“Men in overalls built this country.
And men in suits destroyed it.”
Fred Dibnah was bang on the money years ago. ‘Lions led by donkeys’ has never been more appropriate than today.
Politicians, academics, senior public servants and business leaders fall over themselves with every passing generation to tell us (again and again) about the fundamental problems facing Britain.
And the answers they propose always involve ceding our freedoms, and sovereignty, to others in exchange for membership of some exclusive club or other which offer fantastic (but well hidden) benefits (that turn out to be either worthless, or shit, in the end).
No one ever addresses the real problem however, which is an almost total lack of leadership. That critical missing element is a direct function of leadship being granted primarily upon the basis of background and club membership rather than ability, competence, courage, ingenuity or vision.
The vast majority of senior politicians, public servants and business heads in this country still emanate from public schools and Oxbridge colleges. The Elitist Britain 2019 report from The Sutton Trust report clearly shows the stanglehold:
“Social mobility across the UK is low and not improving, depriving large parts of the country of opportunity.”
When you live at the top of Knob Hill, the view always looks better than it does down below. And when the status quo lies so clearly, and heavily, in your favour why the hell would you want to risk wholesale change? By definition Nimby‘s are those who have a backyard in the first place and their primary objective is always to keep others out.
Therein lies the nub of the matter. Our elected (career based) politicians and their political parties have far more in common with each other, in terms of shared background, education and outlook than they do with the majority of the electorate. And that is why the current representative system of voting can never, and will never, bring about meaningful change in favour of the majority population. The privileged classes and the ordinary working population are simply poles apart.
Reform is not enough. Revolution is a must.
If this country is to avoid going down the toilet faster than a particularly nasty vindaloo, power must be given to the people. We need to be able to vote for clear-cut, binding policies rather than people or political parties, and trusting that they will actually execute whatever they have included in this year’s manifesto (toilet paper would be a good deal more useful than most of those).
To do this we need to completely dismantle the current governmental / political / public services systems and replace them with an entirely new, People First based constitution that is compiled solely, and in it’s entirety, on the expressly stated wishes / requirements of the British people, and specifically not as directed / favoured by politicians, academics, bureaucrats, media organisations, foreign nations / organisations, global businesses or non-British U.K. residents.
We need a constitution, and a system of government that is based upon direct democracy, with the electorate voting directly upon all legislation and government budgets. For this to be practical the constitution needs to be comprehensive in scope, both in terms of breadth and depth, with an elected government – not of politicians but of elected executives with genuine demonstrable experience and leadership – to manage a radically streamlined system and scope of government, within the confines of the both constitution and the voting powers of the electorate. People First Good Government model.
Government needs to be about action and delivery rather than bullshit debate and theatrical posturing for media consumption.
Government needs to be focused upon service provision and suporting individual and business advancement, rather than regulation, restriction and control.
Most importantly, government needs to be open-book and completely transparent across all aspects of budget and delivery (save for those very few areas that concern national security), rather than inherently secretive and deliberately underhand across major areas of citizen concern.
