Tag: Supply Chain

The UK will go hungry as the food supply collapses. But Boris and all the political buffoons seat blocking our Parliament will continue to have their day…

It’s difficult to imagine that anyone in big business or government has any real concern about supply chain security, when the Conservative-friendly Daily Telegraph carries a story about the CEO of the UK’s Marks & Spencer retail chain now being on a 4-day week for a salary of £750K. Meanwhile, the real people at the other end of the wealth divide are working every hour they have and cannot even afford to buy food from one of the stores.

I will leave the timing and reasoning for this announcement, along with the raft of announcements from No.10 suggesting that our self-regalvanised PM is only now ready to his job to the reader.

But to say all of these deliberate distractions overlook the many elephants in the room and particularly the questions surrounding what happens to us all next would be comical, if it were not the fact that for the majority of us all, shit is about to get very real indeed.

Call me dramatic if you like. But few of us will accept that we are already in the process of a massive financial and systemic collapse until it actually hits us and we can feel the pain pushing into our own existence or life bubble in some way. Regrettably, that day will soon come.

However, whilst things like the housing market collapsing, or small businesses going bang because they simply cannot raise employee pay will inevitably hit or touch the lives of us all differently, there is one very profound and potentially very hard-hitting way that the collapse of the systems we currently take for granted is going to touch all of our lives in the same way. That’s the production, supply and the availability or shortages of food.

Before I go any further, it is important to get to the point that the supply of many of the foods that we probably all enjoy at home, from takeaways or when we go out to a pub or restaurant for a meal, are simply not going to be available in any of these ways anymore. Furthermore, this change to our lifestyles could well be pushing its way into our lives in perhaps just weeks or months from now.

The ingredients, the processing and the transportation of the foods that contribute to what might best be described as our very exotic, but nonetheless unhealthy diets aren’t just sourced from right across the world.

The foods we eat and the ingredients used to make them are processed here there and everywhere too.

The journeys that make up the pizzas, pies and puddings that we have all been conditioned to love crisscross continents and countries in various and accumulated forms. All before they finally reach the shelves of our local supermarkets or distribution centres, usually wrapped in a load of packaging that will immediately be thrown away, just as soon as they have come through our doors.

That the global supply chains that support and provide for all of this are collapsing right now is problematic enough.

But the real problem for us all that accompanies this collapse, is that even the majority of our most local producers (that’s local farmers and growers) buy the materials they need and then supply the meat, milk, cereals, vegetables and fruit that they produce into what is in effect part of this highly centralised operational business model.

Farmers and growers in the UK and across Western Countries do not produce or supply in a way that means that any of us could simply walk up to the local farm and buy or trade with the farmer to get the basic foods that we need, when everything that we know and take for granted about the supply of foods and goods today breaks down.

The processes that take raw foods from farms and turn them into the products that we love to eat and buy are massively complicated.

This complication has itself been encouraged and legitimised by the creation of many different industry-serving laws and rules. Not least of all by our friends in the European Union, that became just another way of dressing up greed-driven globalisation, but in a more politically acceptable continent-wide way.

What we or rather more importantly all of our seat-blocking politicians in Parliament are failing to grasp right now – whilst they keep on attempting to distract us with soundbites and other hollow scheme imaginable, is that we have a massive food crisis ahead of us. A food crisis that is looming large that will not be temporary. And that in terms of re-tasking, repurposing, redirecting, and reimagining the most essential forms and mechanics of our basic food supply chain – we are now critically unprepared.

Its not as if Farmers and Growers aren’t trying to make our politicians aware that there is a crisis coming either.

The issue with the politicians we have today is that everything they stand for, have bought and dragged us into and has been motivated by or is tied up in the money or greed based system that we currently have.

By even acknowledging that the focus of food supply must immediately become local, as part of the now essential drive to make the UK self-sufficient in all basic foods, goods and services in the shortest time, our politicians will be admitting to the wrongs of the part that they and many others before them have played in contributing to this mess over decades.

That however, is not an excuse for those in power and in our Parliament not to act now.

When we are all facing a change to our reality and a process of transition where there is a growing possibility that British People are going to starve, the public representatives that we have elected to look our for our best interests should be prioritising this change to local supply and UK self sufficiency in every possible way.

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The pressing need for Local Market Exchanges and Local Market Exchange Platforms

One of the reasons that we should all feel confident that we can survive and thrive through the coming years and months, and that we can all play an active and positive part in creating the new system that is balanced and fair for all, is because much of the creative and innovative thinking is already out there that will build every part of it.

It is just the question of what, why and who people will be doing these things for that has to be settled before work on our new world and The True Economy can begin.

When money doesn’t work for the majority of people, we will have reached a point where things could go a number of ways.

Please look kindly on anyone who loses their shit in these circumstances. Desperation doesn’t excuse poor behaviour of any kind. But it does provide good incentive to organise anything and everything that we have available to our community and the people within it, as quickly as we can.

The first step to maintaining order, is to pool everything that the community has available and to be fully transparent about what the community has, and how it can and will be shared.

If it comes down to a situation where people are going hungry, transactions cannot be based on exchange, and must be based on the simple act of sharing what we have and don’t need for our own immediate requirements, and not on what others can ‘afford’.

The next step is to create a system of fair exchange, that functions on what everyone can give, or what they can trade or barter.

The principle value of this exchange system, or Local Market Exchange, will be based on the time, skills, experience and basic labour that it took to provide whatever the essential foods, goods or services being exchanged might be, or what it would be when the complete process of putting that food, those goods or services would be, when considering the process from end-to-end.

The creation and development of the Local Market Exchange will take place in two primary stages:

  1. Bartering & Exchange of goods, supplies and services that the community already has available, or which it has the ability to grow, manufacture or provide, and
  2. The creation of a new localised currency linking, anchoring or pinning transactional value of foods, goods and services directly to the number of people and/or the contributions (input to the system) that they make.

Surviving The Great Reset | Deglobalisation | There will be Permanent Changes to the Supply Chain

The very challenging thing for everyone to accept as we look at the world we have been used to today, is that everything we have been taking for granted is going to change.

We will discuss other fundamental or building-block areas of change elsewhere. But in terms of the Global Supply Chain collapse that is underway, which has only been aided and abetted by the responses of Politicians to Brexit, The Covid Pandemic and the War in Ukraine, the massive change across the world that’s coming, will be felt by consumers and end users in terms of what goods we will be able to buy and what foods are readily available for us to eat.

The reality of this change will be the reconstruction of supply chains that focus on home and very localised production, processing, distribution and retailing, all of which have been progressively and aggressively dismantled as the shift from localised marketplaces to the so-called Global Economy has taken place.

The change and transition from Global to Local will be permanent. Globalisation is over. Our values and priorities are going to fundamentally change.

Yes. It was always intended by big business, politicians and the elites, that Global networks and systems they developed and sold as being beneficial to us would always be permanent. Unless or until they could find even more profitable ways to make even more money at even lower costs, without any consideration for the lives of everyone else apart from what money anyone else had to spend on the products that these increasingly nebulous systems brought to our doors.

But the Global System is no longer functional. The motivation and aims that created it are being exposed for what they are. This means there will be no going back to a greed-based economy.

A robust local economy is all about people and values, rather than money and wealth. There are benefits to our wellbeing from what lies ahead that money and marketing could never buy.

It’s time to think beyond just surviving The Great Reset to the light beyond and how we can then begin to really thrive.

The Supply Chain Break-Down that’s beginning to happen right now

You might have already noticed that different things that you usually or often buy when you visit the local supermarket or shop online are unavailable for some reason.

You might not have worried too much, simply because at the time you usually shop – let’s say late on a Saturday afternoon – you have become used to some of the shelves seeming to be a bit bare. It’s been a busy day, after all, right?

For most people, the experience has been a little different. In fact, no matter when people have been shopping, certain items have increasingly been absent from the shopping list. Perhaps temporarily – with them returning. But then they have been disappearing all over again.

The reason for this is that the supply chain for some foods and some goods is already at breaking point. Like a broken car, the supply chain keeps stopping and needs to be restarted or fixed, before it will work for whoever is running it again.

The problem for governments and big business, is that both the Global and National supply chain break down is not symptomatic or just a direct result of recent global events. And it is not just about the way that they have responded – although this has actually made things much worse.

The problems with the Global Supply Chain are all about the system now crashing.

Whilst we might see it as being possible to go without an expensive bag, a new smartphone or even a brand-new car for a short time whilst someone else solves the problem – as they always do, things are going to feel very different when the shortages start affecting all the basic essentials we need to live each day, and specifically food.

No, you may not believe this is going to happen. We are all, after all, used to and we take for granted that things can continue to go as well as they have been doing. That just like the shortages that happened during the Covid Lockdowns, after a few days, the problems will just go away.

They won’t.

The problems that we are only beginning to experience with shortages aren’t going to go away.

The only similarity to the experience we had during the unnecessary Lockdowns was what happens when certain things like toilet rolls and foods like flour and eggs suddenly disappear from the shelves and other people begin to hoard more of them than they could ever need or use, because they are terrified of going without.

Welcome to a drawn-out Global Supply Chain Crash. Welcome to The Great Reset. This is just part of what all the problems we now face are going to be about.

Surviving The Great Reset: Farmers are not ready for the change, so we must be until they are

The current system is not set up to get all the foods we actually need grown and prepared for us locally. So when the acute stages of The Great Reset happen and the big profit-focused supply chains have irreparably broken down, the reality is that there will be a period of time when this ‘old systme’ stops providing for us, and when the new (or rather renewed) local supply chain system has been put in place.

Yes, there are some really good examples of Farmers here in the UK and elsewhere too, who are offering us all their dairy products, meats, produce and even beer that has come from crops and animals grown and prepared on the farm.

If you’ve tried what they produce, you will already know that its fantastically good. But right now its also very expensive – because of how the big corporate interests have such a ridiculous level of control.

If our politicians were awake enough and forward thinking enough to recognise what lies ahead – even though they bear much of the responsibility for it happening themselves, they would be doing everything they could to support our Farmers – who by their very nature are great innovators – to turn production on its head and grow and produce everything locally, either on their own, or as part of small and localised cooperatives that make practical sense with how different animals are taken care of and how different produce and crops are grown.

Politicians will not do that today, because like the big interests that profit from it, they have too much invested in everything continuing as it appears to be at the moment, and for it continuing to be run and to make money or to continue to benefit them in the same way.

We will have no option but to work with and support our local farmers to reequip and redesign their operations and business models when the time comes that we need them. This may even mean some of us literally getting out there and helping on the land. Otherwise the future beyond The Great Reset will be one where our lives revolve around little more than the question of what we will next have to eat.

The hard message to take in and consider here, is that without the changes in policy and the contingency planning that our out-of-touch politicians should today be taking care of, there is a period of time – that will hopefully be short – when in respect of at least some foods, but potentially a lot more and possibly everything that we need, we may have to go without.

We cannot rely on our politicians to do the right thing. We cannot rely on Politicians to keep everyone fed. We cannot rely on Politicians to keep the things that are vital to our life working, when things will no longer work, and the only solution Politicians have is to ask how much it will cost.

We have to Prepare, Produce and make Provision.

It’s time to start growing your own food.

Surviving The Great Reset: Why we need to be able to Prepare, Produce & Make Provision

Because of the way that the system around us has been developed to keep increasing and funnelling profits at the few, more and more of the lessons for life and good living – which are more often than not metaphorical – are being hidden from view.

Not only that. Very regrettably, because this whole system only works or benefits financial interests by becoming increasingly big, it means that the supply chains that get food to us – like the example of the production of the dairy products from cows – get more and more spread out over our Country, or even across borders too.

Supply chains involve more and more processing that involves more and more people and interests that we do not experience or see. And all the time this form of centralisation has been happening, the very stable, short supply chains that would mean all of the food that is grown or produced for us locally and where we can be in touch with the whole process, has all but been completely wiped out.

We are now in danger because we have become over reliant on a system that is already beginning to crash. And it’s a system that has been rebuilt so that it supports the way that big business works.

Surviving The Great Reset: A helpful lesson from our Farmers on Preparing, Producing & Making Provision

If you really want to understand how the basics of providing for life work, look no further than the cycles of activity that take place on one of those farms that too many of us overlook for providing our milk:

  • The grass that grows in the early spring is cut in mid-late spring and early summer. The earlier cuts are turned into silage (fermented grass which in a process not unlike brewing, means that nutrients for the cows are increased). The later ones into hay (dried grass which you often see as very green looking bales).
  • Silage and Hay are stored over the summer and early autumn, whilst the cows go out and enjoy all of their fields, whilst grass continues to grow.
  • When the autumn and winter comes and the grass has stopped growing and the ground has become too muddy for the cows and their hooves, they move inside and under shelter, where they are fed with either their Hay or Silage, and sleep on beds made from the straw of cereal crops, so that they are all dry and warm.
  • The Farmer will have planned and made enough Silage and Hay the previous spring and summer, to make sure that the cows have more than enough to eat for the whole time that they have to stay inside.
  • Throughout this period, the herd of cows will be providing milk perhaps twice or even three times a day – that’s during spring, summer, autumn and winter, so that milk, cheese, yoghurt and anything else that is made with dairy products or ingredients of some kind can come and will continue to come your way.
  • The whole process is a cycle that goes round and round. It never stops or finishes, if the cows and we want to continue to eat.

The Farmers prepare, produce and make provision. That way, their cows are always fed, can always produce their milk, so that we can all be fed and not go hungry too.

Surviving The Great Reset: We cannot rely on existing supply chains any longer

We cannot rely on any system where its reliability is based upon things that we cannot see or have no way to understand – i.e. you can’t pick up the phone or visit and speak to the farmer and ask in which field the wheat being sent to the local mill and then to the local baker is being grown.

The only system that we rely on is one that we either have responsibility for ourselves, or is being driven and managed by other people we know and can trust – because they are people who we may not be interacting with, but are around us and perhaps without us being aware, we are passing them and they are therefore in our lives each and every day.

As I write, I’m smiling. I know that there are people – and lots of them, who would respond to where this is going by jumping in and scornfully suggesting that what I am talking about does nothing more than hark back to either a medieval or romantically impractical age.

All well and good – if you live in a world that does everything for you, tells you that you can be everything to everyone else and does everything other than help you to help yourself, the very moment that even the smallest thing goes wrong!

The simple things are the most intelligent. It’s the process of storing up problems – and potentially catastrophic ones for us, where the real £benefit for others of hiding behind complexity and very complex systems lies.

What will happen during the acute stages of The Great Reset?

Whether it’s the supply chains that bring us our food, clothes and the things that we need just to survive, or the utilities, fuel, transport and other services that we are used to having access to, the chances are that they we will not be able to access them completely, or that access will be reduced to a rationed or irregular form.

For some things, the experience of shortages or going without will just be temporary, simply because they really are the things that we actually need.

Where the things that we only believe we need but are things that we only actually want are concerned, we are likely to find that the supply of many of these ‘things’ will never return.

It is during this ‘acute’ stage of ‘The Great Reset’ that things will be very uncertain.

The acute stage of ‘The Great Reset’ is when we will have to make do in ways that we have never experienced. It will be a time when we will not only have to do our part, but also rely upon the goodwill and a sense of community around us in a way that we have never lived our lives before.

The acute stage of ‘The Great Reset’ will be a period of time when we will need to learn to survive.

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Collapse of Global Supply Chains: Profit at every turn meets practical reality

Horizon scanning: What’s Horizon scanning?

So obsessive has the motivation of greed for profit been, that those driving this way of doing business have come up with ever more creative ways to defy the practical realities of business and production.

These have included the development of ‘Just in Time’ methodologies and ‘Lean Manufacturing’, which are heralded as brilliant ways to manage profit driven commercial business. But pay very little heed to world events or what any kind of unforeseen circumstance might have in store.

The response of different governments around the world to the Covid Pandemic, quite literally brought many parts of the global supply chain to a halt.

The massive costs and margins of this ridiculously fragile system had been dependent on every part of it continuing to work endlessly – as it was always expected to do so – with only what we would consider to be the minimum of contingencies having been planned for.

So, when a worldwide virus that inept political leaders completely overreacted to and used fear to make populations think that it was much worse than it actually is became involved, the global supply chain was exposed in a way that was rather like the first of a squillion dominoes that had been set up to knock each other down being flicked.

And so has begun a process of destruction. Beginning slowly with those dominoes falling one by one.

De-Globalisation: The End of Globalisation is already underway

Globalisation and the model of global business and supply chains that existed at the end of 2019 – before the Covid Pandemic hit us, no longer exists as it did then, in either functional or operational terms.

In the same way that our system of government and the political system that supposedly drives it has built itself by putting sticking plaster on top of sticking plaster when it comes to public policy and building it into the dysfunctional system that exists today, the way that industry and the global business system has been developed has also been without thought for the consequences or impact at even the closest degrees of separation.

What we have ended up with is a so-called ‘Global Economy’ that is in fact a house of cards that has little in terms of foundations and is already on the verge of collapse in many different ways.

The only real beneficiary of Globalisation is self-interest and greed

Globalisation was seen to work because we have all been fed the story that it benefits our self-interest in some way.

Yet the only beneficiaries from the process of Globalisation were and always have been the people and corporate interests that have created, developed and directly profited from an unethical system that exploited everyone and everything in some way – and that includes even those directly involved at every part of the supply chain.

Protectionism – Putting UK Jobs, Goods & Services FIRST

Sold as beneficial, because it makes everything we want ‘cheap’ to buy, ‘globalisation’ and the ‘global economy’ have always been a myth that only appeared to work out well for us because that was what we were being told by the people and companies that benefitted from us all believing so.

As the impact of employment and working rights created and pursued by the Left have hit harder and harder and impacted further and further on company bottom lines, closely followed by the piles of red tape that went into a different league when EU Membership became involved, many companies made the commercial choice to begin buying or producing goods of their own in Countries, and therefore environments, that provided conditions which were much more conducive to growing and extending profit margins.

Focused only on what the things we buy actually cost us, the only people to notice this massive industrial shift were those of us directly touched by the change. And in this case, it was always local British workers who immediately felt that pain.

No longer able to exploit British workers in the way that they wanted to do so, there was effectively a cheaper option to do so abroad. But what we were not told about this move was that the obsession with the bottom line that drove this change also meant that the companies would be exploiting much lower paid workers who this time didn’t – and in many cases still don’t have a voice.

It was a double whammy. Because the savings and benefits from paying ridiculously low wages that in some cases even offset the need to invest in newer cleaner technologies, was also consolidated by the reality that many of the countries that these companies had moved operations to, simply had few or no considerations on the impact on the environment that these industrial processes involved.

The True Value of everything we buy or pay for

In the future, prices will reflect what they really cost to produce and get to you, with only an appropriate layer of profit added at the minimum number of stages of the supply chain that are necessary for any essential goods or service provision to reach you.

For instance, you buy a loaf of bread from the baker. The baker buys the flour from the miller. The miller buys the wheat from the farmer. That’s three necessary points in the supply chain that gets you a loaf of bread.

What we don’t then need is a broker buying the wheat from the farmer that he hasn’t even grown yet, and then selling it on to a grain merchant when it has actually been produced, with both of these two stages themselves adding unnecessary work and additional profit for themselves, all adding to the end cost for you.

This example is a very simplified view – and deliberately so.

Try to visualise just how many different interests have and are able to become involved with the process or supply chain providing goods and services, where global and even UK-wide supply chains are at work.

The prices of everything have been massively overinflated without any additional value being added to the end product.

This is one of the key reasons why we will return to supply chains that are as local as it is possible for them to be, and a system where only recognisable players – who are adding value to the end product – are actually involved.

Some workers want this amount of money whilst others want more. But our needs are the same and government support is favoring some over others when we should all be getting exactly the same – not just in money but also support

If you dare to look at the headlines or glance across the editorial of any of the national newspapers that might be worth reading, you will see today that there is talk within Government of there being Ministers who are doves and others that are hawks.

The growing argument between them is the subject of when the COVID-19 Lockdown should end. The so-called Hawks want the Lockdown to begin to end at the beginning of May, whilst the so-called doves want to wait until the Whitsun Bank Holiday at the end of May before even a loosening of the current restrictions can be allowed to begin.

When you have been writing about the massive holes and inadequacy of the financial support that the Government is providing since the Lockdown began like I have, as well as questioning the cost of the Lockdown vs. the benefit too, you might think it would be natural for me to be happy that at least some of our MPs are looking at all of this in the same way too.

I’m not. And the problem is that they are not even in the same room.

Whilst certain Ministers are clearly aware of some of the issues already being caused by the Lockdown – as they are being flagged by Civil Servants within their Ministries, they are not aware of others whilst many MPs are clearly unaware at any meaningful level of the real crisis that has been started by the Lockdown.

A personal and costly disaster is now starting to unfold in front of more and more of the people just like you and I and it is going to slowly but surely soon come into full view.

We have been conditioned to think and view certain behaviours as acceptable by the world around us. The behaviour of self-serving politicians, an Establishment that cares not for anyone other than its own, and a media that is so obsessed with the sound of its own voice have all contributed significantly to the selfish approach to life that we have which we don’t recognise as being wholly self serving – because right now its just the ways that life tells us things should be done.

As we look at the Locked-down COVID-19 UK, our thoughts will inevitably be about how the Lockdown is effecting us personally and the people around us, whether it is our jobs, source of income, the business we own and operate or any one of the large number of ways that each and every one of us has had our life affected or compromised in some way since life as we knew it changed in March and the Lockdown got under way.

No, it isn’t wrong to think about any of this chapter of our lives in this way. But as we fall over ourselves to shout about treating gig-economy workers the same as employees or to sign petitions to specifically tell the Government that we want directors of small limited companies to receive the same money as if they were an employee, we are collectively falling into the trap of thinking that different help and support for different people based purely on how differently they are employed will equate to the same thing. It won’t.

What we are overlooking is that all people share something very distinctive in common that makes us all the same. We all have regular bills that we need our incomes to pay and  the amount we pay is relative to what we normally earn.

It doesn’t matter what they are or how much those bills are for. Whether you are young, a Millennial, middle aged, retired or very old, there will be bills that you have to pay or have paid on your behalf.

Beyond the fact that we are human beings who live and die, what we all have in common is our shared reality that we always have to pay a bill each month and in some cases many of them. That’s how we are all the same.

If we were to genuinely be treated the same by the Government and a situation were to never to exist where any individual, social group of business sector were to fall through the gaps, the Government would by necessity be targeting the help they can give at us all in a way that was proportional to what we earn or the situation that we are in – but in a way that would actually treat us all fairly because it would support and help us in the very same way.

The very same rules apply for businesses and business owners whether they are limited companies or sole traders too.

For us all, the flow of money into and out of our bank accounts is what makes life turnover. And for business – who in this sense are exactly the same as people, cash flow is king – unless of course you are the bank or finance house which creates all the money and to where all the money we pay out in the form of each and every bill we pay will ultimately flow to and end up.

We pay our bills to a service provider or company that has provided us with goods or the finance to do it. It might be a mortgage, rent, for a car, our phone, TV, electricity and gas or many other things that we might either want or need.

The company, person or business to whom we pay that bill and the money we use to do it will be in exactly the same position as you and I are. What we pay them is their income, just like our job or business is ours. From all the combined income they receive, they too have to pay their bills.

In many cases, this payment of different bills and transfer of money happens over and over again at different levels in what might be a very long chain, until the flow of the money ends up in the same place: the banks and finance houses.

If the Government really desires to treat us ALL exactly the same as it should – that’s equitably and in a way that is completely fair – it would temporarily stop the need and requirement for that money to continue to flow where the chain is no longer complete or simply has no start, so that none of us have to earn anything at any level or any stage of that chain to keep paying bills to the people, businesses or companies that are in the next link of the chain above us.

With the need removed to pay our bills for items that we wouldn’t order or commit ourselves to having during a time that we couldn’t afford to or would be willing pay for because they are a luxury and not a necessity, the only problem for the Government would then be a question of how people pay for food and essential items that we simply need to meet our real everyday needs – not our ‘wants’.

If the Government did this, it would create a genuine level playing field in a time of National Crisis that would benefit us all.

Stopping the need for monetary flow would significantly reduce the chances that businesses will not reopen and that more and more people will lose their jobs and income permanently once the Lockdown actually comes to its end.

Be under no illusion. This action would prevent misery for many and save a significant number of lives.

Without a universal financial support solution of this depth and breadth in place to counter the effects of the COVID-19 Lockdown, the problems and very challenging life experiences that many people would not have been suffering before it began, are going to get much worse. The impact of what the Government hasn’t done will affect more and more of us as the length of the Lockdown rolls on.

The Government should End the Lockdown right now. But if it refuses to do so, it must at the very least change direction with the financial support that it is giving all of us and do it right away.

  • Job losses
  • Suicides
  • Hunger
  • Business Closures
  • Evictions from homes
  • Administrations
  • Domestic Violence
  • Abuse and safeguarding issues
  • Debt
  • Insolvencies
  • Repossessions
  • Loss of custom and business
  • Debt and borrowing
  • Bankruptcies
  • Mental Health issues
  • Depression

And the issues that are the cause of any or all of these horrific life experiences are already on the rise as a result of the COVID-19 Lockdown.

No considerate and caring person would ever wish any of these experiences upon another human being. But the Government’s decision to implement the Lockdown, then failing to treat us all in the same way will ensure that a rise in these real-life horror stories is exactly what the UK is going to get.

No matter what the Media messages tell you or how unpopular TV presenters and Journalists may insist that the alternative to what the Government is doing will be, the Government MUST change direction and handle COVID-19 differently by bringing the Lockdown to a decisive end as soon as it possibly can.

If the Lockdown continues for any further time at all or not, the current system of financial support that the Government has issued doesn’t work as it should. It is creating many problems for individuals that not only include those mentioned or referred to above, but will in time be known to have caused many more whilst creating a national financial crisis and the accompanying personal hardship that none of us alive today will consciously remember having ever seen.

These wholly inadequate measures MUST be removed and replaced with a system that ends the requirement to pay bills for anything that has not been ordered or committed to during the Lockdown – with the exception of things like car insurance if you are continuing to use your car.

Despite the complication of doing so, the system should also be backdated to the start of the Lockdown (at least 23rd March 2020) and those who have been paid some or all of the £2500 per month average wage equivalent excluded from any weekly essential goods and food payment scheme until the equivalent of what they have already been paid through the current payments system from the start has been reached.

A £100 per week payment per person is enough for food and essential items for those who have lost all their income, have been furloughed or are not being paid during or as a direct result of the Lockdown.

Everyone who has been able to continue to work is doing a great thing to keep the Country moving when everyone else cannot. For them, having their bills stopped would be a payment holiday nonetheless. It would therefore be a financial bonus for doing their bit that would be fair and acceptable both to them and to all.

The damage that the Lockdown has already done to lives and businesses is already on target to be very severe indeed. But the cost of the Government failing to treat us all equally and in the same way will be catastrophic for us all.

Beyond a financial depression that is likely to be worse than the Great Depression of nearly a Century ago, the patience upon which civil order sits is already painfully thin, and the moves by the Police and even Supermarkets to behave like we have already become a police state does not bode well for the future of the UK if the Lockdown continues or continues without meaningful change to the system of financial support that is currently in place.

The lack of care and consideration for the impact of this Lockdown that has been driven by the advice of medical specialists, and measures to counter the impact that have simply not been thought through tell us that there is already a vacuum or absence of leadership at the top of the Government. This absence will help even less if that wafer thin patience is broken and the leadership void could easily be filled by alternative leaders who would happily expand and assert that police state deliberately.

Please don’t allow this to happen whilst we still have influence and a choice.

Let’s join together and tell the Government that the measures they have been taking aren’t helping us all in the same way that they would if they were fair.

Let’s also join together and tell the Government that its time to End the Lockdown now and treat everyone like we have the same value, whether or not we get talked about a lot on TV!