The future of our country

With the way in which the present political landscape stands - and whether or not this Parliament lasts its 5 year term - our country faces what may be called Armageddon in that at the next election the people can expect to be governed by Labour; a continuation of the Lib/Con Coalition, or a Lib/Lab Coation; or the Conservatives.


Can any reader, hand on heart, tell me exactly what the difference will be? Will we not continue to suffer the indignity of governance from Brussels? Will we not continue to suffer governance by the State? Will we not continue to suffer, as a result of the governance by the State, yet more interference in our lives? Will we not continue to suffer yet more curtailment of our freedoms?


For those of us who know that our system of representative democracy has failed and has been infiltrated by those with what may be termed a common purpose, what avenue exists for us to make our voices heard other than blogging and/or commenting on other blogs? For those of us who know that an alternative system of democracy exists - one encapsulating direct democracy and referism, or either individually - what opportunity is there for us to get our views more widely known? The only method is utilising the 'services' of the MSM - but what if the MSM does not wish to 'know', or print/repeat our views?


Where are think tanks such as the Centre for Policy Studies or the Bruges Group - organisations that have a virtually immediate access to the MSM? Where are 'independent' journalists, such as James Delingpole, Ed West, Gerald Warner or Simon Heffer - journalists who continually write about the benefits-not of the status quo? I have 'fed' them 'intros' to what are 'matters of concern' on a number of occasions, but to no avail. At the last general election I alerted them to the campaign the Albion Alliance was conducting, one in which those of us involved in that campaign attempted to email every candidate who was standing, requesting that they stood for the return of our country's independence - to no avail. I have 'fed' them 'intros' about the demand for direct democracy and/or referism - to no avail. Or have they too been 'subverted'? Or are they - as are politicians - only interested in their careers?


I am beginning to think, admittedly belatedly, that the PTB (both political and journalist) are indeed members of the same club - due, of course, to their dependence on each other. There is, of course, no point in appealing to Members of Parliament, such as Carswell, Hollobone, Cash, Bone, who are obviously 'career politicians' - likewise Hannan, an MEP - all of whom espouse 'direct democracy' without appearing to completely understand what that form of democracy actually means. Their idea of direct democracy entails no more than continuance of the status-quo, ie continuance of central control by them. Shame on all those named!


Which begs the question whether the only alternative for we the people, who are only too aware of the deficits in our democratic system, is outright, armed rebellion.


Just asking......................

Treatment of the elderly

As Ed West writes on his Telegraph blog, more laws about age discrimination will not affect how we regard and treat our elderly. He is also correct in stating that Age UK spends an inordinate amount of its time in political activism and that no organisation receiving money from the state should become involved in politics, that where a charity is given money to run a service this should automatically be a condition. Age UK is of course, as Ed West writes, a fake charity in that the accounts for 2008/09 showed £4,666,000 (38.5%) of all voluntary income came from government departments.

On a personal level I have what may be termed an 'arms-length' interest in how the elderly are cared for in that my mother lives in a care home. The care home is 'state run' and what makes this care home so remarkable is that the staff working there really do care about their residents and take an interest in their daily lives - whilst unofficially complaining about the health & safety, politically correct aspects which make their work so much harder. Having observed the staff it is becoming a theory of mine that their caring attitude is almost an inherent gene with which they were born - the newest member of staff has been working at my mother's care home for 15 years.

It cannot surely help the aged when their future (or what is left of it) is being decided by those many years younger and who, consequently, have no idea of what it is like to be aged; have no idea of the indignity that is felt by those unable to wash themselves or carry out other bathroom activities without assistance. It cannot surely help the aged when decisions such as this are taken; it cannot surely help the aged when we continue to pour money into overseas aid to the detriment of our elderly, where their care is concerned.

If our politicians must govern us, then perhaps they need to rethink how they intend doing just that, because as I reminded my Member of Parliament: when it is his turn to enter the world of the aged - even with his wealth - he ain't going to like the world he is creating, whilst also adding that for those of us who are not yet 'aged' or infirm, the world he is creating for us ain't so great either!

The way the elderly and vulnerable are cared for - and their treatment - is most definitely an aspect of our society which would improve with a dose of 'referism'.

And the logic of this is what, exactly?

I am of course querying the decision to extend free HIV treatment on the NHS to foreigners, a decision announced just two days after we are informed by George Osborne that the UK has run out of money. Ed West, on his blog, makes the valid point that offering this treatment may well encourage people suffering from this illness to come to this country. That this move will probably prove a magnet for yet more immigration at a time when the government is desperately attempting to reduce immigration would appear to have escaped the minds of our political elite. I have to question the logic - and the fairness - of the government asking the NHS to make cuts, cuts which will have a detrimental effect on  those who have, in effect, 'paid into' the NHS, whilst providing free treatment to foreigners who will have made no such 'investment'.


The comment by Anne Milton, the public health minister, that tough guidance meant that this measure would not be abused is completely laughable. I seem to recall similar assurances being provided on just about every policy that our politicians have introduced. When remembering the greatest assurance of all, that of Ted Heath who assured us that membership of the European Union would not involve any loss of sovereignty, just why the hell should we believe anything any politician tells us? 


Reverting to Osborne's statement that the UK has run out of money, perhaps this would not be the case if we had not provided funds to prop up the euro, perhaps this would not be the case if we had refrained from trying to teach Libya a lesson, perhaps this would not be the case had we refrained from such vanity projects as HS2, perhaps this would not be the case were we not forced to spend £5million per annum keeping Abu Qatada in our country.


The Telegraph article informs us that those from abroad, including failed asylum seekers, students and tourists are currently barred from receiving free HIV treatment - yet this does not appear to be the case, at least not according to Nam. It is also important to ask our political elite just when did they ask those who will be providing the necessary funds whether they agreed that their money could be used for this?

Now, if we had 'referism'...........

Aha, now articles appear about a change to our democracy

Simon Jenkins writes in the Guardian and Ed West in the Daily Telegraph, each with their own ideas on how to solve the Scottish question, not that either have thought the subject through - least of all, unfortunately, Ed West. Both appear to have written articles which follow the political 'policy production method' - resulting in half-arsed ideas; both of which ignore the 'elephant in the room', although Ed West does hint at it when he writes:

"So we have a situation where the main party in Scotland wants an independent Scotland, the main party in England, just as in 1707, has every reason to want an independent England, and the only party with a constituency in both doesn’t believe in nations at all but in super-states, universalism and diversity".

Ed West does also, in fairness, take Jenkins' idea further - but compounds the problem with the suggestion of Regional Parliaments, writing:

"If one state (the regions would have to be called that to placate the Scots and Welsh) wants to have variant policies on free schools, church schools or grammars, it can. If one state wishes to set up its own version of Ofsted and have inspections that drive teachers to insanity, or force them to use up more man-hours filling in forms than have been spent over the Israel/Palestine problem, that’s up to them. If they succeed, other states will imitate them; if they don't, they won't. The employment protection given to teachers – another problem with the system – could even be decided at state level."

 Regional Parliaments? Don't we have enough politicians already? In any event, regional parliaments would just be assisting the European Union with their regionalisation programme. Why have regional parliaments when the powers he suggests devolving could just as easily be devolved to counties - once of course we become a self-governing nation again, because there is little point in devolving power whilst policy is, in general, dictated by Bruxelles.

Ed West comes closest to the benefits of direct democracy when he writes:

"This is just one example of where devolution could introduce diversity (in the true, pre-PC sense) into our political system and take us away from the clunky statism that is currently such a failure. It could be the spur to drastically reducing the size of Commons, combating the mania for unnecessary laws. In turn central government could concentrate on the economy, foreign affairs, defence and maintaining the border – and because it would have so little else to do, it might actually take these issues seriously."

On second thoughts, I may be being unkind to Ed West as I have the sneaking suspicion that he may have read this blog, that of IanPJ on Politics; and possibly taken a look at talkconstitution.net - and that he is still reading. When finished, one can but hope he will arrive at what is the most logical conclusion - that direct democracy does put the people back in charge and in so doing, curbs political power.

Just saying.........