Life revolves around a money, wealth and material-based values set. It is destroying us; We think we are in control, but like any drug addict, the freedoms we cherish don’t exist anymore

If you believe you are free to think, free to be, free to say and free to do as you please today; it is time to understand and to accept that you are not. You are not free to do any of those things, no matter how free to you, they might feel or seem to be.

Yes, you may have what appears to be the freedom to choose and do whatever you want.

But life as we know it has been created, is framed, dictated and even regulated according to someone else’s rules.

You may now be asking yourself how that could possibly be. After all, you don’t have to ask permission from anyone before you do whatever it is you want to do, say whatever it is you want to say or do whatever it is that you want to do.

So, ask yourself: ‘What is the value set that really governs every part of my life?’ ‘What is the basis of the framework that guides the system of life that I am living by?’ ‘Where do the rules come from that tell me how I must live, think and do all the things that I do, so that everything I know does what it’s supposed to and everything that should do, gets done?’

Think very hard. Because the answer is unlikely to be whatever you might immediately think it to be.

What most people do not realise, is every part of life is ruled by the relationship that we have with money.

Everyone who has an influence on your life in some way – beyond the people you love and interact with regularly, has a relationship with you based on monetary or material value of some kind or in some way.

For an increasing number of us, a rather large penny drops to the floor at this point. But it also continues to be very hard to believe, or rather to accept, that just about every part of life and the lives that we have is measured against a financial or material value in some way.

It doesn’t matter if it’s our job, our background, our education. The list goes on and on.

Every facet or aspect of life – apart from the real, human relationships we have with other people – are ruled by what it pays, what it could pay, what it will give us, how it will look, or most importantly, what it will cost.

We fail to see the role that we all play in The System, because we all give and take at some level or to some extent in exactly the same way.

Much in the same way that alcohol does damage to the health of the individual on different timelines and in different ways, the influence that the money drug has on wider society is classed as being non-existent. Because it serves someone else’s purpose for us all to think about and see the impact of it that way.

But just as our reaction would be to all non-legalised or partially non legalised drugs would be if they were legalised, the cultural embrace and legitimisation of money and the way the disease it champions insidiously works, we overlook or make allowances for all of the damage that the role of money in life has done and is doing.

The way that drugs and money destroy lives is the same. The only difference is the way they are managed and used, deciding whether they corrupt us individually or collectively. But the impact on the very basis of the human value system is just the same.

We do not and will not reject poison when offered to us, if we do not recognise it as poison and we neither understand nor see what the damage to anyone already is, or what it will do or what it will be to us if we take or embrace it.

When society tells us something is good, the damage has to reach its extreme. The majority of people have to be damaged by that poison before the tipping point of sense can override the control of the drug, and the people who are pushing that drug.

On a micro level, the money or wealth obsessed culture could easily continue to run in cycles, where some people would thrive, and other people would be destroyed with the control that the addiction has always had upon all those addicted writing the rules. This is what has been happening across many generations in time.

But on a macro level, the rot and decay of our system of morality and ethics that the prioritisation of money has had, would only ever be able to continue until money became the only thing that matters at the highest levels and those at the top have become blind to the consequences of what obsessive behaviour of this kind really does.

The process of disease and rot that the obsession with money causes has been slowly but surely underway for centuries. But its destructiveness reached its zenith and the points of implosion when those fully under its spell and in control of the system, simply went too far and over the top with their response to the Great Financial Crisis of 2008 and what followed, their response to The European Referendum & Brexit Vote in 2016, their response to the arrival and spread of the Covid Virus in 2020 and beyond, and their response to the Russian Invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

The implosion of the money, wealth and material-based values system is where we are and the world as we know it is right now.

It feels like everything is beginning to go wrong or is already going wrong, because it is.

Inter-generational addiction may not visit its consequences upon those who first created the addiction or upon those it has been imposed. It may be proven that in terms of what society deems acceptable at any given time, the illness could take many generations being passed from father to son before the real impact and damage has been disclosed. It is, however, the same all encompassing, all controlling disease all the same.

For as long as those addicted continue to see the reward as far outweighing any semblance of cost, they will do all that they can both to maintain and to increase their supply.

That is why, even in the final moments and the death throes of this terrible system, those who have abused the role and responsibilities of leadership and government level control that they were given on trust will do all they can to ensure that The System which supplies their own fix will continue to exist. No matter what happens or how that feels to you.

If you can see it, understand it and accept it, you will know that there has to be an alternative and with it, a choice.

The alternative is a completely different people first, humanity orientated and community focused value set, that can only come into being by making the conscious decision to change the way that we think.

That choice is now yours.

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Is it possible to have a ‘Good Dictator’?

The idea of a good, benevolent dictator can be as intoxicating as the most compelling political messaging, soundbites and propaganda. Particularly when the process of looking closely at the problems with our broken Political System will quickly demonstrate that meaningful decisions rarely happen by design, because individual politicians and Political Parties are always putting their election hopes and other forms of self-interest first.

However, like most things in Politics, Government and life generally, the realities of decision making are multilayered and nuanced to say the least. I.e., just because you can streamline the process of decision making, it still doesn’t guarantee that the person or in this case, the dictator will be making Conscious decisions which are good for us all.

Whether we begin The Way of Awakened Politics for Good Government via the ‘Voluntary’ or are compelled to do so via the ‘Sudden Impact’ route, the practical reality is that at least temporarily and for a period of time, somebody – either an individual, or a very small group of individuals, will have to make and oversee the implementation of all of the key Public Policies that will make Awakened Politics and Good Government work, as it should.

By necessity, this is likely to require that we place our trust in someone to do this all for us.

To do otherwise will take significantly longer and may open the door to alternative forms of leadership and societal control that we really will not want or enjoy in any way.

As with the selection of Awakened Politicians for the future, this selection or choice will all boil down to one thing; the question of who and what will really work.

It will be by necessity the case that alongside the prevailing question of who we can trust not only to do the right things and to see them through, that they will also hand over power, once their tenure has ended and the fundamental basis of a Good Government System in in place.

This Blog is part of the e-book ‘The Way of Awakened Politics for Good Government’. Please do download a copy for your Kindle from Amazon, or alternatively, read the whole book FREE online once it is available at www.awakenedpolitics.com

Wouldn’t politicians have to be ‘Spiritual’ for Awakened Politics to work?

Politicians do not need to be ‘Spiritual’ to be ‘Awake’, ‘Conscious’ and to just be the Good Public Representatives that we should be able to expect them all to be.

The term ‘Spiritual’ is massively overused. It is used inappropriately in many cases and within the circumstances to which and to the behaviour of those to whom it is applied.

Awakened Politicians cannot be qualified by the group they belong to, by their affiliations, by the qualifications or type of experience that they have.

Awakened Politics is not about what Politicians say. Awakened Politics is all about what Politicians actually do and how they do it too.

Being a good person in the most meaningful way is not something that is within the gift of any other person, group or organisation to qualify in another, in any way.

Being ‘Conscious’ or ‘Awakened’ is not about being better than anyone else. It’s about being the best we can be. About seeing everything as it really is and responding and then acting in the best ways that it is possible for us all to do so.

Nobody has to be part of anything or be qualified in some way by anybody or anything else to be the best that they can be in every possible sense.

This Blog is part of the e-book ‘The Way of Awakened Politics for Good Government’. Please do download a copy for your Kindle from Amazon, or alternatively, read the whole book FREE online once it is available at www.awakenedpolitics.com

Good Government vs what we have today = People & Life vs Money & self-interest

For as long as the majority of people unconsciously or without thinking believe that they continue to benefit from the way that the world works today, and that those benefits outweigh what they understand to be any disadvantages for them, we all remain condemned to a world and future that will be increasingly unfair, unjust, imbalanced and a champion of pain and hatred in places where such darkness has now natural right to be or to even be seen.

That is the world today. This is where we really are. And if you cannot feel, see or experience the unfairness yourself, that quite literally means that you continue to unconsciously believe that it is ok for someone else to be disadvantaged, for them to suffer, or for you to even store up disastrous consequences for yourself that are ‘out of sight and out of mind’.

Many of us neither see, nor realise that the way we have all been living for decades and beyond is not sustainable and never has been.

We have been living unsustainably without any apparent, perceptible cost for so long, that we have all fallen into the trap of thinking that this is normal, and this is how things will always be.

The current System, mindset and way of thinking is based on feeding a manufactured or created desire for pleasure. Not happiness.

The world System functions to keep as many of us as possible blinded to our reality by providing us with a constant flow of instant hits.

Yet the cost to us all, of this money and self-interest-based system or order has and will increasingly be the compromise and destruction of our physical, mental and spiritual health.

We are quite literally living and existing within lives which run completely contrary to who we are and who we should continually be striving to be, just because of our relationship with two things:

MONEY & SELF-INTEREST

If you are able, take a moment to reflect upon how money and its bedfellow’s wealth, greed, material gain and self-interest itself have an influence or an effect on just about everything in life that is outside or external to ourselves.

Then reflect on the reality, that this thinking touches everything outside of us in just about every way, and it does so and can only do so, because we have allowed our thinking to be taken over so that everything could become this way.

Yes, you, I and everyone else has surrendered their power to this material driven world and continue to do so each and every day in even the very smallest of ways.

But we have the ability to take that power back. We can reject the desire that we have for instant gratification or pleasure that is only touches us momentarily from outside, but is nonetheless used against us by the system that is supposed to serve us, but is in fact taking everything from us in every possible way.

Happiness is a state of being that cannot be influenced, created or installed by something that is outside of us. It is by being fully Conscious or self-aware of ourselves, that The Way of Awakened Politics for Good Government will begin.

By being Conscious of ourselves, we then have the ability to be Conscious of the experience of life for others. We then have the ability to create and maintain a system of Awakened Politics and therefore Good Government too.

Good Government will work in the best possible way for everyone, because it will provide either the services, the rules & laws and the opportunities that everyone needs, rather than what each individual wants.

This Blog is part of the e-book ‘The Way of Awakened Politics for Good Government’. Please do download a copy for your Kindle from Amazon, or alternatively, read the whole book FREE online once it is available at www.awakenedpolitics.com

The foundations of Awakened Politics are self-awareness, awareness of others, values, integrity and humanity

It seems incredible that the concept and existence of an alternative values-driven world to the one we currently live and believe in must be explained. But this is where the world is and where we really are today.

The fundamental basis of Awakened Politics and therefore Good Government, is always doing the right thing for everyone, even when they are not present and represented, or it would appear that they will not be affected by whatever our Politicians are about to do.

Awakened Politics and Good Government is about valuing People or the Person, and the experience they are having, more than what is outside all of us, or what we might know as ‘things’.

When we can care and understand about ourselves, we can care and understand about others – or choose not to do so, if that should be our own genuine choice.

Politics and Government by its very nature and purpose is the care, service to and consideration of all others and the governance of all things that are external to or outside of them.

This care, service and consideration must always be provided by people who are thinking, acting and behaving in a Fully Conscious way when taking or enacting that responsibility for others.

There is and can be no in between. Or somebody, somewhere will always be failed.

This Blog is part of the e-book ‘The Way of Awakened Politics for Good Government’. Please do download a copy for your Kindle from Amazon, or alternatively, read the whole book FREE online once it is available at www.awakenedpolitics.com

What is Awakened Politics, Conscious Politics or Enlightened Politics?

Awakened Politics is the assessment, creation, proposal and pursuit of new and improved Public Policy and Community or Social solutions that are based upon, built and evolved from the point of decision-making taking place under a condition of full awareness and consideration for all factors involved, driven by the unequivocal pursuit of fairness, balance and justice, and what is in the best interests of all members of the relevant constituency involved.

As a minimum, the attributes, experience and qualities of any Awakened Politician will include their ability, commitment and will (and in no order of prioritisation):

  • To be fully self-aware.
  • To be human and to prioritise humanity, conscious thinking, actions, behaviour and life above all ‘things’.
  • To treat all other human beings as equals, in thought, in word and in deed.
  • To be able to see, understand and value all sides of an argument or dispute and undertake to always access all the information necessary and from enough sources to make a fully reasoned judgement, even when circumstances are fraught or pressurised.
  • To take all decisions on Public Policy based upon what is known to be at that moment, not on the basis of what could be, what might be or what if?
  • To make decisions that run contrary to public and media opinion or subjective narratives, even when they might appear to reflect the zeitgeist or common view.
  • To recognise and discern the needs, impacts upon of the person or upon persons they are least likely to identify with and treat them the same as if they were themselves that same person and have nothing in life to support them beyond the person that they are.
  • To not be intimidated by the perceived power and the different circumstances of any other.
  • To be able and willing to ask questions which lead to understanding of impact, motives, circumstances and likely outcome from all perspectives.
  • To understand and respect the realities of human nature in all things and in all circumstances.
  • To see, volunteer for, promote and live the role of being a Public Representative as a calling or as a vocation. Not as a job or a career.
  • To recognise the role of money, currency and all systems of payment as a method only and not as being a ‘thing’ in any sense.
  • To be the voice and reasoning of the third parties who are not present or represented, or are not ‘in the room’.
  • To be able to empathise without being emotionally compromised or without becoming emotionally entrenched, or to recognise and act accordingly when they are.
  • To have a rudimentary understanding of how business, organisations, economics and the regulations and regulatory system that governs the activities of them all work.
  • To have practical experience of working with and leading a range of different people in different working environments and circumstances.
  • Understand, question and asses the motives for something being proposed.
  • To uphold the correct decision, even when it may not be popular to do so.
  • Understand and make allowances for their own biases, aims and desires.
  • Understand the practical implications in terms of desired outcome (advantages) and the undesired outcomes (disadvantages).
  • Be able and prepared to reject proposals and solutions that create imbalances that are not essential for the greater good.
  • To see their role through impartially at all times, particularly when under pressure from subjective influences that seek to compromise the objective nature of any decision-making process.
  • To respect the outcome(s) of the accepted democratic or electoral system and method used to determine the outcome of any proper and legitimate election or plebiscite.
  • To practice the Principle of Charity in every conceivable and valid way.
  • To be able to be a leader, even when being led.
  • To understand or make allowances for the positive and negative behavioural effects of a decision.
  • To understand the impact of circumstance and relativity to conditions for people in all circumstances and situations.
  • To be able to consider and visualise the impact and consequences of Public Policy decisions up to for as many times removed as necessary, upon people, upon businesses, upon organisations, upon existing Public Policies and upon the relationship between us all and with all others.
  • To be able to make arguments based upon being constructive, improving proposals or suggestions already made, or making clear the flaws in such proposals or suggestions that may not be apparent to whoever initially made them.
  • To be able to determine exhaustively the difference between wrong and right based on the freedom of the individual to be, in relation to the freedom of all others to be, set against the needs of the community to provide public services and support that is accessible to everyone in the same way, when required, on a universal basis and no more.
  • To be able to assess and understand the process of conditioning that creates innate or unconscious prejudices as well as those which the person is aware of, and how these influence behaviour and impact society when that person has an influential role. They will be particularly aware and conscious of any such prejudices within themselves.
  • To be able to look beyond the detrimental behaviour of any individual group and consider their needs impartially, as they would do any other individual or group.
  • To be committed to localisation, deglobalisation and the priority of the community, our communities and our Country, from the grassroots up.
  • To be committed to working collaboratively with all other nation states for reason of mutual benefit without relinquishing or surrendering political control to any person, organisation or government of any type that would have the ability to create, impose or police governance of any kind upon people, businesses, organisations or public bodies of any kind that they themselves are responsible to and have been elected to represent.
  • To see and treat Government, Governance and The Public Sector as tools of facilitation to be used on behalf of The Public for the Public and Greater Good, and that they are not and should not ever be treated or considered to be an entity that can prioritise itself or its existence in any way or at any time.
  • To never surrender the power to decide on behalf of the relevant constituency that has been entrusted to them to any Political Party, Ideology, Social or Demographic Group, subjective interest or bias of any kind, for the full period of their elected or appointed term, or until the moment they have chosen to relinquish that responsibility and formally stepped down.

And more.

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

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

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

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

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

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

How did we get here?

To put it as simply as possible. The reason that we are here today, is because we have accepted and enabled the wrong people to be in control, and those people have been in control for too long.

Greed, envy and the desire for wealth has built, propagated and redesigned existing parts of the system so that the values that we once had and should always have had, have been replaced by a view of the world which makes us always ask the same question: ‘What is it worth?’

Real life, a life based on values, care for each other, care for our environment and care or respect for all the things that we don’t understand, has been completely replaced by money and material wealth as a benchmark.

We have literally forgotten what we are all about.

Levelling Level | The End of Money as we know it

Much of Levelling Level has focused on everything that we know around us changing – and the way it will require us to change the way that we think.

With money being the key driver or lifeblood of the system we know; a system that is already in freefall, it is inevitable that the value of the money we use will collapse.

Money as we know it will become worthless in terms of daily use, until the new system is fully operational and the use of money as a functional tool has replaced the role of money driving every part of life and thinking for all.

Whilst there will always be a need for a common currency at National Level, the new way of doing business will like everything else with meaning coming and being created from the grassroots up.

Circumstances really will dictate the need for a correction with money – and what money is really about, to the level of ground zero.

Like everything of value, its people and not the technology of the system itself, that must be used to define what it is all about

Nobody has the right to make a profit

Nobody has the right to make a profit. They certainly do not have the right to make a profit by exploiting others, or by forcing them into arrangements that they simply cannot afford.

Yet this is the situation that exists in this Country today, simply because our MPs and Politicians – the people we have trusted to look after us – are not doing and are not up to the job.

Prices are at the highs that they are and are now rising all the time, because it is in the interests of others for them to do so.

The prices that we are being asked to pay, simply do not reflect the real – and much lower costs.

Self-interest is a powerful influence, because those who are driven to do everything that benefits themselves are more than happy to bring others into their plans so that one becomes just a few who benefit from the result.

Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should

Those who are able to dictate prices are not doing so on the basis of taking only what they need. For the same reasons as that absence of checks and balances, they charge whatever they want and take whatever they want not because they should or because they need to, but because they can.

Levelling Level

The Tory Right named their latest response to it Levelling Up. For decades, Labour and the Left have responded to it with public policy that adds up to levelling down.

But what is ‘it’? Do our politicians actually know what ‘it’ is? What is ‘it’ they don’t understand?

Today, we find ourselves in the early stages of a cost-of-living crisis and a fall in living standards that is the worst since records began. But these are only some of the issues we now face.

Social mobility, debt, housing, energy, inflation or stagflation, healthcare, climate change, education, wealth inequality, fake news, crime, wokeism and many other problems join the list that’s fast growing into this out-of-control crisis that is touching everything we know, too.

Change is happening around us in ways that make very little sense. Yet the messages we hear in the media and from our politicians suggest that everything is as fine as it can be. It is leading many of us to assume that we are alone with our views and feelings; thinking that we must be going mad.

The UK is the person with major health problems. It’s in a beauty salon, where every wannabe politician must be seen as top dog by everyone. But this political class are just the Saturday morning trainees, only able to sweep up and comb hair*. They smile sweetly and tell the Country that having a great look is all it takes to fix the problems experienced by all. Meanwhile, what the UK really needs is every form of medical surgery known, with the mental health care and physical rehabilitation necessary to make every part of our system work together, returning the UK to full fitness and providing fair and balanced lives for everyone in the shortest time possible.

With an establishment obsessed with sound bites and messages, rather than public policy that has real depth, Adam Tugwell unpicks the realities of Levelling Up, levelling down and decades of mismanagement and self-interest from a political class that simply isn’t up to the job.

Adam demonstrates that the broken tools of a flawed political age will always leave someone, somewhere behind, and shows that our politicians are repeatedly failing to create the social backstop that the UK needs to stop anyone being avoidably disadvantaged.

Levelling Level focusses on the inevitable process of change affecting everything around us that underway today. It discusses how we can harness the experiences that will accompany the challenges that we face to make life better by establishing a Basic Living Standard for all.

Levelling Level proposes that it is not money and financial wealth, but people and the way that our society treats its poorest and most vulnerable that underscores our real value, success and health as communities and as a Nation.

Levelling Level is a solution to the UKs problems that works for all.

*The qualified hairdressers are the government officers and civil servants, or people who like to ‘nudge’

We need a good dictator

CycleThe disturbing thing about the mess we are now in is that many people – and in that number I include many politicians – don’t know that we are already in it.

Rishi Sunak’s prediction that we are heading into a very severe recession overlooks the reality that he caused it and that the financial measures he used to do so are fuelling the perception that nothing has changed economically.

Then there is PM Boris Johnson, who unleashed the Lockdown, using messages to plant the seed of Coronavirus fear in the minds of many that continues to grow and flourish like the most immovable of weeds.

Now that the questions are being asked and Politicians know that the spotlight is beginning to shine on their mistakes, we find that we are returning to what we experienced all the way throughout the Brexit impasse.

It was made clear that we have the wrong politicians in power. That the system only allows the faces and the words they use to change. The motives and the morality underpinning this broken and desperately self-serving culture remain arduously the same.

Democracy isn’t working in this Country. It will not do so for as long as the political system and the people who gain access to Government Seats and power remain the same.

It is a vicious cycle. We will not get the right people in politics whilst the wrong people hold all the levers of power. We will have the wrong people in power until we get the right people into politics.

We need single-minded, selfless determination at the top of Government, not just to get us through the crisis and problems that are now crossing the horizon, but to drive through the changes in public services that are long overdue.

To address the massive issues of inequality that exist from the top to the bottom of society, we require determination and a unique form of bloody mindedness, resilience and ruthlessness to see it through.

Leadership of this kind will not be possible under the system of Government and the democratic processes that we have whilst it remains under the control of the existing political parties who have a monopoly on who our controlling MPs will continue to be.

During the coming crisis, we need to turn away from this broken form of politics and embrace the political thinking and tools that are needed to facilitate the changes that we need to be made.

This can only be achieved with one person, one mind and one vision in charge of the Nation.

We need someone who understands the lives and thinking of people of all backgrounds, and how businesses and organisations work.

We need someone who can think through the consequences of government action before decisions are even made, and see problems on the horizon long before they come into public view.

We need someone who is confident in us as a Nation, respecting each and every one of us as the adults that we are.

Above all, we need someone who is detached from the siren call of the media, who thinks and sees everything, everyone and what they say generously, but critically, using facts and an understanding of human nature to determine what steps and policies are in the best interests of everyone for the Country to pursue.

In the times ahead we need balance and consideration in leadership above all else as we look to a better post COVID-19 World and the opportunities for something better for all that it will give us.

We have never needed a good dictator to take charge of our destiny like we do right now.

Now is the time to find that good dictator.

Government should be ensuring that people can afford to live on a basic income, not make cheap headlines from a non enforceable wage

Our MPs are so busy getting drunk on their own power and glory, they really have lost sense of reality with the policies that they continue to propose.

The problem is that without looking at the detail more deeply – as the people we have trusted to run this Country really should – the soundbites that they keep pumping out in isolation sound all so very good.

In quick succession, we have had the Liberal Democrats. the Labour Party and now the Conservatives throwing out policies from their Conference platforms that have been designed as nothing more than cheap tricks to buy voters off.

Promising the earth and then failing to deliver has very little cost for the unscrupulous politicians involved.

But policies like simply cancelling Brexit, reducing the working week for everyone to 32 hours and raising the ideal hourly rate for the Living Wage has a real impact that will not deliver the beneficial experience that these politicians are suggesting they can control.

Pretending that Brexit and the vote that led to it can simply be cancelled as if it never happened would be beyond stupid and would have very serious consequences for everyone – no matter what fairytales those obsessed with Remaining in the EU would like us to be told.

But what we earn and how we earn it not only has an everyday effect on how we live our lives, it is also all about what we can afford.

Politicians on all sides are completely out of touch with what it actually costs us to live. The reality is that even on a 40-hour-week paid at £10.50 per hour in 5 years time, thats only £420 per week or £21,840 per annum. It’s not enough today for a single adult without children to be self sufficient, let alone tread water or basically survive.

The cost of living in this Country is stupidly out of control.

The way that we measure the health and success of our economy should not be wage rates and rises, GDP or statistics in any other form. But whether the poorest amongst us can look after and completely fend for themselves on the basic minimum wage without going into debt, claiming benefits or having to look to charities to someway get involved.

The way that a more enlightened government or MPs who actually know and have respect for what they are doing would achieve this is to actually use the power and responsibility that they have been given to make changes the the framework that business and finance operates within. Not to tinker on the edges by applying sticking plasters that will have already lost their ability to heal anything by the time that they come into use.

Too many businesses, financiers and property owners are taking too much value out of every product and every service that is provided in this Country, without putting like-for-like benefits back in.

The system is complex and complicated and few of us really understands how finance, markets and supply chains work. But the benefit is all going one way right now and continuing to take the most from the people who can least afford it. All so the people at the top of the chain can keep adding to a cash pile they have no genuine need to use, whilst looking at the ease with which they can work the system and concluding that they can take even more.

Politicians should not only know, but be acting proactively to address this. Not to eliminate the financiers, business people and economists like Labour might like to do so. But to introduce a considered set of ethics and regulation in every aspect of business in this Country, so that end users are only ever paying whats fair for the basic products and services that are essential to live and survive. But above all, is no more than what they can actually afford.

Until we have politicians prepared to take the steps necessary to address the real cause of the cost of living problem, the way that economics work means that the people who are now having to go into debt, look to the government or charities just to get by and stay alive will continue to see life as something that they simply cannot afford.

 

 

This Parliament is a joke that would be funny if the actions of our MPs were not so serious. They are doing nothing less than opening the safety doors that enclosed our democracy and inviting a revolution in

images (16)Observing the chaos that has been caused in Parliament by the exquisite mixture of self interest, ignorance and lack of moral standing on the part of so many of our existing MPs has become frightening. Frightening for the real people outside of politics, who until these past three years have relied upon our system of government to be reliably always there when it comes to doing what it is that MPs, Ministers and PMs should do.

But our MPs are drunk on what they perceive as their own power. They lost all sense of reality when they sold their souls to this establishment’s system.

They have left real people outside of Westminster with literally no idea where this is all heading nor where it will actually end.

Yet they genuinely believe that they are in control of everything that they do.

For years that number centuries, British people have been able to rely upon a system of checks and balances, that without need for anything more than the gentlemanly handshake that was representative of the trustworthy Britain of old, has kept our system of government moving – albeit through transfer of power to complete opposites as well as long-waiting successors, at any time that momentum has been lost, mistakes have been made or the incumbent in No10 has simply become too old.

But the days when MPs and this Country’s leaders were self aware enough and had the moral fortitude to simply ‘do the right thing’ when their time was done have now long since gone.

The stupidity of MPs who are either being deliberately obtuse or simply too stupid to know and understand why they were elected, has driven our system of governance to the point of destruction.

Not content with barricading themselves within our Parliament and seeing themselves as the squatters that they are, or accepting that they have overstayed their welcome and that they should leave; these pretenders to the principles of democracy have now gone even further, not only seeking but securing the dubious intervention of the Courts to endorse their unscrupulousness.

Together, they have underlined the reality that power in this Country is no longer in the hands of the people that Parliament and our Courts are supposed to serve.

The British People have the right to be frightened. Because in the General Election that is soon to come we are not being offered anything different or anything that is good.

In this General Election we will only have the choice of electing MPs who will be motivated by their own set of self-serving values. Whether new candidates or those who will plan on returning, everything will continue to be just the same.

The reason we have got to where we are is because the whole system has become about keeping itself going. It has reached the stage where it just perpetuates pain.

Without fundamental change to the way that political parties operate and the pool of candidates that it offers us is selected, all forms of government in this country are now destined to remain institutionally corrupt.

The British People are awakening to this. Deep down and viscerally we know and understand that the more these people in power today tell us that things are changing and have changed, the more they actually stay the same.

We have now reached a time when so many of these very same MPs blow off steam by projecting the guilt they carry for their own actions onto others that question them by branding them with names they themselves don’t understand such as ‘fascists’ and many other derogatory things.

But they do not realise that it is they themselves who through their dismissal and disrespect of the very system that gave them their opening and opportunity, are now opening the very door to a new form of governance that could very well end up encapsulating all that they suggest they are afraid of and more.

Many will scoff at such sentiment. But what the use of power without thought on this level invites is nothing less than a revolution.

Because it is now becoming clear to the silent majority of the People in this Country that the apparatus has been removed or rendered meaningless that would in other hands have provided us, the Electorate with the choice of a real political alternative that can be trusted to democratically win.

 

image thanks to unknown

 

 

 

 

 

A deal at any cost is no deal at all

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Abraham Lincoln once said ‘nearly all men can stand adversity. But if you want to test a man’s character, give him power’.

Sadly, when our Members of Parliament do not pay attention to how the events they are involved in unfold and how other MPs have behaved around them as they have in recent days, weeks and months, it is hard to imagine that they consider the lessons provided by such figures from history to be worthy of any great thought.

Regrettably, such an approach on the part of our Elected Representatives comes at most disadvantage not to them, but to us, the People who Elected them. And we have the right to expect them to learn not only from history, but also from every opportunity as each and every one of them comes along.

Today, this avoidably chaotic Brexit process has reached a point where pretty much everyone outside of Westminster, despite MPs best efforts, has the true measure of what our MPs are doing. What their motivations are and what is now going wrong with British Politics full stop.

The general population may not be positioned or indeed be able to elucidate the reasoning of their position and views as eloquently as some of the Politicians who spend the better part of their lives in the media view.

But neglecting the reality that the views and thoughts of each and every one of us are as real, if indeed not more so than any of our MPs themselves, is a position that every Member of Parliament should now be considering in light of how clear the desperate nature of our Prime Minister’s and her Government’s Position on Brexit has now become.

We are faced with a situation where MPs should know from a catalogue of past experience that the EU was not going to play ball over reopening May’s ‘deal’. Just as it should be very clear to them that this is a Prime Minister prepared to do and say anything to stay in Office and keep her legacy in the form of her Brexit Withdrawal Agreement untouched and very much alive.

It is in light of this reality that we now see the possibility of pork barrel politics emerge, or what is in effect the prospect of individual Labour MPs being bought off with financial sweeteners for their Constituencies coming in to view.

With democracy in the UK so obviously in peril due to the behaviour of MPs already, the advent of this approach by a Prime Minister, who should long since of had the dignity to step aside, is both dark and worrying indeed. Not least of all because it is us, the same people who are being ignored by an Establishment preoccupied with stopping a meaningful Brexit, who are yet again being treated as if we are mushrooms. Treated as if it is ok to attempt to keep us in the dark, and that being fed on a diet of informational horseshit is all it will ultimately take to get whatever plan they have passed without us realising what they are doing.

However, the Prime Minister and all those with her who are willing to trash our democracy should be aware of one very big point.

We can all see exactly what they are now doing, and a deal at any cost is no deal at all.

The Prime Minister and her Government does not have a mandate to push through her flawed idea of Brexit at any cost. Neither does any majority constructed of our sitting MPs.

Any form of Brexit based on anything other than the genuine Will of the People – no matter how those against it choose to interpret it for their own aims, will not be legitimate.

As such it could, should and almost certainly would be overturned if they should appear to succeed in achieving what are clearly dubious aims.

It is what the cost will be to this Country, to our People and to our future because of this ridiculous, irresponsible and self-serving behavior on the part of Politicians who should know a lot better, that should now be of the greatest concern.

 

 

When we accept that money changing hands is not the only benchmark that identifies a corrupt Government we soon begin to understand what’s wrong

No, Brexit is not the only ailment affecting this Government. In fact, what the slippage of time and the way we simply overlook so much allows is the strange and growing idea that there weren’t any problems before Brexit came along.

This is of course complete bullshit.

But it’s useful if you are a politician and you know that you have lost control of the very comfortable gravy train that you have been holidaying on, all too often for a very long time indeed.

For some reason, deeply embedded in our psyches is the strange idea that behaviour is either acceptable or unacceptable depending upon whether it fits within some written or identifiable set of rules.

Yes, the ambiguity of what we call social norms presents an increasingly difficult challenge when so many people are hell bent on changing the communal perception of what is considered to be acceptable – often for purposes which are only aligned to their own.

But without this interference, there had existed a code which worked well until the point when it allows something to go very, very wrong.

Set in this mould is the definition or understanding of what it is or means to be corrupt. And to what it means to therefore miss behaviour which should be included, which is not, and that which through its absence explains a great many things about the way that the world and our political system actually works and impacts upon us all right now.

In its purest form, corrupt action or behaviour is apportioned to financial payments or monetary payoffs to secure contracts, favours or influence in Government.

We hate it.

We hate just the idea.

We hate even the slightest whiff of it.

That is why the Parliamentary Expenses Scandal created such a furor.

But is that the nearest that the UK ever gets to experiencing anything corrupt within the Governmnet System?

I would say no.

And if we open ourselves up to the real definition of corruption and what it is to be corrupt, we soon realise that in fact, there is a whole lot more besides.

During 8 years as a Borough Councillor, I never actually saw money changing hands between Councillors, Officers and the 3rd Parties beyond. But the smoke which was the tell-tale of brown envelopes was never far from conversation, particularly when planning matters were being discussed. It was very clear to other Councillors and members of the general public that decisions went very differently to what it would have been fair and reasonable to expect on a number of occasions and that it was as such only fair to assume that there had been some kind of preferential or pecuniary treatment involved, as there was simply no other logic to support it.

Smoke however, isn’t in itself a form of proof. And whilst I still find myself writing about questionable planning practices which carry the overriding suggestion that there is an unseen force or influence involved, we cannot prove anything against anyone until some form of proof has surfaced which proves that they – and their corrupt practices were actually involved.

But the problem runs much deeper.

Finding that brown envelope or the trail of a financial transaction is much easier than it will ever be than to prove that impartiality of thought does not exist and therefore preferences or prejudices are being employed at a very non-evidential level.

Corrupt behaviour is far more than just that which is focused upon money changing hands.

You are corrupt and engaged in corrupt practice the moment that any form of bias is entertained in the execution of a choice or decision taken from a position of public responsibility whether that position be elected, appointed or some form of agency is involved.

To give this some context, we all find the stories of MP’s appointing family members, old boys networks and friends of friends getting plumb jobs in industry a very distasteful practice – and this is when there is no discernable link or impact upon the public involved.

Look a little closer and you soon know that any form of discrimination which disadvantages what should be the natural choice for a role, decision or policy will inevitably have negative consequences that reach far beyond the obvious. We can only conclude that corrupt behaviour has been involved.

Play all this out on a National stage and when you see politicians gorging themselves over the trough of opportunities that face them, we can soon see that money changing hands is in no way near as damaging to the practice of trading off their votes and therefore responsibility in exchange for career benefits, job security, patronage or where any opportunity to make a name for oneself has become involved.

We also forget that self-interest neglects the responsibility to ideas, actions and practices which will benefit the many, rather than just the few.

And in the days of Brexit, this is perhaps the most damaging and reprehensible form of corruption which is plaguing all of our Parliament, because this sell out is over the future of an entire nation. The cost of which is incalculable to everyone beyond those who have the positions of influence and power today, where priorotising themselves is the only motivation they consider to have voice enough to listen to and to allow to become involved.

 

 

 

 

It’s time to have confidence in our own destiny and accept that in today’s World, standing alone will make the UK a whole lot more

‘We are doomed!’ is the current epitaph of the Remain-at-all-costs and all those amongst us who live by the belief that this Country cannot and is incapable of doing anything on its own.

The sell-out mentality which has gripped the direction of both the Media and the Government itself would be best placed in the archaic nest hole which would be the foredeck of some wrecked ship as it deceptively lifted into the air before crashing into the see and coming to rest in the dark, freezing depths way below. Not in the foreground of one of the greatest opportunities that the UK has stood in front of for past generations and beyond.

Many of the self-interested politicians and influencers who are so convinced of the need to remain in the comfort zone which they believe to be in their own image, mistakenly consider their own destiny to be entwined with that of the whole Country and the People who surround them, not realising that self belief of an entire Nation does not equate with their own gutlessness and is in fact the key to something much better for us all after we leave the EU and step bravely into the world of our making which will soon follow beyond.

‘Doing it properly’, by embracing a pathway even more rigorously than anyone has done so before, doesn’t mean that you can suddenly make the unworkable work.

It means that you are blind to what everything around you is telling you. That you are a fool and are setting yourself – and in this case a great many innocent people – up for a very big fall.

However, whilst that can be viewed as the inevitable further integration with the EU that will happen if the Remainers should ever get their way, or indeed the catastrophe which will follow Corbyn’s Labour in the form of a Marxist mess if they win a General Election against a Conservative Party that is still led by May, it does not fit with the evolving class of political opportunists who will align themselves with what resembles the best option to facilitate a rise in their own fortunes.

With the May ‘deal’ unattractive to even some of the most militant Remainers, it was inevitable that many other pretenders would push themselves into the leadership frame, championing some other cause or another painted up or repackaged idea, selling it as the new and improved or latest form of the same old Holy Grail which will ultimately deliver everything for them, but nothing for anyone else.

We have had Norway, Canada plus plus plus and even something about Switzerland from the quasi-Brexiteer brigade. Now we are having Singapore MK2 as the model posted by the born-again-Brexiteers who in the Summer of 2016 sounded almost identically like everything we heard from then new Prime Minister Theresa May.

If it sounds like we are going around in circles, it is because we are.

Nothing is going to change until we, as a Country, break new ground and literally stop going round and round.

Our future is not to remain inextricably linked with the ‘European Project’.

Nor is it to parrot ourselves or model our future on the past, present or future of any other Country.

Their destiny is theirs, just as our National destiny is very much our own.

The obsession with plans has to stop if we are ever to begin succeeding.

The future of the UK depends upon proper Leadership, not some dubious plan measured up against a PH Scale where Acid & Alkaline have been replaced with Leave & Remain.

Our political classes are simply out of any new ideas.

UK politics is without original thinking.

And so it is little wonder that our would-be leaders are raking around everywhere to find something new to anchor their dimming light to, whilst attempting to rally a new direction from the other politicians around them. Politicians who themselves are so self-obsessed, that they can no longer discern the benefits of being within and working for a community as the only surety for them comes from the reliance on ideas which are their own.

We are now perilously close to a point where we will need an entirely new parliament. One untainted by the corruption and self interest of the existing party political system and the obsession with benefit and kudos to the individual, disregarding members responsibility to the electorate who elevated them to their positions. A responsibility they now take for granted and believe that they possess and therefore own.

‘We can be the new Singapore’, ‘be just like Sweden’, or ‘model ourselves as perfect Europeans’.

How about actually just being happy with being British. Having confidence in our own destiny and accepting the truth that in today’s World, standing alone will make the UK a whole lot more?

 

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We don’t need any more of the same.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Everything is relative to our experience.

Some of us feel like things are good.

Some of us feel like things are bad.

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

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

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

Relationships are at the root of everything

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A World around us that doesn’t care

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Aims and principles, not just policies

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 Law for Law’s sake

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The role of Money

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Taking ambition out of politics

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

Politics today has lost its way.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 A new world – Respecting rather than surrendering to technology

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It wont.

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

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

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

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

The Electoral system

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

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

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

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

The Executive

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

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

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

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

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

The role of Media

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

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

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

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

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

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

From the Grassroots up

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

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

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

Quality of life must be defined from the grassroots up.

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

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

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

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

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

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Ethics & Principles for Politics

Regrettably, we live at a time when many people think that Politicians always lie and that they don’t have any principles.

Some of today’s politicians have adopted the principle that if they tell people things are different, that they will simply be different.

They won’t.

As you are here reading How to get Elected, I am hopeful that you are one of a growing number of public minded individuals who want to put aside self-interest, and work towards the goal of creating something better for all, whether that should be working alone, or working with other like-minded people – no matter what background they might come from.

Having rules that you stick to – a personal code if you like, is essential to have in your toolkit, if you are determined to succeed as a local campaigner and good politician, working towards the goal of delivering something better for all.

Ultimately, we all have the ability to make choices and decisions which rise above any form of bias and focus on the best results for all – even when those around us argue that we are being impractical, or suggest that we simply don’t understand how everything works.

Doing what is right can be a very lonely place. But you can always sleep at night.

If you always stick to what you know to be right, remain open to changing your mind when you realise you are wrong, and treat others with respect and courtesy at all times – even when their behaviour has upset you in some way, you will never go far wrong.

Here are the few basic principles I believe all politicians could benefit from adopting, using and ‘living’ in politics. If we all did so, this Country would soon become a very different place!

People before Politics.

Every decision that Politicians make should be focused on the benefit to the majority of people; not the priorities of the few or of the Politicians themselves.

Practicality before Perfection.

We all like the idea of living in a perfect world, but perfection can only ever be an aim in an imperfect world and Politicians must make decisions based upon their practical impact; not just on what they would like to see.

Policies made in isolation lead to isolationist Policies.

Just as one policy may be used as an excuse not for enacting another, new policies should not be created without consideration of their real impact upon or collectively with others.

Politicians now need to review the whole System and not use the size of this task as an excuse for not doing so.

Politics is better when it isn’t Personal.

Politics should never be about personalities and when it is, it is a sure sign that those talking are thinking primarily about themselves.

Fear is no excuse in itself.

Any policy made only with emotion and feeling in mind does not consider the wider picture and the full implications.

Too many decisions have historically been made by Politicians because of a climate of fear.

Over-reaction and under-reaction can be destructive in equal measure and however emotive a subject can be, emotions are personal and do not reflect consideration for what is best for the majority in its strictest and most comprehensive sense.

One size never fits all.

We are all different and policies must recognise and embrace those differences in all ways, but without recourse to any form of discrimination whether that be positive or negative.

Decisions affecting us all similarly should be made by Central Government, whilst decisions based upon Locality should rest in the Locality with Local People and their Political Representatives.

Central Government has as much responsibility to reflect, consider and act upon the decisions made by Local Representatives as it does have the right to ask others to respect the decisions which are made universally for us all.

Lifestyle choices should be for those living that life.

The preferences and actions of individuals should never be questioned or put in doubt so long as they do not compromise the physical safety, security, lifestyle and freedom of choice of others. A crisis of conscience for one, is no excuse in itself to prevent the lifestyle choices of another and Government should never support it as such.