Whilst there is no genuine substitute for meeting with other members of your local Community face to face, if you don’t have the time or don’t feel able to be involved in absolutely everything that the others involved with your local Community Meeting do, it will be both easy and helpful for you and your Community Meeting, if you support them by following whatever they are doing online.
Not everyone uses social media. But we are now in a time where the majority of People do. Of those that do, only a fraction will openly support or engage with articles, blogs and posts, even though they will have been of interest or made them think in some way.
The simple act of following or liking the social media pages and platforms of your local Community Meeting will be a massive help to build momentum, IF being able to be able to Vote for Candidates who are real and genuinely offer the option of NONE OF THE ABOVE, is all that you really want to achieve.
Because of the way that online technology such as search engines, algorithms and the AI or Artificial Intelligence that already operates many of these ‘platform’ sites on the Internet work, something as simple as a like or follow will immediately tell them that your interest in what your Community Meeting is doing, is real.
As a direct result, they will very quickly begin to ask other People like you, if your Community Meeting is something that would be of interest to them too.
This could make a massive difference for the cost of what could be no more than a couple of clicks.
Remember:
Community Meetings will bring members of the local Community together to select the People that the Community will support to become their Public Representatives.
This is not in itself a political act.
By liking or following your Community Meeting, you are simply sharing with anyone who knows or is interested in you, that you are taking seriously how the decisions affecting everyone locally are made, and that you are concerned enough that you believe it necessary to support the process and method that will deliver genuine change.
Another very easy way to support your Community Meeting is to talk about what local People are doing with Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE to anyone you see or have regular conversation with.
Word of mouth is a very powerful and influential tool. It also demonstrates just how important and helpful genuine and direct interaction with real People can actually be. It focuses on what Community Meetings are genuinely all about.
You don’t have to sell Community Meetings in the sense of eulogising or championing them to other People, unless you actually want to and feel comfortable doing so.
If you are open with people you know, about why Community Meetings are of interest to you and you share the facts about Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE, as they genuinely are and what we are aiming to achieve together, the benefits of your local Community Meeting will very quickly sell themselves.
Please Remember:
If it helps to keep the conversation short, just tell People about Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE and suggest that they also read the Book.
Otherwise, if you have a little more time and feel able, share the Usernames and links to the social media platforms that you have for your Community Meeting, once its developing and running, you can then leave it to People to take a look and then decide for themselves.
Following on social media and spreading the word will be a fantastic help to your Community Meeting.
But you can help even more, IF you use your social media and the remote channels that are available to you, to actually contribute and take part online.
Community Meetings will always be the place for decisions to be made on what the Community wants to do about anything.
But the flow of information between Meetings will help everyone who is actively involved or just following progress from a distance.
If you see subjects or events relating to Community Meetings raised on social media that interest you, please do not be afraid to make comments or add information that might create or promote greater understanding – IF you are happy to share that information in an open forum, online.
People can only learn when they are open to learning. But the most powerful tool for learning is the sharing of others’ experiences. Not because anyone’s experience has more value than anyone else. But because sharing experiences of parts of life that others haven’t had, certainly cuts down on the requirement of time to do so, for yourself.
Interaction and sharing the benefit of your experience to help your Community Meeting and the Candidates that you come together to endorse, is the greatest currency for change that we all have as we focus on real, meaningful change.
By taking part, asking questions, flagging things that you’ve seen or heard, or just making the time to speak to other People about Community Meetings and then turning up at them, you can help the process of change in countless ways.
Remember:
You are never under any obligation to interact with any social media account, just because you follow or have liked it.
You should never post anything online that you would not want to share with People who you see regularly or face-to-face in your real life.
If you disagree with what someone else has said or believe that the information they have shared is incorrect or wrong, the best thing to do is to challenge the information they have shared itself and do so, not by simply saying its wrong. But by taking the time to politely and constructively explain why.
Better still, offer the details of the alternative you have based your challenge upon, to what they have suggested too.
But NEVER make your reply angry, or personal about them – and certainly not about you.
Your input isn’t worth the paper its written on, IF you don’t actually Vote.
The whole reason for Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE is the process of depoliticising the British Political system, so that Politics can deliver for us all, in the way that a democracy should really work.
To some – and you may be one of them, taking part in an Election is all that being part of a democracy will take.
But you must also understand and accept that who you Vote for is very important too.
On the day of the Election or Vote itself, your Vote could be one of just a few or maybe just the one itself, that puts a Public Representative into their role who was selected for the right reasons and endorsed as part of a Community Choice.
We no longer have the luxury of leaving our future to someone else. Many of those someone else’s we thought we could trust have already taken the opportunity that our apathy and disengagement has unwittingly given them. They have then done exactly what they’ve wanted, calling it ‘the will of the People’, all because they were supported by the mere fraction of us who Voted them into power in an Election, when that fraction of the community turned up.
You can be involved and support Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE and your Community Meeting in any way that works for you.
But if you really want change to happen that works in the best interests of everyone, please keep up to date.
When the next Election comes, please Vote for the Candidate(s) that local People with the same things in common as you, have committed the time and effort to select on behalf of your Community – but most importantly, on behalf of you.
Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE has been written in the knowledge that once momentum starts building for Community Meetings, support will come from many directions and will come in many ways.
There is no guide to how long the creation and holding of a Community Meeting will take.
Not just because everyone who picks up this book and begins work will approach the TEN STEPS depending upon the way they have read them. But because each and every Community area is very different, is made up of different People and for many different reasons will respond faster or slower to Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE, in very different ways.
With this in mind, there is a very good chance that all you will need to get started and make good progress before support comes knocking on your door will be included within this book.
However, if you should find that you have any questions, or have the need to understand any of the ideas, suggestions and thoughts that I have shared with you here, PLEASE get in touch.
It will be great to hear from you and I will happily respond to all polite and constructive requests and help in any way that I can, in the most appropriate way that I feel possible.
The whole focus of Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE is to provide the immediate method and means to address the real challenge we face and must overcome with our broken Political System, as it is today.
With established Political Parties and their own motives and agendas filling up the majority of seats across our whole government system, The System itself is effectively broken.
We must also accept that any new Political Party attempting to do things in what is technically the same way as those that already have seats won’t bring the changes that we need, that work in the best interests of everyone. Because if they were to be elected and gain power, the words and the policies might be different, but their approach, attitude and motivation would end up being bad for all of us in exactly the same ways.
Public Policy is the problem, and that problem is hurting us all.
However, to fix Public Policy problems, we have to focus first on fixing the root cause.
The root cause of all the problems are the People who become our Politicians and a situation that leads to the same self-interested and incompetent type of People being the only choices we have and then repeatedly elect.
The Selection and Endorsement of Candidates and the process that will engage each and every one of us to choose and support them in Elections is what Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE is here to provide.
When we have created a new system of Community Meetings where each Community selects and then supports its own Council, Parliamentary and all other kinds of Political Candidates, then and only then can we genuinely begin to address the genuine Public Policy issues that we now face.
Existing Political Parties serve a purpose that is not about the whole Community. Their purpose is all about the pursuit of ideas and interests that are their own.
The only way that the formation of a Political Party would be of benefit to Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE, would be the structure and support frameworks that it could provide to all Community Meetings and the Candidates that they select, endorse and support.
Because of the inherent danger that anyone in key positions of such a Political Party could fall into the trap of going their own way or going off in a direction that doesn’t benefit the whole Community, the governance of such an organisation would have to be very robust and reliant upon people with a lot of integrity, right from the start.
In time, there may be very practical reasons for joining up a network of Community Meetings in some kind of affiliated or federated way, that might then, through necessity, be required to become formally registered with the Electoral Commission as a Political Party.
That time is not now.
But it would be a very nice problem for People like you and I to have, once Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE is working and is doing its job across our Communities.
Whatever happens, whatever any of you do, there are no guarantees.
People have free will. It will be the choice of everyone whether they want to change and be part of the opportunity to influence change, or if they want to do nothing and let change of a different kind happen to them.
It is also important to understand that it is impossible to consider all of the factors or the impacts of events that have already happened or are yet to happen, and what influence they might have upon the short- and long-term future for us all.
We can only do our best and make the most of the opportunity.
Have faith, keep focused and you may soon understand what belief can really do.
Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE has been written as a ‘How to’ guide for engaging every member of your local Community properly to then ensure that they are all legitimately represented by their Public Representatives in every possible way.
Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE was never intended to focus on the Why, What, How and When approach to Politics.
Therefore, Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE is not about the formulation of Public Policy and how we go about getting that right.
If you have read Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE and want to think more deeply about Politics, why it works as it does today, what we need to think about doing Politics differently, how we can go about doing Public Policy differently and when we will need to do all those things differently, I have written a series of seven other e-books and guides that cover all of these areas and more, too.
All Titles are all available as books for Kindle on Amazon:
Levelling Level
My first book focusing on what’s really going wrong with public policy and why, Levelling Level goes into detail about the realities of everything in the Public sphere today, what is really happening, why People are behaving the way that they do, what is likely to happen without us taking the opportunity to drive our own change, and what we are likely to have to think about if we do.
The People First Economy and The Basic Living Standard
Building on key parts of Levelling Level, The People First Economy and the Basic Living Standard looks at the foundations of real change in the way that our economic system works now, so that it can actually work for us all.
You can find The People First Economy and The Basic Living Standard on Amazon HERE.
From Here to There Through Now
Continuing on the realities of The Great Reset, Agenda 2030 and being part of a Community effort to ‘Take back control’, From Here to There Through Now focuses on some of the more difficult topics that we will have to face, along with some of the practical ideas and solutions that we will have to embrace if The System as we know it should collapse before we are able to change it from within.
You can find From Here to There Through Now on Amazon HERE.
The Way of Awakened Politics for Good Government
Looking at how we all make decisions, The Way of Awakened Politics for Good Government focuses on the process of understanding and awareness that will be essential within all parts of the political, governance and public services systems, IF we are to run them in the best interests of everyone, rather than how they are run now.
You can find The Way of Awakened Politics for Good Government on Amazon HERE.
A Community Route
A Community Route uncovers the obstacles and blocks that stand in the way of so many of us working together universally when we are already in groups or echo chambers and fail to appreciate that the key to the door of what all outsider groups have in common is the recognition of the need for change.
Whereas Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE addresses the need for change by working with the existing dysfunctional British Political System, The Grassroots Manifesto takes a very different approach and focuses on how we can build a much more effective system of democracy by completely rejecting the exiting Top-Down model of Elections and Governance, bringing as much power back to our Communities as practically possible, so that all decisions are made from the Grassroots-Up.
You can find The Grassroots Manifesto on Amazon HERE.
How to Get Elected
My Book ‘How to Get Elected’ is the ‘How to’ Guide that I mentioned at the end of STEP 10.
How to Get Elected will be an invaluable guide to anyone who wants to understand how Elections work and what steps you will need to take as a Candidate, and of course how we can all support Candidates who have already been Endorsed by Community Meetings.
Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE is going to annoy some people. Perhaps many people. You may be one of them.
However, if you are annoyed, the chances are that you are a lot closer to being able to adapt to a system that will work for you and for everyone, than those others who are not.
Those who ignore or ridicule work like this, are not in any way open to the reality that we, that humanity now faces. It is best to leave them to wake up, in their own time, alone.
The difference between successful change of the kind that we need is as simple as the difference in what we believe, because we have experienced it in our past already, and what we believe in for our future, because we have faith that it can and will be done.
You don’t need to be able to see how the outcome of following the principles and methodology of this Book will work. But it will work out, if you believe and have faith that it can.
If you are still thinking that the only time that any of this will matter is when it comes to the next Election and the time that you are next required to go out and Vote, I’m afraid it’s time to face a certain truth:
Waiting for change will always mean that change will not be something you take part in. Change will certainly come, but it will be something that happens to you.
Even if you are one of the many who will only see your real contribution being that moment when you pick up the pencil and ballot paper and draw a cross in a box to make your Vote, change requires that you do not remain passive between now and when the next Election comes.
Please do read through all of Part 1 and the TEN STEPS, so that you understand and can identify what the process of change will look like when it reaches your Community.
Please then continue and read Part 2 which has been written for those of us who still see their contribution to the future as being no more than a Vote.
You must be the change is itself one of the most important messages within Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE and every book that relates to it.
Regrettably, we have become accustomed to the idea that somebody somewhere else will always sort out the problems that affect everybody else.
Strangely enough, we then don’t understand why help doesn’t come for us when the problem is now ours and we are the ones experiencing the pain.
It’s time to join the dots up.
Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE will only work if you and People like you dare to change the way that you think.
Then, We must ALL act to create the change, removing the power from other Peoples hands, taking back control of OUR OWN POWER.
Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that the way things work now is the only way. Ask yourself the question, ‘Who is the only beneficiary from you or anyone else believing and thinking like that?’
THE CURRENT SYSTEM IS BROKEN. IT DOESN’T WORK FOR YOUR COMMUNITY. IT DOESN’T WORK FOR YOU.
IF WE WAIT FOR THE PEOPLE WHO BROKE THE SYSTEM TO FIX IT, THE FIX THAT COMES WONT BE MADE WITH YOUR COMMUNITY OR YOU IN MIND.
ONLY YOU CAN FIX THE WAY POLITICS WORKS FOR YOU.
TOGETHER, WE CAN ONLY TRUST POLITICS IF IT IS RUN BY PEOPLE WE TRUST.
THE ONLY PEOPLE WE CAN TRUST IN POLITICS FOR OUR FUTURE WILL BE PEOPLE FROM OUTSIDE OF THE SYSTEM LIKE ME AND LIKE YOU.
Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE has the ability to be and to deliver the answers and the solutions that we are all looking for. Because the PROCESS, METHOD and AIM it offers will return your power and begin helping us ALL to take control back from the Establishment, from the moment that you accept it will work.
Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE is the process of embracing the UKs broken political system and bypassing all the parts of it that are sick.
Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE is a clear pathway to ensure all that’s wrong with British Politics can no longer affect, influence or even brainwash those People who volunteer with good intentions, to become Public Representatives, ensuring that all the diseased thinking can be sidestepped until it has all been replaced.
Once the majority of us have accepted Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE and what it represents as the only honest and fully democratic way for communities to be represented properly in any Election, the battles and the war for Freedom from useless and self-serving governance that many don’t even know we are fighting, will then have been won.
What you may have realised as you read the bullet points above, is the essential ingredient of us all being able to Vote NONE OF THE ABOVE is YOU!
One of the biggest problems that we face together is the apathy that years of political inaction, broken promises, the spread of manufactured fear and the use of outright lies from Politicians and the Establishment have created.
People genuinely believe that there is no alternative to the mess that we have now.
People feel that there can be no change, because it’s the same People who will always be in control.
People believe that the best we can hope for will come by voting for the alternative that the Establishment gives us. That the alternative candidates and parties we are given, will somehow get something right or allow at least some change to happen that could at the very least prove to be some help.
Sadly, it’s all smoke and mirrors.
This story of ‘who and what will win the next Election’ that we are all experiencing in the news and media, is no better than a confidence trick – even when People from outside of the Establishment appear to be involved.
NOT because there is some kind of conspiracy.
But because everyone who is in power or believes they deserve to be in power today, thinks in exactly the same way.
There are no shortcuts, IF you want your life and the lives of others to improve.
Please read this book through and then decide which parts of it make sense, or more importantly, which parts apply specifically to you and what you feel able to do.
BE HONEST WITH YOURSELF when you read and think about the content you are reading.
If you know what you are reading is true for you, DON’T go backwards. DON’T STOP. DON’T put this book back on your Bookshelf.
If you do nothing, you are standing still.
In a world of constant change, standing still is going backwards.
Doing nothing and going backwards are just the same.
Even if you never do any more than Vote in every future Election, please use this book as the guideline to search out and identify those who will work hard and work honestly for your Community and for YOU.
WARNING: Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE is not for you, IF
You are committed to following whatever anyone else tells you to think.
You believe that the only problem is there isn’t a Political Party in power that represents you.
You believe that somebody else will solve all the problems that we have.
You believe that power, position, influence, qualifications and wealth define leadership.
You look down on any other social group, no matter what the difference between you might actually be.
You are not prepared to take part in something that helps others as well as yourself.
You cannot accept that change for everyone begins with you making the most important change first.
NONE OF THE ABOVE is for you, IF:
You are looking for answers and solutions to the problems we ALL have.
You know that those answers and solutions to our problems will not come from the so-called leaders that we have or are today being offered.
You can focus on what we share in common with each other, rather than what divides us and is very quickly tearing us all apart.
You accept that if we keep doing the same things as they have always been done, things will inevitably stay the same.
You accept that IF change that is good for us all is going to happen, we all have a role to play in being that change.
NONE OF THE ABOVE will already have meaning to you.
You may also know or recognise it as being ‘Not in my name’, or ‘you don’t speak for us’.
To keep things simple, for now, we will just think of it as NONE OF THE ABOVE.
NONE OF THE ABOVE is the choice made when any Person has the opportunity to Vote in an Election but decides that they won’t.
Because none of the candidates or the Political Parties they are standing for represent what that Voter feels they and their Community need from the Public Representatives they have the choice to elect.
People who are living NONE OF THE ABOVE, might not even bother to involve themselves in Elections.
Then there are those who may have gone to the Polling Station on Election Day, signed in and shown their ID and even have been handed their ballot paper.
They then decide that they cannot or will not Vote for any of the candidates or the Political Parties represented on a list that runs from the top to the bottom of the paper.
Some of those will even draw a line through the ballot paper or the boxes and even write NONE OF THE ABOVE at the bottom of the ballot paper itself.
Then, when the Counting of Votes takes place afterwards, this ballot paper and any others like it will be classified as ‘spoiled’ and no Vote will count.
Whatever the reason you may not have Voted, spoiled a ballot paper, or now found yourself looking for an alternative to Candidates and Political Parties that never seem to deliver on anything they have promised you they will do, this Book is here to help.
Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE is a How to and Information Guide that has been written and published to help and advise People just like you.
NONE OF THE ABOVE is the place where many of us already are
Take heart. You are not alone.
A growing number of People already recognise what the words NONE OF THE ABOVE mean to them.
Whilst the interpretation will differ between us, the reasons for being unhappy and searching for an unidentified alternative to all the so-called ‘choice’ of Political Candidates that we already have, will almost certainly be something that we share.
You may already know that the answers to all of our questions and the solutions we all need are not going to come from any of the Political Parties that we know. They will also not come from any of the new Political Parties or activist groups that already exist and are hungry to be in power, just like the Political Parties that everyone recognises.
Alternatively, you may be at the point of giving a party you have previously supported a ‘last chance’.
Whether committed to change or praying over a forlorn hope, we all know that change has to come from a different place to have meaning and for it to actually be different.
Otherwise, we will continue to ride the merry-go-round of the same Political Parties, knowing that with them, the more things change, the more they stay the same.
You now know you are not alone. But are you really ready to embrace change?
If what you have read is already making some sense or has perhaps just struck an unknown chord, I would urge you to keep going and read through THE ENTIRE BOOK.
Without doing so, you will not be equipped to consider the full picture or achieve the understanding of what Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE has the power to do for us all, as a tool that will work your Community.
Most importantly, you will miss what turning NONE OF THE ABOVE into a Vote-winning option has the power to do for YOU and for your future too.
The chances are that before you’ve even read Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE, you will hear other People criticising or attempting to devalue everything that the book is about.
They are likely to suggest that only experienced Politicians, Political Parties or People who have been qualified in some other way, are suited to running in Elections and to being in Politics.
The inference or suggestion is that none of us or anyone our communities could select to represent us would have any idea what to do.
The words they use might sound very different to even these.
But any message intended to disqualify you and your Community from selecting the People who make decisions on your behalf, will turn out to have exactly the same meaning:
THEY ARE TELLING YOU THAT THE PEOPLE IN YOUR COMMUNITY AREN’T CAPABLE OF BEING RESPONSIBLE FOR THEMSLEVES OR FOR MAKING THEIR OWN CHOICES – AND THAT INCLUDES YOU!
No matter what anyone says to you or to anyone else about Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE, there is nothing they can say that’s negative about the Community making and being responsible for its own choices that can mean anything different or be interpreted in any different way.
Whichever way you look at it, you are being told you aren’t qualified. You are being told you aren’t good enough. You are being told you haven’t got the right skills.
There is no question. These People who know better, are absolutely wrong.
Anyone who says or suggests that someone else knows better when it comes to selecting the People who make decisions which affect us all, is on an agenda of their own. An agenda that has neither the best interests of the whole Community, nor what’s good for you, at its heart.
The decisions that affect us all and the public policies they deliver will always be flawed for as long as anyone involved in making those decisions obtained the responsibility to do so because of some motive that wasn’t focused upon the Community and service to others.
It was about whatever they are part of. Ultimately, it’s all about them.
Today’s Politicians don’t represent the People. They represent themselves, their parties and whoever they aspire to be
Until now, NONE OF THE ABOVE has been a way to protest against and to refuse to Vote for those Politicians who are always someone else’s choice.
More often than not, NONE OF THE ABOVE has been a way to raise a laugh or to make a joke too.
The problem for us all, is there is nothing good, nor funny about a political system that benefits nobody other than the People who directly benefit from the way that it works.
The disease within the Political System has reached the point where no Politician or Political Party makes decisions or pursues any Public Policy that is good for anyone else.
NONE OF THE ABOVE doesn’t need to be just a process or a figure of speech, anymore.
We need to be positive. We need to be proactive. We need to grab the opportunity that is waiting for us to turn this all around, whilst hiding in plain sight.
It’s time for us all to come together as one. To go way beyond being just a protest Vote or a refusal to accept the options we are given in Elections – as if that and only that, is all that We deserve.
We can only achieve this by selecting and providing candidate options in ALL Elections that are OURS.
This is what Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE is here to help you and your Community to do.
Before we get started, there’s one rule you need to understand, accept and live by when it comes to everything that is Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE and getting the very best out of this Book:
There’s nobody better qualified to decide what’s best for a Community than the members of that Communityitself.
This time, I have focused on a very mechanical approach to providing a solution to the electoral problems that many of us now agree that we’ve got, and have put it all together in a ‘How to’ guide.
Mindful that increasing numbers of us don’t even bother to Vote in Elections now, and that many will go as far as defacing their ballot paper and writing ‘NONE OF THE ABOVE’ as they strike a line through it, I have taken messages such as ‘Not in My name’ and ‘You don’t speak for us’ and the associated feelings away, and created a guide so that everyone who is interested in what it would take to create a genuine electoral alternative, in a real or Official sense.
The message overall, is that if we continue to do nothing – and just moving the pieces around on the political party chess board is very much that very same thing – it is inevitable that we will continue to get the same experiences as we’ve already got – but with the potential for them to get increasingly worse.
It’s a nice idea and we’ve taken it for granted that we can leave politics for the politicians, for a very long time.
Sadly, because of this hands-off approach, we’ve also reached the point where we most definitely have the politicians that we deserve.
That isn’t going to change until we all reengage and accept that each and every one of us is going to have to take part.
These expressions of frustration, anger, distrust and disenfranchisement from the Political System we have today are shared by a growing number of People – just like me and just like you.
We feel that because we cannot Vote for good politicians and public representatives, we have had our democratic right to choose and influence our future taken away.
The situation goes from bad to worse, each and every day. Everything that Politicians, Government and Public Services seem to touch is failing. And the rules that Politicians are supposed to manage and set, seem to have done nothing but encourage private interests and big business to operate without any real kind of control.
When the People who lead us are out for themselves, how can we expect anyone else to behave differently?
The truth is, that we cannot.
But there is a way we can create alternative options for Candidates on ballot papers for us ALL to Vote for in every Election. That is, IF we accept and are then prepared to make the effort to create and be part of the change that is necessary.
Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE is a ‘How to’ guide, that will open you up to a new way of thinking about the way that Politics in a democracy should work. It provides suggestions, advice and a doorway to easy-to-access tools, using a system of Community Meetings that will help everyone to reject ALL OF THE ABOVE and then have a genuine and meaningful democratic choice.
Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE will present you with a series of TEN STEPS that can be followed, IF you want the choice of Candidates in future Elections who will work for and on behalf of you and your local Community.
PLEASE Follow it. Learn from it. Improve on it. Share it. Officially NONE OF THE ABOVE is here for you.
PLEASE NOTE: This book is not about Public Policy or Political ideas. It provides a method of putting good People into Politics, so that we then get Public Policy that corresponds.
With three weeks gone and two more to go until the Election on Thursday 12th December, I have to say that I feel very much the same.
It’s not that there hasn’t been any change. There has.
But the change that has happened has been peripheral or aesthetic at best.
The good that might come from the adjustments within the political landscape that have taken place within this Campaign will not have come about not by design or intention, but rather by default.
With 15 days to go, the biggest issue on everyone’s mind today, is the Interview that Jeremy Corbyn gave to Andrew Neil last night. It followed a day where Labour’s choreographed plan for a day focused on their ‘ambitious Race and Faith Manifesto’ was utterly destroyed by the article written by the Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis and published in yesterday’s Times, explaining exactly why people should redirect their vote.
The Interview itself simply evolved a terrible day into a complete nightmare for the Labour Leader as he effectively refused to apologise for the anti-Semitism within the Labour Party and what the Party has done in response.
The Tories are riding high. And with the latest polls now suggesting that the gap between the Conservatives and Labour is closing, the fall out from this debacle is almost certain to ensure that the polling will quickly start to go the other way.
Or at least that is until Boris sits in front of AF Neil himself whenever that might be agreed and then be.
The big problem is that the Conservatives are riding a wave that doesn’t have defining Public Policy as its root cause.
Labour’s downward trajectory and overkill with its great electoral giveaway of 2019 aside, the biggest boon to Boris Johnson’s position has been the decision from Nigel Farage to remove so many of the Brexit Party’s Candidates from competing against Tory Candidates in Seats where the Conservatives won in the 2017 Campaign.
On the face of it, Farage did this to avoid the risk of Jeremy Corbyn walking into No10.
Yet his hybrid approach of standing Brexit Party Candidates pretty much everywhere else does have the distinctive whiff of the whole effort the Brexit Party is making being not about Brexit itself, but about gaining at least a foothold of control.
The lie itself is given by Farage’s suggestion during the Press Conference at the time that Boris had done enough with the pledges he had made about Brexit in the video that had been released the day before.
To some, it will come as little surprise that recent days have brought stories to the fore, that Farage has no plans to go anywhere. That his next mission will be to rebrand the Brexit Party and transform it into a political vehicle that will drive political reform.
The problem for Farage with this is that apart from the reality he has to now face that as a figurehead and leader he is no longer likely to be trusted, any Party that can be identified as being about nothing else other than Leaving the EU itself is likely to be as divisive as Jo Swinson and the Liberal Democrats have been by rejecting the need to find a pathway that will bring all sides together and committing themselves to cancel Brexit and promise that under their influence the UK will categorically Remain.
To its credit, the Brexit Party has demonstrated that it is possible to bring people, politicians and pubic figures from all political backgrounds together to work as one.
But the ‘Contract’ that they have published instead of a manifesto for this General Election tells us that the leadership of the Party is still thinking about politics in exactly the same way as the leadership of all of the other Political Parties who have contributed to the political crisis that we are experiencing and not least of all the Brexit Divide.
We now look two weeks ahead to an Election Result where Boris is still likely one-way-or-another to be our PM.
But being PM with a majority that is likely to lead to a clean, no deal Brexit by default within 12 months is a lot different to the situation that Boris will face if he is returned as Prime Minister with similar numbers of MPs in Parliament to what we have experienced since 2017 – where the majority present is most likely to still be pushing for further delays, obfuscation and what they will only accept as being a very open form of Remain.
The chaos that follows any of the scenarios that appear to be likely and unfolding from this vantage point in time will not improve things. It is likely to only make things a whole lot worse.
Whilst I and many others would like to see reason for hope that any of the Political Parties we have today and running in this Election could become the catalyst for wide-ranging change, once we have brought everyone back together again by really getting Brexit done, I’m afraid that paying lip service to the change that the UK desperately now needs simply isn’t enough for me to vote for any Candidate or Political Party that is involved.
Whilst our crooked politicians fall over themselves working how to con enough people into wasting yet another vote, they are missing the undercurrent which is building amongst Members of the Public who whether Left, Right, Centre, Leave or Remain now realise that the system is not working for them and there must be another way and that means a different choice
How are you going to vote in the General Election on Thursday 12th December 2019?
That – or a form of it – is a question that will pass across many lips in the next 37 days as we approach the Winter Poll, if it hasn’t done so already.
For me, there isn’t actually a choice. I will not be voting in 5 weeks time for any Candidate, nor any of the Political Parties that are involved.
Coming from the experience of having been a Member of three different Local Authorities and a Licensing Chair too, I have written extensively about the problems with our political system and why we are getting the politicians and the groups, Councils and Governments that we do.
In early 2018 I created the Website How to Get Elected and the E-Book that followed it as a guide for anyone who wanted to run in a Local Election as an independent and become a good Councillor too. I didn’t write about running in an Election to become a Member of Parliament at any great length, simply because the whole thing is a closed shop.
Right now, we are witnessing yet another great giveaway where our own money is being thrown at us just so that we will be conned into keeping the wrong people in power.
Yes, some of the faces will be different when Parliament is recalled the Monday after the Election. What they do, how they approach it and how they are motivated might appear a little different. But the results for all of us and the experience that we continue to have of the impact of Government will remain pretty much just as they already are.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
The three main parties – or what I’ll call a triumvirate – basically have a monopoly on this Parliament. Those Parties now exist only to extend and propagate their own existence. They do this by selecting candidates in their own image and quickly exclude anyone from running for seats they see as simply being theirs with no hint of real or genuine democracy being involved.
So whilst we have all of the Party Leaders and their Party machines throwing all sorts of different policies and approaches at us as part of their respective Campaigns, the reality underpinning all of it is that we are going to have the same people in power – one way or another. None of them are about change.
Yes, arguments are being made that if we don’t vote for Boris, we will let a marxist government in.
But these are the kinds of arguments deliberately created to frighten us and keep us in line with what the Establishment wants, each time there is any threat of Government walking in that will do things differently.
The problem is many of us fall for it, especially as there doesn’t appear to be any alternative option to the choices we have. The whole thing is a vicious circle that ends up in the same old place with the very same choices all over again.
Yet this General Election isn’t just about Brexit. But it should be about the opportunities that exist to put right all the wrongs that this Country and the People within it are facing. Issues that can only be addressed once we are successfully beyond.
We need MPs who have the understanding and the wherewithal to do all that is necessary, with the drive and motivation to serve all of us and do everything that is necessary not only to deliver Brexit, but to get everything else done too.
I cannot and will not vote for any candidate who doesn’t know exactly what they are getting themselves into by standing AND is then still prepared to put their career, reputation and future on the line to do what is right for all the People they were elected to represent as a matter of deliberate and fully informed choice.
Being a Member of Parliament is not an individuals job or the same thing as employment. It is a responsibility to us all.
I cannot consciously nor voluntarily support any candidate or any Party who continues to approach the Representation of the People as being just a route or even a plaything that will take them to wherever they want to be or to do whatever it is that they themselves and only themselves want to do.
Politicians should be aware that I am not alone.
In a conversation I have already had this morning, I have heard of people who have been paid up Members of those three ‘main’ Political Parties looking at the mess that our self-serving Politicians have created and are placing a very big question mark over the prospect of voting in this General Election and what they will do.
People are tired of everything that Politicians have been doing. The way they behave. The way they contemptuously take our votes for granted. The way they clearly believe that once they have drawn a line under Brexit, for them things will just go back to being as they always were. That for them, the Westminster gravy train will always turn out the same.
My choice will simply not be to vote on 12th December if the approach and attitude of ALL the Political Parties remain as they are today.
It will be the same for others too.
Some will spoil their ballot papers. Some will write ‘None of the Above’.
But for all of us who decide to boycott this Election, the People and the Political Parties running in it, the Politicians who still represent this dreadful era and its terrible lies should not see anyones choice to be silent this December as an endorsement of anything that any of them are still choosing to do.
It is a clear statement that we have had enough and that we now want change.
That we now understand the rules of the crooked game that they play which keeps them in control whilst excluding all opportunity for us and for politicians with an alternative approach to do anything too.
We the People who see them for what they are, are growing in number.
Adam Tugwell 