a Community Meeting to run as a Candidate in any Election will be enough, in itself, to attract Votes from a significant number of People. Much in the same way that the majority of political candidates get backed by People right now. Not because of who they are. But because of which Political Party they are running with.
It may be a relatively short time until your Endorsed Candidate(s) attract that kind of support. But that time could well prove be longer than the time between now and the next Election in your area.
Ideally, your Community Meeting will Endorse Candidates to run in the next Election that is scheduled or expected.
Whenever that Election might be, it is essential your Endorsed Candidates begin work on campaigning across the area and connecting with Members of the Community, in very much the same way as you will be doing yourself.
Until such time as a shared name or political vehicle might be needed and agreed upon to bring all Community Meeting endorsed or approved Candidates together, the best way for any Candidate to consider themselves for the purposes of registering with your local Democratic Services or Elections Office, is to run as an ‘Independent’ candidate.
The very first book that I wrote and published, “How to Get Elected” is intended to help Independent Candidates in a way that is almost identical to the support that your Endorsed Candidates are likely to need right now.
You will find the whole book split up into pages and available to read FREE HERE. (The FREE version is much easier to access from a PC, where the page titles are listed in order, on the right-hand side of the screen).
Alternatively, you can buy and download a copy of How to get Elected for Kindle from Amazon HERE.
How to Get Elected is a self-help or ‘How to’ guide that covers all the things a Candidate needs to be aware of or to consider, with a lot of additional thoughts, experience and tips thrown in.
Like Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE, the way to get the very best value from the book, How to Get Elected, is to read it all the way through, without missing anything out.
How to Get Elected will fill in all the gaps that need to be crossed by Candidates, before other support and help may become available.
Fundraising
Costs that may occur such as Room Hire, and printing leaflets have been mentioned at a number of different points throughout the TEN STEPS.
Before anything else, you will not need to spend any money or even consider whether you will need to spend money BEFORE you have reached STEP 8 and are in the early stages of arranging your first Community Meeting.
If you have already gained sufficient support for your first Community Meeting, it is likely that you will also have enough support to raise the modest funding necessary to cover any costs of Room Hire and Leaflet Production/Printing too.
Protecting yourself and protecting your donors
The first thing you need to consider if you are going to raise money to pay for any Community Meeting related costs, is that any money you raise – even if it’s just pennies – is NOT yours.
If you’ve told People that any money they donate will be for a specific purpose, or just in general terms to help the creation of your Community Meeting in some way, that is the only purpose that it should ever be used for.
In the stages leading up to your first Community Meeting and possibly beyond, the safest way for you to raise money or receive donations is likely to be through setting up an online crowdfunding campaign using a platform like Go Fund Me or Just Giving. (There are others that you will find by doing an online search of ‘Crowdfunding’ or similar, too)
If you set up an account online, it is likely, depending upon which platform you use, that you will be able to manage your fundraising using an app and you will automatically be able to manage and track money coming in.
Not only that. You will also have the added value that will come from being able to post even more information about your Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE campaign within your local Community – and that can only be a big help!
Managing donations and protecting your Community Meeting
It may not be possible or practical to open up a bank account to manage any funds your Community Meeting campaign receives.
But it will be necessary to keep a written record of what money you withdraw or transfer from any Crowdfunder you’ve set up, and then how every bit of it is spent.
Whatever you spend money on (e.g., Room Hire, Printing costs), you should always ask for and keep a receipt.
Each transaction should be recorded in an Excel spreadsheet or similar – which will also make your input much easier, as the software can be set up to automatically do any sums for you.
It may sound like a lot of effort for very little. But when you are managing other People’s money, it’s the real detail that actually counts.
By keeping a very clear and transparent record of the process of financial management you have used, it will be very simple for you to demonstrate that you’ve done everything properly, IF anyone should ask.
It will also then be much easier and less time-consuming for you to hand over responsibility for financial matters to another person, as more volunteers become involved in building your Community Meeting.
Please Remember:
Donations are always made for what the donor believes they will be used for. Not so that you or anyone else can then use them for something else.
Any money given in the form of a donation belongs to the Community and should be given back to donors immediately, if your campaign stops at any time.
You are raising funds so that the only donation you have to make personally is your effort and time, without there being any financial cost to you.
Part 2: For those who just want to be able to Vote and know that their Vote will have real meaning
First of all, A WARNING:
There’s nothing passive about voting.Unless someone else has stolen your Vote.
Yes, you could be one of many who simply don’t bother to Vote when an Election comes to your local area, right now.
But that’s when you only had the option to Vote for something that’s important to somebody else. With Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE and Community Meetings, you will now have the choice and option to Vote for something that will prioritise what is important for you, as well as for us all.
As we discussed earlier, change is always happening.
The choice you have is whether you want to play a part in defining change, or whether you want to sit back and let change happen to you.
You don’t need to be one of the People who will immediately take up an active, facilitator-type role for Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE, and undertake the tasks outlines in detail throughout the TEN STEPS in Part 2.
But you won’t be helping anyone who does, and you certainly won’t be helping yourself and the opportunity that we all have for a Political System that genuinely works for us all, IF you don’t at least involve yourself enough to keep up to date with progress, spread the word to others, and attend Community Meetings whenever a choice or important decision that may impact your future, will be made.
If you don’t want to be actively involved, the STEPS you can STILL take that will help your Community Meeting are:
Supporting your Community Meeting on social media.
Supporting your Community Meeting by sharing the word.
Supporting your Community Meeting by sharing your experiences and any relevant information you might find.
Attending your Community Meetings whenever they are called.
Supporting your Community Meeting by taking part in the process of selecting Candidates for Elections and taking part in any Community Meeting Votes.
Supporting your Community Meeting by voting for all Candidates that the Community Meeting has endorsed when an Election takes place.
Supporting your Community Meeting on social media
Whilst there is no genuine substitute for meeting with other members of your local Community face to face, if you don’t have the time or don’t feel able to be involved in absolutely everything that the others involved with your local Community Meeting do, it will be both easy and helpful for you and your Community Meeting, if you support them by following whatever they are doing online.
Not everyone uses social media. But we are now in a time where the majority of People do. Of those that do, only a fraction will openly support or engage with articles, blogs and posts, even though they will have been of interest or made them think in some way.
The simple act of following or liking the social media pages and platforms of your local Community Meeting will be a massive help to build momentum, IF being able to be able to Vote for Candidates who are real and genuinely offer the option of NONE OF THE ABOVE, is all that you really want to achieve.
Because of the way that online technology such as search engines, algorithms and the AI or Artificial Intelligence that already operates many of these ‘platform’ sites on the Internet work, something as simple as a like or follow will immediately tell them that your interest in what your Community Meeting is doing, is real.
As a direct result, they will very quickly begin to ask other People like you, if your Community Meeting is something that would be of interest to them too.
This could make a massive difference for the cost of what could be no more than a couple of clicks.
Remember:
Community Meetings will bring members of the local Community together to select the People that the Community will support to become their Public Representatives.
This is not in itself a political act.
By liking or following your Community Meeting, you are simply sharing with anyone who knows or is interested in you, that you are taking seriously how the decisions affecting everyone locally are made, and that you are concerned enough that you believe it necessary to support the process and method that will deliver genuine change.
Supporting your Community Meeting by sharing the word
Another very easy way to support your Community Meeting is to talk about what local People are doing with Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE to anyone you see or have regular conversation with.
Word of mouth is a very powerful and influential tool. It also demonstrates just how important and helpful genuine and direct interaction with real People can actually be. It focuses on what Community Meetings are genuinely all about.
You don’t have to sell Community Meetings in the sense of eulogising or championing them to other People, unless you actually want to and feel comfortable doing so.
If you are open with people you know, about why Community Meetings are of interest to you and you share the facts about Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE, as they genuinely are and what we are aiming to achieve together, the benefits of your local Community Meeting will very quickly sell themselves.
Please Remember:
If it helps to keep the conversation short, just tell People about Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE and suggest that they also read the Book.
Otherwise, if you have a little more time and feel able, share the Usernames and links to the social media platforms that you have for your Community Meeting, once its developing and running, you can then leave it to People to take a look and then decide for themselves.
Supporting your Community Meeting by sharing your experiences and any relevant information you might find
Following on social media and spreading the word will be a fantastic help to your Community Meeting.
But you can help even more, IF you use your social media and the remote channels that are available to you, to actually contribute and take part online.
Community Meetings will always be the place for decisions to be made on what the Community wants to do about anything.
But the flow of information between Meetings will help everyone who is actively involved or just following progress from a distance.
If you see subjects or events relating to Community Meetings raised on social media that interest you, please do not be afraid to make comments or add information that might create or promote greater understanding – IF you are happy to share that information in an open forum, online.
People can only learn when they are open to learning. But the most powerful tool for learning is the sharing of others’ experiences. Not because anyone’s experience has more value than anyone else. But because sharing experiences of parts of life that others haven’t had, certainly cuts down on the requirement of time to do so, for yourself.
Interaction and sharing the benefit of your experience to help your Community Meeting and the Candidates that you come together to endorse, is the greatest currency for change that we all have as we focus on real, meaningful change.
By taking part, asking questions, flagging things that you’ve seen or heard, or just making the time to speak to other People about Community Meetings and then turning up at them, you can help the process of change in countless ways.
Remember:
You are never under any obligation to interact with any social media account, just because you follow or have liked it.
You should never post anything online that you would not want to share with People who you see regularly or face-to-face in your real life.
If you disagree with what someone else has said or believe that the information they have shared is incorrect or wrong, the best thing to do is to challenge the information they have shared itself and do so, not by simply saying it’s wrong. But by taking the time to politely and constructively explain why.
Better still, offer the details of the alternative you have based your challenge upon, to what they have suggested too.
But NEVER make your reply angry, or personal about them – and certainly not about you.
Supporting everyone by attending your Community Meetings whenever they are called
Within the TEN STEPS you will have read that it is essential that every member of the local Community is kept informed of anything important that your Community Meeting is planning to do.
On this basis, if a Community Meeting is being arranged to hold a Vote or make a decision, you should at the very least be made aware of the details such as when it will be held and where it will be held – if nothing else.
You don’t have to attend Community Meetings if that is your choice. But if you really want to keep up with what your Community Meeting is doing, and either speak or share your experiences, or just use the opportunity to be an influence in any Vote, it is also essential that you attend.
Remember:
Taking part is everything. By taking part in whatever way you are able to, you are contributing to change. If you don’t take part in any way, you are going to let change happen to you.
Supporting your Community Meeting in the process of selecting Candidates for Elections, and taking part in any Community Meeting Votes
As you will have gathered from reading STEP 10 in Part 1, your Community Meeting will be most effective in the decisions that it makes, by ensuring that the terms for Selecting Candidates and then Endorsing them is done right.
EVERYONE in your Community has something to give in terms of experience or anything else they can share. Everyone’s views are important and attending Community Meetings is the way that you can truly make your Vote count.
Supporting your Community Meeting by voting for all Candidates that the Community Meeting has endorsed when an Election takes place
Your input isn’t worth the paper it’s written on, IF you don’t actually Vote.
The whole reason for Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE is the process of depoliticising the British Political system, so that Politics can deliver for us all, in the way that a democracy should really work.
To some – and you may be one of them, taking part in an Election is all that being part of a democracy will take.
But you must also understand and accept that who you Vote for is very important too.
On the day of the Election or Vote itself, your Vote could be one of just a few or maybe just the one itself, that puts a Public Representative into their role who was selected for the right reasons and endorsed as part of a Community Choice.
We no longer have the luxury of leaving our future to someone else. Many of those someone else’s we thought we could trust have already taken the opportunity that our apathy and disengagement has unwittingly given them. They have then done exactly what they’ve wanted, calling it ‘the will of the People’, all because they were supported by the mere fraction of us who Voted them into power in an Election, when that fraction of the community turned up.
You can be involved and support Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE and your Community Meeting in any way that works for you.
But if you really want change to happen that works in the best interests of everyone, please keep up to date.
When the next Election comes, please Vote for the Candidate(s) that local People with the same things in common as you, have committed the time and effort to select on behalf of your community – but most importantly, on behalf of you.
Support that will be on offer
Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE has been written in the knowledge that once momentum starts building for Community Meetings, support will come from many directions and will come in many ways.
There is no guide to how long the creation and holding of a Community Meeting will take.
Not just because everyone who picks up this book and begins work will approach the TEN STEPS depending upon the way they have read them. But because each and every Community area is very different, is made up of different People and for many different reasons will respond faster or slower to Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE, in very different ways.
With this in mind, there is a very good chance that all you will need to get started and make good progress before support comes knocking on your door will be included within this book.
However, if you should find that you have any questions, or have the need to understand any of the ideas, suggestions and thoughts that I have shared with you here, PLEASE get in touch.
It will be great to hear from you and I will happily respond to all polite and constructive requests and help in any way that I can, in the most appropriate way that I feel possible.
Will NONE OF THE ABOVE become a Political Party?
Let’s put first things first.
The whole focus of Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE is to provide the immediate method and means to address the real challenge we face and must overcome with our broken Political System, as it is today.
With established Political Parties and their own motives and agendas filling up the majority of seats across our whole government system, The System itself is effectively broken.
We must also accept that any new Political Party attempting to do things in what is technically the same way as those that already have seats won’t bring the changes that we need, that work in the best interests of everyone. Because if they were to be elected and gain power, the words and the policies might be different, but their approach, attitude and motivation would end up being bad for all of us in exactly the same ways.
Public Policy is the problem, and that problem is hurting us all.
However, to fix Public Policy problems, we have to focus first on fixing the root cause.
The root cause of all the problems are the People who become our Politicians and a situation that leads to the same self-interested and incompetent type of People being the only choices we have and then repeatedly elect.
The Selection and Endorsement of Candidates and the process that will engage each and every one of us to choose and support them in Elections is what Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE is here to provide.
When we have created a new system of Community Meetings where each Community selects and then supports its own Council, Parliamentary and all other kinds of Political Candidates, then and only then can we genuinely begin to address the genuine Public Policy issues that we now face.
Existing Political Parties serve a purpose that is not about the whole Community. Their purpose is all about the pursuit of ideas and interests that are their own.
The only way that the formation of a Political Party would be of benefit to Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE, would be the structure and support frameworks that it could provide to all Community Meetings and the Candidates that they select, endorse and support.
Because of the inherent danger that anyone in key positions of such a Political Party could fall into the trap of going their own way or going off in a direction that doesn’t benefit the whole Community, the governance of such an organisation would have to be very robust and reliant upon people with a lot of integrity, right from the start.
In time, there may be very practical reasons for joining up a network of Community Meetings in some kind of affiliated or federated way, that might then, through necessity, be required to become formally registered with the Electoral Commission as a Political Party.
That time is not now.
But it would be a very nice problem for People like you and I to have, once Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE is working and is doing its job across our communities.
Be Positive, Be Optimistic, but above all, Be Real
Whatever happens, whatever any of you do, there are no guarantees.
People have free will. It will be the choice of everyone whether they want to change and be part of the opportunity to influence change, or if they want to do nothing and let change of a different kind happen to them.
It is also important to understand that it is impossible to consider all of the factors or the impacts of events that have already happened or are yet to happen, and what influence they might have upon the short- and long-term future for us all.
We can only do our best and make the most of the opportunity.
Have faith, keep focused and you may soon understand what belief can really do.
More Reading
All of the following titles are available to purchase as complete eBooks for Kindle from Amazon using the links provided.
Where indicated, titles may also be available to download FREE as PDF Copies from my Blogsite in different forms, using the links provided.
If you would like to discuss any of the works listed, please get in touch.
Not in my name. You don’t speak for us. NONE OF THE ABOVE.
These expressions of frustration, anger, distrust and disenfranchisement from the Political System we have today are shared by a growing number of us.
We feel that because we cannot Vote for good politicians and public representatives, we have had our democratic rights taken away.
The situation goes from bad to worse, each and every day. Everything that Politicians, Government and Public Services seem to touch is failing. And the rules that Politicians are supposed to manage and set, seem to have done nothing but encourage private interests and big business to operate without any real kind of control.
When the People who lead us are out for themselves, how can we expect anyone else to behave differently?
The truth is, that we cannot.
But there is a way we can create alternative options for Candidates on ballot papers for us ALL to Vote for in every Election. That is, IF we accept and are then prepared to make the effort to create and be part of the change that is necessary.
Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE is a ‘How To’ guide, that will open you up to a new way of thinking about the way that Politics in a democracy should work. It provides suggestions, advice and a doorway to easy-to-access tools, using a system of Community Meetings that will help everyone to reject ALL OF THE ABOVE and then have a genuine and meaningful democratic choice.
Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE will present you with a series of TEN STEPS that can be followed, IF you want the choice of Candidates in future Elections who will work for and on behalf of you and your local Community.
PLEASE Follow it. Learn from it. Improve on it. Share it. Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE is here for you.
PLEASE NOTE: This book is not about Public Policy or Political ideas. It provides a method of putting good People into Politics, so that we then get Public Policy that corresponds.
Adam Tugwell 