Tag: self serving politicians

Awakened Politics & Good Government cannot exist where other influences are at work

For Politics and Government to be fully Awake, it is absolutely essential that the sanctity of the relationship between Voters and Public Representatives is uncorrupted and remains incorruptible.

The greatest travesty that exists within our so-called democracies today is the role and influence of Big Business, ‘The Markets’, Banks and ‘The Financial Sector’.

It has become very clear through the chronology of political events in the UK during the Autumn of 2022 alone, that our Politicians are actively prioritising ‘what the markets want’, above doing whatever is in the best interests of everyone else.

The reality that this action effectively rubbishes or gives the lie to The UK being a democratic Country aside, this evidence does in itself spell out that care and consideration for the impact of decisions are only being made on purely a financial or rather monetary policy basis.

Government decisions are not being made on a public policy basis. This means that issues created by the very real ‘cost of living crisis’ are being treated as nothing more than an afterthought at best, if they are really being thought about by Politicians in any meaningful way at all.

Awakened Politics isn’t fully Conscious or Enlightened if any bias or subjective influence is present or at work, either for the individual Politician, for any Political Group or Grouping to which they may belong, or indeed within the Council, Parliament or Assembly of whatever kind it might be, to which each and every elected Politician once elected belongs.

The relationship between Voter and Public Representative (Politician) will always be ultimately based upon trust. But that doesn’t mean we cannot or shouldn’t have a political and electoral system that reduces the instances where corruption of any kind cannot be limited to a point where it will not be easy to hide and where it can be readily detected or seen.

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Good Politicians MUST be Judged by the results of their actions. NOT by their words, what they appear to do, or how they might look

It is easy to see why Political Parties now fall over themselves to secure Candidates for Elections who already have a name, such as celebrities or people who have for some reason been publicly recognised as a champion of some specific cause or in some other way.

‘They are this’, ‘They are that’, are the words or the thinking that accompanies the thought processes of today’s Politicians and Political Parties when they select and appoint their Candidates – often for ‘Seats’ that they already consider to be theirs to allocate and that they therefore ‘Own’.

What the Political Parties today don’t think or worry about, is what the Politicians they effectively appoint would actually do, or indeed, what they have actually already done.

Words are just words. Whether spoken, written or even typed up or presented to the public through a screen, on a page or through a public meeting somewhere.

If we really want an idea of what any Politician can offer us or what they will bring, we must think differently about the way that they have been appointed, and the pathway that has delivered them into a publicly representative role.

What politicians have already done, rather than what it looks like what they have done or what they or someone else tell us they have done, is the best indication of what they will do.

Real research doesn’t stop at a title or at a headline. It takes time. But when one person must be trusted to think, behave and act Consciously for so many, it is essential that we too made that selection Consciously and being Conscious of all the facts and realities that underpin who they really are. Not how they or anyone else would like us to think.

People will always tell you who they are. They will also do so very quickly, as long as you make the effort to hear as well as listen.

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

Why the Tory sleaze crisis is important for us all

Whichever direction you face today you are likely to end up reading a story about Tory sleaze.

Whether it’s the Prime Minister Boris Johnson himself, Geoffrey Cox or anyone of a number of not so well-known MPs such as Laurence Robertson who represents the constituency where I live, it’s looking more and more like each and every one of the Conservative Members of Parliament have got their heads buried up to the neck in the trough.

As we observe what appears to be a quickly changing political environment with the Labour Party now leading the Tories by six points in the polls, it would be very easy to believe that sleaze and corruption is a problem which only affects this Government.

But it’s not. In fact, this whole sorry tale is an horrific indictment of just how rotten and sick the British political system and the people masquerading as public representatives within it have become.

If you’ve been following the development of this story since the vote in Parliament, Johnson’s epic U-Turn and the subsequent resignation of Owen Paterson, the MP for North Shropshire, you will no doubt have heard many MPs making the argument that having second jobs enriches the experience and therefore the ability of MPs to do their job.

The problem is, being a Member of Parliament is not a job.

Being a Member of Parliament is a responsibility. It is a vocation. A calling.

Becoming a Member of Parliament is an opportunity for public spirited leaders to do something selfless and important on behalf of others. People who either cannot represent themselves publicly or choose not to do so themselves.

Man can only have one master. And in a world where we have become obsessed with money and material wealth to the point where it is now treated like it is a God, it has never been so important that our public representatives have not been elected or taken the responsibility of public office simply to prioritise benefits or opportunities for themselves.

Contrary to what Labour Members of Parliament would like us to believe, they are no better themselves. The point being made only too clearly by the additional earnings that Labour leader Keir Starmer has accumulated in his secondary role as a Barrister since he was first elected to Parliament.

We simply have the wrong people sitting in Parliament. We have the wrong people sitting in Parliament because the system is skewed in such a way that it prevents other more publicly minded people from taking up seats at Westminster where they could actually do some good for us all.

It will not matter which of the existing Political Parties achieve a majority or take part in a coalition government following the next General Election. All of our MPs are fundamentally the same.

Until such time as we create a new political movement with MPs, Councillors, Mayors, Police & Crime Commissioners and politicians of all kinds that do everything they tell us they will do, rather than making promises that they never keep, we will continue to be condemned as a Country with all tiers of government filled up with politicians who are simply unfit to lead.

Motivation will never be an issue for politicians who get elected to their public roles for the right reasons with the intent to only do the right things.

£82,000 a year Plus expenses and the opportunity to live in London for most of the time represents a standard of living and life experience that many normal people in the UK would not even dare to dream of. Yet our MPs believe that they should be entitled to even more. All at a time when it is becoming ever clearer that our political class is simply not fulfilling the responsibilities and requirements of their roles.

If we want change, we have to create it.

If we want change, we have to be that change ourselves.

If we want change, we have to change the way that we think and accept that the way we get our public representatives to behave differently is to begin by changing the way that we behave ourselves.

The Government is forcing us to fear life as if it were the same thing as death

img_5361Friday was a very dark day for this Country.

Journalists, activists and supporters cheered on Boris Johnson as he effectively closed down life for any other purpose than to facilitate work that cannot be carried out from home, or for making what has become a futile attempt in recent days for many of us as we attempt to service basic human needs.

Meanwhile, the Chancellor succeeded in convincing the party faithful that a half-hearted attempt at addressing the financial problems people now face would be beneficial to everyone. In fact it prioritises only the needs of some without coming anywhere close to answering the real questions for them or anyone else.

Many others were simply bypassed by the big words of this written-on-a-fag-packet strategy altogether, when what could and more importantly should have been a working plan to treat everyone the same and as an equitable cause was simply not considered at all.

What many of us are missing as we watch the endless streams of news and what has quickly become the media-driven 24hr Coronavirus Show, is that these Politicians are not in charge of what they are doing, nor are they successfully meeting their real obligations to the people who elected them and put them in office in any thought-through way.

Whilst they would like us to believe otherwise, the Politicians making the decisions today are human beings who like most people outside of Westminster are actually very afraid.

The problem with this form of leadership is that fear is no leader when what is called for to genuinely help others is the ability for them to be strong.

Our leaders are not leading. They are being led by fear themselves, and that fear is leading them to make decisions that have already or soon will become an overkill that really hurts a lot more people across this Country than it could ever really help.

The Government and the people advising them are more afraid of getting a few very specific things with healthcare wrong, when they should be a lot more afraid of not getting everything else about this Crisis right.

There are some cold and harsh realities that we all must face about the Coronavirus itself and what the reaction of the Politicians, the State and the so-called specialists working alongside them is going to do.

None of them are particularly nice.

Key in peoples minds will be the tragedy unfolding in a very personal way for the people who have and will continue to die. It’s horrible, but the media focusing on individual cases non-stop as they are doing is making the whole experience for everyone else unnecessarily much worse.

Next will be the toll that dealing non-stop with Coronavirus in our hospitals will be and what the exposure to that will mean for the longer term mental health of those who were already working on or have volunteered to join the front line. This is the job that they have trained and committed to doing and keeping this in the forefront of wider perspective is what will keep the wheels turning.

However, the one reality that we should all wake up to, be most concerned with and understand today is the one that nobody is talking about. The one that unlike Coronavirus does not have the capacity to go away. The one where the Government is prioritising the fight to prevent the most vulnerable in society from possibly dying prematurely at what is the disproportionate cost of denying everyone else the ability to have and maintain any kind of normal life.

Yes, we are hearing horror stories from Italy and from other places around the World about infection rates and the related number of deaths.

But we have no guarantee that the potential for any of that to happen here will be mitigated by shutting down the country just to facilitate what could be a delay.

What none of the medical people, specialists and experts can tell or rather guarantee any of us, is how long Coronoavirus will be here and how long social distancing will remain their only solution in what will surely be an ongoing and what will soon feel like a permanent process of temporary delay after temporary delay.

Indeed, on the basis of what they are telling us, the duration of this social lockdown will actually need to go on for as long as it will take to exhaust the spread of the virus throughout the entire population, or alternatively to create a vaccine, test it, produce it and then vaccinate everyone, or which ever will be possible to achieve first place without any further or unseen delay.

None of this advice being given is based upon real numerical facts. Even if it was, that advice would be or is subjective, is based only on the management of critical health care and does not take into consideration any of the wide-ranging impacts, consequences and knock-on effects for people, businesses and society as a whole that an unmitigated focus on being able to provide ventilators at the time that everyone might need them has already began to cause.

We already know that our leaders are thinking the time their policy of social distancing will take to keep the need on any day for these resources, managed by the pathway of time, is likely to run into many months. As such, it could easily become a period of years.

Meanwhile, the Country is set to fall apart on nothing more the basis that because Coronavirus is new and has a name, it is somehow more important and therefore must be treated differently than the significant number of deaths we have in this country each and every day or every winter when the figures for deaths from existing conditions such as seasonal flu alone are typically already much worse.

The reality that we all must face once we have been conditioned to it and matured is that this life ends for every one of us in some way, some day.

This whole crisis and the decisions that Politicians, Advisors and government officers are taking right now are already affecting and are about to take over our lives both today and for the future.

They will do so based only on the premise that we should listen to somebody with a title without question, whilst they are themselves motivated by fear of something even they don’t fully understand, and are taking little more than a guess about how only the things they are responsible for in isolation might turn out.

What is more, the number of people that this unproven and best process of guesswork might save from an early death is likely to turn out significantly smaller than all the hype being peddled by our irresponsible media would suggest.

The consequences of shutting down this Country, the economy and all of our lives simply as a strategy so the NHS can cope will inadvertently kill, destroy lives and create a level of hardship for a number of people that will go way beyond – if not actually totally eclipse the number that this fear-driven escapade on the part of people driven by their fragile egos will ever save.

Yet the deaths, the suicides, the life-long mental health issues, poverty, hardship, the destruction of relationships, safeguarding issues and many other forms of malaise and negative knock on effects for individuals and families that the choices the Johnson Government is going to create by shutting down businesses, our lives, our incomes and our ability to pay the debts that they have done nothing to keep at bay, will never get mentioned or championed by these same Politicians in any way.

Yes, Coronavirus kills. But death is an inevitable end to this life and other diseases, conditions and factors will always kill more.

The fear of our Politicians and the stupidy and self-serving nature of the media that leads them has turned a drama into a crisis, simply because they have been able to give the fear that they thrive on a name and through their words and actions have given it the power of being like a flip side celebrity cause.

The misery that their ineptitude, ignorance and incompetence will cause to many more than will ever die from Coronavirus is an uncomfortable subject that the establishment will wilfully fail to recognise when any individual brings a story of real life misery to their door that might uncover the horrid truth about how those in power operate whilst exposing their many flaws.

The real fear for us should not be Coronavirus.

Our real fear should be our politicians and the people advising them because they are out of their depth.

Through the actions of shutting down our lives and making us dependent upon everything they say and do, we are together and collectively being coerced into behaving and therefore believing that it has become normal to fear living in the same way that we are conditioned to fear death.

Leaders who are afraid of their own shadow will not easily relinquish the control which their fears have motivated them to take at a time when they were trusted because they believe they will continue to keep them safe.

In the weeks to come and as the inequity and self-serving nature of their thinking becomes more apparent and as it becomes clear how their inept plans are going to turn out for everyone, people are going to realise just how over the top the dysfunction of this wholly avoidable shutdown of our lives really is.

As things like the parts run out to keep the lorries and ambulances running that they are telling us will keep us all safe whilst everyone is shut down, and the flawed concept of social distancing remains the only political parable that exists, people are going to realise just how draconian and out of touch with the hard-hitting realities of the wider and wholly avoidable Crisis they are creating alongside Coronavirus that our current Government and the thinking of the MPs around them really is.

None of us really wants anyone else to suffer.

We certainly don’t want anyone to prematurely lose their life.

But the reality is that we are all being forced to sacrifice our lives and peace of mind for little more than a cause that has value because it has been a name and therefore a face.

The response of the Government and the specialists to Coronavirus is going to damage and destroy much more for us, our Country and our future indirectly than it is ever directly going to save.

Don’t mistake the frustration and bewilderment of the British People we have with the stupidity in Parliament as support for anything our Remainer MPs would have us do

Boris’ deal was always going to be a long shot.

The opportunity to get a meaningful pre-departure agreement With the EU for Brexit was after all simply burned up and wasted by Remainer-in-chief Mrs May.

However, whether deliberate or unintended, the proposal that the current Prime Minister has tabled this week has turned out to be an elephant trap of a depth that has the potential to really change the Brexit game.

Boris was never going to be able to get the pre-Exit deal that nobody else could. But what his careful pruning of the deliberately deceptive rose bush that is the EU’s and the Remain-obsessives idea of what a Brexit Withdrawal Agreement must Look like, has brought into view for everyone that the EU’s position is always going to remain exactly the same.

To the EU and the Remain-obsessed-MPs under its spell, Brexit cannot be anything other than permanent Remain.

Whilst this suggestion that only when we are able to look back from the future will it generate comment and thought, it is certainly not impossible that much of what has happened in Parliament since the Brexit Vote in June 2016 has been in no small way part of a well thought out response and strategy for the EU and their Remainer MP puppets.

One where they realised that whilst they have simply rerun Referendums in other countries – such as the Irish Republic itself – when they didn’t get the result they wanted, they would not be able to manipulate the British Public in quite the same way.

Indeed the difference in response To the Referendum Result could be seen to be tacit acknowledgement that the Vote was unquestionably binary and that the UK Government had definitely committed to delivering the result.

Boris’ achievement with his deal this week is that he has effectively stirred up the pond and dislodged all the bullshit and dishonesty upon which the EU and Renainers have built their dubious arguments against Brexit whilst giving the lie to every reason they have given to Remain.

The crap that the EU and the Remain-obsessives have wrapped around Brexit has been sent floating to the top.

Benn and the charlatan MPs who have voted against everything and dragged the Courts into support their disingenuous actions, have in the past 24 hours shown that there was never any will on their part for a compromise of any sort.

For them it’s been all about doing anything and everything they can simply to stop and overturn Brexit and the will of the People, whilst playing every game they possibly can in the forlorn hope they can manipulate the British People into believing that Brexit was our error and we have no choice but to Remain.

Across the Irish Sea we now have Leo Varadkar preaching to us that we, the British People have changed our minds. Whilst in the EU we have their spokespeople making clear that they will not tolerate a hard border, nor any kind of customs or market system across an open border that isn’t the same as theirs.

Whichever way you want to do the sums, the maths of all this adds up simply to being the same thing: The EU and the treacherous Remain-obsessives who support them will not do anything that will cede the control they cherish so badly, back to an Independent Nation State that has been a Member of the EU.

The only concession they will make is that the UK can call the future relationship with the EU ‘Brexit’.

But that itself will be the only acceptable change. The UK must be coerced in whatever way necessary to ensure that the only direction of travel between us is even closer alignment and commitment. Their aim is that we always Remain.

If the EU and our colluding Europhile MPs really wanted to find an arrangement that was acceptable to everyone, the timescale to agree the finer points of Boris deal would not in any way prove to be difficult.

This part of the process was after all only ever supposed to have been the terms under which we then define our longer term relationship between the UK and the EU.

Yet even that has become unacceptable, the very moment when Boris puts forward something that could actually get through Parliament which would not ultimately be the same as Remain.

The EU has changed the goalposts and now insists that any deal covering the UK Exit itself, must have permanency involved.

There is still time for reason to win over, if our sell-out MPs and the EU should be so inclined.

But I suspect that Boris’ deal has simply served to clarify that the position on Brexit should have always been treated exactly the same way as the original question was put to us in the 2016 Referendum Vote.

This is simply a case of Leave (without any deal) or Remain (and pretend that things will be the same).

Parliament must not pretend or continue to try and convince us of intentions that suggest otherwise any longer.

For democracy to be upheld and restored in this Country, the UK must Leave the EU properly.

And Leave the EU properly, the UK definitely will.

The democratically unacceptable alternative would be that we are forced to Remain.

Our system of Government is no longer fit for purpose and we are unlikely to get the change required if it is left in the hands of any of these MPs

Squatter Parliament

Politics is broken. It can no longer remain the same.

Elected representatives have demonstrated repeatedly that they cannot be trusted to respect the principles that underpin our democracy. For what happens next, they have only themselves and their parties to blame.

Until the 2010 creation of the Fixed Term Parliaments Act, the safety valve that prevented trouble of the kind we are now experiencing was the ability of any and all prime ministers to call for a General Election, at any time and without two thirds of Parliament in support.

It was respectfully used at times when a government had no way to continue and simply didn’t have the number of votes necessary in Parliament to provide it with majority support.

Whilst opposition after opposition would have grabbed the chance of a General Election being gifted to them at any time, this Remain-majority of a quasi-Government has refused to have one deliberately by choice.

By doing so, they have demonstrated a total disregard, for our centuries-old constitution. A system of government that has never before seen such open and contemptuous forms of abuse.

Their priority and aim has been to manipulate the system to deliver what they want without any form of legitimacy or mandate.

What is worse, their plans run completely contrary to the will of the People – given to them legitimately as a direct and clear instruction in a democratic vote.

None of the political class that currently sits within our Parliament can walk away from this complete mess and claim they had nothing to do with it, the years of abuse that prepared the ground for it, or that it was always out of their control.

There is a rot at the base of British politics now and the real problem for us all is the question of how it can be replaced.

We cannot wait for a new party to be established that will have the policies and reach that will make it a credible alternative to what we have as the current line up or choice.

The current system is a monopoly of three at best and is totally rigged at worst.

But without a new political party that is a real left-right/Leave-Remain all-view-considered movement too, we are faced with the prospect of having to elect MPs at the coming General Election who have come to Parliament through the very same Party Political system that gave us the people that have broken our democracy.

This system of political parties only works to further itself and is as such fundamentally flawed.

The truly concerning thing for us all right now is that the stupidity that we are witnessing in Parliament may not have as yet come to its end.

The MPs we have Today are either so sure of their own position or confident that they can do what they like and that Public concern will simply then fade away, that it has become clear that they are now capable of doing absolutely anything when it comes to getting their own way.

This travesty must be stopped. What they have already done has set a dangerous precedent. Those politicians who follow them in future without there being the meaningful change required will simply approach future policies just the same.

We must find a way to create and establish a fixed and robust constitution that covers all aspects of the way this Country is governed.

We must set proper, considered rules covering how we allow our MPs to be appointed as candidates and then become elected.

Otherwise we must now accept that Parliamentary democracy in this country is no longer fit for purpose and has come to its end and that the time has come to find another way.

One way or another, change is coming and it’s probably going to come very soon indeed.

The answer may not be anything anything we have already seen. And it won’t be a question of if or when.

It will simply be a question of who.

 

The future of this Country will not be dictated by a Squatter Parliament filled with cuckoos rather than genuine MPs. Our future will be decided by the British People and implemented by representation that we can actually trust.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

image thanks to unknown

 

 

 

 

 

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

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

This is of course complete bullshit.

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

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

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

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

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

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

We hate it.

We hate just the idea.

We hate even the slightest whiff of it.

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

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

I would say no.

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

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

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

But the problem runs much deeper.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

 

 

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Our political classes are simply out of any new ideas.

UK politics is without original thinking.

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

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

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

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

 

 

Are our MP’s sleepwalking us towards Dictatorship?

 

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Brexit has pretty much taken over political life in this Country at the moment and it is set to continue doing for some time.

The most regrettable part of all of it is the division that the whole process has caused. I am sure that if any of us were to stop, stand still for just a moment and reflect upon how we really feel about other people – whether they voted Leave or Remain, as soon as politics is taken out of the equation, we like all of them pretty much the same.

As regular readers will know, I have been blogging about the Brexit process pretty much non-stop for a number of weeks now.

I make no apology for continuing to hold the genuine conviction that the best future for the UK and all of it’s People will be experienced as a Sovereign Nation and standing independent of Europe on our own.

I also understand why people have and do reach other conclusions too and accept that if I held precisely the same experience of life and the understanding that they do, my views would almost certainly be the very same.

The reason for being here and writing today however isn’t about Brexit itself, but about the issues for democracy upon which the Brexit process has become embroiled and underpinned. Issues which are actually not new, but have been forced into daylight by the behaviour of our Politicians over the European Referendum, the ongoing debate over what will happen after 29th March 2019, and what now seems like the eternity in between.

Whilst hiding in plain sight, Politics in the UK has been broken for a very long time.

In fact, the downward spiral has been in play since at least the 1980’s when Margaret Thatcher was PM, and has probably been in motion since long before that time.

People become Politicians in this Country for as many worthy but also non-worthy reasons. But the way that the Political System now works, with a near-monopoly status of a triumvirate of Political Parties holding sway over the gain or loss of Parliamentary Seats, it is the people at the top of the Parties themselves which now hold the real power over Policy in this Country, and not each and every MP working collectively, as it always should be.

The system corrupts entrants just as soon as they have been elected. They are greeted with the choice of becoming subservient to the will of the politicians who lead them if they want to progress, thereby selling out all thought of genuine representation of the people who elected them.

It has simply become a numbers game. Those who lead the Parties are in charge of everything that we do and it is a majority-sum game which itself gives the lie to the idea that we are now living in a genuine democracy.

In simple terms, those who can win the Party, run the Country.

All good until the point that a major decision is tossed back to the Electorate in the form of a Referendum, bucking the long-term trend of autocracy running our Parliament in all but name. Bewildering for those who have become complacent with their place within a broken system that feeds itself on ensuring that the status quo is fully maintained.

In a system that has increasingly worked because there has been a top to bottom absence of genuine leadership skill, the moment arrived in 2016 when the UK suddenly required real leadership. But no real leadership was actually there. There was no good leader available and ready to lead.

Be under no illusion, the crisis that we are all experiencing now began in earnest the very moment that an MP who represents all that is wrong with this broken system found herself achieving the dream of making it into No.10.

From that point the decisions were only ever going to be about maintaining the ‘existing’ system. For that to happen, everything that came after had to be favourable to what we now call ‘Remain’.

Yet under the cloud of considerable democratic intervention which was the European Referendum, the writing was from that point on the wall.

Whilst what appears to have been blunder after blunder and opportunity missed after opportunity missed seems to easy for this Parliament to blame upon the People’s decision to instruct the Government to deliver Brexit, the truth is much darker. It may now be the real reason why the UK could instead of capitalising fully from Brexit as it should have done, inadvertently be about to experience what will feel like a considerable fall.

The sickness and condition of British Politics exists because the political classes at all levels of Government are now made up in the majority by very ambitious people who put self-interest, furthering their own opportunities and being seen to have ‘glory’ before any recognition of what their positions and responsibilities were created for.

In Parliament, Members at all levels are now putting their own aims first, being disingenuous in painting themselves as the equivalent as the shining knights riding to the UK’s rescue from an out-of-control Brexit, when the cause of the very problems they are telling us they are equipped to solve are of their own making, not of the People who Elected them, despite the proposition of a second referendum which is by the very nature of this action, the clear Statement that we are now being told.

That Parliament tossed this decision affecting all our futures out to the Public and now plans to rescind upon the obligation to them which then followed, using whatever method that it can, has simply removed all value from the democratic process.

In an already politically disenfranchised Country, this is now making tangible the foundations upon which an alternative to this disrespectful treatment of the Public en masse could very realistically stand.

Now before you get carried away and think I’m simply setting up the suggestion that a Corbyn-led Government is now imminent, whilst that in some respects could be true, its manifestation because of everything that is happening, could actually be a catalyst to something much more profound, which sweeps away the corrupt and pyrrhic forms of democracy that we are used to, including the political parties as we know them, and opens up a very different kind of door.

Yes, the self-interest in Parliament has now reached such levels, that consensus is possible no more.

And this means that if groups of MP’s cannot work together in the majority to take the decisions that each and every one of them was elected for, thereby making the Parties they represent completely defunct, we must surely be in the position where the responsibility will fall on an individual to break the deadlock. Not only with Brexit, but with just about every policy where lack of consensus has led to damaging forms of compromise which never hurt the people making the decisions, but make life very difficult for the people they never consider, at cost to everyone and everything and a whole lot more besides.

We can only hope that if it happens, this will not become the UK’s Trump moment.

But if our MP’s continue with this unbridled attack on the little that is left of our democracy, they will soon have zero legitimacy and not be left in the position to decide.

History tells us that such an option manifested could be quite chilling.

But if such a thing as a worthy dictator existed, compared to the current shower in the majority sitting across Parliament giving the lie to our democracy as it currently stands, it is quite possible that the People of this Country might not actually mind.

A Referendum upon a Referendum is one Referendum too far

img_2233Last Wednesday evening, the Conservative Party lost, or rather surrendered collective responsibility for its own direction on Brexit.

With it, democracy in the UK may have been served a terminal blow.

Whilst we now know that the latest stage of Britain’s political chaos began when the present incumbent of No.10 first boomed out ‘Brexit means Brexit’ and meant no such thing, this has been a much longer process. One delivered by Political Parties of all colours and shielded from open view by our own trust and reverence for politicians being massively misused, taken for granted and abused.

Yet a watershed moment arrived when that contempt for the people went too far.

Our politicians miscalculated the response that would come back in the form of a decision on policy which they tossed out to us on the pretence that there was a decision that was itself simply too big for elected representatives to take themselves.

They did not get the result that they were expecting and had complacently assumed was coming when the Vote for the UK to Leave the European Union was won.

Not only did these self-aggrandised leaders not like it. Many of them have and continue to do everything that they can to frustrate the will of the people.

After creating a completely avoidable mess and continuing attempts to frighten everyone else into to the spurious admission that their decision to Leave was wrong, then propagating the myth that there is no better option available for a secure future for our Country than the one they have created, they are now advocating a second referendum to try and fix the problem. The blatant inference being that it was the decision and not their own obfuscation and failure at every turn to implement a proper Brexit since the Referendum that is fundamentally wrong.

The simple truth is that the decision of the British People to Leave the EU called the bluff of the political class.

Members of this self-serving non-representative culture have and still believe that they have the natural right and authority – once elected – to manipulate anything and everything to suit what they want, what serves their own purposes and everything else required to ensure that they get their own way.

The narrative that suggests the decision of the People went the way that it did because Leavers didn’t understand what they were voting for isn’t just a lie. It also demonstrates a complete misunderstanding and contempt by many of our MP’s for their own position and responsibilities. They operate contrary to what the purpose of an elected representative of the People is actually there for.

Yes, most of the Electorate didn’t understand the detail or rather the minutae of what they were voting for in the EU Referendum.

But it is not the Electors who are supposed to understand the detail of any Policy.

It is the Elected themselves who have sought and as the direct result of their Election to Office been given the responsibility to deal with the details, thereby accepting their obligation to deliver upon the direction they have been given by the people though a legitimate plebiscite.

By Parliament voting by a considerable majority to give the decision on our Membership of Europe to the People through a plebiscite, MP’s surrendered any right to dictate the direction and end result of the choice that was made.

MPs also obligated themselves to then do whatever would be necessary with the detail that they should all clearly understand, to execute our departure from Europe. Not with the bells and whistles and ties ins that work for them. But with the result that was intended, which was and remains very clear. That is to Leave and not be restricted by any form of tie to the European Union anymore.

To now seek to overturn the original and democratic decision of the people demonstrates either that those advocating it are wholly unworthy to hold public office.

They have already failed to do what they were told by the People to do.

What is more, they have done and continue to do everything they can to frustrate the process and with it, the Will of the People. And now, believing that their game of bluff, counter bluff and pretending that they have done everything that they were supposed to do has began to pay off, they wish to deliver the final insult to the Electorate that gave each and every one of them their position of responsibility, by making the clearest statement possible that it is only the People and not they who have ever done anything wrong.

The problem is that as with most things that our Politicians have been doing for so very long, they have completely misread the People. They have underestimated the ability of people outside of the Westminster bubble to accurately perceive what they are up to. To still think that by simply telling People whatever they decide the truth should be, the People will simply believe.

The Electorate has been tired of Politicians and their behaviour for a very long time. But the nature of our current political system and the monopoly of the Triumvirate of Political Parties which has existed over a period of decades has meant that Tribalism itself has played the most significant role in Elections.

This has left very few Electors in marginal Constituencies to place a Vote that will really decide who gets the opportunity to lead us. It’s little more than a choice from the same-old same-olds, rather than being given the option of new blood that might make a difference and bring legitimacy back to our democracy. Fundamentally, it’s simply a case of leaving the corrupted apparatus of Party Politics to decide.

This is a story of the Politicians own making.

But there is now a future for politics, because politics is going to be reclaimed by the People.

Politics will be prized from the hands of the Political Parties who have boundaries and collective views which are set against, rather than in the best interests of the People – The same People who innocently Elected this shower of MPs. MPs who have self interest at their core and no longer possess a mandate to hold Office because their own purpose and the will of the People is not in any way aligned.

If MPs continue with this travesty and push a referendum upon a referendum back to the people, it will not be the result of that referendum upon which the future of the Conservative, Labour or Liberal Democrat Parties will be defined.

For within every Election that follows a Referendum which will give the lie to the existence of a respect for democracy within our sick political system, there will no longer be a choice which follows the direction of the Political Parties as we now know them.

When the choice comes to appointing the representatives of the people, it will from then onwards be set between electing Politicians who represent only themselves, and electing Politicians who represent us all.

A Referendum upon a Referendum without having first delivered the instruction from the former, questions the legitimacy of the latter, simply because it questions what the first was actually for.

This is the act that could kill off democracy in the UK once and for all.

image thanks to unknown

Brexit and the Supreme Court: What will be the price of ‘objective’ judgement if no new precedents are set?

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Dipping into the proceedings of the Supreme Court last week was hardly the emotionally charged experience that Leavers and Remainers had been conditioned by the media to expect. But should we really be surprised when case law is being used to define arguments that have never previously been made and do in fact need our Judges to make a judgement in the purest sense?

As with all too many arguments in the political sphere these days, there is no small amount of semantics in play. Labelling of one kind or another has progressed to a level where the very act of simplifying language has progressed beyond the point of being intelligent and really given the lie to the idea that one word really can and does mean the same thing to all people.

Never mind ‘hard Brexit’ this or ‘soft Brexit’ that. Judicial process is itself hiding the truth that case law did at one point or another have itself to be created. It was at these very moments that it was the objectivity of the Judiciary or other high-level-offices of responsibility upon which we have relied and trusted to make the decisions which would today become the precedents that the debate over parliamentary interest in the triggering of Article 50 has rested.

At a time when the level of public confidence in politicians can be generalised as being the core issue that brought Brexit about, we all need to see leadership within the system of law which reaches beyond the scope of sticking to what is considered safe, or fundamentally right, simply because it’s the way that it is expected to be done.

So when we look to the Judiciary for the impartial type of leadership which is sadly lacking from government, why have the Courts not focused on the chronology of events, and above all what cannot reasonably be disputed as the democratic will of the people?

The easy response would be to suggest that the Judges concerned are expressing views which have been informed by bias. Indeed many of our media outlets have gone to great lengths to explore the backgrounds and links of the Judges who sat on the case previously, as well as the 11 who have sat in the past week at the Supreme Court.

The upshot of this approach which is inherently linked to the Brexit camp, being the inference that a decision which goes against the perogative of the Prime Minister to trigger Article 50 directly and without further reference to Parliament is pro-Remain.

Be it right or wrong in terms of principle, the hardest pill to swallow for anyone looking in from the outside who supports Brexit is that the Judges have not done anything wrong by ruling the way that they already have. Nor will those sitting in the Supreme Court do so if they then uphold the previous ruling.

Yes, the Judiciary may well be hiding behind process and this could indeed give legitimised cover to the less objective members of a bench who might put personal or subjective views before what Brexiteers would see post 23rd June as being clearly right. But that is their gift and we are unlikely to ever know the truth to this question and the fact is that the system does – as its stands – both allow and facilitate an intelligent form of responsibility-ducking which sadly permeates all forms of government today.

Technical truths are the harsh and uncompromising reality of a protectionist and self-serving age where taking responsibility is considered dangerous and actions are legitimately excused by reference to the precedents set by others rather than what experience tells us exists in front of our own eyes.

The objective view would recognise the democratic decision and therefore the mandate of the people above all else. Equally it would reference the fact that Parliament has already had its say when it passed the legislation for the Referendum in the first place and then made that choice directly subject to the will of the people. Ironically, it would also reproach the significant transfer of legislative power which has been undemocratically transferred to the EU beyond the previous mandate given by the British people for a common trading relationship, respectful of national sovereignty, which people on all sides of the argument still actually want.

It is possible that the Supreme Court will support the Government view and allow the triggering of Article 50 without any further debate. But it is unlikely.

Like it or not, we simply do not exist within a time of true leadership. If we had, we would not be anywhere near the constant two and fro of discussions surrounding our exit from Europe and the rise of a new American President whose arrival together in 2016 are being heralded as the turn of a populist tide.

We certainly wouldn’t find ourselves questioning what constitutes good judgement.

Britain’s Political Crisis: Politicians should remember that glory is little more than a temporary illusion which benefits no-one in the long term. It should be just the happy consequence that it is, rather than the reason for being and doing itself…

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If you could speak to any of today’s MP’s, back before they entered politics, and asked them why they got involved, would most of them honestly tell you that it was because they wanted to be an MP, or because they wanted to make a difference?

Sadly, we all probably know the answer to this question very well. In it lies much of the truth behind not only the problems that this Country now faces, but also the uncomfortable reality that sits behind Westminster’s façade. The British political establishment is morally inept, and there is nobody offering anything even remotely like the leadership that the Country needs in order to bring balance and to deliver a system of Government which genuinely is fair and fitting for all.

People are awakening to the complexities of our political system, albeit for many, they are simply on the receiving end or rather the effects of a comprehensive range of policies that have usually been cobbled together for no better reason than that of political expedience, usually because their precursor was failing to work just the same.

It was once said that the simplest solutions are the most intelligent. Indeed one of the most pertinent and indeed relevant quotes which relates to the way that Government operates would be Albert Einstein, when he said ‘If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough’.

Some may question the validity of quotations from a world renowned scientist. But Government is and has been run by generations of politicians who are doing little more than testing out theories and face-saving solutions on an electorate that they have arguably treated little better than lab rats or guinea pigs.

People across the demographical boundaries of British society feel that this is exactly how they have and are being treated, and the reality is that political philosophy and the other tools used to progress the interests of one group of people over another, continually fails to deliver anything balanced, or which does not have negative implications for somebody, somewhere else.

We live in times when the disparity between the lifestyles of those on low incomes and those who might be considered to be financially rich, are almost permanently in the media spotlight, encouraging feelings of distance and difference which would probably best be summed up in the sense of the ‘them and us’ cultures you often find present between the tiers of managers and staff within different organisations.

But rather than seek and use the many opportunities available to work with the reality that perception is everything, a seemingly continual flow of politicians gain elevation to their seats and immediately forget that they were elected to be the channels of communication and influence on behalf of the areas they represent.

Often by default, they then become the slaves and ‘yes men’ to someone else’s set of political ideals – all of which usually represent very little that we would recognise as being akin to a way of working and the delivery of solutions which consider the implications and impact upon us all.

Those who have direct experience of operating within the political world will know only too well that democracy today only works for those who are in charge.

Hearing other politicians agree with what you say when you speak out and say something is wrong, is often followed by the contrary and white flagged acknowledgement that ‘you can’t change it as this is just the way things are’. This kind of statement certainly shouldn’t resonate with anyone who entered politics because they genuinely believe in delivering something better for all. However, the fact that so many MP’s are still seen to be sticking with the status quo says much about their motivations for being there.

Whilst change has to start somewhere and many will admire Douglas Carswell and Mark Reckless for the steps they have taken, UKIP is so far untested beyond its ability to win by-elections for Westminster and seats within a European Institution which other than being little more than the glorified committee stage of a bureaucratic law making machine, would itself fail to exist for them if they were to ultimately achieve their publicised aims.

At a time when the UK is effectively bankrupt, cuts and economies are being ineptly focused upon the bottom line of expenditure, rather than the transformation and institutional change which would help us ensure the future of services such as the NHS, those provided by local government and many not-for-profit organisations, rather than on the continually increasing risk which will come to us all as a result of their destruction. We desperately need a new start in politics which reflects the responsibility to the public that politicians have, rather than the retention of their seats at the next election which they want.

Cynical as it may sound, we are now experiencing a form of government which begins its next election campaign the very next day after the votes were counted from the last, and you may well wonder what would have happened to us all since May 2010 if the modus operandi of having a whole 5 years to get reelected had been replaced with the battle cry ‘we have only 5 years to get something done’.

The argument and justification for change becomes flawed when personalities are brought into the mix, and however we might feel about the personal ideologies or backgrounds of David Cameron, Ed Milliband, Nick Clegg, Nigel Farage or anyone else who is in the political sphere, to simply concentrate on ‘playing the man, rather than the ball’ just takes us straight back into the problem that all of them – together – are continuing to create and maintain.

Likewise, jumping on the bandwagon of anarchy, propagated by probably well-meaning public figures like Russell Brand, will also yield very little long-term fruit for a population which is desperate for wholesale change for the better.

Change of the kind that will serve us all well can only come from transformation of the system that we already have.

Destruction of that system – however unfair it might seem to be right now – would lead to a level of uncertainty which would leave people grappling for any alternative which would quickly answer the many questions that widespread lawlessness would almost certainly bring.

If you need to gain some kind of perspective on this, it might be worth considering the situation in Syria and North Iraq which precipitated the arrival of Islamic State – the true impact of which we still as yet do not know.

Everything we do is now based upon mitigating the existence of fear. The most public and consequential proponents of this are the political classes themselves and until they all – as individuals – begin to acknowledge the personal fears that they have, and then rise above them and embrace the level of responsibility they have to us all; work with the risks, and then make decisions that are truly in the best interests of all, nothing is going to change.

Political parties offer a refuge for those who feel they have no choice but to work with others just to get things done. But political parties are now one of the biggest elements of the problem itself and political philosophies are little more than a trap for those who do not have faith in anyone’s ideas, other than their own.

Whoever you vote for in 2015, without change on the level that politicians all now need to embrace, we are simply heading for a lot more of the same, and probably in way which will be far worse and more painful than anything we have witnessed or experienced before.

Thinking about others and how our actions will impact upon them isn’t just some kind of selfless sport or charitable notion for those who have spare time and money on their hands. By considering others, we ultimately consider ourselves.

Politicians on all sides and at all levels would do well to bear this in mind and remember that by concentrating on the real issues that face them today, the electoral results for tomorrow will in turn take care of themselves.

Glory is little more than a temporary illusion which benefits no-one in the long term. It should be just the happy consequence that it is, rather than the reason for being and doing itself.

image: wonderfulengineering.com

Annuities: Has another election winning time-bomb been lit that will devastate the futures of normal people just so a Political Party can get back into power?

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Read the latest opinion polls and it is easy to conclude that George Osborne’s 2014 Budget has had the result that he was looking for.

With both next year’s General Election and perhaps more importantly, this year’s European Elections firmly affixed in his mind, it was certain that polices would materialise which were likely to incentivise voters in the short term and once again take attention away from what will happen as a result in the long.

However, the steps to remove an obligation to invest at least some of a pension pay-outs on annuities may take this quick fix and opiate-like vote winner into an entirely different league when it comes to rolling over the problems facing the current Government in to the difficulties which will almost certainly be faced by normal and everyday people in the future.

Pensions are a hateful topic for most people simply because the funds within them are untouchable. To struggling wage earners, reading an annual statement from their provider and seeing how funds can be growing at a healthy rate, can certainly be a torment. It often gives that siren-esque gremlin on their shoulder the perfect opportunity to preach a tale of how much better that sum of money would serve them if it were in their own hands right now.

As many already know, the realities of long-term money management requires a lifetime without financial challenges at best, not to mention the most exquisite forms of discipline at a very personal level . This is why pensions – and until this week annuities, have been safely kept out of reach. Temptation and therefore all the basic requirements and influences that come with living a life today are or have been safely kept at bay, without any of those threats being responsible for the potential hells that may without them come from many of our own tomorrows.

Removing the obligation upon retirees to ‘buy’ an annuity will naturally – and very understandably – be perceived as a massive gain for many. The caricatures of OAPS in Ferraris may in practice turn out to be anything but unreal once the Policy comes into effect.

But when people have experienced a lifetime of financial prudence and responsibility, exchanging this and the future they have banked on for what is arguably little more than a lottery win situation could turn out to be very costly indeed.

Windfalls are by their very nature difficult for almost everyone to deal with in a reasoned way because they are naturally habit-breaking in the extreme. Having large ‘disposable’ sums of cash suddenly available can seriously skew a person’s view of the world on what might actually be a very temporary basis indeed and a study of the effects of sizable cash wins on real-world people may have served the people behind this plan very well.

This really doesn’t seem like a policy which has the best interests of the retirees in mind and especially so when you consider the state of the Country’s finances and the most recent comments suggesting that the State Retirement Age with have moved to 70 by the year 2040. Hardly comforting news if you have no annuity to top up an insufficient State Pension and therefore are left with the glaring possibility that you will have to continue working until you literally drop.

With life expectancy rates going up all the time, what sort of desperate circumstances are people reaching pensionable age from next year now going to have to face, long after the Coalition Government knows the result of the 2015 General Election or Mr Osborne’s tenure in No. 11 Downing Street has well and truly ended?

Annuities may indeed have become yet another product or service which serves the interests of those making profit before it ever will the customer. This however, doesn’t mean that an approach to savings and income of this kind still doesn’t have its place. In fact, you might argue that similar products have a much bigger role to play with the State’s ability to support even our existing OAP’s dwindling almost by the hour.

Hardly a prudent or considered form of policy making on behalf of those who are falling over themselves to look after their own elect-ability today at the expense of everyone else’s tomorrows, is it?

image thanks to http://www.telegraph.co.uk