What I Write About | Dec 2025

What I Really Write About – Beyond What AI Can Tell You

The rapid rise of AI, large language models, and the ever-expanding suite of digital tools has transformed how we create, share, and consume content.

These technologies are mesmerising, offering new possibilities for creativity and connection. Yet, their promise is often accompanied by myths and misconceptions about what AI can do, what it will become, and how it might shape our future.

As a content producer – primarily through books, blogs, and essays, and occasionally through video – I’ve invited AI to review my work and online presence.

What I’ve learned is that whilst these systems can provide interesting overviews, their perspective is inevitably limited. AI tends to focus on the most recent and visible outputs, missing the depth, context, and evolution that underpins a body of work. Its research dazzles with immediacy but rarely encourages deeper reflection or genuine understanding.

For example, when I asked an AI to summarise my advocacy for grassroots-driven change, it captured the headline but missed the substance: the ideas I’ve developed about new constitutions and governance systems for the UK, which are woven throughout my books. This highlights a broader truth – AI can surface patterns, but it cannot fully grasp the intentions, experiences, context and values that drive meaningful change.

My writing is rooted in exploring the challenges facing the UK: how we arrived here, what lies ahead without change, what transformation could look like, and why it must be shaped by people for the people.

Central to this is a critique of our money-centric value system, which influences not just our economy, but our politics, culture, and sense of possibility.

I believe that genuine progress requires reimagining these foundations, embracing accountability, and empowering communities to design their own futures.

I don’t expect everyone to agree with my solutions. My hope is simply that readers recognise the potential for a radically different way of doing things – one that is available to us now, if we are willing to engage, adapt, and take responsibility.

The Books about the system today; change and the system tomorrow (In chronological order, from early 2022)

The Books: Understanding the System Today and Shaping Tomorrow

The following books explore the challenges within our current system of governance, why meaningful change is necessary, and how a better future might be achieved.

Each title addresses different aspects of the journey – from identifying the problems in today’s structures, to proposing practical solutions and envisioning new models for society.

The majority of these works are available to buy and download for Kindle on Amazon, and many can also be read in full online.

Together, they offer a comprehensive look at the issues we face and the possibilities for genuine transformation.

Levelling Level

I had no plan to write a series of books that would collectively capture my interpretation of the different dynamics of everything that’s wrong with our system of governance and how it’s all playing out and impacting people like you and me.

In fact, I began writing Levelling Level in early 2022 – initially building the plan for a book upon the rather dark truth that the political right had been pushing the so-called ‘Levelling Up’ agenda, whilst the left is obsessed with levelling down.

I hoped to make some sense of the roles of the different influences that have created all the problems; what is likely to happen and how we can begin putting things right by “levelling level” so that a new people-centric system could begin.

Writing Levelling Level certainly lit a fuse for me. Aas I wrote, I found myself increasingly focused on the need for the Basic Living Standard, which after a short break away from the computer, I decided I should write about in more detail next.

Read Levelling Level Online HERE

The Basic Living Standard

The concept of the Basic Living Standard first emerged during the writing of Levelling Level, as I confronted the reality that financial independence is increasingly out of reach for many.

The fact that the minimum wage doesn’t provide genuine independence – yet is widely accepted as normal – reveals much about the deeper issues within our economic and monetary system.

Since introducing the Basic Living Standard, I have worked to refine and develop the accessibility and understanding of this concept. My aim has been to move beyond simply identifying the problem, and to offer a practical solution that prioritises the real reasons for working: enabling people to meet essential needs, and empowering businesses to serve people, communities and the environment – as they always should.

At its heart, the Basic Living Standard is about shifting our values from a money-centric system to a people-centric one – a theme that runs throughout my work and is explored further in One Rule Changes Everything. It challenges us to rethink what truly matters in our economy and society.

Key points of the Basic Living Standard:

  • Reframes the purpose of work: ensuring everyone can afford the essentials for a dignified, independent life.
  • Calls out the inadequacy of a minimum wage that doesn’t guarantee financial independence.
  • Advocates for businesses to focus on providing essential goods, services, and opportunities for people and their communities.
  • Emphasises reprioritising our value system, placing people and community above profit and monetary gain.

To make the concept clearer and more actionable, I created “The Basic Living Standard Explained,” which provides a detailed breakdown and practical guidance.

Read The Basic Living Standard Online HERE

Read The Basic Living Standard Explained HERE

From Here to There Through Now

Both Levelling Level and The Basic Living Standard hinge upon the need for system change or a paradigm shift.

I have to admit it would be much better if that kind of societal change were something we were all happy to embrace voluntarily, and do so because we have all realised that a world that works for everyone, rather than one that exploits and manipulates the masses for the benefit of the few, will be a much happier, healthier, and all round better place to be.

Voluntary change of this kind wouldn’t be easy. But being realistic about how bought-in we are to the money-centric way of life, where no reality beyond having enough and then more of the stuff is what we are obsessed with, means that many will only wake up and see the reality we are in for what it is, once we have experienced pain.

Many of us do understand this. These are often the people who in a capitulated fashion respond ‘That’s just the way things are’ or something similar, when you suggest and outline how things could be different. However, they are also comfortable with what they feel are the benefits to rejecting change too.

Unfortunately for all those who are comfortable with a status quo that is so destructive, many also take for granted or indeed feel entitled to continue living and developing themselves and their relationship with the world on the basis we have understood it to work up until now.

But things cannot continue the same way as they have been. Because in real terms, we have been living for decades and longer within a system that has developed around a giant con.

False realities inevitably lead to a wake-up moment

That con relies on unsustainable living in just about every sense the word unsustainable can be used or can mean.

As many are beginning to realise, the world is fast approaching a place called stop. Where we either change everything and return to a world built around values and putting people first. Or we sit, wait and accept the dystopian digital prison that the current Labour government, under the direction of the WEF, is falling over itself to help usher in.

Whatever we choose, and even if we don’t think we are choosing anything (as failing to act is also a choice), there are challenges, disruptions and probably horrors that lie ahead. Horrors that we would be much better able to deal with, if we are at least mindful of them, and at best prepared.

From Here to There Through Now covers this process. What we might expect, what we are likely to experience, and how we can choose to thrive and survive in real, practical terms.

Read From Here to There Through Now Online HERE

The Way of Awakened Politics for Good Government

I make no secret of my wish that we could just make better use of the system of government that we have now. Not because I think that the current system can be fixed, but because it’s broken and failing us in every conceivable sense today—specifically because of the way that generations of politicians and the people who work within and influence government and the public sector think and act, even though they are there to work and deliver on behalf of us all.

The idea of public service and what public services are about shouldn’t be a difficult concept for anyone to get their head around. Not least of all, because the biggest giveaway is in the name itself!

The Way of Awakened Politics for Good Government is the book I wrote that covers this rather thorny topic.

Thorny, because of the reality we face: when we can look at ourselves and understand the way that we ourselves are motivated and what makes us think the way that we do, we can also begin to see how easy it has become for us to repeatedly elect and appoint people into positions of public responsibility who are getting so much wrong, by doing the same things that we would probably do in those circumstances.

It’s not impossible for us to change things with the right people. But finding and electing the right people will not be straightforward with the system that we have, even if we were to fully utilise the approach I have suggested in my book Officially None of the Above which follows below.

Time is not on our side with this system, and it could collapse at any time. But getting politics and public representation right within a new one still requires much of the thinking that The Way of Awakened Politics for Good Government attempts to define.

Read The Way of Awakened Politics for Good Government Online HERE

The Grassroots Manifesto

Few people realise that one of the greatest problems and root causes of many of the other problems that are now reaching into every part of our culture and society have come about as the direct result of centralisation.

Centralisation is another word or term for hierarchy, or a system that operates top-down.

It just doesn’t sound like it.

When everything that has any real meaning in life has been steadily refocused and power and independence in so many things has been moved away from us – whilst we are continually told that it’s better for us, makes life cheaper and better in every possible sense – we have been losing sight and possession of our own value.

This travesty has led to all the societal and economic problems which suddenly seem to have come into sight.

Unfortunately, there are very few politicians who will give power and influence back to local communities once they have taken hold of it. And as history has time and again proven, most of them – once elected – will do whatever it takes to accumulate more.

Devolution is top-down centralisation with a different name

Whilst high level politicians will tell us they are devolving power and giving back, they are often taking what’s left of local power away from people and practicing regional centralisation to place what remains of local power in the hands of people they can control, rather than giving back to representatives who actually have good reason and motives that will give us much better lives.

The system of governance won’t change back from where it is now. Much like the Brexit process that never really happened as the starting point was deliberately seen as being an EU member, rather than as it should have been, which was to start anew or all over again.

The better future for all cannot and will not come from a centralised structure or anything top-down.

Genuine localisation is key

The future and change that delivers it for us must come from the neighbourhoods and communities we live and work in, and the real-life relationships and interactions that we have, in person, with the people we meet face to face each day.

The Grassroots Manifesto is a book version of what the first steps of a governance structure based and built from the grassroots-up will look like.

Read The Grassroots Manifesto Online HERE

A Community Route

Whilst every message the world pumps at us today (whether it’s direct or not) tells us that success and happiness is all about putting what we want and what we think is right first (as long as it correlates with the accepted narrative), the reality is that falling over ourselves to put our own interests first is very destructive. Particularly when most of us are doing the same thing.

Selfishness and self-interest have certainly been exploited to get the world into the mess that it’s in. And we certainly won’t and cannot change things for the better if we either insist on putting our own ideas first – no matter whether they are good for others or not, or by getting behind anyone else who is doing exactly that too.

The future is all about community. And local communities too.

But working together as a community requires a different mindset and way of thinking to what we are used to working with now.

A Community Route is the book I wrote with the intention of capturing the essence of working and collaborating with others, together, over what we share, really means and requires, if we want a world for the future that genuinely works and delivers for us all.

Read A Community Route Online HERE

Officially None of The Above

As I alluded to when I mentioned The Way of Awakened Politics for Good Government above, and also outlined in practice, in my How to Get Elected guide that I will come back to later, there are ways that we could make the existing electoral system work better for us – if we had the luxury of time to do so. (Which regrettably, we no longer do)

Officially None of the Above is a walk-through guide of how we could bypass and ignore the political parties that we have today. Working together as communities to identify, assess, select and appoint our own candidates to stand in all elections. So that we could be sure that the public representatives we elect are always going to put the needs of our people and communities first.

Refusing to vote is still a choice – as many of us have begun to realise at our cost.

However, not having candidates who we have chosen ourselves, rather than leaving that choice to the political parties and the agendas that they have, is a bigger problem. If not a lot worse.

With a collapse of some kind well on the way, the system will have to change, if we want to have power and influence over it ourselves.

In the meantime, Officially None of the Above shows us how we could work together, locally, to make the existing electoral system work democratically for us – as it always should have.

Read Officially None of The Above Online HERE

One Rule Changes Everything

Whilst the Basic Living Standard proposes a formula or focal point for a system of economy and governance that builds on financial independence for every working person, the reason we need a framework for life like this is because of the way that money has become the basis of our entire value set.

This values takeover was deliberate.

The weaknesses that make us all vulnerable to easy living and minimal effort in return for what seem to be great rewards have been exploited. Whilst the dazzling pay-off has meant we have failed repeatedly to question the true cost of what we have given up and what has really been involved.

One Rule Changes Everything is the most simplistic and straightforward formula for changing everything about the world we live in for the better.

It’s just the way we feel about the world today and what we mistakenly believe to be the things that benefit us from it that are hurting us, making the decision and steps necessary seem extremely hard!

Read One Rule Changes Everything Online HERE

Manifesto for a Good Dictator

Having been a frontline politician, elected member of 3 different local authorities and committee chair – including 4 years as a Licensing Authority Chair, I’ve spent a fair bit of time working with policy and policy frameworks. I also have a cross-sector background that has given me a reasonably good insight into how the way things get done works in real life too.

Being able to see why things are as they are and why they don’t work for the people they should – even when they are meant to – can be a bit of a two-edged sword. Especially when trying to explain to others why things don’t work as we have the right to expect them to.

As a councillor, some of the most challenging moments I ever experienced was trying to explain the unexplainable to local people, who had every right to expect things to have gone a very different way to that which they did.

However, doing the best for everyone in the circumstances also provided some good wins for everyone concerned. And I know from that experience that we could achieve much more than we do today – if everyone were open to and minded of doing things the right way.

In December 2019, as we raced towards the General Election that Boris won with the Conservatives, I wrote the Makeshift Manifesto – which I will come back to later.

Whilst the Makeshift Manifesto was a take on what a good government could do right across public policy – which of course Johnson’s Tory government never was – my return to the subject and possible updates made me realise that the problems have now gone too far for everything to be fixed.

Whilst we have heard chat about the need for a dictator – and young people are apparently particularly interested in this approach, the reality we face is that we are already the victims of a bad, tyrannical dictatorship that’s been dressed in a cosplay kit that those controlling everything have branded as democracy.

The idea of a good dictator sounds like an oxymoron to say the least. But it would be possible.

Not only that. A good dictator is also what we probably need. Because it may be the only way that what needs to get done can get done!

Manifesto for a Good Dictator is a policy list of all the things that a Good Dictator would need to do to change everything and oversee the process of bringing democracy back to local communities. Ultimately, placing power back in the hands of people like you and me.

Spoiler: this book was not written about and does not have any politician who is widely or publicly known in the U.K. today in mind!

Read Manifesto for a Good Dictator Online HERE

An Economy for the Common Good

During the summer of 2023, I was thinking more about the practical application of localised governance. How it would work, and what that would mean in terms of delivery of the essential or basic goods and services that we all need in and around our communities to make life work for us all each day.

As a business planner myself, writing out plans and even creating job specs for key employees, with pointers to the responsibilities linked to their roles seems normal. And I quickly found my pace creating what at the time I called the Gloucestershire Community Project.

I called it the Glos Community Project, because I used the areas that I know and understand to create a kind of real-life blueprint of a structure of social enterprise-based franchises or turnkey business outlines, that would provide the essential backdrop of how a new structure and system for society could work.

Importantly, the model included references to a new monetary and barter or exchange marketplace system. Very much linked to The Basic Living Standard that I have mentioned above.

It was the process of writing and realising how critical the role of food and food production should be within our communities, to ensure freedom and independence for everyone, that led to my more recent focus on Food; my time at the RAU where I did a PGCert in Sustainable Agriculture and Food Security, and the books I have since written and published such as Who Controls Our Food Controls Our Future and Food From Farms Guaranteed.

Your Beliefs Today create Everyone’s Tomorrow

At the beginning of 2025, I was wrestling with a common theme.

We have an endemic problem with situational bias, or people refusing to see possibilities, perspectives or even the potential for outcomes that do not align with what they already accept to be normal within their own range of experiences.

It’s quite alarming how closed people can be to anything different than what they already accept. Especially if there isn’t an obvious progression from wherever their thoughts and experiences are, right now.

Unfortunately for all of us who learn this way and don’t look beyond, real-world problems may mean creating a completely new picture or starting all over again, rather than trying to keep hold of the things you are comfortable with about even a very bad situation or place.

Our beliefs are everything. They are what we are, and they are what makes us what we are.

So, it’s perfectly understandable that we get prickly when anything comes along which might question them.

The problem is – and it is increasingly a real problem – that what we already believe (our truth) and what is the truth, may be very different things.

This disparity is causing us all many problems. Because we refuse to be open to seeing life and learning from life about different ways of doing things and achieving the outcomes that we need.

Your Beliefs Today create Everyone’s Experiences Tomorrow focuses on the different things that people believe about the way everything works. Why they believe them, and why what we consider to be true today will inform not only our approach, responses and view of tomorrow, but what happens when we get there too.

In real terms, Your Beliefs Today create Everyone’s Experiences Tomorrow is an exploration of the real point of our power for any kind of change being right now, and why thinking (and believing) as we do, may be setting us all up for a very big fall.

Read Your Beliefs Today Create Everyone’s Experiences Tomorrow Online HERE

The Choice – A Waking Up Story

One of my most recent Books was written and published this summer and is called The Choice.

The Choice focuses in on what is happening; what we believe is happening; what isn’t really happening and what may or may not be happening out of sight behind the scenes.

The Book asks the fundamental questions ‘What do we believe’ and then ‘What are we going to do about it – if anything at all.

Yes, it sounds like a higgledy-piggledy mess. But that is reflective of what the UK faces; the behaviour of both the establishment and our politicians, and the rather difficult situation we all face where very few of us are in any way ready to accept how restricted our own views and understanding of the bigger picture might soon regrettably turn out to be.

Read The Choice Online HERE

Our Local Future

Our Local Future marked a turning point in my writing, bringing together insights from my previous works to outline a vision for governance and community that truly serves people, the environment, and the common good. This book was conceived as a springboard for discussion – a framework for rethinking how our systems could be rebuilt to deliver fairness, balance, and justice for everyone.

A central theme throughout Our Local Future is the importance of localism. I argue that a future which genuinely works for all must be rooted in local communities, structured to empower people where they live, and resilient against remote or purely online influences that can undermine local agency. This isn’t a rejection of technology or progress, but a call to ensure that technological advances support, rather than erode, the autonomy and wellbeing of local people and organizations.

Reflecting on over three years of writing and research, I see Our Local Future as a pivotal work—one that attempts to weave together diverse perspectives and experiences to envision a better life for all. It stands as a response to the chaos and disharmony that many experience today, and as a foundation for the next stage of my work.

Read Our Local Future Online HERE

Evolving Forward:
As my thinking and research have progressed, it became clear that the vision set out in Our Local Future needed to be developed into a practical, actionable framework. This realisation led to the creation of The Local Economy & Governance System, which builds directly on the principles of localism and community empowerment, offering concrete steps for implementation.

The Local Economy & Governance System: The Evolution of “Our Local Future”

As my writing and research have continued to develop, the ideas first outlined in Our Local Future have evolved into a more detailed and actionable framework: The Local Economy & Governance System. This new work builds directly on the foundation of localism, community empowerment, and the need for governance structures that truly serve people where they live.

Why this evolution?
While Our Local Future provided a vision for rethinking and restructuring governance to work for people, communities, and the environment, it became clear that a practical blueprint was needed – one that could guide real-world implementation. The Local Economy & Governance System is that blueprint. It offers a comprehensive model for how local economies can be structured, how governance can be genuinely democratic and accountable, and how communities can reclaim agency over their future.

What’s inside?

  • A step-by-step outline for building local economic systems that prioritise people over profit.
  • Practical guidance for establishing governance structures rooted in community needs and values.
  • Strategies for ensuring that essential goods, services, and opportunities are delivered locally, sustainably, and equitably.
  • Reflections on the lessons learned from recent years of political and economic upheaval, and how these inform the path forward.

Read The Local Economy & Governance System HERE

Foods We Can Trust

In April 2025, I launched the Foods We Can Trust website as a dedicated platform to explore and address the realities of food production, food security, and the vital role that food must play at the heart of our communities and local economies.

The website brings together practical resources, research, and commentary, all aimed at helping individuals, families, and communities reclaim agency over what they eat and how it’s produced. It’s a space for sharing knowledge, building resilience, and supporting the journey toward food systems that genuinely serve people.

Building on this foundation, December 2025 saw the publication of my book, Foods We Can Trust: A Blueprint for Food Security and Community Resilience in the UK.

This work brings together some of the key areas I’ve been writing about – food production, food security, and the urgent need to return food to the centre of life and community.

The book challenges the complacency that leaves households and communities vulnerable to supply chain disruptions and rising prices, and offers practical guidance for building local food resilience. It’s both a critique of current policy and a call to action for individuals, growers, and communities to take back control of their food future.

At the core of both the website and the book is the belief that food must be at the heart of any meaningful Local Economy & Governance System.

Food is not just a commodity – it is foundational to community wellbeing, economic independence, and the principles behind The Basic Living Standard.

By prioritising local food production and empowering communities, we can create systems that are more secure, nourishing, and sustainable for all.

Visit the website: foodswecantrust.org

Read more about the book: Understanding Foods We Can Trust: A Blueprint for Food Security and Community Resilience in the UK

Available on Amazon: Foods We Can Trust: A Blueprint for Food Security and Community Resilience in the UK

Read Foods We Can Trust: A Blueprint for Food Security and Community Resilience in the UK online HERE

Some of the other Books that I have written and published

How to Get Elected

The first book I wrote in 2018 was this one, How to Get Elected.

How to Get Elected, or what I sometimes call H2GE, leant heavily on my experience as a local councillor and the many different election campaigns that I ran in, won in, lost in and spent a lot of time supporting and helping with different campaigns focused on somebody else.

As I’d been out of politics for nearly 3 years when I wrote H2GE and had adopted my position of viewing and commenting from the outside looking in, I was under no illusion that what I was sharing is not the kind of how to guide that many of the candidates from established political parties would be interested in. Because How to Get Elected is all about putting people, rather than what the parties want from their candidates, first.

Read How to Get Elected HERE

Beating the Backstop

On the 24th of July 2019, Boris Johnson became Prime Minister of the U.K. and immediately set to work building a rather questionable, ‘oven ready’ narrative of how his vision for Brexit was going to work, and what he was going to push the EU to do.

Like many who saw the opportunity that the Brexit vote really was, I greatly wished that the situation was being handled by adults who recognised that Brexit could and only would work in the way voters expected, if negotiations for the forward relationship between the U.K. and EU had been treated on the basis of a relationship that was completely brand new. Rather than how it was, which was little more than a half-arsed, self-serving attempt by Remainers masquerading as born-again Brexiteers to step outside while keeping hold of all the things they wanted to keep before they went.

It was therefore regrettably inevitable that whatever happened next was going to be more about bluff and bluster on the part of Boris. Rather than being anything that would be genuinely ‘new’, given that the then Conservative Leader hadn’t even decided which side of the European Referendum debate he was on until hours before he declared his intent.

That Boris really was the best alternative to predecessor Theresa May says more about the quality of the politicians and leaders that we have – and I regret that nothing so far appears to have changed.

However, no matter how we might feel about Boris, the other truth that we often miss about this period in British politics, is that as far as the existing ‘exit agreement’ with the EU was concerned, the UK had already been somewhat stitched up by the groundwork already done by Theresa May. A well-known Eu-phile who should never have followed David Cameron into No.10 when it seems to be the very reason that he himself stepped down.

Looking on from my perch in Gloucestershire, I found myself thinking about the best way to make what was on the table work in the most effective way that it could. Given all the different operational, strategic and political issues that were at work.

I may not have agreed any of what the then Government had been given to work with was either correct or necessary, but it was already becoming clear even then that Boris was not going to be able to disown even part of it without a) the will to do so and b) enough Brexit supporting MPs to back him – which at that moment was near impossible anyway, because the only real change in government was that he’d switched places with Theresa May.

I found myself, early that August, sat writing and putting a plan or strategy together about how making the Backstop work in very practical, operational terms could actually be done.

Beating the Backstop is my response and solution to dealing with the ridiculousness of the so-called Backstop and the invisible but nonetheless very real cross-border-trade-barrier that had been dropped down the middle of The Irish Sea.

Bearing the Backstop is the paper I published within a month of Boris’ arrival, which continues to be a popular online read and download. even now.

Read Beating the Backstop Online HERE

The Makeshift Manifesto

Mentioned above, I wrote the Makeshift Manifesto in early December 2019, in the run up to the General Election on the 12th, that Boris Johnson comfortably won. Which the Tories then arguably squandered, by doing everything other than anything good, whilst insisting that Boris’ way of doing government really was the very best thing.

The Makeshift Manifesto is an alternative policy document.

It covers all the key areas of public policy that we would typically recognise today, making many different suggestions about what a good government not only could, but would do, when in power. Rather than following any one of any number of different agendas that have absolutely zero to do with anything about us or the lives and experiences of life that we are having.

One of my most popular downloads as a free-to-read PDF, the two big takeaways with the Makeshift Manifesto were and remain that the suggestions were applicable within the system and structure of government that we have now.

Whilst the Makeshift Manifesto provided a long and detailed list covering many different public policy areas, the document was published and shared, like everything that has followed – as a doorway or brainstorming board not to be cherry picked, but to be contextualized in the form of a comprehensive approach!

Read The Makeshift Manifesto Online HERE

Actions Speak Louder than Digital Words

I wrote Actions Speak Louder than Digital Words between some of the books that are listed above.

However, I have placed it here, as the subject of our relationship with AI isn’t strictly about governance and policy itself. Even if few of us can be in any doubt that one way or another it is set to have an important role.

AI is a difficult topic to discuss today.

Many myths have been created that serve the purposes of those who own, manage and are set to benefit from all forms of AI.

Yet AI and the ‘technical takeover’ can only work in the way that they want them to, if we all buy into and believe the stories that we are being sold.

Actions Speak Louder than Digital Words was my immediate take on the impact of both the older and newer forms of AI.

AI really isn’t going to be the fountain of all knowledge and thought that its being presented with the aim that we will believe it to be.

But it will nonetheless be used as a ‘legitimate’ excuse to end the need for many of our jobs, whilst teaching everyone and especially the younger and upcoming generations that the computer knows the answer to anything and everything, whilst what remains left of our ability to think, function and think critically for ourselves will be deliberately lost.

Perhaps a handbook for those who are awakening to the dangers that the use of tech to replace humans rather than genuinely help them are already proving to be, Actions Speak Louder than Digital Words is a shorter book, and it will make me very happy if you read it, get to the end and feel that it’s all stuff that you didn’t need to be told!

Read Actions Speak Louder than Digital Words Online HERE

Who Controls Our Food Controls Our Future

By now, you may have realised that Food, Food Production and UK Food Security are issues that I feel passionate about.

I feel passionate about them because of the role that they should be playing for us all in the much better future that we all really should be working to have.

Following the very challenging times that UK Farmers are facing as I do; watching the rather cruel introduction of the Inheritance Tax last October, that will affect small and Family Farms in particular, left me wondering what the best way would be to share the knowledge and understanding I have. And do so in a way that might help make sense of what is really happening for anyone who has started to see that the reason for all this happening now, is that the theft of control and the removal of independence within the UK Food Chain fits into a much bigger picture and agenda that leaves our Farmers with no further role to play.

Everything in the Food Chain, including the role of Retailers, Processers, Manufacturers, the way foods are being developed, the messaging about cows and methane, seaweed in cow food and the introduction of more and more talk about alternative protein in public policy is shouting very loud messages about the direction of travel for Food Production across the UK, and what the future of our Food Supply will involve and how it will soon be controlled.

Who Controls Our Food Controls Our Future focuses on the reality that control of the Food Supply is one of the most effective tools of control over the population itself.

The last thing the establishment and the politicians that it controls want, is for any kind of meaningful independence to exist across the UK Food Chain that would leave any kind of power to anyone else.

Difficult to believe, but a cold hard reality that we all must awaken to, if we want to have any chance of saving UK Agriculture and for People to have any choice over what they can eat in perhaps as soon as just a few years’ time.

Read Who Controls Our Food Controls Our Future Online HERE

Is Poverty Invisible to those who don’t Experience it?

The Food Journey I often talk about took me to do a postgraduate certificate in Sustainable Agriculture and Food Security at the Royal Agricultural University in Autumn 2023.

Being back in full-time education brought some unexpected challenges that were very reflective of my experiences of the educational environment when I was a child. Only this time whilst coming at learning from a very different direction and experience-driven perspective.

Contrary to common misperceptions, the topic of Food Security and what Food Security really is, is a very broad topic that covers food poverty and the cost of living too.

Whilst at the RAU, I completed a module that required us to look at such issues and relate them to our own experience.

As I grew up in poverty, wearing all the societal badges that it has been given, and have a pretty good memory of what that was like to experience it in the 70’s and 80’s, I decided to research what it means to be in poverty today, and whether it feels and is treated any differently to how it was back then.

After spending time with a manager at a local foodbank, who answered every question and follow-up question that I gave them openly, I concluded that like so many of the other problems that we have across the UK today, people – and more importantly politicians – need to have experienced the real-life impact of those issues, before they can have even a chance of understanding what it is like to live with them.

My answer to the question, “Is Poverty Invisible to those who don’t Experience it?’ was a very clear yes.

This short e-book version of my original report and submission shares why.

Read Is Poverty Invisible to those who don’t Experience it Online HERE

Specific Interest Blogs

Alongside my books, I maintain an extensive archive of blogs at https://adamtugwell.blog that explore all the subjects covered in my published works—and often in greater detail.

For example, https://adamtugwell.blog/2025/12/18/adams-food-and-farming-portfolio-a-guide-to-books-blogs-and-solutions/ provides a curated list of blog posts and resources. It covers a wide range of topics, including:

  • Food production and supply chains
  • Food security and resilience
  • The challenges facing UK farmers
  • Community food initiatives
  • The role of food in local economies
  • Practical solutions for future systems and governance

These archives offer deeper dives, practical insights, and ongoing commentary on the issues at the heart of my work. Readers are encouraged to browse the full blog for further exploration of these and many other subjects.

Minimum Wage, Maximum Exploitation: A Collapsing System Propped Up by Rising Taxes

Introduction

As the cost of living continues to climb across the United Kingdom, many households find themselves struggling to maintain even the most basic standards of financial independence.

With impending tax rises on the horizon, the pressure on those already living near the edge is set to intensify, pushing even greater numbers below the threshold of self-sufficiency.

This is not a temporary crisis, but a symptom of a deeper, systemic failure—a collapsing economic model that now survives only by extracting more from those who can afford it least.

The money-centric economic system that we have – The “Moneyocracy” – perpetuates itself by shifting the burden onto workers and taxpayers, while the promise of prosperity grows ever more distant for the majority.

Against this backdrop, it is essential to confront a fundamental question – one that exposes the uncomfortable realities at the heart of our economy.

A Question:

Do you believe the minimum wage is enough for a full-time worker to live on – and if so, why?

The answer to this question, which varies depending on one’s relationship with the minimum wage, reveals uncomfortable truths about the foundations of our economy and the way work is valued in this country.

What is not surprising is that those who already have financial security often agree in principle that low-paid workers should earn more. Yet when confronted with the implications of paying every worker enough to live independently, many recoil. Why? Because such a change would disrupt their own relationship with the economy.

The Minimum Wage Reality

Let us be clear: the national minimum wage in the UK is not enough for anyone working a full-time 40-hour week to live independently—free from reliance on benefits, charity, or debt.

The widespread acceptance of this wage stems from government and establishment narratives.

What is legally mandated is presented as morally and practically sufficient.

Yet, in truth, the minimum wage is a carefully placed rock covering a pit of myths and lies.

Those who benefit from the system prefer not to lift that rock, because doing so would expose their complicity in maintaining the illusion.

The Employee

A worker earning the minimum wage – currently £12.21 per hour, equating to £488.40 per week or £25,396.80 annually – cannot afford the basic essentials required for independent living.

The gap between what they earn and what they need is effectively the amount by which they are underpaid.

Employers exploit workers by failing to cover the true cost of living.

Regardless of how the deficit is filled—through benefits, charity, or debt—someone else is subsidising both the employee and the employer.

The Employer (Small Business)

Small business owners often insist they pay fairly because they comply with the law. Yet compliance does not equate to fairness.

Paying the legal minimum is not the same as paying enough for employees to live independently.

Common justifications include:

• “They can top up with benefits.”

• “I can’t pay more or I’ll go out of business.”

But these arguments miss the point. The government—and by extension, taxpayers—should not subsidise businesses that cannot afford to pay workers a living wage.

In reality, small businesses are also exploited: they cannot operate independently within the current economic system, because they too are constrained by models that undervalue their work.

The Employer (Big Business)

Large corporations differ because they can afford to pay more.

Supermarkets and other major employers of minimum-wage staff generate enormous profits – even during a cost-of-living crisis, like the one we are experiencing now.

They could easily pay wages that allow workers financial independence, if boards and shareholders accepted smaller returns.

Instead, big businesses exploit both employees and taxpayers. Workers are underpaid, while the government subsidises wages through benefits.

This allows corporations to maximise profits while keeping the mechanics of exploitation hidden from public debate.

The Government

Why does the government subsidise wages so small businesses can survive and big businesses can thrive? Why not simply set a minimum wage that reflects the true cost of living?

The answer is stark: doing so would collapse the system.

The economy functions by undervaluing the majority of jobs deemed “low-skilled” or of “little value.”

If wages reflected reality, the house of cards would fall.

The Taxpayer

The system is a con. The complex machinery of what can be called a Moneyocracy manipulates trust and deference so effectively that taxpayers rarely ask basic questions.

Why, in an economy where corporations make billions annually, must taxpayers top up their employees’ wages through taxes?

Why are we threatened with price hikes whenever government policy shifts, while corporate profits remain largely unscrutinised?

Following the money reveals the truth: wealth is funnelled in one direction, made possible only by exploiting workers, taxpayers, and weak governments.

Corporations profit by underpaying staff, then spin narratives that justify charging consumers more.

Reality Bites

Exploitation of normal people has gone too far. The system enriches the few by exploiting the many – sometimes multiple times over – so profits can grow while wages stagnate or reduce in real terms.

The Moneyocracy survives by perpetuating the myth that it is acceptable for many to grow poorer while a few grow disproportionately rich.

The promise dangled before workers – that if they play the game long enough, they too might “live the dream” – is false.

Humanity is destroying itself chasing a dream that continually recedes, because playing the game requires forgetting our true worth.

The basic equation of the Moneyocracy is simple: for some to be rich, most must be poor.

This is neither humane nor true.

The Alternative

There is another way. A system built on real values – where people, communities, and the environment come first – can replace the current money-centric model.

This alternative requires transparency, local systems, and a commitment to prioritising human worth over profit. Instead of hiding self-interest behind complex structures, society must embrace a model where business and life are conducted openly, sustainably, and with fairness at the core.

The choice is absolute: continue with a Moneyocracy that exploits us all or build a future centred on people.

Path Forward

The Local Economy & Governance System provides the foundational framework for a truly people‑centric future – one where People, Community, and Environment sit at the heart of every decision.

At its core lies a new benchmark: The Basic Living Standard, a guarantee that every individual receives a weekly wage sufficient to cover all essential needs.

This principle of equity and equality is not an optional add‑on, but the priority that guides every part of the system.

By shifting away from exploitation and toward fairness, transparency, and sustainability, this model offers a pathway to rebuild trust and resilience in our economic and social structures.

To explore how this vision can be realised and what it means for the future, please follow these links:

The Basic Living Standard: Not a Fix for a Collapsing Money-Centric System, but the People-Centric Foundation of a New One

Although initially overlooked after I first introduced it in my book Levelling Level, published on Amazon on 31 March 2022, the Basic Living Standard (BLS) has increasingly attracted interest from readers and visitors to my blog.

However, I have noticed that when people search for BLS using AI, a whole chain of stories and information—often including quotes attributed to me—has emerged, much of which is either out of context or entirely fabricated.

This is concerning, especially when those outside the mainstream are trying to share solutions and perspectives that challenge the compliance and blindness of today’s system.

We must recognise that the so-called AI takeover is being built on delivery levels that, in many cases, are no better than the efforts of a lazy teenager responding to an encouraging parent. And the outright creation of false information and narratives—even regarding work from independent voices—is troubling.

Given that AI now tells those seeking a quick overview that the Basic Living Standard is a way to fix our broken economic system, I feel it is time to clarify: while I believe BLS is a pivotal solution, it cannot and will not work within the current economic paradigm.

The integral priority of BLS is to put people, not money, first.

The Basic Living Standard: Not Intended for the Current Economic System

I have never created or published financial models or projections to ‘cost’ or predict the impact of BLS on the current economy or financial system, because the two are mutually exclusive.

BLS was not designed to be part of, or to work within, the existing paradigm, which makes it impossible to do so.

Decision-makers, legislators, and their influencers will not openly admit that our system is structured against equity and equality.

It is only because the system works progressively against these values that the disproportionate levels of wealth and benefits enjoyed by those in power can exist as they do.

Paying Lip Service to Parity

While the National Minimum Wage should be the benchmark or minimum earnings floor necessary for financial independence, the reality is that no person can be financially independent or live free of benefits, charity, or debt on this wage when working a typical 40-hour full-time week.

The current economic and financial system survives because the National Minimum Wage does not reflect the genuine cost of living for the lowest paid, who must then be subsidised by government benefits, seek help from charities such as food banks, or go into debt to meet the growing cost of living.

The FIAT, Neoliberal, Global-Driven Money System: The Perfect Crime?

A hard truth about our broken and collapsing system is that its design centres on wealth transfer and impoverishment, relying on the ongoing creation and addition of new money to the economy.

Currency debasement devalues the worth and ownership of the masses, while creating additional wealth for the elites and enabling them to secure property, public infrastructure, and ownership of everything devalued by their actions.

System Collapse and the Choice We Must Make

The finite lifetime of what may one day be considered one of the greatest ongoing crimes against humanity is fast approaching its end.

How the masses respond to financial and systemic collapse will dictate whether the Basic Living Standard, or a similar benchmark, forms the basis of a new people-centric economic and governance system.

This new system would put people back at the heart of everything, rather than the money-centric focus we have now.

The current system is collapsing because it is fundamentally corrupt and wrong.

Introducing a system like BLS within the current system—even under the name National Minimum Wage—could not achieve its true purpose, because implementing it honestly would speed up, if not immediately collapse the current money-centric system – and that’s why nobody in power today who benefits from this system will ever agree or willingly help for it to be done.

Embracing the Shift: Making Life About People, Not Money

If we accept and adopt an economy and governance system cantered on People, Community, and Environment, we will naturally move away from financial modelling, projections, profit margins, and all the tools that reinforce money as the only important value in life.

The Basic Living Standard provides a clear focus for the paradigm shift from money-centric beliefs to what everyone needs—not wants—and establishes the basic standard for independent living without dependency.

However, BLS is not a policy that can work in isolation or as an add-on to the current system. It is a fundamental building block of the universal change we must choose and embrace, because we cannot fix what cannot be fixed.

The Basic Living Standard: The Basis of a New Way of Living

By restarting, reestablishing, regenerating, reforming, and replacing our economic and governance systems, the Basic Living Standard becomes the benchmark for guaranteeing that the lowest paid can sustain themselves and be financially independent in return for a standard working week.

It requires all businesses, organisations, and systems within a new framework of economy and governance to realign with ensuring that every person experiences this minimum standard as the foundation of society, business, and culture.

Improving lives today really should be as simple as creating a Minimum Wage and changing everything for those who need help in one day. But changing perceptions is not the same as changing the way everyone thinks.

That is why the introduction of a system that genuinely works for everyone cannot be openly embraced before the pain of collapse and the reality it brings.

Everything we know today exists because of a system built around money as a value set—a flawed belief system we have all been conditioned to accept.

Only when this system fails and excludes people, step by step, do those affected awaken to the reality that something is fundamentally wrong.

Yet those excluded are often viewed by those still inside the system as the ones who are guilty and wrong.

Out of Our Problems, an Opportunity Awaits

The collapse offers a moment when the balance can flip, and those who have been excluded may reach a critical mass that signals to everyone participating in the money game that a better, equitable way exists.

However, ordinary people must see, understand, and accept this en masse.

Whatever happens next will lead to wholesale change—whether we choose it or simply go along with it.

Only by being aware and honest about what we need, rather than what we want, can we take the leap of faith necessary to change everything and contribute to the creation of a new system where people, community, and environment come first.

The Basic Living Standard offers a benchmark for the frameworks and opportunities of a new way of living. Yet, it will remain unknown and inaccessible to those unwilling to step away from the comfort of an unsustainable relationship with the past.

Money, democracy, ownership, business priorities, and practices are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the breadth and depth of necessary change.

Everyone must own and be part of the transformation ahead, because the change is about the needs of everyone, not just the wants of a privileged few.

There’s More…

In the coming days, and hopefully as soon as this week, my next book will be published, building on all I have been writing and sharing for over three and a half years.

Evolving directly from Our Local Future, first published in summer 2024, this latest work brings more detail and focus to the mechanics of implementing a new system for economy and governance, while simplifying previous concepts to make them more accessible and relatable.

The Basic Living Standard lies at its heart, and I am confident that we can flip everything to work for People, Community, and Economy, once we see the benefits and share the determination to implement a system and new code for life that truly works with equity and equality for all.

Breaking The Money Myth: Rethinking Value, Exchange, and Equality

An Economy That Cannot Function Without Money Will Not Work for Anything Else

Coming to terms with the role money plays in our lives is challenging for most people. But the difficulty doesn’t end there.

We have come to value money not just as a tool, but as the benchmark by which we measure everything in life.

This leads us to a deeper truth—one that must be faced, rejected, and overcome: an economy that functions for money, with money, or through money cannot, will not, and does not work for anything else.

An economy should always serve People, Community, and the Environment. These are the only foundations that truly support a good life and foster genuine equality for all.

Most people instinctively reject the idea that any form of economy or trade could operate without money. This reaction stems not from truth, but from habit. We’ve grown so accustomed to money being present in every transaction that we take it for granted—not because it’s inherently necessary for exchange.

The reality is this: an economy designed for the people must be capable of operating without money, currency, or any medium whose value can be universally—or nationally—controlled or manipulated by external parties.

Instead, value must be determined solely by those directly involved: the buyer, the seller, and the facilitator (or a community body that sets local trade rules for the exchange of essential goods and services).

This doesn’t mean money or currency must be eliminated entirely. Rather, it means that their value must remain free from inflationary or deflationary forces.

Any variation in exchange value must reflect only the true worth of the goods, services, or contributions involved.

The Moneyless Economic System

The essential shift—both in action and mindset—is from a system where money is required in every transaction, to one where the exchange of life’s necessities does not inherently depend on money at all.

One of the fundamental truths of our world is that not all things are equal. However, the way we treat people and the planet should be equal and fair for all.

It follows, then, that money—or any form of currency used as a medium of exchange—should not be governed by a universal benchmark, especially when that benchmark can be manipulated by a powerful few to serve their own interests.

It is normal that we all contribute work to meet our needs. Therefore, the things we need should be accessible to everyone, based on the value of what they can offer through their work.

The imbalance in this equation today arises not from scarcity, but from the greed of those who control access to what others need.

This imbalance is reinforced by systems of privilege, power, and the illusion of ownership that steps beyond the requirements of genuine personal need.

Government is Broke(n): Collapse Now or Collapse Later?

Tuesday marked the rather strange pre-budget speech or open warning call from the Labour government, shouting all too loudly that Tax rises are inevitable and heading our way.

Whilst Farage attempted to get ahead of the game by making bold a bold statement on Monday about a future Reform government cutting spending on Welfare, and then Kemi Badenoch followed Reeves online with a speech that pretty much adds up to the same, the commonality between the positions of all these politicians will be missed by many for being remarkably similar, if indeed not the same.

Yes, you may ask yourself how exactly this could actually be. But the key element of one party raising Taxes whilst failing to cut spending, whilst others promise to cut spending whilst freezing or lowering taxes is fundamentally the same – because these approaches are all about saving the economic system and the economy that we have – and absolutely nothing to do with putting people and the lives of people first.

Few realise and even fewer understand that Reeves really isn’t the architect of the problem the U.K. (and the wider world) now faces.

That responsibly has been held and passed through many different hands over a period that exceeds decades of time, whilst a monetary and economic system has been introduced and then encouraged to take over every part of life and what we know as economy, with laws, regulation and even the legal system itself abused and manipulated to make money work in a way which suggests that its supply is endless.

Meanwhile, everything that has productive value to the U.K. and its economy has been destroyed, or outsourced, leaving almost nothing that can be used to sustain a sovereign nation behind. And now, even our ability to feed ourselves with our own farms on an accelerated pathway to being destroyed.

The growth that politicians obsess about has not been through any genuine notion or understanding of growth as everyday people and small business owners understand it but has instead been borne of the fear of people who should never have held the reins of power.

Politicians who fall over themselves to find, create and manipulate ways to ‘borrow’ more and more money in the form of the bonds that the government sells, which when funnelled into the right areas of public spending will multiply many times over as each pound changes hands between different business, with each transaction then meaning just the one pound is counted against GDP and ‘growth’, multiple times.

GDP then facilitates the accounting trick of all accounting tricks. Where public debt is never paid off but is cleverly reduced as a percentage of the ‘growing’ GDP balance, meaning that other than paying ‘interest’ on that ‘borrowing’, what is supposed to be a debt that gets smaller in relation to the U.K. productivity or GDP, should never actually need to be paid off at all.

What the politicians never understood – beyond agreeing to facilitate and legalise a system that basically made being in power as being as simple as a) doing what whoever pulls the strings tells you, and b) having to do nothing else other than save or spend, is the corrupt money and economic system that they have legitimised through deregulation and changes in all sorts of laws and rules, has legalised the theft of the business and infrastructure that once made the UK great, also enabled this Country to be able to pay its own way through the natural methods of productivity or what we might see as things like industry, which up until the Second World War were ours, and only ours.

Finding ways to create ‘growth’ has become progressively more desperate. Not just for Starmer, Reeves and co; but for every politician who has been anywhere near real power for a very long time. All as part of a process that dates back to at least 1971, when the FIAT money lie was properly embedded and the last remnants of the gold standard were left behind.

The same money and economic system that has been used to disproportionately enrich the few, whilst giving them the power to exploit and impoverish the masses, is also the reason why growing numbers of people can no longer afford to live. It’s why we have a minimum wage that doesn’t actually provide those who earn it anywhere near enough money to live independently and have lives which we would recognise as being their own.

As we now watch the welfare bill spiralling out of control – not because people don’t want to work – but because the system we have has pushed them and in many cases held them there – we are staring down the barrel of the gun that is the AI takeover, where many millions more jobs will be lost. Not because they need to be. But so those controlling this shit show can earn and profit even more.

The government is broke and broken. Raising taxes is the only way that they can service the forlorn hope that enough growth can be create that will turn on the taps of borrowed money once more, so that the real damage that is now bursting into open sight from decades of mismanagement and yes treachery can hopefully be hidden.

Then the politicians can resume taking their happy place in the limelight of the Westminster merry go round and the wheels of money myths will spin for another day and avoid hitting the ground of reality once more.

Unfortunately for us all, the reality that the U.K. has pretty much zero productivity left means that the money, cash, property and ownership we have of anything is the only potential saviour in terms of financial resources that out of their depth politicians actually have available to them.

If a new politician or political leads were able to take over today and face up to the situation and see and be honest about all of this for what it really is, they would recognise that the choice they have is to either embrace the collapse which has been inevitable from the moment that private interests took over money and the economy, or keep playing along – which means taxing and taking from everyone and everything, until everything collapses anyway, and nobody has anything left worth having – because the need to save their own skin and position dictated that there was simply no other way.

Overview

Key Messages Simplified

• The UK government is financially broken, and politicians are trapped between two bad options: accept collapse now or prolong it by taxing and impoverishing the public.

• Rachel Reeves’ pre-budget speech signals inevitable tax rises, driven by a £50bn shortfall and falling productivity.

• Other parties, like Reform UK and the Conservatives, offer economic strategies, whether through spending cuts or tax freezes, that are all variations of the same flawed approach: preserving the current economic system at the public’s expense.

Core Arguments

1. The Economic System Is Rigged

• Decades of deregulation and manipulation have created a monetary system that benefits the wealthy while hollowing out UK productivity.

• GDP growth is an illusion, inflated by repeated transactions rather than genuine value creation.

• Public debt is never truly repaid—it’s masked by GDP growth, allowing borrowing to continue indefinitely.

2. Political Consensus Protects the System, Not the People

• Whether politicians raise taxes or cut spending, they’re all trying to save the same broken system, not improve lives.

• Reeves, Farage, and Badenoch are functionally aligned, despite different rhetoric.

3. Collapse Is Inevitable Without Radical Change

• UK productivity has been destroyed, with industries outsourced and even UK agriculture now being undermined.

• AI-driven job losses will worsen inequality. Not because they’re necessary, but because they’re profitable for elites.

• The only remaining assets people and small businesses have —cash, property, and ownership—are now becoming the last financial lifelines for the government and politicians who simply shouldn’t have the power that they do.

Final Warning

• Politicians must either confront collapse honestly or continue taxing until everything collapses anyway.

• New leadership must be willing to reject the current system, rather than perpetuate it for personal or political survival.