Tag: Local Elections

Preparing for Elections

It is important to remember that Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE is neither a Book nor a Guide for Election Candidates, once they have been Endorsed by a Community Meeting will need to do as part of an Election campaign itself.

Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE is about the creation of circumstances where Candidates for Elected Public Offices have been vetted, selected, approved and endorsed by the Community to be on our ballot papers as a ‘recommended for, by and on behalf of this Community’ choice.

In time, being Endorsed by a Community Meeting to run as a Candidate in any Election will be enough, in itself, to attract Votes from a significant number of People. Much in the same way that the majority of political candidates get backed by People right now. Not because of who they are. But because of which Political Party they are running with.

It may be a relatively short time until your Endorsed Candidate(s) attract that kind of support. But that time could well prove be longer than the time between now and the next Election in your area.

Ideally, your Community Meeting will Endorse Candidates to run in the next Election that is scheduled or expected.

Whenever that Election might be, it is essential your Endorsed Candidates begin work on campaigning across the area and connecting with Members of the Community, in very much the same way as you will be doing yourself.

Until such time as a shared name or political vehicle might be needed and agreed upon to bring all Community Meeting endorsed or approved Candidates together, the best way for any Candidate to consider themselves for the purposes of registering with your local Democratic Services or Elections Office, is to run as an ‘Independent’ candidate.

The very first book that I wrote and published, “How to Get Elected” is intended to help Independent Candidates in a way that is almost identical to the support that your Endorsed Candidates are likely to need right now.

You will find the whole book split up into pages and available to read FREE HERE. (The FREE version is much easier to access from a PC, where the page titles are listed in order, on the right-hand side of the screen).

Alternatively, you can buy and download a copy of How to get Elected for Kindle from Amazon HERE.

How to Get Elected is a self-help or ‘How to’ guide that covers all the things a Candidate needs to be aware of or to consider, with a lot of additional thoughts, experience and tips thrown in.

Like Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE, the way to get the very best value from the book, How to Get Elected, is to read it all the way through, without missing anything out.

How to Get Elected will fill in all the gaps that need to be crossed by Candidates, before other support and help may become available.

CLICK HERE FOR THE NEXT PAGE

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This Three-Way ‘Mainstream Political Party’ monopolistic circus won’t end until we choose to look and interact with Politics in a VERY different way.

Right now, the counts for the 2023 Local Elections are still underway within some of the Councils that opted against counting votes overnight.

I, like many who have an interest in politics, would have previously sat up most of the night, watching the results. Yet the truth of the matter is that there is very little point in doing so these days, because either an exit poll at the end of the day of a General Election, or perhaps the first hour of results coming in during the Local Election counts, will very quickly point to the next stage of the mess that we are all in.

If politics in the UK wasn’t as broken and self-serving as it now is, it wouldn’t even be worth doing that, because there would be no clear indication of what might lie ahead, until all of the results are actually in.

That we have learned to accept and believe it to be normal that we are subject to a three-way political monopoly where the only change will be the position of the blue, yellow and red deckchairs on the deck of this particular Titanic is a major travesty in itself.

However, none of us – including the ‘outsider’ parties and upcoming political groups or movements, see, understand or accept that it the UK Political System is a closed shop.

By simply waiting for elections to come around and then joining the queue – under the assumption that different messages are all that it will take to create a meaningful power shift – and therefore be the key – countless ‘new’ parties have joined a growing graveyard of those who found themselves momentarily in the public spotlight as they walked up to the door, but then found themselves asking the question ‘why don’t people get it’, as the door is slammed in their face and their arse hits the floor.

Familiarity breeds contempt. But it also fools the unknowing into believing that the untrustworthy are people who we can trust.  

Put it like this, if you were to ask anyone in the street to choose between a well-known car brand and one that they’ve never heard of before, which one do you think they will point at and like?

It’s the same basic equation for people who still believe that they can trust our politicians and the Establishment they represent – only with a choice of three well known brand names that hide very old models involved.

Whilst I’ve just offered an explanation of the mechanics of why people a) vote the way they do and b) why some of them chop and change their minds in the same way as they would out car shopping, the real elephant in the room with all of this is that anyone who has real reason to ask WHY this is continuing to happen isn’t doing so – whether they are the voters themselves OR the would-be politicians and activists who are lining up in the belief that the next election will be THEIR day.

It is not only frustrating, but also frightening that normal people and all those who want to get themselves or an organisation they represent into power don’t already and actively refuse to see that there is not only a different way to play the Establishment at its own game. It will not even need a key, because if done right, it will simply remove all the walls.

  1. STOP TELLING PEOPLE WHAT THEY SHOULD THINK.
  2. STOP RELYING ON POLLSTERS, LIKES, FOLLOWS AND THE SWEET WORDS OF THOSE IN YOUR ECHO CHAMBERS TO HAVE ALL YOUR BIASES CONFIRMED.
  3. STOP LOOKING UP AND THINKING YOU CAN BETTER THE IDIOCY OF THE IDIOTS IN POWER.
  4. LOOK DOWN, LOOK ACROSS, LOOK TO THE PEOPLE IN YOUR OWN COMMUNITIES AS WELL AS ALL THOSE YOU KNOW AND LOVE. ASK THEM TO GIVE YOU THE ANSWERS TO HOW OUR WORLD SHOULD WORK AND WHAT A GOOD LIFE WOULD LOOK LIKE.
  5. THEN AND ONLY THEN, TAKE ALL THAT YOU HAVE LEARNED, KEEP COMMUNICATING AND GET TO WORK.

No change to the electoral system, no voter ID measure, no focus on words that show just how our of touch the mainstream political parties really are is going to have the impact on voters that treating us all like adults and giving everyone the genuine opportunity to be involved and to have our opinion valued, will.

When the Local Election results aren’t as you expect, please bear in mind that change will not come if the new just treats voters the same way as the old  

This Thursday – 4th May, will once again see Local Elections for Councils up and down the Country.

Bearing in mind that these Parish, Town, Borough, District, County and Unitary Authorities provide decision making that ranges from the site of your next neighbourhood dog bin, to how people in local social care end up being helped, we should all be clear that every one of these seats that some of us will be voting for have real value in our world through the application of what those politicians do for the next four years, once elected.

The trouble is, that many people don’t.

In fact, a significant number of normal people really don’t understand that there are 4 or 5 different tiers of government, depending upon where we live. Furthermore, that each of these local authorities have responsibility for different things. And that we are all represented by different politicians at each of these levels, who then vote on our behalf when the relevant council meets and makes decisions about the public policies that they have specific responsibility for taking care of.

Culturally, whilst we have local news channels and local newspapers that have now pretty much all migrated from hard or paper copies to being online, the way that news works and is encouraged to work by the Establishment means that unless people are genuinely interested in which politician does what and where, it’s all to easy to fall into the trap of believing that pretty much every election is based around voting Labour, Liberal Democrat or Conservative.

By default, people really do believe that local and national politics are one and the very same thing.

When life was not falling apart for us in quite the same way as it is doing so for so many different people as it is today, there were very few people who really had any interest in what would happen if people stopped focusing on London politics and instead began to view the importance of local elections in at least the same, or perhaps a more important way.

That so many more are now, should be good reason for hope. But is not. Because in very simple terms, the people who are now viewing the political paradigm in the UK and the role it plays in what is going wrong and realising that things need to be done differently, are still falling into the trap of believing that a different name, a different face, different words and a different party will be the only difference that change will take.

What too many of us don’t see is that the ‘alternatives’ we have today from ‘outside’ of the Establishment, might sound different. But their approach, their motivation and the entitled expectation that a majority of people will vote for them just because they are the ones that sound different, is regrettably just the same as the Establishment stooges they want to replace.

Nobody in politics is doing anything different right now. The reason that people from within and from outside the Establishment are in politics are based on the very same outlook. Its principally the idea that ‘my way is the right way’, coupled with the foolish expectation that voters will automatically come to their banner, because everyone can now see that all the others are wrong.

They don’t and they won’t.

No matter how creative with changing the electoral system the smaller and less openly represented ‘outsider’ parties might want to be, so that election results correspond to and supply them with seats based upon current voting trends, there is a clear reason that it is only ever the blue, red and yellow deck chairs that get moved around the deck of this Titanic.

All politicians – whether elected or outside of power – are continuing to treat people and the diversity of different views and life experiences that exist with contempt, rather than with the respect and humility that each and every member of our society truly deserves from those who would be trusted to represent them.

When the results are in from the 2023 Local Elections, probably during the 24 hours we will identify as Friday, there could well have been a few independents elected here and there, or candidates representing parties such as Reform UK, The SDP or The ADF.

But where ‘outsiders’ have experienced success it will be limited and, will inevitably be a lot more to do with how the candidates have presented themselves at a local level, to local people.

After all, Local Elections are where getting elected is genuinely possible for any candidate, IF they apply themselves in a way that connects with enough people. Successful ‘outsiders’ must demonstrate that they have a cut-through in terms of credibility that steps well beyond the ‘safe bet’ tribalism of going Lib Dem, Tory or Labour, just leaving the ‘same-old, same-olds’ to spout the same old stories and come back in another four years, telling us that they are the right ones to put right then, what they should have already long-since achieved.

That focusing on our own ideas instead of working together in unity and coalescing around what we have in common is in effect going in different directions and pulls that commonality we share apart, shouldn’t be a point being missed by anyone who believes that we now must have massive change.

But that’s exactly what is happening.

People who already have platforms, or in turn have even bigger platforms outside of the Establishment, are ignoring those who don’t have the same, simply because they mistakenly believe that those they see as being down the pecking order should know their place and fall in behind.

It’s more of the same Top-Down thinking that is already at the root of all the thinking and behaviour that caused all of the problems we have and are experiencing right now.

Nothing will change and nothing will end up being in anyway different until everyone ‘outside’ of the Establishment and the Establishment political parties stop aspiring to be even higher up a tree from which they are already looking down on others, when the power for the change that’s coming must be harnessed and therefore born from the grassroots instead.

Please remember that all of the Elections that we have and experience right now are part of the Establishment timetable. So for as long as any thinking is aligned with the premise that democracy can only exist or work on terms that will always work better for them, the end results are almost certain to end up with us experiencing worse or at best more of the same.

The change that we all want and that we all need will not come from regurgitating or reforming any of the ideas and thinking that we accept as being normal now, or that we have considered to be normal in the past.

It’s time to have faith in and to trust other people – and especially the ones we don’t believe we agree with or have previously looked down upon – and begin the conversation where everyone’s experience has value and matters.

That’s where a real and successful democratic revolution will be born.

Questions to ask Candidates who (bother to) knock on your door during the Local Elections:

If you are reading this blog, there is a very good chance that you are fed up with politics and with politicians.

There is an even bigger chance that the last thing you really want is a candidate for the Local Elections in May, knocking on your door and then pretending that they are different to other politicians and that they will get many different things done locally, that could never have been achieved at any time before.

In the absence of any real alternative to the same kind of politicians as we have right now, there has never been a time when it has been as important to be asking questions of those who want to represent us as Politicians, as now.

We need to understand their motives, why we should trust them, what they really want to achieve, what they understand about their responsibilities and everything else that we can, so that we can get the best idea of who they really are, and what we can expect from them, if they are trusted to work on our behalf.

With this in mind, some things to consider and some suggested questions follow below. Please feel free to use them – if you want to – if you have Local Elections underway in the Ward and Community where you live, running from now until early May.

Firstly, there are some myths that need to be cleared up. This way, you hopefully already have your bullshit detector fully primed, when the next rosette-wearing, single-handed world-changer rocks up your front path:

  1. Local Elections ARE NOT about National Issues. Local Elections make NO difference to decisions that are made by MPs in Parliament. Local Councillors only ‘control’ LOCAL issues.
  2. Local Councils are run by Politicians that might be members of the Political Parties that you recognise, but that’s as far as the similarity between them goes. So a vote for a Labour Candidate is not a vote for Kier Starmer, a vote for a Conservative Candidate is not a vote for Rishi Sunak and a vote for a Reform Candidate is not a vote for Nigel Farage or Richard Tice etc.
  3. Local Councils have responsibility for very specific things like refuse and recycling, local roads and parking, planning matters, alcohol and taxi licensing, environmental health, public transport, local education, social services and so on. But the responsibility they have is to INTERPRET rules and regulations that are set and often funded by Central Government in London.
  4. Just like our Parliament, Local Councils (District Level, County & Unitary) will usually be controlled by the Political Party with the largest number of Councillors elected to that Authority and belong to that Group. If that Group has a clear majority after the results of the election are in, there will be very little that Councillors belonging to other Political Parties or Groups can do. Likewise, your Candidate might well get elected and be part of the biggest Party or Group, but cannot deliver on specific promises that they have made to you, because its not what the other members of that Party or Group want to do.

So, to some of the questions you could consider asking when your doorbell rings…

Before anything else, if you don’t know already, you should first ask your Candidate if they are seeking re-election (because they have already been your Councillor or have been a Councillor somewhere else for at least 4 years before), or if they are seeking election for the first time.

If your candidate has been elected and already held the role of being a Councillor before, you could ask them: (In no particular order)

  • What have you done for me or for the ward you represented already?
  • How did you go about influencing and getting those things done?
  • How did you make sure that all the needs of this community were being considered?
  • How did you communicate and keep in touch with all of the people in this community and/or ward?
  • What Committees were you on?
  • How much did you receive in allowances and how much additional expenditure did you claim?
  • Why do you want to be elected again?

If your Candidate is seeking election to be a Councillor for the first time, you could ask them: (In no particular order)

  • Why do you want to be a Councillor?
  • If you are elected, how will you ensure that the issues that are important to this Community and ward will be prioritised first?
  • What could the Council have done better over the past 4 years and why?
  • How much influence do you expect to have on Council decisions?
  • How will you keep me up to date with news that is important to me and to the people across this community and/or ward?
  • How long to you expect to be a Councillor?
  • Do you have any political ambitions beyond being my Councillor?

And for ALL candidates, you could also ask them: (In no particular order)

  • Why have you chosen to be a member of this Political Party / Why did you choose to be an Independent Candidate?
  • Are Political Parties necessary and if so, why?
  • What makes you any different to all the other Candidates who want my vote?
  • Why do you want to represent this community and this ward in particular?
  • What experience do you have that qualifies you to represent this Ward and/or Community?
  • What are the most serious issues facing this Ward and/or community?
  • What is your opinion of the other Political Parties and/or Candidates?
  • What are the most serious issues that the Council is facing in the 4 years ahead?
  • Would you leave your Political Party and/or any alliances that you make, if the others refuse to prioritise the needs and best interests of the people you will represent first?

A couple of other things to consider:

  • You are under no obligation to talk to or open the door to anyone, at any time.
  • Nobody and no political party has the right to win an election or to represent you or anyone else.
  • Political Parties have political agendas, which by their very nature mean that they do not and will not represent the best interests of everyone, all of the time.
  • If you aren’t satisfied with any of the answers you are given, ask supplementary questions until you are.
  • If a Candidate is rude to you in reply to a reasonable question you have asked, their response tells you pretty much all you need to know about their ability to represent you.
  • You are under no obligation to tell anyone at your door, how you intend to vote.
  • You should not hand postal voting forms, ballot papers or any of the paperwork you have received from the Council to any Candidate, Political Party or Representative. If you are asked for any of these, you should make a note of who made this request, what they said and when, and then contact the Monitoring Officer at the relevant Council.

If you’ve already had leaflets through the door, these should tell you who your candidates are, who their election agent is (if they have one), who their political party is, the name of the Local Authority they are seeking election to, and how you can contact them.

If you visit the Local Authority website, you will be able to see what public services the Candidate(s) seeking your Vote may be able to have an influence upon.

The Candidate(s) who wish to be elected and become members of that Authority should be able to provide answers to questions about what has been happening where those services are concerned, and how they will go about influencing whatever happens next.

IF CANDIDATES TALK ABOUT ANYTHING ELSE – IT HAS NO RELEVANCE TO THIS SPECIFIC ELECTION!

REMEMBER: It doesn’t matter who your Candidate might be or which Party they might represent. If they are elected, they should be representing your interests and the BEST interests of EVERYONE across the ward and community you live in no matter whether you voted for them or not!

As such, you should feel free to ask any questions which are relevant to the areas of responsibility and service provision that the relevant Council provides and equally to ask a candidate why they are talking about matters that will not concern them or the influence they would have on your behalf, if they are attempting to bring other issues in besides.

There is a code of conduct governing the behaviour of Candidates for Local Elections. So if you have any concerns, you should contact the Monitoring Officer and/or Democratic Services at the Council running the Election and seek their advice.

If you don’t want LTNs, ULEZs and 15 Minute Cities, STOP voting for the same politicians and the same parties that will keep on putting them everywhere!

Question: Do you understand that there is a direct relationship between how you vote in EVERY election, and what happens between then and when the next one is called?

No. I’m not talking about the policy you were told about during the election campaign. I’m certainly not referring to the national policies of the party your local council candidate may be affiliated to.

They have NOTHING to do with each other. They are not in any way the same.

I am asking this question, because no matter what the candidates you might have voted for or may now even be considering voting for, perhaps as early as this coming May are telling you, what the Tories, Lib Dems, Labour and Reform candidates will do once elected or reelected, will be based only on what they and their parties want then. Now what they think you want to hear when they are selling you a story at the door.

As everything disintegrates around us – not because of Brexit, Covid or Ukraine and the responses that our national Tory Government has made to them – but because of decades of politicians from all of the parties failing all of us whilst doing everything for themselves, the thin but nonetheless convincing veneer of respectability and consideration for democratic principle is being shown to be the lie that it is. Not least of all because of the implementation of Low Traffic Neighborhoods (LTN), Ultra Low Emission Zones (ULEZ) and now the 15 Minute Cities that Councils such as that in Oxford are attempting to impose on entire populations without ever having gone out to local people and given them the opportunity to engage in a meaningful democratic referendum or vote.

The System is now rotten everywhere, through all areas of government and the public sector. And that rot certainly began infecting everything from the top-down.

Hard to believe as it may seem, the processes that have been in place for so long, such as public consultations – so that you and other members of the public can have your say – are one of the cleverest lies. They were created and perpetrated to divide opinion and make real people with valid arguments believe that they have been heard, when the truth is that they haven’t. They were never supposed to, in any way.

In this specific instance, I am referring to decisions that are overtly being made primarily at County Council or Unitary Council levels – as they have responsibility for Highways. But this also includes the actions of District or Borough Councils and even some Parish or Town Councils too.

What isn’t so clear, is that whilst the Councillors sitting on these ‘local authorities’ are voting these ridiculous schemes through, they may be doing so because of the promise of money or something else from Central Government (That’s Westminster and Parliament), tabled to council officers and politicians in a way that is in effect little more than a bribe.

Central Government does this, so that they don’t end up being seen to be the ones with ‘blood on their hands’. But the effect is pretty much the same. Whoever we are voting for, whether it is for a Parish, a Town, a Borough, a District, a County, a Unity, and Assembly, a Parliament or some other, NONE of the politicians we have, supposedly representing the British Public today, are playing with a straight bat. They are only interested in what works best for them – rather than what is in the best interests of you or I.

The uncomfortable truth that the politicians, civil servants and government officers won’t speak out loud, is that there is absolutely an agenda to reduce the number of cars on the roads, get people on bikes, walking to the shops and to work, and to make it impossible to travel anywhere using anything other than a sustainable mode of transport, IF we really have no choice when it comes to travel that they, not you or I, will proscribe.

Regrettably, whichever side of the green debate  you may be on today, the reality is that in the long term, there really is no choice.

However, there really never was any need for the 4-car households, holidays in every part of the world and rejection of local public transport either.

The so-called need for these was also completely engineered by the people who have been behind globalisation and the ‘money is everything’ way of living all along.

We only believe that we cannot live without these things, because it has been in their financial interests for us to believe that there is no other way for us to live.

The problem they have, is that by encouraging us all to engage in unnecessary practices, ways of living and ways of being that have been damaging the world, our environment and our own personal health for so very long, they let the genie out of the bottle. They have used manipulation through advertising and clever placements to make it feel like a personal choice.

Now, faced with having to implement change, those right at the top of all this know that to keep the plates spinning and for them to maintain control in the best way that works for them – and that means to keep the money flowing where they want it to – they now have to impose change upon us all, but use every trick in their play book, so that it all looks and feels like it was a choice, all along.

The chances are that if you are reading this, you know and value just how wrong all of this really is.

However, you are also just as likely to believe that all this can be changed by voting Labour, Liberal Democrat of even Reform at the coming General Election, or in the next May Elections you are called to vote in within your local area.

Yet the reality is that ALL of these Political Parties are made up of politicians who don’t represent anyone other than themselves – and whilst they may sound and even look different, by electing any of them again, we are just condemning ourselves and our future to nothing better than worse or at best, a whole lot more of exactly the same all over again.

It also doesn’t matter how loud anyone else voice might be, the number of followers or likes that they have, or how much time they are getting to speak on YouTube, TikTok or even mainstream TV.

The only solutions that are going to keep coming from the top of this top-down system are solutions that arrive without warning, as they all seem to be doing so now.

Solutions that work for those at the top of this ridiculous pyramid system we are being abused by. Not for anyone who is part of the majority being manipulated and mistreated below.

Regrettably, far too few of us really appreciate just how much of an impact that we could make, by running independent grassroots-focused candidates in all our local authority elections.

These are the elections currently held somewhere every year, where real effort and commitment mean that ANY candidate has a genuine opportunity to win.

We may not all see it yet, but it is at local level, and by taking over government at local level – whether through the electoral and government structure as it is now, or through a better grassroots-up system that really engages everyone – that the real change that we all need for a better life, will come.

If any of your local authorities have elections this May and you want to champion and demonstrate the message and way of change, why not run in your area and recruit others to help you or even do the same.

I’ve written a book to help called How to get Elected, which is FREE to read at www.howtogetelected.wordpress.com or you can download for Kindle from Amazon for only 99p.

Alternatively, ask me a question on social media or e-mail me at diypoliticsuk@gmail.com

The Conservative Party MUST have a New Leader, New Manifesto AND New Electoral Mandate BEFORE 31 October – AND they ALL have to be just right

img_3013When Parliament has already voted to overrule the Executive, a Party Grandee who has been a Party Member for longer than the lifetimes of many MPs leaves to stand for a protest party, and Conservative Councillors and even MPs too are telling the media they are about to Vote against their own Party in an upcoming Election, anyone with enough sense and concern for what is going on around them would know that what is happening no longer fits with any rules they know. They would accept that following those rules is not now going to bring the situation to a close.

That our lawmakers have no real appreciation for the responsibility they have been given by the Electorate has now become painfully obvious to the People outside of Westminster.

Worse for all conservatives, whether members of the Party, tribal voters or simply lapsed, is the realisation that a horrible reality is now becoming manifest in Westminster. One where there are simply not enough Conservative MPs in the Parliamentary Party that have the understanding, stamina, wherewithal and everything that it takes to deal with a serious crisis – not one created by any external threat, but by something made manifest from within its own walls.

Those who observe and consider the steps of the journey that Brexit has taken will eventually realise that the decisions made by Theresa May and her enablers since June 2016 – right up to the 1922 Committee’s decision last evening not to put the flames out engulfing the Party that are now in open sight for all to see, have and are continuing to fuel a fire that has not only taken the Conservative Party to the edge of the precipice, but is on the verge of condemning the whole of the UK to political, if not civil chaos too.

We have reached a point where the true chronology of events that led to the Vote to Leave the European Union, the mess of the Brexit Process and the now the critical condition of our democracy too, is in imminent danger of being forgotten and responibility for all ills being laid squarely at the feet of the only Political Party genuinely capable of getting the UK through Brexit and to the promise of the opportunities that lie ahead for us all on the other side.

It is painful for many to admit that the disease within the Conservative Party may have already been allowed to spread too far. That if the majority of the MPs that are still obstructing change from within the Conservative Parliamentary Party do not put their self-interest, fear and obsession with maintaining a system that now, thanks in no small part to them no longer exists, that not only will the Party that gifted them their time in the public eye be gone, but the Country itself could be thrown into chaos and darkness of a kind that those amongst us still alive to remember the consequences of such times had long since hoped had been left behind.

People who I and many have time for and respect from right across the political spectrum, are now falling in behind Nigel Farage to support the Brexit Party.

Any serious conservative with an eye on the future and what happens next would be foolish not to read the electoral runes right at this moment in time and see what is about to happen to British Politics during the Month of May.

But whilst one of the key straplines of this very serious and credible protest party is changing politics for good, the Brexit Party only has the cohesiveness between its Membership and support provided by just one issue.

This commonality between Brexit Party supporters will evaporate the moment that the promise made to respect our democracy and Leave the EU has been made good.

In days and certainly no more than weeks, the Conservative Party has a final and defining choice to make about the part that it wants to play and can offer the British People as a choice for the future.

If the Conservative Party does not choose to take it, the Brexit Party could well become the overwhelming force in domestic British Politics that UKIP never could.

The anger, palpable amongst the British People today that could so quickly be addressed with reason and delivery, could instead be completely unleashed.

Make no mistake. A Political Party without professional governance, systems and procedures is not going to deliver the overnight change it is now promising us – even if it currently benefits from having many well known and well meaning names up front which gives it an even more credible feel.

The choice that the Conservative Party has to make is whether to do nothing and allow May to continue in a way that only she seems to know how. Or to commit to a hard-decision-laden and timely process that will require unbending commitment, coolness of character and dedication to a cause much bigger than themselves and their Party, all boiled down to the willingness to do whatever it will take to get things done.

Step 1. A NEW Leader

May MUST go.

May MUST go now.

May MUST be replaced quickly.

This is not the time for an incumbent PM to be allowed to run down the clock in an attempt to let history look more kindly upon her tenure than anyone actually does right now. It won’t.

The ridiculous infighting, self-interest and ambition that have created so much of the Brexit impasse and constipated version of Parliamentary Politics we have witnessed over the past year has to stop and be consigned to the bin.

There MUST be a practical acceptance of the reality that right now, in this climate and with our Country facing the issues that it is, that there is no such thing as the ‘best’ or ‘Perfect’ candidate to be Prime Minister. It is now all about putting the person into the role who will be best placed to get results and yes, get the job done.

Under such circumstances, there is little doubt that whilst far from a perfect situation, the Party Membership would support an immediate ‘crowning’ of a new Party Leader and de facto Prime Minister, AS LONG AS THE PARLIAMENTARY PARTY APPOINTS THE RIGHT PERSON IT HAS AVAILABLE.

As recent polling work undertaken by the Conservative Home Website has shown, which is reliable for gauging the mood of the grassroots Party, the Membership wants a Brexiteer PM in Downing Street.

By far, the PM that the Membership wants is Boris Johnson.

The lack of understanding and appreciation of what really gets results, instead replaced with private ambition and the idea that each and every Member of the Cabinet is the only one who really knows best and can be the next Prime Minister, is precisely why so much of this has gone wrong already.

Trying to control or obstruct a workable solution to these problems for personal reasons, rather than doing what’s best for everyone, no matter how challenging or distasteful or unpalatable the alternative might be, is likely to replace one bad Prime Minister with another. Not because the alternatives aren’t capable or any good at what they do. But because they cannot be the person to bring together the formula that this Country needs right now and effectively become the necessary catalyst for change and for good.

Boris is very electable, as has been demonstrated by his highly effective campaigns to become and to be re-lected London Mayor.

Yes, Boris has a propensity to look silly at inappropriate times. But he also identifies his own destiny as being closely aligned with the success of the people and the policies that he leads. And as Prime Minister he will know that he MUST surround himself with the full range of best talents and voices. To be inclusive, but to make sure that the results achieved are good for all parts of our society and not just those who are directly involved.

This is where the opportunity lies for all who can see, accept and facilitate what now needs to be done to align themselves, contribute and for their genuine ambition to do good for others to be recognised fully for the part they play in delivering for the much bigger Public cause.

2. A NEW Manifesto

No. Oddly the next step IS NOT to worry about Brexit and the EU.

For right or for wrong, we now have until Thursday 31st October 2019 to sort out the Brexit mess and to get things done.

That’s 6 Months. And with a week being a long time in politics, as long as the Conservatives get moving quickly AND do all that needs to be done, 6 Months will be plenty of time enough.

The first priority is to create, promote and engage the public with a NEW Manifesto.

A Manifesto that demonstrates:

  • That the kind of working relationship that WE ALL want with Europe can only be created and developed once we are a fully Independent and Sovereign State once again and that to do this WE MUST FULLY AND CATEGORICALLY LEAVE.
  • That the Conservative Party is NOT only the Party of the rich, but the Party of all those with aspiration. The protector and safe-guarder of all those in genuine need and all those who want to succeed as a result of genuine effort and not riding off the backs and exploitation of others. A Party which really is for ALL of us too.
  • That Politics is in fact the means and not the ends to get things done. That it is a calling, not a job and that those who gain the very special and privileged elevation to Public Office must be able, prepared and committed to engaging fully foremost and as a priority with the People that they represent.
  • That good governance of this Country can no longer be something regurgitated from history, read from a book, accepted as an established rule or contrived on the basis simply of how it will look.
  • That decisions will be taken no matter how hard, to ensure that Government delivers fully for everyone, without bias, favour and with fairness as we are all right and justified in expecting that it should.

It will not take months or years to formulate.

The Conservatives only have to look beyond themselves and begin to engage everyone in a natural conversation, without the hard sell and without falling back on statistics and analysis to confirm what being out there will soon tell them should then be a quickly changing mood.

3. A New Mandate

With a New Leader and New Manifesto, the Conservative Party then MUST go back to the People.

It MUST have the faith, confidence and guts to know that if the Party has done Steps 1 & 2 right, the People will come back and provide the Party with a New Mandate.

A New Mandate that is required not only to break the Brexit impasse that can only come from our clean-break Leaving the EU. But to deliver the change that the People now require of our politicians. So that the UK can find its place and ensure that we are all secure in an ever changing World, where the agility and flexibility that our status as an Independent and Sovereign State is the only way that we can effectively adapt as a Country to ensure that we can continually work together towards the prize of something better for all.

 

 

 

 

 

Are you wondering how GOOD politicians would behave differently to the shower of shite we have now?

Get Elected 13Nobody is talking about what really needs to change at the baseline of British Politics.

Amazing as it may seem with all the chat about new political parties such as Change UK and Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party being tipped to clean up at the never-should-have-been-held European Elections on 23rd May, there is simply no discussion underway about what it will actually take to put things right and to correct everything that is going wrong.

Worse still. By falling into the trap of thinking that change is as simple as electing one party that says its all about change or another party only dedicated to delivering on the Leave Vote over Europe, we may together blunder into electing yet a load more politicians who might look different, speak different and maybe even behave different, but will actually do everything just the same.

Things will not change in politics until we think differently about politics and make sure that the people we elect to represent are thinking about politics just the same.

That’s going to take work.

Whilst we needed the change that’s coming to have taken place 3 years or more ago, it hasn’t, because the very reason that the change is needed has continued to get in the way.

Yes we need a quick result.

But when there aren’t quick options available that actually work in the way that we need them too, the battle is won in each and every step that we take to make, become and live the change and not just about what we perceive to be a fleeting result.

If you’d really like to see, know and understand what it will take to get British Politics in the right place, with the right politicians doing the right things for ALL of the People that they represent, I would like to invite you to read my e-book ‘How to Get Elected’.

How to Get Elected is not just a guide for those considering running in elections wherever they might be across the UK. It is a basic code of practice. A guideline and framework for anyone who wants to be a good public representative for other people, with pointers to what to do, consider, how to behave and how to go about getting things done.

It’s available to read in the form of a click-through Website which you can access without charge at anytime HERE.

How to Get Elected is also available as a Kindle Book on Amazon and will be FREE to download over Easter Weekend by following the link HERE.

Please enjoy my book, leave a review on Amazon and don’t be afraid to let me know what you think.

Best wishes to you, whatever your natural affiliation or view,

Adam

 

Dear Cheltenham, a Petition to stop the Borough’s ridiculous changes at Boots Corner is a great start. But if you really want to make the Council think again, start HERE

 

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For me, one of the most challenging and frustrating experiences of being a Local Councillor, was talking to people I represented who had genuine grievances and reasons for stopping a poor policy from going ahead, who couldn’t understand why the Council wasn’t listening and basically didn’t care either.

Please believe me when I say that the only way to really have any chance of understanding what is wrong with Government and the Public Sector, is to experience it from within.

Even then, it is essential not be taken in by anyone who tells you that ‘this is just the way that things work’. It isn’t.

But most people who enter as Officers or newly elected Councillors with high ideals and aspirations for doing something good, simply accept everything that they are told and quickly become part of the problem too.

Over the Summer, talking to people whose lives have Cheltenham at their very centre, I again saw one of those massive issues coming into view. A completely unnecessary ‘created’ problem that makes sense to nobody who exists in the ‘real world’ outside of our own version of the Local Government system.

I’ve experienced the Boots Corner travesty first hand. I have had to make the same detours as you probably have done yourself and know that this whole project is benefiting nobody or nothing other than the ego’s of the people who dreamed this foolishness up.

I’ve already given my view on the whole thing here a couple of weeks ago. And whilst it is great to see Cheltenham’s MP Alex Chalk talking openly about how unwanted the Scheme is and a Change.org Petition now in place, we should all be under no illusion about how entrenched the mentality of those responsible for the Boots Corner fiasco is now likely to be.

If you want the Boots Corner plan overturned, the road reopened to all traffic and no more ridiculous schemes like this one to simply arrive without genuine consultation, there is only one thing that you can now really do.

You have to work to change the whole Council and replace them with people who have the same interest in what’s truly beneficial for the people in Cheltenham. That’s getting people elected as Councillors,  who put Cheltenham before themselves and any Political Party they might represent. People who have the same real-world view as you.

If one person is prepared to stand in the next Local Elections within each Cheltenham Borough Council Ward, take Party Politics out of the equation and then start working as a representative for something better for the People and Businesses of Cheltenham, we might all be surprised just how quickly the Campaign to overturn this stupidity will start to gain results.

Don’t be fooled by thinking that the Elections don’t matter in Cheltenham because they are a long way off. It doesn’t matter because it’s the cumulative effect of the work and effort talking to people, knocking on doors and getting real people engaged that will grow the very best fruit.

It is important that you or anyone prepared to do the work necessary to represent a Ward as a Councillor are committed enough to be ‘in it to win it’.

You must also be prepared to do everything that it will take to see this Campaign through until Boots Corner is fully reopened, normal traffic is flowing and the target result is achieved.

Being told that the Borough Council is prepared to change its mind will not be enough. Like politicians generally, Councils have a habit of quietly changing their mind as soon as any noise goes quiet.

To be sure of success, Boots Corner must be fully open before you can think about whether you then want to stop campaigning for what’s best for Cheltenham.

Being a Councillor or even taking on the responsibility of working to get elected as a Local Councillor isn’t for everyone. There’s a lot to think about before anyone can decide.

If you want to run a successful Campaign and then be a good Councillor too, it is essential that you know, understand and are fully committed to what you are getting yourself into.

I’m not making the suggestion lightly. I’ve been an Officer within a Local Authority, a Councillor and Senior Member of another.

I’m putting this on the table for people who live and run Businesses within the Boundary of Cheltenham Borough itself. Local people who are eligible to become a Candidate and are motivated to represent the real views of the people and businesses of this great Town.

What I can do to help you is offer you the benefit of my experience, through advice and suggestions.

I can provide you with direction and a guide to what you need to think about. An outline of the reality of what it takes to get elected and everything that you will find when you are successful – which you can be if you are ready to do all that it will take.

How to get Elected is available to read FREE on a guide-to-area Website, and a page-list-based Blogsite which is also FREE for you to use.

If you want to read How to get Elected on your Kindle, it is available from Amazon too.