Nowt to do wi' me

I often wonder why we are here. And while I have considered that science has yet to provide an answer I don’t take easily to religion, either. The entirety of human history has failed to record a single provable nugget of evidence for the existence of a god or gods, but then science hasn’t proved the absence. Overall, though, I am happy to go along with the scientific method; that is, the theory that there is no god has withstood all attempts to disprove it.

But I don’t need any unifying theory for the reason for existence. Our time is short enough without getting overly worried about a question nobody has yet answered. As the Rochdale Cowboy, Mike Harding once observed “There I was, awake in the middle of the night, gazing up at the heavens and seeing the myriad pinpoints of light. Were there other worlds? What’s it all about? Then I realised it had bugger all to do with me so I went back to bed.”

I’m a pragmatist, on the whole, and as phlegmatically British in character as it is possible to be. I don’t need a reason, and I don’t need a cause. Maybe it is due to being brought up to strive for the best but when push comes to shove, you can like it or lump it. In wondering what it is all about I have decided that happiness – in all its dizzying difference of definition – is overrated. I’ve long thought that the human propensity for envy is a corrosive drag on our development.

People around the world suffer floods, droughts, hunger, incarceration, slavery and all manner of other privations, yet we in the west complain if we can’t get precisely what we want when we want. Infantile longing for stuff we can’t afford drives young men to lease ridiculous cars to advertise a status they have yet to and may never earn. And marketing inventiveness and cunning relentlessly promotes such excesses as botoxed brows and unbelievably ugly pneumatic lips. What is wrong with us? Why can’t we learn to live with what we’ve got, accept we’ve largely got what we need, and appreciate the effort of working harder for what we desire?

Being brought up with ‘mustn’t grumble’ and the unavailability of credit made my generation and those before it somewhat stoic in the face of disaster. ‘Not bad’ used to be an extreme compliment, whereas hyperbolically describing the new artwork on a can of so-called energy drink (active ingredients, sugar and caffeine; nothing more) as ‘awesome’ leaves you nowhere to go for a genuine superlative. We have literally talked ourselves out of our own language.

You can’t turn the clock back, I suppose, but I do long for the times when people were genuinely grateful for what they received and pride came from achievement, not acquisition. Our national life is less healthy for the notions of uncritical freedom, of unlimited rights. Putting genies back into bottles is notoriously tricky, but maybe it is possible to stopper the bottle to prevent any more stupidity leaking out. Ah, who am I kidding? Fuck it, knock yourself out, help yourself… just don’t come begging for more when you’ve run out of all proportion.

Do it Yourself

Once upon a time, girls and boys (can we even say that any more?) the United Kingdom of Great Island and Smaller Ireland and all the other little islands wanted for little. It had power and influence, commanded respect and housed a population it could feed and defend who, if they wished, could ascend the social ladder from humble beginnings to become the captains of industry, the commanders of legions and proudly call themselves British.

And that’s where it all started to go wrong. Comfortable and secure, a coming generation of leaders held a vision of universal suffrage, cradle to grave welfare and an economy built on hope, ambition and hard graft. The ordinary working man could buy his own home in which to raise a family, the scions of which would prosper and aspire to even greater heights. And then the Ponzi model of governance was launched.

Now, we increase taxes and import yet more low-grade taxpayers to prop up an economy built on borrowing. And the beneficiaries of the borrowing are rarely those who have to pay it back. The cost of bailing out banks, of subsidising loss-making industry, uncompetitive institutions and forever funding useless hobby-horses such as the diversity and inclusion machine is forever borne by those who can least afford it.

The Marxist infiltration of the establishment began long ago and now we have nepotistic dynasties of politicians and civil servants still wedded to the ideas that all we have to do is carry on and the universe will provide. No need to train our own when we can freely import other, cheaper manpower. No real need to educate when anybody who can learn a new lexicon can earn a handsome living from repeating and distorting the flimsy philosophies of crank thinkers.

Food and energy security – national security itself – can be safely handed over to higher powers such as the EU. And while we’re at it, why make hard decisions about law and order and rights when those same remote and unknown mandarins will happily do this for us? This is England, we are one of the richest countries in the world, we’re fine, they told us for decades.

But how can it be, that in a country this wealthy, that we have poverty and squalor, life-limiting ignorance and worsening health outcomes? How has the population become so dependent on hyper-processed food, entertainment on demand, instant gratification and no-blame antisocial behaviours? How? Lazy, incompetent, foolish, vainglorious politicians. Politicians more focused on how they look, what their ‘legacy’ might be, and surviving the mud-wrestling pit of Westminster to fight again… to be elected.

But recent events have demonstrated quite clearly that the world is not our friend. The EU would happily punish us for leaving its deadly embrace and the USA no longer cares because we no longer matter. If there is going to be any hope for the future, it is time to stop relying on everybody else and stop blaming everybody else. The next 50-100 years should be spent on rebuilding this country as an independent, apron-string free nation.

And it won’t be easy. An economy built on fried chicken shacks, betting shops and black market labour does nothing for honest working people. A leadership whose gaze is forever fixed on its dwindling international reputation cannot possibly claim to represent the people of this country. And a commentariat obsessed with making the abnormal normal, by berating the normal will only increase and exacerbate the tensions and divisions.

I don’t think we are anywhere near being capable of even beginning this journey, and certainly there is no sign of any consensus among the electable political options. Ghandi may well have been right. If you want to see change, be that change. You might not make waves and rebuild the world, but at least you might be able to cause a ripple which affects your world. Worth a try, surely?

Party Time

I dunno, you wait fifty years for a new political party then dozens of them all turn up at once! There seems to be an appetite for change, and everybody seems to know what tasty dish will sate that hunger. A little bit of racism here, some misogyny over there, a dash of identity politics, easy on the rich jus of social justice, and a sprightly garnish of Little England to set it off. At least, that’s what the media seems to think.

The big issues of the national consciousness, the truly difficult, life-essential missions – gender, climate panic, diversity, ending slavery, pulling down statues, defending the indefensible – that’s already sewn up by the big three parties… - [checks] … big two parties. So the new, smaller parties are relegated to engaging the public on the silly little policies such as immigration, wealth distribution and poverty, work and welfare and pensions, housing, homelessness, national defence, policing and all of that trivial nonsense.

Goodness me, what woolly headed nonsense they spout. Imagine actually prosecuting criminals instead of getting in a fizz over hurty words! And what are these ‘borders’ of which the neo-Nazis speak? Don’t they know we’re in the age of Aquarius? And don’t get us started on rights. No, these insignificant parties who claim to speak for the disenfranchised, they are just trotting out the same old tropes that the old Conservatives used to believe in.

Modern polling techniques have been refined so that we can now accurately record the fact that the majority of people we choose to question will tell us what we want to hear. I don’t know who the stormtroopers of Ukip, For Britain, Britain First, Reclaim, Traditional Unionist Voice, the Christian People’s Alliance, the Wessex Regionalists and the Church of the Militant Elvis Party think they are representing, but I’m pretty sure their people never get asked.

Such is the rarefied air that the political pundits breathe that they never have to inhale the toxic fumes of desperation, the miasma of hopelessness, that emanate from the methane plant of humanity which is beneath their dignity. Ordinary people – the dopes with a vote they don’t deserve – are only good for entertainment, after all. Look how fat, look how ugly; they are no better than animals, are they?

Maybe they have a point, but if you are going to keep 90% of your population in ignorant servitude it might be a good idea, now and then, to check in on their welfare. After all, the police force are recruited from their ranks, as are the military. Many of them can use tools and, despite what the political classes seem to think, many are perfectly capable of forming opinions and holding grudges. Plus, they exist in far greater number than do you.

Splitters!

The chances of all the smaller parties coming together, agreeing on matters and becoming an effective alternative to the Tories and Labour is, I’m afraid, pie in the sky. And even if they did, their electoral chances are vanishingly small. Maybe the real way ahead is for everybody to re-join, or join for the first time, the main party which they think they can live with and then change them from within. Yes, yes, I know we think it’s been tried, but has it? Something to think about, maybe… 

One for all?

In 1964, when Marshall McLuhan declared “The medium is the message” he could have been talking directly about Britain right now. He was suggesting that the primary focus of concern may not be the message itself, but the way the media portray it. How very prescient of the world we find ourselves in today, where the buck stops at the top for one side, but is diverted to some sub-department for the other.

A picture of the PM holding a can of beer has the entire media circus in a froth while remaining strangely silent about ‘Lord’ Ahmed of Rotherham being jailed, actually jailed, for child sex offences. How can it be that somebody who once sat in the House of Lords being convicted for what is largely considered to be one the very worst of crimes gets less airplay than a man with a can? The medium is the message, folks.

Everybody – you, me, even the people who study this sort of thing – is affected by confirmation bias; a propensity to believe in evidence for what we already believe. And none of us – neither you, nor me, nor the people who study this sort of thing – are immune to its tentacles. We will believe five outrageous lies about our enemies before we accept a single and obvious unpalatable truth about our friends. But journalism is supposed, at least, to attempt to portray all sides and let the consumer decide.

But that isn’t what is happening. Your dad may have forgotten your birthday. He may have spent your pocket money on the horses. He may have got drunk the night before your big day. But he’s still your dad and for all his faults he always will be. (although I accept this analogy falls flat for the many households in which not a single child knows his father, but they are not so likely to ever read this). The instinct to protect somebody with whom you connect is strong, no matter what other people tell you.

I have never been naïve enough to expect the rule makers to follow the rules. I have always accepted that with power comes privilege, and this is exercised throughout all of human society. Everybody who voted Boris for ‘president’ was well aware of who they were voting for. The so-called Red Wall didn’t vote for the Conservative Party, they voted for Boris. So without him at the helm the Tories are toast, come the next election.

The press pack knows this, and no matter what stories they tell themselves about their true motivation, their real desire is to see the Labour Party back on the throne. And not the Corbynite, red-through Labour Party, but the Blairites and their associated movements which were so instrumental in deliberately and systematically breaking down what was left of community and shared values in this country.

The country is tired of CakeGate, it really is. And while the media continues to listen to the commentariat minority who keep feeding their feeble little flame, the furnace of popular opinion is being fanned by far greater bellows. The bellows of people about to lose their livelihoods, to suffer freezing homes and to be dispossessed of their own homeland.

Look into my eyes...

So, switch off when the BBC start their news programmes with scurrilous stories about ‘parties’ at No. 10. Click elsewhere when a link invites you to a news page filled with bile and outrage about something that matters not one jot. Cancel your subscriptions, and stop buying the bloody printed copies. To the journalists there is only one thing worse than complaining about the press; it’s not reading the press.

The Levellers

 Lisa Nandy, quite rightly, queried “Is this it?” following Michael Gove’s lacklustre lecture on levelling up, the government’s slogan-rich but content-free ambition for Britain. What Britain needs is not ‘an agenda’ but real action. People want proper education, decent jobs and dignity, and most of all, I suspect, the freedom to get on with their lives without the constant nannying of the state.

It is said that 1 in 5 of the population is disabled. Oh, come off it. That can only be the case if you accept the determination of some to reduce every difference to the status of a special need. Soon, being taller or shorter than the average height will no doubt qualify you for some sort of payout, programme or pressure group. You prefer it in red? Fire up the FundMe! What an insult to people with genuine needs.

Soaking the rich will do nothing. As has been demonstrated many times in many places, over-tax the successful and they will take their success elsewhere. Windfall taxes are nothing but toothless, headline grabbing soundbites. What is needed is a restructuring of society, but in our own image – not the fanciful rainbow nation of misfits the current crop of social engineers covet.

The problems of the third world can never be solved, or their privations eased by allowing a tiny fraction of their number to sink us under the millstone of diversity. We don’t want strangers to care for our elderly. We don’t need yet more cheap labour to undercut our wages. We need a country in which every worker should be able to achieve the simple dream of a roof over their head to call their own and something better for their children in the future.

Yes it will take years, generations, even. But we have to start somewhere. If we said, right now, "everybody here who has a British passport is a Briton and entitled to a stake in the future, but we are full up, so no more", the cheers would lift the roof. We might need to accept shortfalls in those industries which have, for years, taken on minimum wage immigrants and turned many low-status jobs into work that only foreigners do, but surely that was more than a bit racist anyway.

Where do we get the workforce, especially the educated workers to fill the gaps? Well, why not start on those hundreds of thousands, if not millions, whose ‘work’ does nothing of any worth; redeploy Human Resources staff, useless consultants for faddish causes, diversity twonks,  and everybody engaged in perpetuating the race, class and gender wars. Cancel their roles entirely and get them into frontline jobs. Some of them will be brilliant, some of them will go hungry, but their sacrifices are necessary and would be welcomed.

And then turn to the rest and ask them what they want. The ordinary working men and women of this country should be the key to the future. It can’t be impossible to pay them properly, incentivise them to want to get on, encourage them to push their children to do better still, as used to happen not so very long ago.

More engineers and scientists?

It will take decades and a lot of people may have to face a life which doesn’t give them an easy time, but faced with this or the alternative – that the UK becomes a dumping ground for the world’s problems and everybody below median income becomes a ward of state - is unthinkable. Government has to own up to the fact that there is no one-term fix; if we want a country fit to live in it has to be a lifelong endeavour, with everybody on the same team; Team GB.