Surrender to Stupidity

The Surrender Bill is getting a lot of bloated attention. Just pause for a second. The executive head of our democratic parliament, our Prime Minister, is rubbishing his parliament that has democratically decided that we must not leave the EU without a deal. If he feels so strongly against it, he should present a counter Bill to nullify it. But of course he cannot, as he does not have a majority in the House nor within his own Party.

Bluff and bluster may be a successful at a personal level but you cannot run a country by bluff and bluster. In a sales pitch you might get away with pretending you will just walk away. But not at National levels. The bluff that UK will walk without agreeing a deal is utter nonsense. The EU knows it, most of the country knows it, so why discredit your integrity by pretending to hold an impossible position. The rest of the sane world knows there is too much at stake. The breakup of the United Kingdom for one. Turning our backs on our closest neighbours is another. Unravelling 40 years of close integration is another, but the list goes on and on. At some point an agreement with the EU will have to reached. Not facing that reality, holding up the pretence of another (unspecified) option will result in a lot of pain and damage.

Another bluff tactic is to claim that the Country has Decided. No it did not. Half the country definitely did not decide to leave. It is worth recalling that the ripples of a divided nation, catholic v protestants lingers on even to this day. Our Nation is divided over the EU. As in all inflamed disputes, in the end the opposites just have to sit down, talk and reach an agreement. That is what a Prime Minster worthy of the position should be doing, Not fanning the flames of discord.

As our Prime Minster continues to fail to recognise and respond to the deep division within our country, what are we to do? Twiddle our fingers whilst grabbing unquestioningly every soothing soundbite offered, lap up all the electoral gift baubles as if they were substantive and a real, or do we demand better? Is the retention of a United Kingdom worth fighting for? Are we really content to retreat to a gated community to keep all those unpleasant neighbours at arm’s length, do we really want to surrender having any voice in the world that is listened to? Do we want a fantasy future or face up to the hard issues before us? For that we need a Parliament that reflects all of us and a Prime Minster who has integrity, able to seek accord and with a vision which does resonate with our core values.

Right to Dissent

For many the acts or terrorists are so heinous, such a threat to civilised society, that any measures  that might thwart their evil deeds is fully justifiable. Under this blanket of fear the Government gets a free ride to introduce its innocuous sounding IPB, Investigatory Powers Bill, better and more correctly known as the snoopers charter. A Bill which grants powers that the European Court of Justice has already stated contravene basic human rights. The Government is granting itself the right to open, read and store any electronic communication it chooses, from anyone to anyone. A blanket right to listen to phone calls, read EMails, anything sent electronically is open book to them.

Totally justifiable you might say if it stops another terrorists attack that we have been warned to expect any minute. Except of course a terrorist to one party is a freedom fighter to another party. All depends on your point of view. The Establishment, the upholder of the status quo, gets to label all dissent against it. Any group of people that gather and agree to disagree with the Establishment will be labelled but that label can range from 'protesters' to 'pickets' to 'mob' to 'uprising' to 'revolution' and so on all the way out to the extreme fringes. What we do know is that the Establishment will always seeks ways to supress dissent, any dissent. The only possible restraint will be their perception of public support and how far they expect to be able to 'manage' it. By manage we mean of course to bend, swerve, falsify, distort events and news to shift perceptions.

With this snoopers charter the Establishment, our Government elected to serve us, has given itself powers which enable it to monitor all dissent from what ever source and for what ever motive. Anything that suggests it is contrary to Government intentions, will be flagged. Once flagged, all participants, all associates of participants, all previously contacts of participants will be scrutinised for possible intents. All their past and present actions and comments will be reviewed in the light of possible threat, signs of contrary thoughts, evidence of lack of support for the Government aspirations and will be re-examined for assumed indicators of future actions. The data mining, the algorithms, the 'Case Officer'  will be working with so much information there will no scope for subtleties, for nuances or even common sense. So that jest, that floating of an idea, that game of devils advocate, that day dreaming, that idle speculation are all at risk of being taken out of context, just bundled up as proof against you. Just remember you cannot ever prove innocence. 

With the power to collect and interpret as they choose ideas at their very point of inception the Government gives itself the ability to step in and take avoiding actions. Actions that can range from isolating individuals, surveillance, planting of decoys, warnings all the way to arrest search or other life disruptions. They put themselves in the position to totally control any developments as the initiating ideas and membership grows. They are all seeing, all hearing and only they get to decided on the rights or wrongs.

If it stops another terrorist its okay then? Any dissent? You may not agree with the Coal Miners actions to save their industry.  You may not agree with the sit-in at Greenham Common. You may not agree with the HS2 protests. You may not agree with collect actions against the Single Past the Post system. You may not agree with the discontinuation of the Monarchy. You may not agree to bring an end to Party Politics and reinstate direct and accountable democracy. But you must agree the right to dissent from the Government is paramount. Dissent which can only be by collective action, actions that may fly close or even beyond what the Government of the day decrees legitimate. We should never ever give up our right to revolution as a final resort. Our right to collective action should be free of Establishment intimidation. Our friends and all the people we come into contact with should never be put under the microscope of suspicion just because we choose to dissent. Any more than our own innocent pasts should never be subjected to prejudiced retrospection just because we shared an EMail with the parent of our daughters friend who just happened to be radical. Dissent is what keeps us safe not the Snoopers Charter.

Not that lone voice

I have been going on about how the Political Parties have subverted democracy to their own power cause. See: The Political No Vote, Political Wilderness, Living a Now Life. I choose not to select a Party and if I am not able to Vote for a person to represent me, me not their party, or am not able to vote for None of the Above then I will not Vote. In parallel I object to being reduced to making the illiterates mark of an 'X' to signify my choices. In this day and age we are capable of expressing and uniting on a far wider and complex range of thoughts, opinions and agreements. An 'X' says nothing. Going on about it but apprehensive, was I unrealistic, too idealistic, too remote from the nitty gritty of every day, just an oddball with a soap box.

Turns out, thanks to, of all publications, the New Scientist - We the People (see also A Vote for Change) that I am not alone! Across the democratic world there are thousands of people with similar thoughts all looking to find better ways of applying democracy in practice. People with very similar ideas actually trying out and trailing alternative ways of enabling the everyman to contribute to a consensus view. Vindication! With Facebook and Google claiming to know before I do where my interest lie why oh why have they not promoted these other organisations onto my news feeds? Surely it cannot be that no advertising income is being generated by peoples democracy? So join in the discussion, you and I are not alone, there is a movement out there of like mind people. We just need to connect with them.

Staking out who we are

In a barely scientific article I am indebted to the New Scientist "Imagine there's no countries" for opening up a new horizon for me. Enabling me to draw together several strands of posts that related but didn't appear to gel. In essence, the article proposes that, the idea of having a Nationality is a construct only a couple of hundred years old. Self identity is all about the pool of people you directly relate to and the lower echelons in the hierarchy of authority you are required to respond to. As Society became more complex, with the growing industrialisation and the Empire, so the need for an ever expanding bureaucracy. The idea of Nationhood emerged to symbolise this overarching administration. You deferred no longer to the Squire, or the Church or the local Lord but to Government. It hardly matters whether or not you accept this premise. Suffice that it raises the subject that there are alternative ways to view allegiances. What ties those allegiance's together is not some despot figurehead but the necessary administrative functions. What keeps the wheels turning, bringing in the finance, making laws and enforcing the rules of conduct. That is at the core of what bonds us, you to me and us to all the rest we recognise as being part of us. Our acceptance of being an essential cog in this great mesh of things that keeps us all healthy, safe and secure.

My fundamental starting point is that we are now a Matrix Society. Our allegiances are now multi-facetted between work, leisure, entertainment, family, friends, education, sport. Not one encompasses all our out there network of known people with all the separate obligations and expectations that arise out of all these disparate networks. Each facet will have its own distinct feel and set of rules. Where now our sense of one Nation?  In my Posts I keep coming back to exploring how we can have any sense of community, how that community has to learn to work together and how being a community can be the only answer to Totalitarianism. Just  dip into some of my past Posts that range over exploring different aspects of Community, living with each other:

• Keeping to Rules
• Checks and Balances
• Held to Account
• In Whom we Trust
• Centre Revolution
• Power to the People
• Of the Community

So the revelation is that we give up this novel idea of belonging to one particular Nation, it is far too limiting and restrictive. Instead under the umbrella of a European Convention we move in and out of differing communities. For example, our work world maybe global and that governs the where and how's of doing business. Our home life maybe regional and we look to the macro Region Administration for the provision of services we rely on. Our children's welfare and education may be District based providing the necessary access and contacts whilst our leisure maybe entirely local dependant on the immediate surroundings network of contacts. Each person with their own unique blend of communities, no rigid boundaries, differing sets of obligations and requirements applying to each community that in turn rely on its own specific authorities. Gone one Nation, welcome to a meld of Regions and clusters of Local Areas. Welcome to this New World.

Of the Community

At the time we were too pressed with the urgency of bringing up children, holding down jobs and keeping a wheel on the wagon to notice or comprehended. Those twice a day rituals of meeting at the school gate to drop off or pick up the children were crucial. There were many other subsequent meetings, whether at youth activities, secondary school, sports days, village fetes, but this one, the meeting at school gate was decisive. Now much longer in the tooth, having gone through the many stages of maturing, I have the records to look back at. I can see so clearly how our paths, our children's paths, their friends paths and the social network that I find myself working within are to a very significant degree derived from those early school gate gatherings. This is when we met, got to know each others names, found out about where they lived, gained an inkling of their work and lifestyle. Through these early contacts we got to meet up with others all moving around in similar related circles. This is our community dynamic, the social network of interconnected families with some commonality of past experience or interest linking us together. I not saying lasting friends, I am not even saying companions sharing mutual values, just people who know and can recognise each other and have some basic instinct of the others likely response. Sufficient to give us a common bond, our community, we know you and you are part of us.

Of course in my lifetime we have gone from a plurality of community meeting opportunities, sharing a convivial drink together, to the routine church attendance, to of course the schooling, but also the village shop, doctors surgery, the village social life, to our present state. Even the gathering of parents at school gates is now to be discouraged, children are dropped off out of cars, closure of so many village facilities transferred to remote detached outside communities, a withdrawal from localised activity and diversification to remote anonymised centres. Before my time it was even more intense, you worked where you lived, you seldom travelled beyond your own community and your employer was your load and judge about your moral conduct. I am not bemoaning about changing times, but we do need to understand the processes that meld communities together before we can hope to plan how to reforge community connections in this new dissipated age. Dissipated, because we are longer bound to place but follow our economic fortunes, we are not tied to family and now have serial families and our place of work can be anywhere around the globe working at anything from a smartphone to a command centre. How in a loose fit society do we develop any sense of community? Is it even possible we can find anything we can bond too? Is the only resolution a drift to Totalitarianism, when some detached remote authority determines and controls each and everyone of our freedoms to act. A total loss of all independence because without a tying in to a community the options are only Anarchy or Totalitarianism.

I talk of village life. A town and even a City is but a collection of villages, the collective of villages have another dimension, their relationship with the greater whole of the Town. There are finite limits to how wide a group of people you can relate to and still feel sufficiently close as to bond as a group of Us against Them, the outsiders. No hard and fast figures, different for each of us, the individuals that we are. But there are limits, that number, that distance, that crossing of the line is just that too far. A finite village is clear and simple, a Town is a lot more ambiguous with a lot more factors coming into play. In the end we have up until now related to the place we recognise as our place that we stayed in for some length of time, sufficient to have made some contact with other members of that place. As we withdraw more and more inwardly, within the secure four walls we inhabit, we have less and less connection to the community. The communal actions appear to become increasingly irrelevant. We are isolated islands and Others control all things beyond our island. This then is our challenge. How do we in this fast changing age break down the island defences and help people to reconnect with all those around them that they actually do depend on for the quality of their actual life? Clearly not by central Them government. The Us of the Community have to be given back meaningfully the reins of their own destiny. Not the current government vogue of tokenised responsibility whilst the real control and purse remains tightly held by Westminster, but actual devolved power and accountability. If is important enough to tangibly affect their quality of life, then just maybe the island drawbridges might come down to see what they can influence.

Brush with Democracy - another shade

After losing at two appeals and on the fifth application a local site nearby has finally won approval to form a new vehicular access, and, incidentally create yet a further habitation. Which side of the coin do you see? Persistence rewarded or sheer bloody mindedness, contrary to all local wishes, eventually winning out?

The background. The main road out of the village is narrow, only a car and half width, no verges, with hedges or low walls on either side. This section has a blind corner at either end of a some two hundred yard length of road. Towards the further end the road crosses a stream with stone parapets to either side. All typically Somerset. The local residents find this road difficult to drive and even more dangerous to walk or cycle. No forward visibility and nowhere to go to, or make room to pass. The initial application for two houses to one side of this narrow section of lane had many objectors, eventually it was approved on the basis that no vehicular access should be allowed off this narrow section of lane.

So after a further five applications and two appeals the Planners Officer recommends Approval to the forming of a new access off this same narrow section of lane, just before the bridge. Apparently car speed monitoring demonstrated low risk and visibility splay requirement were achievable. I have a smidgen of sympathy for the Planning Officer. If it was refused again and went to Appeal and if at the Appeal the Applicant could now show compliance with those same reasons used to refuse it last time, the Council could incur considerable costs for being unreasonable. All in all a bad decision and the thugs in our society, prepared to defy all to take what they particularly want, win. The initial decision, no road access of this stretch, was the right one.

Local democracy is a fragile thing. It is hard enough to marshal and focus opinion when freshly engaged to resist a bad application. But to have to return to the same subject time and time and time and time again when you thought you had won first time is beyond the possible. People do have lives and cannot keep going back over the same issues with fervent militancy. The trouble is that Planning decisions are not based on the degree of support or objection to any one proposal by the local residents but rely on the wording of obscure Planning Polices and detached objectives. More on that shortly.

If Planning was only just about what the local residents or even surrounding community thought, there would be no development. It would always be in someone's back garden, therefore to be objected to. You just cannot keep placing all developments, objected to by the vocal organised, near to the weak and ineffectual who are not able to organise a protest. Who would welcome a school, factory, fish and chip shop at the end of their garden? Sure there are bound to be lots of ideas where else they might be located so long as not there at the end of my garden. In the simple early days of Planning there were clear well understood objective principles that guided the application process. Certain areas were decreed suitable for certain type of development so long as specific criteria were met. Residents could object but would have to show that these criteria were breached in some way. A lumpen handed fairness to the community in general but not to the individual.

With time the process has become hugely complicated and complex. The vagaries that follow from this complexity allow a high degree of parochialism, with objective rationale being the loser. What we have now are a series of interrelated Policy Statements. Each Policy Statement being a huge cumbersome document, the result of a prolong and intense period of inspection, challenge, appeal, review and approval. Finally some years down the line, the plan is published and for those few weeks when everyone can remember what it was supposed to enshrine, it remains relevant and the working tool.

The District Council publish their Local Plans for each settlement based on the Structural Plans published by the County Council setting the framework for each of its areas and which in turn it to is based on the government's own published planning strategic objectives for the nation and the regions. From bottom up each is fully referential and compliant with the Policies of the next layer up. So well honed words severally checked for compliance with all relating Policies and stripped of vagueness and ambiguity to the point of course that they become meaningless generalities. Reading any Policy statement from one tier or another, there is no way you can see what is meant and intended when it comes to the specifics of planning in your own patch. Their sweep is too broad and general, stepping well aside from the specifics that might give a clue to the usual conflict of interest arising out of any patch of ground. What is worse we get sweeping aspirational design generalisations that apply totally inappropriately or to some nowhere place. Designs in our patch are to be based on guidelines set up for the Exmoor National Park! Chalk and cheese indeed. Now I like some of the chalk I have seen within the National Park but it is an irrelevance when sorting cheese from cheese in our patch.

Reflecting a view from a contrary stance to that expressed in my Brush with Democracy, we end up in the similar position. An over-blown, bloated planning system no longer responding or recognised by the communities on the ground on one hand. On the other intransigent individuals that are belligerently resist the common good when it compromises their own selfish aspirations find the chinks amongst those generalised words to drive in their wedge. As decisions have to founded on those same words, the Planner is left wrong footed and commonsense flies out of the window. A through spring clean is overdue. Get back to simple objectives with Planners working alongside with the community to help the community understand its planning problems and to achieve it's aspirations. Explaining any National or regional strategic requirments for their local patch and winning support. Not perfect, rough and ready, we may even have to wait before another airport, barrage, power station, motorway can be built. In the end only words can win and keep communities united.

Time to Share.

We look at it, we know it, we are almost bored with the thought but we carry on doing nothing. We humans have replicated to such a point that our capacity to plunder exceeds our limited Earth's capacity to provide. Been like that for a long time and what do we do? We sail on stripping the Earth of its irreplaceable assets as if there is no tomorrow. At least no tomorrow for our children now born, us, oh we will be all right, be enough to see us through! But we put so much time and energy into protecting our children and giving them best start out possible why bury our heads and ignore that that we know is going to happen? 

It is too big a problem? We are many, we are the cause and we can also be the solution. 'They' will sort it out. No, too set in a rut, 'they' can only carry on the way they always have, too much at stake for them to want to change. Ignore it and it will go away? It just gets to be an even bigger problem the longer we leave it. Scaremongering, just another false crisis made up for some political agenda? No. This is for real. There are so many fronts, each are telling the same story. Many, not just oil, essential minerals have a known finite reserve. Climate is going to change and our food sources are going to suffer. We strip the Earth of its lungs, the rain forest, we trash the soils with monoculture, we poison the ground with insecticides and fertilisers, we drive species to extinction just for our greed, it goes on and on. Wherever you are on the political spectrum, you cannot deny every single aspect. We have a problem.

On another tack we in the West have expectations of what we need to surround ourselves with to cope with life. The whole gamut, homes, furniture, food, transport, leisure activities, technology, we want it, we need it, we cannot survive without our access to it, to it all. China's millions are now waking up to these self same expectations. Their government pro-actively is out there now buying up rights to resources around the world, so their people can have what you take for granted. Not just China, but India, Africa and the S.America's are all looking and their appetite's to have also are awakening. The stuff they want does not come out of thin air, is not 're-cycled', it all comes out of the Earth, in one way or another. We have a problem.

We have to change tack. Put an end to this winner takes all attitude. The biggest, the most powerful take all they want. Be it hundred times, one thousand times, one million times more than the next person. It is their sovereign birth right to take it, to have it, protect it and stop you from getting a morsel. Whether we are thinking about individuals, companies, bank bosses, governments, continents, the same attitude applies. Those with the power take, take all they have a fancy to and those without, do with that much less.

We have to stop. We have to begin to care for that person next to us. They have as much right to what we have as we have to it. Nothing, nothing at all, gives us the right to have more, more than our neighbour. We have to share to make sure that what we enjoy is not disproportionate to what everyone else has. Only when we can be satisfied that others have had the chance to take their portion are we free to go back for more. This is the heart of being human. Whether we think about person to person or country to country, this is the true spirit of humanity. The takers have usurped us, now it is time for all of us to stand up and shame them for what they are. To claim back, on behalf us all, what is rightfully ours. To say no you are not entitled to that bonus, to use those share to your own advantage, to enact that legislation which is inequitable, your title deeds do not allow you sole occupancy, call it out as it is. Stand up, together, and shout out loud, "Fair for All or None at all".

Living a Now Life

In this era of information overload and instant vox pops by courtesy of the social network sites, putting a cross against some others nomination to signal your consent for the next five years seems just a tad limiting. Time to radically rethink how democracy must work in this era opening up before us. A democratic society is all about finding a consensual middle ground, inclusive of the widest majority. The twittering of tweets around a theme that has caught the public's imagination is as clear a demonstration of how a new democracy might work as could be found. The public have opinions, want to share it and most of all want their opinion to count.

Simple. One downside is the public are impetuous, rushing to voice an opinion so expressing a gut emotion rather than reflective thought. Sometimes the populous 'hang the murderer' on reflection is not the right response when eventually it emerges the youth was not the victim as initially seen but a drunk youth who fell into the path of a lawful car. So we have to steer away from instant polls to determine our future paths and find a more reflective and considered route. It takes time before all the shades of opinion really begin to emerge. The first headlong rush of 'me too' subsides and slowly other options and different takes begin to gather support. This is the point when we want public opinion to begin to influence our future.


Step up to the plate our leaders. We still need you to guide, gather and promote a future view for others to line up behind. The numbers of your disciples determining the impact you have in setting the national agenda. Of course large following will always be easily gathered by keeping close to the knee jerk responses, but does not make for good politics though. We have to re-educate ourselves as to the how's of debate, not character assassination, but about issues. The how to cut to the quick, compare and contrast and weight the strength of evidence for and against. Learn to listen to the nuances of those we disagree with, the better to confound their flimsy arguments. A sophisticated mature agenda but one I see every evidence of being attainable in this our society. A wrong path is not forever immutable, it is possible to change tack and find that other route.


The present media outlets own the political agenda, they determine what and the context in which any thoughts may be presented. That is despite any political parties strong resolve to address some other aspect of that issue. Our media controls the selection, the presentation and the target audience for any political announcement. In our new brave world, at present anyway, no one owns the ether and ideas are 'free' to spawn, gathering critical mass and attention focus. 'Free' because of course the search engines which decide what is at the top of your noticeboard is determined by their own objectives and criteria. So a hint of caution then, when nevertheless, a vogue posting can go viral just by being networked to friends.  Our new leaders have to sign up to this networked world and claim dominance amongst all those that profess to like their agenda. 


A different world, but still a world where we have to take long term strategic views of how to evolve and adhere to that policy for more than short term opportunism. I see a willingness to follow good leadership, I see loyalty prepared to weather bad times for the promise of good, I see a mature adult society that can rise to the challenges of being part of their societies evolution. What I also see are huge numbers of people disaffected by how the current system works against their interest. Where the 'X' fails to reflect the complexity of ideas they have about their and their families future.

Politics Without Parties

No apologises, this is going to be a long read. As it is central to all my political thoughts, stay with it, it might reward. I have previously set the challenge, Good Government, the Political No Vote, Centre Revolution, so how is it going to work? A democracy that is fully reflective of public opinion and is not carolled and strait-jacketed into a power base, survival at all costs organisation. As considered in my Consensus post, we need leaders, lots of them, all with slightly different take on issues. I am not even against political parties, per say, providing they are background support, not running and controlling what can or cannot be said and by whom. The over-arching objective is that the voters are offered individuals to choose between on their merits. In soliciting votes their views on the key questions of what makes a nation successful, are paramount. Not necessarily their own original views, just views that they understand and adopt as their own, with sincerity and not just for the voter appeal. Individuals who stand because they want to make a difference, not because of their wealth, connections or desire to win power or some popularity contest.
There is the first rub. Our media are fixated on failure or guilt that can be exposed in simple banner headlines. Subtlety, shades of opinion, complicated adjustments depending on degree are way out of their comprehension. It has to be either black or white. Either you are right, move on or you are wrong, in which case throw everything in, to prove how wrong. Not the vehicles to review a range of opinion or evaluate where a central position might lie, nor how extreme left or right any positions might actually fall. Not the place for measure considered debate, either right for that day, or wrong in which case lets seize on this error and display the weakness shown. Bully boy tactics dressed in grown-up speak.


The government of the day enjoys the luxury of a civil service, part of whose function are to present to the Cabernet minsters position papers. An elite cores review of any policy proposal, looking at all the consequence, knock-on events and implications for other policies. A whole gamut of allied and associated causes and effects that reverberate off the policy proposal. Likewise for any opposition counter policy proposals.
 
To escape the media blame game we need to get debate and objective critique of policy out into the open for all to see and consider. Not just government policy but any policy. Let us have the best informed and widest overseeing of all envisage consequences, benefits and penalties, so we can all reflect and judge the strengths or weakness of any policy put forward for the public dominion. Does not need a huge civil service army to effect. Nowadays we can exploit the on-line world. In a forum setting, ordinary citizens can lodge their reactions to any proposals, for and against. The forum moderator would be a small panel of 'civil servants' to hone the comments down to simple pro or con arguments. Voilà, a position paper is borne for all to see, to chip in, to tease, to test and reflect on all the varied responses. To arrive at their own opinion where the fair, pragmatic solution might lie. Ready to be persuaded to rise to another plane by their prospective candidate. Democracy might just work.


This then is the second rub. Money. To get ideas out into the public arena takes money. The more money, then the more effective, more attention seeking and more likely to wins the hearts of your target audience. Hearts, as you are only selling aspirations, not reasoned arguments. Money buys attention, buys respect and buys support. Money to buy media space. Money to buy slick attention seeking material and messages and money to buy audience research to iron out any misrepresentation's before launch. So a game only for a rich boy or organisation. 

Completely counter to the goal of any one being able offer themselves and their sincerity for election. First a commitment. No one stands unless they are so convinced of their need to serve that they are prepared to risk all. Secondly a cap, a very low maximum figure, topped up by the state if need be, to promote and draw attention to yourself and then a minimal salary if elected. Since the salary element came in for our MPs, the desire to serve has been supplanted by the greed for a cosy lifestyle. This salary has to be scaled back, so it is not a feather bed but an adequacy that all, irrespective of social background can afford to serve their country. Finally public online sites where candidates can be seen, their views and opinions offered and they can enter dialogue with their electorate.
 
The next and is it the final rub? There is no ready made political party to take up the electorates voting decision and to run a government.  Political parties are a lazy self-indulgent convenience useful to class based society. They no longer reflect our society. Our government should be a fluid alignment of the majority views, not cast in stone, a constant wheeling alliance of best interests, consensual views and trading off of benefits. That way we might just get a government that does actually reflect and respond to the society we actually live in. Not some ritualistic archaic left-over arrangements we currently toil under. A government in-touch and in-tune with its people, reactive and reflective of the constant changing moods, fears and aspirations.
 
No one suggested democracy was easy. No one claimed democracy gives you clear, decisive and consistent governance. We are after all herd creatures prone to take fright at the least alarm. It takes persons of stature and statesmanship to arise, be recognised, to lead and steady the herd, keeping them on track. That is democracy in action.

Held to Account

In a way the antithesis of trust, being accountable to those we choose to move amongst. In a totalitarian state the only thing to keep us on the straight and narrow would be the fear of being caught out and the retribution which would be sure to follow. That is not a world I want to live in. So what other options are open to us? At this stage in our progress we live in a rootless, faceless society. You can move around in, about and out of town and not see anybody who recognises you. You can cross all of London feeling as a racial minority group with few of your fellow travellers sharing your ethnic clothing, habits, courtesies, dialect and clearly none of your life interests. Yesterday's fad the hoodie is now an irrelevance. There is no longer any need to hide your identity, other than from the ever prescent CCTV camera, your identity is completely safe lost in a sea of strangers. You can and do what you like, where you like and how you like without any restraint, guilt, retribution and not the least chance of a restraining hand from some nearby fellow citizen. You are a law unto your yourself only, and, unless you are very unlucky, no officaldom's heavy hand will come anywhere near you to put a stop to your self-indulgence.


Except of course we do not live on a desert island, and my freedom to move and live my life is dependant on your willingness to keep within the normal social bounds and, of course, visa versa, your freedom to act the goat is dependant on my willingness to tolerate your anti-social conduct. In an ideal world, but we have drifted quite a long way from that ideal world. I cannot physically restrain you as that would expose me to civil proceedings. I cannot verbally remonstrate with you as that may well precipitate a violent physical counter-action. There is no longer the remotest chance that I know anyone in your family that could intercede about your social mayhem as I dont know them and even if I did, youth is no longer responsive to close relative let alone parental restraint. 


It is a mad mad world we are in, but it is up to each of us to change it. To change it to the kind of world where we all feel more comfortable and safe. So, no golden bullet solution but a number of pointers.

First we have to give up the comfort blanket, stop expecting the State to step in to resolve all our issues of being people and living within a society of people. The State does not do finesse, it can only apply coarse over-reactive draconian measures, it simply cannot devise enough unambiguous rules to control how we interact with each other. We will suffocate in the attempt. No it really is down to us.


Secondly then, in this very diverse racially mixed society, how to begin to rebuild connections across all members of the societies (remember this is a matrix society) you move among? You and I have to get involved. So the Small Society. Here the State does very little. You and I have to get involved if anything is needed to make the community work. Anything from pavement repairs, street lights, litter clearance, emergency services, social support, you name it and anything you want then you have to be part of the process of agreeing and cooperating with it running to your satisfaction. No opt out, no longer is it the local authorities job, now it is your job to be involved else it wont happen. Scary.

Thirdly it has to be wide ranging to swamp the community with the need for action. As we all know there are always those stalwarts that step up to the plate and tackle those task for the benefit of all while the majority keep their heads down, content taking benefit, freely criticising but not offering that needed helping hand. If we are to ever escape for our past subservience to power and control from above, we all have to be prepared to play a part and to confront those shirkers. There are a raft of roles waiting to be filled, not everyone is a leader, or committee fodder, but there is role for everyone. Hence to confront the complacency of phoning for the person from the council to sort it out, we need to be inundated with task that do threaten our comfort, security and peace of mind.

Fourthly by people having to come out of their private contented shells to participate in the arrangement and organisation of the every day functioning of their social lives they meet and have to engage with other members of their community. This engagement creates a wider network of known people within the community and as a direct consequence accountability arises. You, and the members of your home group, can no longer pass faceless along the edges of society. You are full on in, known and accountable. You have to conform to your communities mores. 

  
Clearly not a one step panacea, a host of problems and difficulties at every turn, but, and a very big but, if we find this way to re-engage with each other then all the problems and difficulties are solvable. Whilst we a talking with each other there are solutions that will be found. Never can it be more true that the combined whole is so much greater than the sum of its individuals. This is the real core of society, not the application of authority and control from above.

When enough is enough

This will be a bit of a ramble but stay with me as I think we will get to somewhere interesting. Some years ago I was a committed school governor. Then Thatcher brought in People Choice or whatever it was called. Suddenly school governors had a bag load full of obligations and responsibilities and even more than that the local area would expect to hold the governors to account for any consequences. The more I looked into it the more it struck me that the actual controls were all held upstream leaving the governors to manage the dirtyend and to be the front line for complaints. I gave up being a governor. We now have 'The Big Society'. Again this seems to a have a very familiar ring to it. Pass down to the lowest possible level, the dirty coal face of making things work and answering complaints about shortcomings, whilst leaving all the real controls at a much higher level. I could go on but that would be a distraction.

Putting the rosiest picture forward, our politician are not intellectual power houses nor consumed with a passion for a particular view of life. Just regular guys and girls. It could be chance that our new Prime Minister has read the past, learnt the lessons and is reapplying what worked. Possible but implausible. What I am getting here is an over-powering whiff of success management. My definition of success would be to be solely in control of the steering, the brake and the accelerator, to not get my hands dirty doing work and to be well off the line of fire when the spray shots of blame starts. Given that our politician are not those intellectual giants it is the civil service mandarins behind the scenes that actually run and set this countries agenda. Yes they have to work within the constraints of whatever is current political flavour but, I suspect, have long ago acquired the skills to find presentations which match political aspirations but still drive towards their own determined goal.

What I think I am sensing is a civil service that has decided to devolve power to the lowest possible levels whilst ensuring they retain a tight grip on real free decision taking. Why? We are moving towards a totalitarian society. What better confirmation than the images of citizens contained behind wire fences so as to not trouble their elected representatives, this is as cynical take on demcracy working by our leaders as you could wish for. You and I might argue the pace but the direction is irrefutable. When you view the populace as fraudster, cheats, skivers, shirkers, in all a shiftless bad lot, the only possible response is yet more control, more surveillance and more punishments. It trying to tie down and manage free spirit, it is an inescapable consequence, that government gets more and more complex, intrusive and finds it so hard to keep threads together. No wonder then that the mandarins are looking to simplify what they need to exercise that absolute control. We have a long game objective playing out here. Watch out in coming years for its manifestation in several different political disguises!

It is just another example of the glass half full or the glass half empty syndrome. If your starting premise is that citizens are liars and cheats you will readily find all the evidence to confirm it many times over. So justifying yet more control, surveillance and sanction. Sit firmly down on the can of worms. On the other hand of course if your starting premise is that citizens are proudly loyal, hard working, wanting opportunities to show and share their skills you end up with a different style of government. A style that sets out to enable, utilise and harness the energy and talent of the citizens to better themselves. For this view, only the lightest of hands is necessary and to a large extent it will self-discipline itself, leaving a minimalist government that mostly has to follow the will of its peoples. As against trying to suppress the will of the people to its objectives.

Yes of course we can all identify cheats and abusers amongst us but equally we can also identify the honest and self-sacrificing. You have to take a view, are we largely honest or largely cheats, half full or half empty? There is no doubt in my mind listening to the continual justification of measure after measure that relies on scare mongering about stopping cheats and fraudsters getting away with it, how our government see the issue!

Concomitant to the path to totalitarianism is an ever burgeoning bureaucracy that will eventually overwhelm and self-destruct. There are no cost savings down that road, the tools you need to manage grow ever larger and wider. What you save today you will spend double tomorrow. The proportion of government cost against the wealth of nation just rises and rises. We have too much government focused on the wrong end. We as a society need to sit back and rethink how we want go about governing ourselves, starting out with a much simpler model. There is of course a very entrenched and powerful voice that says you will never ever get to realise it.

Good Government

Right, lets have a go at setting out what good government might be about. Certainly this will not be the all definitive, but at least a starting off point.

In the begining. Having clawed your way to the top of the tree, once there, there is every reason to believe you have a unique insight. Otherwise you would not be there, someone else would, who fought better or with more winning ideas. Once there you have the controls to arrange and organise things. Those under you, no doubt still wanting to claw their way up, have to conform to your edicts else there get pushed off the tree. You are surrounded with people who to your face agree with the sagacity of your opinions for fear of displeasing the dispenser of favours. Other than defending your perch from aspiring claimants you rule the roost. Everything conspires to confirm your particular view of the world is the right view, the only view. Having the taste of power, it is a natural consequence to keep and preferably to grow that power. Your decisions are most likely going to be directed to gathering more power to you. The end result is a centralised form of government. Only the top of the tree for this central government has any idea what is necessary. So plans accordingly.

My starting position is that no one in central government has a clue how best to arrange and organise services for my local parish community. Their solutions might be just fine for the grand cosmopolitan capital of our country. I doubt whether they fit as well in Peterborough or Newcastle or Penzance or Inverness. Each region and within each region, each local community has unique demands and challenges that don't fit well with the global, capital city orientated, solutions. Local people have to be involved in running the things that matter within their own communities. Free from the leaden constraints and dictate from some remote out-of-touch Ministry. To connect with their community they have to know that what they says matters, has impact and they will get to directly experience the consequences of their decisions. Involvement matters deeply. It is not just some superficial add-on, for its feel good factor, where the actual reins of authority firmly held off-stage, right or left.

Basically I think the hierarchy, parish to district to county to national is about right. However rather than top down I think it should be bottom up. The money and decisions should rest with the people and the community that need, decide to spend and receive goods or services. They decide at the point closest to the affected community the when, where and how. Calling on District or County facilities as necessary or otherwise sourcing local. Clearly there will be a range of different responses depending on whether your are a London inner borough, a home counties parish, a parish in Somerset or in Assynt. The expectations and standards will rightly differ with regard to any community issues from street lighting, road repairs, parking enforcement, rubbish collection or provision of care and support or whatever.

Obviously not all community requirements are appropriate at such a small community scale. Whilst a primary school might be possible not every community could sustain a secondary school, or drop-out centre or hospital. So here we have the transference upwards of resource allocation from Parish upto District or County. Competing against each other and other adjoining areas to attract the highest uptake for their particular provision, with no doubt, rewards for long term commitment. Each higher level up, operating with the current segregation between operational matters and those of legislative enforcement. The Legislative side disseminating standards to aspire to, checking on standards adopted and challenging where standards are found not to comply. Nothing black and white, the community have the right to adhere to non-conformity (compliance) so long as they can argue their cause.

At District and County levels there are social provisions that are just a factor of scale, not arising out of any particular community want. To get in the line of thought, for example, planning for new routes or distribution of services, providing analytical skills, monitoring of erosion or pollution. Clearly from one community scale to the next one up there are some things that just have to be funded at the next higher level up. So a right to a precept to permit this to happen seems logical. Except it needs accountability and challenge. The lower level in granting the precept renewal is entitled to a report and an account of what was done and is planned to be done and a vote on its continuance. Earning the support of the communities contributing has to be an essential, not a presumptive, right.

All the way up to National Government. The Counties decide what precept to grant the National Government and agree to continuing support for whatever is in the Nations interest, be it Defense, a new Trade Treaty, Secret Services or setting new standards guidelines. Only after receiving a report and account for the previous year. Challenging most certainly, a central government always on its toes having to carry the Nation along with it, seeking agreement and consent, very limiting. But how refreshing, the actual power base, the consent of the people, actually in touch and able to influence what is proposed to be done in their name. Not a distance, hands off electorate putting their mark on a simplified choice presented to them as a done deed by an inner caucus. Instead a vital living democracy is the goal in sight. This is the concept of a Small Society.

Uniformity across the land, in such an interconnected world, has to be the norm. We surely cannot have one set of rules applying in Cornwall and another set in Peterborough in contradiction to the rules applying in the Assynt. We need a strong central government to ensure we are all in conformity, we can travel around the land and be equally at ease and familiar where so ever we land and put down our head to rest. Why? From the top down it is obvious but from the bottom up it is no longer so self-apparent. Uniformity only if it is useful and of benefit to the local community. If they choose to go out on a limb, deny support for many regional or national precepts, play the dangerous game of isolation. Why not, in principle. If they are wrong they will live to regret and the costs will come to haunt them. More likely, as we are at natural heart, conformists only wanting to be in agreement and accord with those around us it is an unlikely scenario. But the option, the scarce remotest possibility, that a community in defiance of conformity, could break away and set up a new role model for the rest of us to learn from is exciting. It is the best way to keep our State fresh and self-renewing. Bring on the small man in his local community striving for a better future.

Bad Government

It is trivial and in the scale of things amounts to nothing. So why get all concerned about whether fluoride should be added (locally) to our national water supply or not? Self-evident, fluoride is scientifically proven to reduce the incident of tooth caries and adding to our water is the cheapest and most effective way to ensure everyone gets it. Right?

Why I am bothering to write is because it is indicative of a wrong totally misplaced attitude. Not the action in itself but the mind set that makes to so acceptable and right. Our social compact is, if we forego certain freedoms, we will be supplied with clean potable water. I would add in by the state and not a service sold off to a foreign commercial enterprise accountable only to its shareholders and not us, the English people. But that is another argument.

To return, to ensure the water is delivered in a healthy potable 'germfree' state we accept that it is dosed with chemicals.. We might even accept that to avoid the cost of replacing worn out pipework we accept that the distribution pipelines are lined with chemicals that will become 'inert' with use. The health of the nations people is important. So the next step to dosing the water with a chemical that is known to be good for the nations health is logical.

Every time a person in a position to know announces that miracle product 'X' is wonderful and has no known side effects, all credibility flies out of the window. Nothing on this earth has only positive good effects. Everything you can think of has good and bad effects. It is a question of balance, a human judgement prey to the fashion thinking of the times. What is a 'right' balance one year, one month, one day is wrong or even misguided the next. Fluoride is just another such substance, the scientists will be arguing, testing and exchanging data that will shift the balance back and forth.

What is at issue is that the government should not put us into a position where we are not allowed to make our own choice, to go with the perceived balance or not. There are no absolutes in judgement, it all depends. With dosing the water for purity, there really are no options other than supplying water that might be contaminated. Pragmatically there is little option. It happens in my local area we have a water collecting topography, so could have access to pure clean water even if untreated. Except for national conformity, and to enable our water to be distributed around I suspect, it is treated. Another aside. Chemically lining the pipes to save costs? Well I was not asked, do not like it, but it is a democracy and making harsh decisions against competing costs issues is part of the game. Adding fluoride is something else.

The Government is not appointed in loco parentis for each of us. It is simply not for them to decide. There are heaps of issues where it would be nice if only they could decide, to save our health, to make looking after us so much cheaper and easier. Except that is not the contract we have with them. We are to be left to make our own choices and decisions about things that affect us as individuals, as far as possible. Even if we are wrong, pigheaded or plain stubborn.

I love it as an idea, if the Government could stop obese people, no let us go the whole hog, all people eating beefburgers. Plainly bad for our nations health and very little food value that could not be better supplied another way. Except of course it is plainly wrong as would be the banning of say, alcohol. Some things are just down to the individual. It gets muckier when it is a collective issue. When we forgo an individual freedom for the greater good of the wider community. All milk should be pasteurised as only then can you be sure it is safe to drink. When it comes to Class A or B or C Drugs I get less and less sure. Much as I have huge reservations about drug taking, it seems DoGoody Government wants to decide for me. I know the social implications are enormous but it is always better if people can come to their own conclusion than having a Government decide for them.

The Political No Vote

Politicians are besotted with their own narrow view of how democracy works. They think the People vote for a Party and therefore the Party Leader. Not true.

To forego my independence I need assurance and the trust that someone speaks for me, I am even prepared to give up my own limited view and accept the majority decision as to who is best to speak for all of us, including me. Not a Party. Not a Party Leader. A person, of our community, a person who reflects my own society and the people within it, who understands the working lives and concerns of all those around me in my locality. That is called democracy. Someone selected and able to speak on my behalf and my concerns.


Of course the Political Parties put forward a 'local candidate' but the candidate's first and primary loyalty is to the Party that sponsors them and the Whips ensure they pay their dues. I don't get or want to vote in a political party. That is a convenience for those once elected to arrange and organise their business once elected, nothing democratic about that. The Party is selected, elected and organised by party faithfuls, nothing to do with representation of the wider community there. The Party Leader is selected from within the faithful circle by the faithful as the person most likely to bring them electoral success. Nothing to do with democratic representation there either. The Party and the Leader are only about the promotion of a narrow view with a populist brief to make it attractive to a wider audience. Nothing about promoting a vision of the community I live within.

To win over voters and to give them the power they desire, a manifest is offered with a commitment, if successful, to fulfil it during their five year term of office but it is worthless, worse than worthless as it raises expectations of objectives impossible to ever realise. You cannot commit yourself to a course of expenditure today when tomorrow you might discover you are unemployed, divorced, made homeless or win a million pounds on the lottery of life. Life is just too uncertain to be able to offer any such meaningful commitments. As soon as they take up power they discover the actual position inherited is of a totally different magnitude than they envisaged and its a certainty that other world events will throw all their best intentions completely awry during the course of their term. But the 'manifestos' are easy on the ear sound bites that can promoted and taken up in simple terms by the various media where differentiation can be marked out and maybe win over those elusive voters.

This is a long way down from the path origins where men with a strong political view and vision on how society is and might be shaped offered to promote that goal whilst sustaining the community putting him forward. It was an administrative convenience that men of similar view grouped together, formed a collective, which became a Party. That Party found it had access to money, power and influence, something they never relinquished and subverted the men of vision in the process.

This total domination of the electoral process by non-representative Political Party's and now more recently quasi-Presidential leaders, (no longer collective decision taking then) have usurped my rights to democratic representation. Not from apathy or lack of political interest, this is why I shall not be voting.