Coming back to Calabria this trip was filled with much mixed emotion, for so very many reasons. The nervous excitement that I had been living with had somehow managed to turn to a very heavy uncertainty on my shoulders. It had been nearly 5 months since I had been here, what all had changed with the property and the process? What had not?
When I left in October I had a rather emotional moment standing in my ruin, for what I had believed to be the last time.
There was not a lot of communication between myself and the man who was to oversee the project in my absence during this time, but over the months, I did gleen that there had perhaps been a miscommunication during my last visit between us in regards to the paperwork and granting of permission for the renovation project.
Hence, I learned that I would be returning to see my lovely ruin still standing. And in fact, it was.
One thing that was present in the many months between my last visit and now was the concept of "if you would not accept specific interactions and people in Canada, do not accept them anywhere else in the world".
I suppose that this project is again reminding me the importance of remaining true to who I am in core values and what I know that I need, above all else. That being said, there is always tradition, culture and foreign laws to factor in. It is a balancing act that is well worth the effort. And this trip, I have discovered a returning joy due to working out this balance.
I have chosen to relieve myself of the 'project manager' and set forward with this journey on my own accord, with the knowledge that the construction contract, electricians and plumbers were already in place.
I do have a good circle of support around me both in Italy and in Canada to assist when issues will arise in the future months. To aid in off setting some of the potential for this, I have met extensively with the architect, whom had actually been the main coordinating person of all estimates etc. thus far.
During the lengthiest meeting, shortly after my arrival, one in which all confusions, miscommunications and expectations were cleared up, I was lucky to have my dearest friend with me from Belgium who is fluent in Italian. She was a great support that day and will continue to be as I move forward.
We were able to establish a lovely rapport for working together with the contractors on this project. I found that by the end of that day, the weight had lifted from my shoulders and a renewed excitement for all I was embarking on had emerged.
As I have chosen to work with the local builder in the village, I kindly requested of him to begin the deconstruction phase of the project while I was there. He had his men arrive at my ruin two days later to begin the work.
I was elated to tears for this kindness and acceptance of how important this project is to me.
As such, my girlfriend and I chose to celebrate the beginning of the process the day before the demolition began by having a picnic breakfast on my terrace, and thankfully, it did not collapse as we set out sun chairs and just enjoyed the moment. Yes, a few of my neighbours that passed by, slowed their cars even more than the hill necessitated and looked at us rather peculiarly.
I am not sure what I was expecting for the deconstruction phase.. But I must say that I am more than impressed with this small team of men. They are taking my ruin apart brick by brick... By hand. The first step was to remove the clay roof tiling one by one, stacking it carefully before removing it from the site so that it may be re-used..
And then the sledgehammers and a small truck with an open bed began to be prevalent. These men worked tirelessly for two days.. Opening up and removing most of the top level of the ruin.
As it stood when I purchased it, it was three levels. However, I had only gained access to the main level. Now was the time to see what treasures and surprises I had in store. On the upper floor was the appearance of a lovely bread oven in a small room. In the larger room was much old furniture and some clothing left behind. None of these items were salvageable and hence were all to be tossed into my garden by the end of day 2 for eventual removal.
At the end of the first day.. They had cut back the neighbouring trees and cleared some of the garbage from the property beside.. And I finally had a lovely view of the old stone wall on the upper edge of my property.. It is beautiful and will remain.
They had also pried open the metal door on the lower side of the property, and left it unsecure at the end of their work day. Suddenly it felt like Christmas for me as I was able to get into the garden, put my feet on the ground and take a deep breath for the first time. And this is what I did.. After clamouring over a pile of rubble.. I was suddenly viewing the beautiful original lower level.
Still more rubbish to clear in the property beside .. but it will happen as the job progresses! I love this wall!
The lower level of the structure is old stone, and appears to have been animal housing. The ground surrounding is littered with oranges and old doors...various remnants of days gone by were seen inside the structure. I did not venture in, as it is now in a state of demolition and safety is a priority.
It is clear to see now that the original structure would have been a small livery habitat, and the upper two floors had been built atop in much more recent years and is mainly built of clay brick, whereas the lower level is primarily rock.
Views to the sea from the garden level.. finally!
The second day of work saw much change as I peaked in on the progress. The roof was completely taken away for preservation and re-use..
The upper contents were tossed into the garden.. oh my! I am thankful they will tidy this all!
At the end of this day, after the workers had left the property, I ventured over to see and discovered such amazing views at sunset. I think my neighbours will be pleased at their increased views as the house will not be as tall as this current one when it is completed.
We learned during the last visit that the structure had been an illegal build on the property, and as such I have had and will continue to have some hurdles to jump over. The one that I was faced with on this trip was arranging for electricity to be supplied to the property during construction.
Luckily.. the concept of knowing a friend of a friend of a friend means that I am getting the work done within a few days, but unfortunately because there was never power going to it in the first place, I am encumbered with the cost of a service pole and all else. This is one of those times to simply smile and accept it as a hiccup in moving forward.
The village folk have been so warm and wonderful. This was the longest I have stayed in the village itself, and it quickly became evident that the gaze of curiosity was turning to a welcoming smile by many. No matter if I was walking through town alone or with various friends, arranging for gas bottles to be delivered to the apartment for heat, on the roads around town for a run, or standing staring at my ruin, most everyone had a lovely greeting, smile and wave for me.
I had the opportunity to identify myself and attach myself in words to my ruin when I went to request gas delivery. The man was elated to meet me, as I had hired his brothers contracting company to do my renovation works.
He spoke very happily about some of his family history and I gained a clear understanding that many people in this village are still related to each other. He also offered me the gesture of coming to his store if I was in need or confused about the village lifestyle.
Such dear people.. True, honest and caring about each other. Many took it upon themselves to check and see how I was doing and a few of the local residents insisted that I stop to say goodbye and meet their families on my day of departure. I feel at home here, well cared for and that in the end I have made the right choices in my ruin and the life that is in front of me.
There were some light humour moments during this time, and after a minor catastrophe with a stove top Moka it was determined by one of my local friends that I had 'began my journey to becoming italian' and it took nearly three days to clean the coffee grinds and stains from the plaster walls! When these lovely things decide to "explode" they really can cause the brewing coffee to cover great distances.
I was fortunate that it exploded the Moka apart at its natural seam. I have seen photos of the actual Moka blowing apart akin to an incendiary device and causing injury/damage. I think I will be satisfied to never experience more than I did in this instance!
One morning as I wandered the street to do an errand, I met Beppino and his owner near my property. Let me explain, Beppino is the mule and his owner is in the range of 80 years old I believe. He felt I needed to ride his mule that day, I politely declined.
Then I learned that Beppino provides the firewood to the homes in the village... Up and down the hills and stairs, at times his owner can be seen holding onto his tail for assistance in getting back up the steeper inclines to town. I am forever charmed.
I also spoke a number of times to a woman who will be my nearest full time neighbour. She is my age, and lovely. She seemed most pleased that I am coming with my dog... As she is hopeful for a friend for her dog. She excitedly asked me about my dog many times during the two weeks.
As I have mentioned before, my immediate neighbour is a group of chickens and a lovely garden. The one day as I was staring at the beginning work on the house, I met the lovely owner of this garden. He is a patient, kind and curious man. We discussed in my very simple Italian the concept that I was renovating the house in order to live in it full time.
On my final day in the village, he came to visit me again as I stood in the street. We continued our conversation and as he understood that I am hoping to grow vegetables in a small garden on my property, he excitedly offered me his garden for sale!! He did however advise me his brother may not like that idea because they are his chickens.
I am also learning the importance of central heating in a stone house, even if it is in the Mediterranean or southern climates. If I wondered about the expense of central heating over the expense of using a simple stove ( gas bottle or pellet), after two weeks in an apartment without central heating and having a gas bottle run out in the night, the numbness in my hands outweigh any logic I thought I had in contemplating not installing central heat to my home.
Throughout the old town of Belvedere, surrounding the castle, there are many art objects - paintings, writings and such. A great place for an afternoon stroll with girlfriends!
We spent the afternoon strolling the Murales in Diamante and had some fun at the waterfront in the chaotic wind. Taking photos of the Murales does not do them justice, so spectacular.. you must visit them yourself!
The sea front and promenade at Diamante!
To prevent me from hovering over the work crew on the second day of deconstruction, I took the opportunity to explore a neighbouring village that had also been of interest to me, however had not explored it during the time I was making my decision on property. It is a stunning village nestled in the mountains. Peaceful. I can see myself spending much time here in the future.
And I think I will always be amazed at the presence of cactii… not only on my own property, but here at an elevation that gets snow in the winter!
Lovely ruins such as this dot the country side, if you look closely behind the Olive trees, you can see Santa Domenica Talao perched on the side of the hill.
As I return to Canada I have a clear understanding of what will or will not occur in my absense, and I am hopeful for what that means until I return again.
I have been asked many times if I am concerned or stressed about how long it has taken to begin the work and the projected completion dates, and to be completely honest, I am not. It will get done, in its own time- in the Italian way. The reality is that I will be contentedly moving to my village of Santa Domenica Talao before it is complete and become part of this lovely village. I appear to have secured accommodation that is perfectly suited to my needs in close proximity to my property and will be able to be present as the finishes are completed.
Calabria and its people have truly become part of my heart… it is home.
There's a new update from Tammy!! You can read it here.


The #1 dermatologists choice. Dove contains ¼ pure moisturizing cream and mild cleansers that leave skin clean, soft and smooth. Soap, on the other hand, contains drying ingredients that strip skin of its natural moisture, leaving it feeling dry and tight.
Dove go fresh Cool Moisture Beauty Bar contains a refreshingly light sensation that's an uplifting moment for your skin. The crisp, soothing scent of cucumber & green tea, it leaves a cool feeling of refreshingly-hydrated skin. Dove does not dry your skin like ordinary soap.


I am so obsessed about getting a dog. But I know it'll never happen. So I have to find something new to focus on, so I don't disappoint myself constantly by looking at petfinder.com pictures of doggies in my local area.
I got shots to my scalp this morning to help speed up the hair growth. There goes any chance of a facial piercing ever happening. I had to get four shots in both my eyebrows. No, thank you, that's okay.
The depression feeling is still there. I feel like I'm at the bottom of a deep well, my back against the wall, looking up and seeing a light so far away, but the rope is tattered, wet, and I've no strength to grab on.


It has always been my intent for this blog that I would write about the things I feel most passionate about. And other then fashion which obviously has been a vast issue so far, my intention was to blog about books. Being a proficient reader that always has a book under her arm; I repeatedly feel the need to talk about books after I am finished reading them and while talking with friends and posting at goodreads is fine, I often find myself with the need to elaborate. My plan is to pick out a book from the pile that I have read once a month. It will probably be a favourite or perhaps just the book I found most interesting and then I will discuss it, recommend it or maybe even just shamelessly quote it. This is something I am trying out for now, who knows…If I like doing it I might begin doing post like this more frequently.
I could probably quote the entire, The fault in our stars but that would take the pleasure out of reading it. Instead I have picked some quotes that are not too spoilerish. Of course I have others that I would have favoured instead, but these should be safe or at least not too destroying for people who haven't read it.
This is exactly what I feel when I have read a great book. Sometimes I just want to share it with everybody. Friends, colleagues and sometimes people I have just met, it's infrequent but it has happened. Then there are those rare occasions when you find a book that unexpectedly makes you feel something so special and personal that you can't imagine sharing it with anybody because you just know, that it wouldn't mean the same to them and it would literally crush you if it turned out that they hated the book. This is more of the later but kind of in the middle of both categories. Clearly I am sharing the book by writing about it and I would probably recommend it to a couple of selected friends but it's a special book an under no circumstance is it expected for two people to feel the same while reading it. When something is as emotional as this, it's not possible.
I know this book has been criticized a lot and as it is with a lot of books, people tend to either love or hate them. Dealing with a topic as heavy as grief it is bound to encircle some emotions that are not entirely welcome or well liked with all people. I have never had to experience the tragedy of having someone I loved suffer from a long-time disease and while this might make me ignorant on some parts and I know it does, I am not a stranger to grief itself. Having read, that a lot of people who actually has personal experiences, took great offends when they read this book, saying it didn't reflect or come across as something that was even remotely realistic to the truth. And while I can't agree or disagree on that, I have to say that pain is individual. It makes people react in different ways and it doesn't always make sense.
I have to agree with Peter Van Houten on that one. We might not like it but it's true. Grief makes us see sides of ourselves we didn't know existed. Of course they sometime make brief random appearance but when they do finally manifest themselves it often comes as a shock. This book explores a lot of these aspects which is why at times it becomes emotionally draining to read but written the way it is, with its straight honesty and brutally funny wit, always made me want to read more.
Its lines like this that makes me remember how much this book made me smile, laugh and it makes me want to read it all over again. For me this book holds a record. It's the first book I have ever read that not only captured my interest from the beginning, but also were I knew I was in love with it before I reached page 10. Sure I have read books that intrigued me from the opening line, but usually it wears off once the story starts to evolve and then it might pick up later or sometimes it wont, but this is actually the first time were it lasted until the end.
This pretty much does a great job of summering up what kind of humour this book contains.
These are ordinary kids. Sure. Kids who are sick, kids who are depressed. But also kids that realize that they have to continue with their life and despite being treated as a living tragedy, they are still alive. John Green really does a brilliant job portraying all of this. As much as this book is depressing it's hilarious. For every time it made me cry it made me laugh.
It's the simplicity of this book that grants an 'okay' the power to be just as beautiful if not more so, than an 'always'.
This is one of my favourite quotes. There are so many great ones that its impossible to choose, but I really like this one. It represents the struggle to maintain hope although nothing gives you reason to.
This probably only makes sense coming out of Augustus Waters's mouth, I can't imagine anyone else getting away with it, but its genius even though it might not be rational.
Oh Augustus, I hear you. I know that feeling to the point of exhaustion. My thoughts are all over the place. Even when it feels like it's just a brick on the road to ingenuity and I know what I want and what I want to say, I still have difficulties assembling my thoughts into whatever I am feeling and what I envisage them to be. Hence how long it took me to pull this post together.
I got to say, finishing this book really devastated me. Not so much because of the ending, but more so because of the major rollercoaster ride you experience while reading it. Getting to care as much as you do when you become attached to these characters, you will get hurt. I found myself crying days after it was over and still even now I can get sad or upset just thinking about it. That doesn't change the fact that this is a beautiful book and that in spite of everything, it was worth all of the heartache it came along with.


text:
Posts Tagged 'The Establishment'
This Parliament is a joke that would be funny if the actions of our MPs were not so serious. They are doing nothing less than opening the safety doors that enclosed our democracy and inviting a revolution in
Observing the chaos that has been caused in Parliament by the exquisite mixture of self interest, ignorance and lack of moral standing on the part of so many of our existing MPs has become frightening. Frightening for the real people outside of politics, who until these past three years have relied upon our system of government to be reliably always there when it comes to doing what it is that MPs, Ministers and PMs should do.
But our MPs are drunk on what they perceive as their own power. They lost all sense of reality when they sold their souls to this establishment's system.
They have left real people outside of Westminster with literally no idea where this is all heading nor where it will actually end.
Yet they genuinely believe that they are in control of everything that they do.
For years that number centuries, British people have been able to rely upon a system of checks and balances, that without need for anything more than the gentlemanly handshake that was representative of the trustworthy Britain of old, has kept our system of government moving – albeit through transfer of power to complete opposites as well as long-waiting successors, at any time that momentum has been lost, mistakes have been made or the incumbent in No10 has simply become too old.
But the days when MPs and this Country's leaders were self aware enough and had the moral fortitude to simply 'do the right thing' when their time was done have now long since gone.
The stupidity of MPs who are either being deliberately obtuse or simply too stupid to know and understand why they were elected, has driven our system of governance to the point of destruction.
Not content with barricading themselves within our Parliament and seeing themselves as the squatters that they are, or accepting that they have overstayed their welcome and that they should leave; these pretenders to the principles of democracy have now gone even further, not only seeking but securing the dubious intervention of the Courts to endorse their unscrupulousness.
Together, they have underlined the reality that power in this Country is no longer in the hands of the people that Parliament and our Courts are supposed to serve.
The British People have the right to be frightened. Because in the General Election that is soon to come we are not being offered anything different or anything that is good.
In this General Election we will only have the choice of electing MPs who will be motivated by their own set of self-serving values. Whether new candidates or those who will plan on returning, everything will continue to be just the same.
The reason we have got to where we are is because the whole system has become about keeping itself going. It has reached the stage where it just perpetuates pain.
Without fundamental change to the way that political parties operate and the pool of candidates that it offers us is selected, all forms of government in this country are now destined to remain institutionally corrupt.
The British People are awakening to this. Deep down and viscerally we know and understand that the more these people in power today tell us that things are changing and have changed, the more they actually stay the same.
We have now reached a time when so many of these very same MPs blow off steam by projecting the guilt they carry for their own actions onto others that question them by branding them with names they themselves don't understand such as 'fascists' and many other derogatory things.
But they do not realise that it is they themselves who through their dismissal and disrespect of the very system that gave them their opening and opportunity, are now opening the very door to a new form of governance that could very well end up encapsulating all that they suggest they are afraid of and more.
Many will scoff at such sentiment. But what the use of power without thought on this level invites is nothing less than a revolution.
Because it is now becoming clear to the silent majority of the People in this Country that the apparatus has been removed or rendered meaningless that would in other hands have provided us, the Electorate with the choice of a real political alternative that can be trusted to democratically win.
Categories: Brexit, Ethics, Principles Tags: Broken Politics, Democracy, doing the right thing, Ethics, government, MP's, politics is broken, Principles, Revolution, self serving MPs, self serving politicians, Supreme Court, The Establishment
It's not a 'no deal' Brexit we have to fear. It's the ineptitude of the Politicians who are 'in power' and will be 'in control'
From the top to the bottom of the Government, the display of self-interest and wanton disconnect from the world outside of Westminster has been both exposed and demonstrated for how serious it now is. Brexit has certainly demonstrated the worst aspects of our Political System for all that they are and it is indeed troubling that it is not possible to list anything that we could consider as being the best aspects in the very same sentence.
The malaise affecting Government isn't only of it. In fact, the problem with the quality of those in Government is perhaps better illustrated by the same reality which has rolled itself out across all areas of influence too. It is present across all the sectors and in its simplest form has come from the cultural disposition which is focusing on all the wrong things when selecting candidates for key jobs and responsibilities.
It isn't as simple as having a bitch about some old boys network or any other form of nepotism. Those certainly exist. But they are in no way nearly as damaging as the impact of a failure to focus on what is important and how you qualify any individual for a position which is then going to have considerable impact upon others – whether that be in politics, government, charities or business.
Because so much is taken at face value when decisions are made, we have people leading this Country who in many cases simply have no understanding of, nor the disposition to emphasise or learn about the people and the lives they are responsible for or upon whose lives their actions will impact.
So when you have a Government that can't even see nor understand where its metaphorical feet and therefore foundations are located, they then reach out to membership organisations like the CBI, who are supposedly representative of the business community, but are run by people who are unikley to have ever been at the cutting edge of the genesis an unsupported, sole-trader/SME start-up business and the process of developing it thereafter, and think that entrepreneurism is a skill which can be learned by reading about it online.
This Country has unwittingly sleepwalked into a position where inexperienced leaders are being guided and led by the inexperienced because they are too inexperienced to know what inexperience looks like.
Until now, this downward trajectory didn't matter. The over ambitious and self serving have been left to get on with managing everything, because as a culture, we the British People have just stood back and let them get on with it as we accepted that this was the way that things were always done.
But then came Brexit.
Right from the moment that the abuse of the compact between the Establishment and the People was first taken to a new place and David Cameron instigated the European Referendum (which should never have been needed anyway, had many previous Governments been doing the job they should have been doing exactly when it should have been done), the whole ball of bandaids which we have allowed Government after Government to stick upon problem upon problem, has began to unravel.
They didn't know what to do then. They don't know what to do now. Simply because they now know that it is no longer inevitable that they will always get their own way.
If the majority of the political construct which is our Parliament were to be honest with the Public, they know what the People were asked to Vote on in 2016, and that it was not anything like or even a derivative of Remain.
However, because they simply have no idea how to manage uncertainty of any kind when their experiences have always told them that their career pathways and responsibilities are assured – so long as they always play ball, they cannot bring themselves to accept that anything other than problems and trouble will exist if the UK were to go any other way than Remain.
The greatest opportunities for this Country exist with the set of circumstances where we are as one agile enough to adapt to and accept them all for what they are.
That agility will never come from pretending we are another country where the sclerotic set of rules only ever constructed to create the pretence of a level playing field between 28 different cultures will inevitably mean we will not ever be the same again, whilst we will never have the confidence to value who we really are.
That confidence will only come from Leaving the EU. We must Leave without ties and with full and unequivocal Independence from the EU Regime. That should have always and must now be our only and overriding purpose.
The significance of the opportunity that awaits us as a Country upon Leaving the EU cannot be underestimated.
Talk of having to have a deal to leave a relationship is all that it ever was.
The only reason that the Establishment is so focused upon perpetuating the myth that Leaving with No Deal will be a disaster, is because the people who populate its lead positions today are incapable of making decisions in live time, without a pre-ordained plan or strategy.
It is on this basis that we should perhaps be asking ourselves the question, what has this, the Country of Thatcher and Churchill really now become?
We really have no reason to fear a misnamed 'no deal' Brexit, as we will always have a deal, agreement or whatever you want to call it with the EU.
It's the ineptitude and unsuitability of the Politicians and Society figures who are supposedly 'in power' and will therefore be 'in control' when we do that we should really be concerned about.
Because it is they who will cause the problems, as they cannot see and therefore embrace real opportunity for what it really is, simply because its something that they have never experienced, are qualified to manage or have been appropriately prepared for.
Categories: Brexit, Ethics, Europe, Principles Tags: Brexit, Incompetent Politicians, inept politicians, Lack of leadership, Leave, No deal, The Establishment
Mutual Aims:- The basis upon which a real people's party would have to operate, function and aspire to genuinely succeed in UK Politics today
October 24, 2018 Adam Tugwell	2 comments
There has been much talk of a new Political Party being established in recent Months.
The idea has been branded 'The People's Party by the media. But whatever it might turn out to be, coming from the same old, same old world of British Politics as it is today, this name would be at best misleading, because the Public would simply be getting more of those same old things.
To be a genuine people's party or party of and for the people, any new or reformed political grouping wishing to live up to the expectations of this title, will have to consider, address and deliver on a number of very difficult, but nonetheless key things.
For a genuine people's party to be successful, their work will not just be about policy alone.
A real people's party will be all about direction, principles, adaptability and always being mindful and accommodating of the real needs of all of those who form the entirety of the UK population. The place from which all UK Politicians draw their responsibility through the Vote.
Here follows an overview of the key areas where a real people's party would have to focus its efforts if it has the genuine intention of rein-franchising not just the people that any one party would focus its call for support from, but for every one and every part of our entire population. Each and every Member of the UK Community – one and all.
Politics in the UK today isn't working for anyone but the Politicians themselves
As I write in mid October 2018, UK Politics has been taken over by Brexit.
Everyone in politics is obsessed with their own ideas and plans, and their interpretation of what 'Brexit' actually means.
Many of the political class are simply too busy to see how they have become completely detached from their responsibilities to the Electorate – that's doing what is right for people like you and me.
We, the normal people outside of the Westminster, media and the political bubbles, feel completely disenfranchised by everything going on around us.
We feel detached from what is going on not only at National level, where we continually find the news and social media out of touch with how we feel. But at local level too, where we are increasingly seeing public services slashed and decisions made by local councils and public service providers that are completely out of step with how we know things should really be.
We have a Conservative Party in Government, but not ruling.
We are led by a Prime Minister who has no idea how to lead.
The Prime Minister is surrounded by a Cabinet of ambitious Ministers who will not put the Country before their own desires to put off governing properly until a 'safe' opportunity comes for each of them to launch a campaign to succeed her.
We have an Opposition led by a dangerously idealistic Marxist, who gained the Labour Leadership on little more than a whim.
An anachronism of a time gone by, this is a protest politician who by doing little more than romanticising the values of a philosophy that talks the talk but only delivers pain, has changed the face of the political possibilities. We witness complete incompetence given credibility, and by some very unfortunate mix of luck versus misfortune, a career-backbencher has found himself in perhaps a once-in-many-generations position where the failures of others could see him make the once ridiculous reality and achieve an electoral win.
The answers coming from within the political sphere and the Establishment itself, raise even more questions than they answer.
On the one hand, there is the call for a Referendum on the result of a Referendum which was very clear in what it means. A new Referendum seeks to overturn that result. It's not sold as that, but that's exactly what it means.
And then there's talk of a new 'people's party', being born from the 'centre ground'. The current or portrayed realities of a self-centred collective, constructed of all of the Political Party's disgruntled Remainers. A place where the arrogance of a noisy few, set against the genuine will of the people, is manifested in the belief that all they need to do is rebrand themselves to be perceived as being different – yet a process which they are likely to pursue.
Politicians have completely lost sight of why they were Elected, and what the role of being a Representative of the People actually means.
The British Political System is completely broken. It is filled with people who only understand their own words and meaning.
The System is currently incapable of responding to the change that we all need from politics, so that its not just the Politicians, or the Political Parties, but all of us who are experiencing a real 'win-win'.
Change has never been needed so much, whilst seeming so very far away
The Remainers or 'centrists' considering that break away from the Political Parties that only serve their own needs when they are themselves winning, are certainly correct about one thing.
They are right that there needs to be a new political movement. What makes them wrong, is that a new political movement needs to be all about change.
A new political movement needs to be very different and not just something else based on the kind of politics that we are all so very fed up of. Rehashed and rebranded, with the same value set and basically the creation of self serving politicians, in their own image, and created only for the purposes of allowing them to win.
Whilst we are seeing lots of arguments, gestures and words about being different, the people in power now have lost credibility.
They need to rethink the way that they see the worlds of the people they represent from a very different vantage point.
They must accept that the ambitious but necessary task of changing the British Political System is now very unlikely to be the kind of change which can come from within.
The kind of 'change' that we do not need in the British Political System
We don't need any more of the same.
We don't need the same politicians doing what they have been doing all along, rebranding their 'new look' as being different, when its all about them, the people who support them and gearing every decision towards winning the next election. There is already so much work to be done to address all the mess they have made since the last one without stopping for breath in between.
We certainly don't need the creation of a new 'people's party', only constructed from the Politicians and ideas that already exist. Yet another 'club' for the select few, created only to convince the majority of the British People through subterfuge, that when they Voted for a clean Brexit, they were wrong.
The kind of change that we do need from a political party which is going to do the right things
We need a new political movement that cuts across all of the political divides. That crosses the perceptual barriers of politicians who have become bogged down with political philosophy, with tribalism and forgetting what working for the people is actually supposed to be about.
When Politicians are thinking about everyone, there is no left. There is no right. There is no centre. There are no extremes.
There are just a great many different people, experiencing very different lives, with the genuine expectation that Politicians will rule and create policies for the benefit of everyone, rather than getting bogged down with ideas and focusing only on each and every divide.
We need leadership that understands the people that it seeks to lead. Decisions made which are respectful of all the realities which underpin the diversity of all our life experiences. The creation of thoughtful and intelligent policies that consider the overlap with all others. Recognition that addressing the causes of issues as well as the effects of them is the way to ensure fairness and success in public policy – The just aim upon which all political priorities should be founded and underpinned.
We need Politicians to get real. To get with a completely new script. To embrace a change which is not of their own making. Change that is not top-down in its thinking. Change that looks at reality from the grassroots up as the basis of affecting a real positive and cross-demographic transformation.
Above all, we need a model of being, which moves away from the obsessiveness of the political classes to be in control of absolutely everything. An agenda that identifies a direction of travel, a set of aspirations, standards and responsible guidelines to apply to all policy making, rather than getting stuck on every small detail.
We require a political system that will inspire and empower public servants to be all that they can be. To do their jobs properly and to not be obstructed by the fear of falling foul of a rights and political correctness. To be mindful that serving the public is not about personal gain, what looks good, or by avoiding any form of real responsibility, and that by deviating into the realms or protectionism and self-service, they will always be disadvantaging the people they serve.
How a real people's party will get us all there
To get there, we must be practical about how a real people's party would have to work and what approach it would need employ to achieve this.
To begin with, we must recognise what is wrong, what the fix will look like overall, and what steps must be taken in Politics for us all to succeed.
The reset requirement – It's recognising that almost of the problems we have as a Society are about the way that we all think
Everything is relative to our experience.
Some of us feel like things are good.
Some of us feel like things are bad.
Some of us look beyond our own experiences; beyond our own bubbles to the experiences of others and to the realities of lifetimes around us, that we ourselves have never had.
Whether good or bad, everything we do is connected. It is easy to overlook or be unaware that when we ourselves gain a benefit from something, someone else might be losing out as a result.
It's all a question of distance, whether we perceive that there is a human impact as a result of anything that we do, and whether there has been an impact upon somebody we have time and care about as a result.
Relationships are at the root of everything
The interconnectivity of the world today has already introduced significant distance between people, whatever the relationship between them might be.
Communication and the rise of the Internet is dehumanising relationships, putting reference numbers and categorisations in the place where simple humanity, care and thought for others and the impact of our decisions up until very recently would have been.
When we interact with our friends, families and the people know, we think and behave differently.
These relationships are based on interaction. They are real, they are tangible and above all they are human. They require us to employ the code for the people who are familiar to us and that we care about, that each and every one of us has developed as the way to live.
But once this familiarity is removed, we overlook the presence of this very same reality for everyone else outside this bubble of our own too.
We forget that the need for care and consideration doesn't just disappear into the ether, as soon as knowing someone personally is one or more steps removed.
When we don't recognise the value of others as being human, we place no value on the impact of the decisions or actions we take that have consequences for them.
Whilst modern technology and the diminishment of our communities is accelerating this process, it is nonetheless an age-old mistake to make.
A World around us that doesn't care
Today, this behaviour is being acted out on a grand scale.
It has led to the world around us behaving very differently.
Far too many people are unaware of how making unnecessary profit or higher wages for themselves personally, is likely to result in making things harder for others, particularly where government or a third party interest like a business is perceived to be a middle man, making it very easy to forget that 'real people' are still involved.
Many of these self-focused people don't see the impact or their actions played out around them – so their decisions are only made on the benefit of what is perceived as good or beneficial to them.
In life there are examples of this type of behaviour all around us, and it is regrettably all too easy for us to overlook it when it is behaviour of the people we consider close to us, or behaviour of our own.
To understand the impact of the unnecessary harvest of benefiting from the plight of others, or profiting without adding value to a product or service, we can cast our minds to one example, where things look different, but are relative and very much result in the same things.
The bankers and union bosses who take but don't add value
Bankers and people working in the financial sector make money by creating debt.
They profit from someone else's misery, and legally too. But they do so because the distance between them and the people they are exploiting means they have no concept or idea that the instruments or tools they create are pushing up prices for everyone else everywhere, causing distress, pain and misery.
Yet at the other end of the spectrum, Union leaders push for strikes, pay rises and action, framed as 'it's them against us', whilst the impact of wage rises on employers, the frustration and worry caused by delays, the cost of living for others and price rises on the high streets are too easy for them to forget
These two seeming extremes may look different. But the thoughts which drive these actions are relative to the individuals and are very much the same thing.
Aims and principles, not just policies
Becoming an electable force is all about creating a manifesto for change.
A plan which is real because it has direction and cannot be tripped up simply by mistakes or misinterpretation in the way it implemented or rolled out.
Policies themselves must therefore be steps. Not the anchors upon which change itself is rested upon.
Policies must be open to change when they don't work, further development when they do, and be receptive to all forms of criticism too.
Policies must also be interactive and made consultatively and with consideration for their impact upon other policy areas, without isolation and being collective in consideration and at every thought.
Aims, principles and therefore a genuine constitution are what a real party of the people will need to be secure in its direction, to be certain it knows what it is working to deliver and to be robust and adaptable enough to negotiate whatever terrain and environmental changes it might encounter as it seeks to evolve experiences as seamlessly as possible.
Fundamentally, the priorities of a real people's party must be about the people, being committed to delivering something better for all. Being aspirational whilst also being practical and recognising that in a world built with free will, you cannot jump from where we are to where we want to be without taking many steps, some of which may resemble very different forms and directions on the roadway in between.
Aims and Principles are therefore the guiding lights that a real people's party must use, choosing not to be misled by the devil in the detail, allowing through many forms of misinterpretation and interference for genuine direction to be overlooked.
Law for Law's sake
A legitimate people's party that wants to deliver positive and far reaching change which will achieve real balance and true equality for all, will have no option but to tackle the rights lobby and the infliction of political correctness on almost everything that we now do, see and understand.
A real people's party will also have to strike a balance between the forms of regulation and legal intervention that is required for the greater good, whilst removing the mass of bureaucracy which has not only changed the business landscape, but has been a constituent part of the modification of our culture and behaviours throughout.
A genuinely civilised society must have a framework of law to ensure that people are safe and able to thrive.
But beyond the basic requirement of ensuring that the right of any one individual or small group should never come before that of the wider community, that freedom should only exist as long as it does not come at involuntary cost to others, either in thought or material deed. However they may be applied, rules should only ever be used when there is practical need.
Everything else should be left to common sense, to people taking responsibility for themselves and their own actions, and the real time judgement of an impartial judiciary rather than using case history to create precedents upon which completely different circumstances can be viewed on a basis which is both inappropriate and wrong.
Increasing regulation and over regulation leads to decreasing levels of responsibility.
There exists a growing cultural phenomenon where regulating everything provides the perfect excuse for participants to see themselves as devoid of personal responsibility for anything they do that isn't already regulated for. They do so on the basis that anything which isn't covered isn't regulated, and therefore isn't covered by the Law.
At a time that so much distance exists between people who are interacting and engaging in relationships of all kinds all of the time, the need has never been greater to encourage and reengage people with the idea that they are personally responsible. That their actions cause reactions and have consequences. That whatever they do or whatever action they might take, just because a law or regulation doesn't exist to cover a particular act or behaviour, the absence of a rule is not a get out of jail free card and certainly doesn't make it right.
The saturation of regulation that we have in settings ranging from academia to the workplace, covering everything from how we must treat people during recruitment to the rules covering what bankers can lend as opposed to what they must have access to has allowed far to may people in positions of influence to behave irresponsibly, and to do so with impunity, well knowing that they can be seen to be doing what is expected of them by the rules – and that as such, what they are doing is actually right.
For a real people's party to deliver on the aim of creating the kind of environment where people can live on a basic wage and do so without having to resort to getting into debt, or progress in their lives, being socially mobile and cross barriers without interference from people who have their own agendas but work around the rules, it is the responsibility of that party to create the environment where prejudice and greed are voluntarily extinguished, rather than a continuation of coercive attempts to do the same.
Brexit offers a significant opportunity to achieve the delivery of an environment where a belief in the good of everyone as part of the wider community exists. Where prejudice is reduced to nothing more than misplaced thought as a reaction to the perception of difference – which in truth is all that it is.
Many of the regulations which have created so many of the cultural problems that we are now experiencing in the UK have been introduced as either a direct or indirect result of EU legislation.
Nobody should be under any illusion that overturning rules which have been sold as being beneficial because they sound like they improve people's lives will be easy.
Without manipulation or coercion, and by simply doing what is right, people will soon conclude for themselves and understand that no form of positive discrimination is delivered without there being negative consequences, often for many others, on the other side.
The role of Money
If rules and regulations are one of the key challenges which will face any truly legitimate people's party working for the benefit of all people, the other will be addressing the impact, influence, role and perception of money which at one time or another, we all get completely wrong.
Within just a generation, virtually every profession you could name has lost its pure focus upon ethics and quality of delivery. The lines have instead been blurred for many operating within them by a juggling act between what is expected or what is considered ethically good, and how much money can be justified for doing what they do.
This is part of a fundamental problem for our wider Society which is closely aligned to the issue of the meaning and application of ethics itself.
However, it is also influenced by the lack of control and regulation on profit making from Government. Inaction which has also resulted in the growing presence of agents or brokers introducing themselves needlessly into supply lines, raising profits but adding no value as they do so.
This whole sorry affair, based on an obsession with money is having a significant effect on the cost of living for us all and is making it virtually impossible to create an environment where a genuine living wage could be identified and then maintained.
The freedom of markets from control and responsible capitalism are not mutually exclusive things
There is nothing wrong with wanting to do well. To have a good life and have the money necessary to allow that to happen.
But seeking far more than you could ever need for your own comfort only contributes to sucking money out of the system.
It raises all costs for everyone else who instead of hoarding, are no longer in the position to pay for what they have been used to having already, let alone being in the position to enjoy any more.
It is the prices at the top of the chain which set the financial values on life at all levels below and there is more than enough to go around.
Ethically, the drive to earn ridiculous amounts of money has been facilitated by the lack of regulation on a financial sector which is legitimately allowed to print its own money, creating profit from misery as it would be known if it were viewed directly in a non-monetary form.
Lenders and the sectors or industries they support push many normal people into debt by taking value out of transactions where it doesn't exist, whilst using money that they never themselves ever had, and then push the same people into other forms of debt just so that they can service, or obtain whatever their diminishing salaries now fail to provide.
The financial industry and the sectors which are aligned with and support it are now farming people for debt.
This is a legitimate racket which must be closed down and de-sanitised by a party which is really working for the people, which respects the benefits of capitalism and growth, but in legitimised forms and not are simple forms of one person making profit by exploiting and riding off another persons back.
The role of Political Philosophy must change to one where ideas are a guide or reference tool, rather than being seen as a way of being
As soon as the word 'politics' is mentioned, you will have surely experienced that internal jolt that reminds you where your political loyalties lie.
Many of us are conditioned in our political biases by our upbringing. By the people we mix with and ultimately by the environment that we work in. These are all influences that help us to decide which political direction we are likely to target our votes in.
But how much do we really understand about the political philosophies which underpin key Political Parties like the Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrats?
How much do these ideas really influence the Parties and the way that they are run and what they do every day, rather than being just forms of words that they can use as a backdrop, or more cynically just as a message they can role out at Election time in a blurb which is designed to help them win?
The reality is that the philosophies which underpin, Conservatism, Capitalism, Liberalism, Socialism and regrettably Marxism too, are not practical plans for running a Country or putting problems right.
These 'Philosophies' are simply ideas which are based upon the outlooks of very academically inclined or theoretic people, created within very different periods of history and circumstances that are nothing like our own, and in almost every case were idealistic prose which had no understanding of the practical outcomes of applying or imposing them by law in real life.
A good example of how a very basic situation can be completely skewed and effectively rewritten as something completely different comes in the form of the European Referendum Vote, which by a majority gave the instruction to Government, that the UK was to leave.
Within a matter of days, and after the coining of the term 'Brexit', what was a direct and simple instruction had morphed into 'hard' and 'soft' forms, as the Establishment, the opinionators and the thinkers attempted to create meanings which had never before existed, simply because they were motivated to find another route which would suit their own aims. One which they could sell as being that of others, well knowing that their own plan had never been meant by those others as any such thing.
We can learn much from reading and understanding the works of people like Adam Smith, Keynes, Marx and John Stuart Mill.
But their writings were just a snapshot, and not a blue print for implementation in another era and time.
Like all academic work used responsibly, these writers inform, guide and help with practical application.
But these writings are teaching tools. They are very much open to very different forms of interpretation in how they might or could be used in practical plans and should not be considered as either a blueprint or process. They are a resource, nothing more, and there is no benefit beyond.
As we look across the political platforms, and consider what ideas and motivations lie within them all, we can soon start to see that there is much commonality in the depth and background of thought.
It is just the language used and differing communication, wrapped in tribal dress which can encourage us to love a certain perspective of an idea or a policy, which presented differently by others would provide us with nothing to which we wish to respond.
The Political Party System in the UK today has driven wedges between all of us, because Electoral success is derived from the politics of difference, not in working together and using what we actually have in common between all of us, which could in turn be used to deliver something meaningful for all.
What is common between all of us together, can always be used to bring us together as one
To be successful, a new Party of the People would recognise and embrace the true forms of commonality between all of us.
By establishing itself on the basis of what has already been identified as the difference between the ideas that drive it and other existing Political Parties, no matter where in the political spectrum they are perceived to exist – whether left, right, somewhere in the middle or out on the extremes, they will immediately fail, because the priority is not about people, but the gaps and thin air which sits in-between.
Taking ambition out of politics
Passion and ambition are not the same thing. Yet ambition can be misinterpreted as passion and being passionate in your ambition is essential when its all about getting a win.
Politics today has lost its way.
Not because the idea of government and public service is any less valid that it ever has been.
But because the politicians within politics have forgotten what public service is meant for and what being an elected representative really means.
It is regrettably the case that we have reached a point in time where people rarely enter politics to do something beneficial for their communities or the people who elected them.
People don't seek election to a public decision-making body because they are motivated to deliver something better for all.
And that's the way that politics should be, with the only ambition being that everyone should be able to feel that they can win.
Politics has become a career pathway, and a system has been created in which the participants are only subservient to the Political Parties which nominate them to represent Seats.
Members and the Seats that they should represent are seen as little more than pieces in a jigsaw to the Leaders of that Party, in a game of arithmetic in which the highest sum of seats, rather than the will of the people is the figure that wins.
To reconnect people with politics, create engagement and policies which really consider what should be, how it could be and what happens to those not directly involved if it is made to be so, a real people's party must overturn the current view of politics.
A real people's party must exist on the premise that the politicians that represent it cannot be in politics purely for themselves. They cannot be interested in only making decisions which are beneficial to them, to their careers, or in winning the favour of anyone else they believe will help their 'career' and support them to win.
Being a representative of the people is not a right and it is not a job.
Being a representative of the people is a responsibility and a privilege. One that should only be available to those who can see that responsibility to the people who elected them for all that it really is.
A genuine people's party will be conscious of what it really is.
A real people's party will be a framework to support the work of politicians who are focusing their efforts on working together, not for personal glory or the next electoral win.
It will be a support network, there to help committed representatives of the people to deliver hard decisions. It will recognise what it takes to win on behalf of everyone at the end when the objective is reached, rather than losing sight of the big picture and becoming obsessed with the small details in policy battles, which litter the roadway in between.
Great politicians and representatives of the people offer the greatest benefit to their constituencies through the accumulation of their other experiences. Through the time they have spent accumulating knowledge of the wider issues around life. In developing the communication and interpretation skills which enable them to explore, to understand and to interpret the experiences of others which they themselves cannot have, and to make reasoned analysis of the many grey areas that sit in between.
A genuine people's party must select candidates for elected offices based on what they can genuinely offer and bring to the party and its way of being, which is to improve the lives of all people and be beneficial to all.
Selection should never be made simply upon how applicants present themselves or what they can show on paper as a currency which the shallow minds within the Political Parties of today see as qualification in their own image.
A real party of the people will never overlook the true needs of Voters and what it takes a good politician to be representative at all levels. Whether that's dealing with a constituent who doesn't know who collects their Council Tax, or managing a fraught relationship with the foreign minister of another country who is demanding that all of us surrender our culture and sense of being, placing our heritage and history in the bin.
A true party of the people, must cast aside any process of diminishing the responsibility of new entrants and be mindful of the responsibilities which each politician has to their own respective seat, rather than demanding a level of loyalty which gives the lie to the idea of democracy itself.
Compromise is not necessary when motivation and delivery are about what's in the best interests of everyone, rather than just of those directly involved.
Yes, politicians must group together for the purposes of getting things done. But if decisions are made mindfully on the basis of what's best for everybody, all will be supportive.
A new world – Respecting rather than surrendering to technology
One of the areas that a real People's party must quickly come to populate with ethics and guidelines is the online world.
Today we live our lives in parallel universes with two totally different sets of rules. But there exists a dangerous imbalance of influence which sees the dehumanised rules of relationships created in the space of distance, back-flowing into real life from the online world.
Chaos is the natural state of everything. And when a world of chaos exists in overlap with one which was seemingly ordered, without safeguards being put in place, and through an increasing state of entropy, it is the chaos coming from the other unordered side that will overrule and win.
The aims of a real people's party must respect the way that the world has changed and is changing, but must also shift the cultural perception that the online world has no barriers, because if it does not do so, then no barriers will exist in between.
Such an approach would be catastrophic with the ever increasing rate of rise in new technologies which are making contact with everyone and anything very simple. But with currently very little in the form of governance to ensure the safety of all, whilst encouraging developments and growth, we desperately need safeguards and devices which create balance.
The EU – Having friends and trading partners is one thing. Losing control quite another. We can only deliver true power locally, if we bring it back properly to its true source and where it begins
Very few of the Politicians who currently represent us genuinely understand the relationship that we have with the EU, and what Membership of the EU actually means.
There is a complete disconnect with both the history and detail underpinning events right from when and how the idea of a United Europe was created, to how EU Policy and its legislation is created and then implemented right across the Block of once independent Countries that now make up its Membership.
Power is steadily being taken away from the people, and centralised not in our capital cities such as Belfast, Cardiff, Edinburgh or London. But beyond the reach of us all in the European Centre of Brussels where democracy doesn't exist.
However, it is not enough simply to rely on Brexit to deliver the level of change which the no vote against EU Membership instigated.
It wont.
Not because its not the right thing to do. It is, but it is little more than just a policy step and there is much more that a party of the people could realistically do.
Power must be brought back to as close to the people as it is possible to do so. Not through the creation of additional and meaningless additional political structures such as police and crime commissioners and regional mayors which have already had too much time and must go.
But by bringing real power back to County Councils, Boroughs and Districts and to the Towns and Parishes at the most local level, where people can be involved most closely in day-to-day decision making on behalf of our communities, instead of leaving decisions to be made under the umbrellas of polices made in London by people who will never experience the fall out from their ideas, which without practical understanding should be back for determination in our localities instead.
Those who argue that the EU is about democracy and people do not understand the affront to real democracy that it really is. Sold as being about peace standards and equality, its true aim is little more than centralised control. Yet the rise of political parties has done much of the same thing too, and this is why Brexit should only be seen as a step in the right direction and that direction must be bringing real decisions that will effect us on a day to day basis back to the level where those decisions can be made by me and by you.
The Electoral system
If the focus is shifted back to representation of the people, rather than selecting a party machine selling a raft of policies which are only relevant for a brief snapshot of time, First Past The Post (FPTP) will once again demonstrate how it is best suited to the needs of a real democracy.
Proportional Representation will only ever suit the needs of people who are only obsessed with getting elected so that they can impose ideologies on us all, and wherever possible without ever having to come to us for a meaningful Vote.
Proportional Representation is a travesty and a tool created to work the Political System. Popular only because Politicians are failing us all with policies and ideas that we don't relate to and which are completely out of touch.
A real people's party will bring power back to the people through genuine representation. Through power being given back through decision making at the correct level and as close to the people as it is practical for it to be. And by ensuring that the best people are elected to represent other people and communities by prioritising the needs of the whole community on an ongoing basis and not by being what appears to be the best choice on one day and behaving like you can do what the hell you like and call it in the best interests of everyone on the other eighteen-hundred-and-twenty-five.
A real People's party will accept that one of the greatest but most meaningful challenges that they will have to face will be the reform public services from top to bottom.
A genuine people's party will need to do this in order to ensure that government always working for the benefit of everyone is not simply another aspiration which can quickly be written off or denied.
The executive parts of Government, that's the Civil Service, the Offices of Local Government and the roles which exist throughout the massive number of QUANGOs* must be refocused, reformed and re-tasked in order for a People focused Party to succeed.
Public servants must work within a non-protectionist culture that like the elected offices of this way of being encourages responsibility for others to be accepted as a privilege, not one where public service is treated as a myth, and roles exist as fiefdoms where blame for anything can be passed on to others with no worry about costs, which right now have escalated up into the sky.
*QUANGOs = Quasi-non-government organisations. These are the grey-area organisations like the Highways Agency, The Environment Agency and the Food Standards Agency which are jam packed with civil servants undertaking key work on public things, but effectively run without being answerable to anyone democratically elected.
The role of Media
One of the key elements of making politics what it should be for a real Party of the People, will be restoring the role of the traditional and main stream media (MSM) to carrying wholly factual news, rather than the overproduction of quasi-news programming which presents unqualified opinion and bias as qualified fact.
The assent of fake news as an issue has much to do with the role of the MSM being blurred with the developing role of social media channels where pretty much anything goes.
Well known stations have done this to chase headlines and clicks, which itself is more of a reflection of what commercialism is all about.
But it is not the responsibility of politicians to play up to this, and any collaboration in news sensationalism must be removed as a key part of the communication platform of a real People's party so that the definitive line between factual transmission and fake news can be restored.
A system where an embargo system allow news channels to consider and even comment on speeches before they have even been delivered and have reached the public domain gives the lie to the legitimacy of the whole thing.
The cosiness has to stop, so that full public trust can be restored, and decision making on behalf of the public no longer viewed as a celebrity game.
From the Grassroots up
Above everything, a people's party in government will remember and be mindful of one key thing. That every single person in this country has the same value and is as important as the next.
It is easy to become distracted by success, wealth, celebrity and popularity. But these states of experience or being are all transient at best.
Their prioritisation leads to consequences for all. Instead of judging the state of society by how people live and therefore influence at the top, a real People's party will use the benchmark at which those who are experiencing their most difficult times in life, have had their lives defined.
Quality of life must be defined from the grassroots up.
It's the metaphorical process of growing from seed to fruit and doing everything to nurture and provide the ideal environment for all who are so inclined.
A Real People's Party will succeed by understanding and embracing the true reality of Mutual Aims
Ultimately, the priority of any genuine people's party, should be to fulfil the expectations of the responsibility that they have been given, within the timescale which the electoral system has defined.
Put simply, if a People's party Government has a five years term their priority should be the fullest commitment on the delivery of priorities, not the next election and the manipulation of public opinion in relation to everything that happens in between.
No matter what difficulties or challenges that a Government might encounter during the period of its elected term, if it is doing everything that it can to meet its responsibilities, its electability at the next election should be a happy consequence as a result of their actions, rather than just being a prioritised and all-absorbing future outcome.
Read this Blog on your Kindle
Categories: Brexit, Equality, Ethics, Europe, Local Politics, National Politics, Poverty, Principles Tags: Adam Smith, Aims, Bankers, Brexit, Cabinet, Centrists, change, Communism, Conservatism, Conservatives, Culture, Elections, Ethics, EU, Extreme, Fake News, Falsehoods, Freedom of the Markets, Greed, Internet, Jeremy Corbyn, John Stuart Mill, Keynes, Labour, Law for Laws sake, Leave, Left, Liberal Democrats, Liberalism, Marxism, meaningful change, Media, Money, Mutual Aims, Neo Liberalism, New Political Party, New World, Online, Opinionators, Overregulation, Parallel Universe, Peoples Party, Peoples Vote, philosophy, Political Parties, Political Party, political philosophy, Politicians, Prime Minister, Principles, Regulation, Regulation as an excuse, Reinfranchsiement, Remain, responsible capitalism, Right, Set up a new Political Party, Socialism, Start a new Party, The Establishment, Theresa May, Transformation, UKIP, Unions, Westminster
The EU is the idealists' nirvana. That's why Brexit is visceral, instinctive and for some Leavers hard to explain, whereas many Remainers are simply addicted to the EU and will do whatever it takes to keep things the same
Its not often that I find myself laughing about anything to do with Brexit. A no-deal, or rather the position from which negotiations should have started is where we should actually be. Yet over two years later, Theresa May's Government is still pretending that the UK can be independent whilst maintaining the functions of a member state.
I laughed this morning, when I heard that a high profile Remainer had branded Leavers as idealists, knowing full well that nothing could be further from the truth.
When people who should know better are busy calling people names, they do after all often betray the way that they really see themselves, deep down and at a level our conscious world is all too happy for us to miss.
The European Union has, is and will continue to be the idealists nirvana, both strategically and functionally until the day that it ceases to exist.
The EU's history is much better documented than the behaviour of most Politicians and Opinionators would have us think.
A little reading would soon uncover the true origins and chronology of the European Project. Its original, its evolving and its often self-interest-laden aims. And how like the work of all quixotic idealists, the central tenet upon which the whole thing is built, is the pathway to complete control, cleverly camouflaged as a way to maintain peace, prosperity, a sense of belonging and of course gold-laden career opportunities for politicians who have forgotten where they came from.
The European Commission's cultural mindset is that it understands the function of the world, all businesses and people within it, better than the people and businesses which are functioning within.
This is best demonstrated by the endless train of regulation that nobody in the UK actually asked for. Rules and standards that often make little sense, but make life increasingly expensive, politically correct and devoid of humanity in relationships because some rule created by a bureaucrat with a great idea in another Country has been introduced instructing us how people they will never meet should interact in between.
The European Union not only works, but its influence in every part of life fervently accepted, because we are trusting and assume that ideal measures introduced to manage anything can only ever be a good thing.
Since we joined the Common Market, an earlier stage of the United States of Europe's life-cycle, life for us all in the UK has began to become unrecognisable, with behaviour, morals and values smashed in pursuit of nothing more than the idealist EU's dream.
That the British People, and a majority of them at that, have recognised that there is an alternative truth and within it a better way to exist and prioritise the people, businesses and communities that we care for is not idealist.
It is being real and knowing that we have already for too long been on a destructive legislative pathway which without immediate change will soon control even more of our lives and the way that we think.
And all those MP's and Establishment idealists who are singing to the EU's tune during these so-called negotiations, instead of carrying out the process which the Electorate instructed should be aware of just one thing.
The EU is reliant upon the principle that when you finally begin to wake up from aiding and abetting what is in reality a foreign power to win, the EU's measures of control will have progressed simply too far for any rebellion against it to be even mildly fruitful, should any one of you then be brave enough to even begin.
Categories: Brexit, Europe, Principles Tags: Brexit, Common Market, EU, European Commission, European Union, Leave, Negotiations, Opinionators, Politicians, Remain, The Establishment, Theresa May, United States of Europe
TV Election debates are great if showmanship is the only standard set for Political leadership
I've written about televised leaders debates before and I continue to have doubts about their validity, and whether it is even possible for them to be truly fair.
With talk of another General Elections becoming ever frequent, probably because of Labours obsession with finding a way to cause one, it comes as little surprise that somebody, somewhere is obsessing about how people will feel in a very specific, but what will be painted as being a wholly comprehensive way..
That looking to 'big up' a certain point of view is a process of little more than confirmation bias by people with the public ear is no great shock. But it is ironic that the subject matter here is the focus of the media, where a lot of the symptoms or effects causing upset amongst not only young people but the wider population too, was generated in the first place.
No, there's nothing wrong with young people being in favour with television debates. In fact, I defy anyone to suggest other than it is what we can all safely expect.
After all, TV and all forms of media are now to many representative of the world we live in. From that perspective alone, we would be foolish to overlook the way that to so many people the world of politics is now perceived.
What happens is we all forget or overlook one massive and inescapable truth when when the infinitesimally small, pure, unadulterated level of fact provided through these mediums is acknowledged and put to one side.
Every other bit of content on the news, on TV, on the internet and on social media isn't real. Its words. Opinion. Spin. Someone else's way of interpreting events in the world. It's the way that other people want us all to see AND interpret what is going on around us. And even then what they say and what we hear may be very different things.
We have created the illusion of all illusions. Instead of measuring our life decisions with the facts hidden below the surface of this pretend veil, we are mistaking illusion for fact. We have fallen in to the trap of creating a parallel universe where nothing really exists except the many perceptions that we have differently as individuals. Perceptions that we experience as genuine which are misleading is about everything.
No, I do not blame young people or anyone living a normal life outside the bubble where this is all created for the misunderstanding, the frustration and yes, the injustice which sits in between. I don't even blame those creating the problem from within it, because these are people who are so clearly lost from the impact and consequence of what they are doing, that they cannot really have any idea of what it all means.
The biggest problem in amongst all of this is that our political classes do not see the reality of what is going on and what this all really is. Despite it not being unreasonable that we should be able to expect all those holding elected office to be savvy enough to see the wood for the trees AND act upon it, they have become obsessed with making all this noise real. They simply overlook the responsibilities that they have to us all and obsess about what looks good when it is presented to us
Watch Politicians on Twitter. Observe them on Facebook. But above all take note of how little sense any of their answers or statements really make when they are asked reasonable question about the work they are supposed to be doing for you.
Our political classes have become so obsessed with playing up to what they think people think, rather than doing the job they are supposed to do, that it really comes as no surprise that things have got as bad as they really are for us all. This is wrong.
The establishment didn't see Brexit coming. Many of the Politicians belonging to it are still convinced that everyone outside Westminster and London actually wants to remain. They certainly haven't got any real idea of what it is to be a normal person trying to make ends meet, or to be a young person struggling with the prospect of taking on a lifelong debt to obtain what will probably be useless qualifications before their adult life even begins.
So if we focus only on how a Politician or would-be Prime Minister performs on TV or all the other forms of media, we are overlooking a great many things.
Yes, good media performance is important for Politicians. But it is only just the cherry on a very large metaphorical cake. It's not even the icing, or the most important part, the middle, which itself needs to contain real quality ingredients. All in one what should really be a many great things.
None of this can really be seen within a televised debate forum. Seeing is believing only if you believe the idea that the camera never lies. And if any of us use this example of judging the suitably of a prime ministerial candidate and the substance of the Political Party that backs them, we should not be surprised when the results are policies which only inflict pain within our lives, because the illusion of credibility that being on a screen gives then wins.
image thanks to independent.co.uk
Categories: Communication, Ethics, National Politics, Principles Tags: General Election, Illusion, Media, Opinion, Our next Prime Minister, Parallel Universe, Perception is everything, politics, Qualities in a Leader, Spin, The Establishment, TV Election Debates, Young People
The overreach of Libertarianism may deliver a dystopian future that even those who lead us greatly fear
August 4, 2017 Adam Tugwell	Leave a comment
Many have suspected that TV, Films and Games can influence real-life behaviors and there are certainly studies that have been carried out which suggest a link. As we watch programming like Coronation Street, Eastenders and now the 'reality TV' gems like The Only Way is Essex, Geordie Shore, Made in Chelsea and of course 'Love Island', the entertainment for some defiantly comes from the anticipation that anything deemed now acceptable on TV will soon find its way into 'real life'.
As a rule, TV today has become prescient in a way which is surprisingly quick in its delivery and the mediums of social media running shotgun alongside, have only served to increase the speed with which 'artistic license' has become manifest as a reality from which none of us can hide.
Seldom however, does a programme like The Handmaid's Tale come along, which has all the hallmarks of being exactly the same as a programme which creates real life out of thin air, but feels all the more possible, because it identifies the destination of a process in which our otherwise increasing 'freedoms' have been religiously denied.
That the story alludes to and carefully anchors itself in a picture and to experiences of life with which we can all already identify makes the whole possibility more terrifying as we realise within the surety of our own thoughts, how easily a way of life for us all which has been created from nothing more than fear and its bedfellow hate could eclipse the 'never had it so good' world that the establishment complacently equates with our own.
But how did we get here, and how could we really jump from a world so apparently full of freedoms into another where freedom could mean nothing at all?
Perhaps most surprisingly, it is the relationship between these 'freedoms' and rights that we now have; the way they have come into being, and the impact that they are quietly having on everyone, rather than just the few for whom they were genuinely, but nonetheless idealistically intended, where the real genesis of the problem may lie.
Uncomfortable to read as it may seem, this argument is not about attacking any form of equality, as equality should be the natural approach we intrinsically employ as individuals towards everyone else, one and all.
Regrettably, such levels of selflessness in our consideration have never been the default or conditioned form of all people, whether as individuals or as groups at any point in the history of the World.
This is the very reason that legislation and forms of positive discrimination have been employed in the coercive attempt to put this right and avoid the future wrongs that can and sadly sill continue to be committed.
What is being seriously overlooked and in many cases ignored, is that discrimination comes about not because of colour, gender, race, sexuality, disability, culture or indeed anything else which has now become the focus of rights. Discrimination is present in almost every interaction in some way and at some level, because the self-interest and nucleus of fear which ultimately feeds it within every individual is and will continue to be present universally because it is delivered culturally and in conditioned form. It therefore becomes a default setting which can never be completely coerced into being under the control of others, unless it is given voluntarily, consciously and willingly so by each and every individual concerned.
Whilst the eradication of any form of prejudice is a laudable goal, human nature dictates that with the realities of what we call free will, freedom of thought will always prevail beyond the objectives of setting models of behaviour and can all too easily be manipulated by being overtly adhered to whilst the true intentions of those concerned are cleverly hidden, usually in plain sight.
It has been said that the more things change, the more they stay the same, and it is the reality of this statement which has driven the culture of transparency to a level where even Conservative Home Secretaries are now insisting on unworkable levels of bureaucracy for the Police to ensure that no rule or freedom for suspects, the convicted or prisoners has been denied. The imposition of rights, which in the minds of their architects should have precipitated an instant result simply did not do so. And so the culture of monitoring was created and continues to be unrealistically and impractically refined.
This whole process has played itself out in so many ways and in so many different directions, but the result has ultimately become the same.
The views of some individuals, their feelings, their opportunities, their 'rights' have now and are being openly paraded as being more important than those of the communities in which they live, work and in some cases even themselves would otherwise closely identify.
Somewhere in this process, a definitive line was crossed. A line where a genuine balance could have been established and set to evolve, where people really don't see difference as a threat. A line where a genuine respect for every other individual and their place within the wider community could have thrived.
The obsession with rights has seen the point where balance could have been achieved, not only crossed, but to a point where the rights of minorities have been flipped and now supersede those of the majority, who have themselves by default and the process of positive discrimination, become those inadvertently discriminated against. Discrimination, however it is applied, always affects others with the opposite consequence.
Some would suggest that such a response or feeling of fear on the part of the majority, when any number of minorities have been repressed for such a long time would itself be fair. But this is certainly not so and whilst an understandable emotion on the part of those who have been victims of prejudice to the point that they might see things this way, to mirror an injustice in any way is to pick up and continue with the very same form of attack – just going in a different way.
Two wrongs don't make a right. Particularly not when prejudice against others is typically born out of the fear of difference between people and aspects of others that they simply don't understand, or has come about simply because certain actions and views are understood as the way that we are culturally expected to do so. Indeed, the dehumanization of relationships which is steadily evolving on a minute by minute basis by the impact and assimilation of internet, smart phones and by response-at-the-push-of-a-button technology, is almost certain to make things much worse.
Rights have for a long time been costing Government and the Economy a lot of money. Nobody should delude themselves into thinking that there isn't a price to be paid by us all – financially or otherwise – when business and the public sector becomes less productive as a direct result of rights being enhanced or government officers effectively refusing to take and execute their full responsibilities – passing them on to others such as highly paid consultants – simply because they are living in fear of what will happen if they should be accused of wrongdoing on behalf of someone who as a result of this whole corrupting process believes that their rights have in some way been denied.
The inaction and professional ineptitude which is now common throughout the public sector has far more to do with the insidious nature of the rights culture than it does either because of lack of skilled people or lack of money through the Government's Policy of Austerity, which has become a very useful and much less risky scapegoat for political activism on all sides.
What has been achieved by this giant overstep and attempt to achieve coercive control is the emergence of two populations within one. The majority which falls increasingly silent as it witnesses attempts by others to even have its thought processes denied. The other, a hybrid minority of over-empowered victims who aggressively and successfully interpret the actions of others within what we used to know as normal life, as being insulting, inconsiderate and unquestionably set against their own 'human rights'.
Some suggest the fear that this insidious culture has created as Britain having become a Nation without an identity. It isn't that. The majority of people are just too afraid to openly identify with our National Identity for fear of what injustice towards others they might then be ridiculously accused.
The real harm to our democracy, is the unspoken and dangerously complacent conclusion on the part of those who Govern to conclude that silence itself is equal to acquiescence.
People are much savvier than their actions might otherwise deny, and whilst Westminster continues to misunderstand and misread the electoral actions of the public, it is little wonder that the European Referendum result came as such a surprise because such little account if any is being made for the fact that within the confines of a voting booth, there is a distinct level of anonymity and unhindered choice which even within friendships and families can otherwise be at the very least emotionally denied.
What also appears to be complacently overlooked by the establishment and in particular the liberal elites, is that Government, law, order and social cohesion is on every level dependent fully on the voluntary consent and support of the British People, who continue to respect the idea of democracy and the voluntary surrender of decision making responsibility for affairs affecting us all communally to our so-called elected representatives of the people.
The real problem with the ascendency of the 'self' culture and the empowerment of this hybrid mentality where minorities now look upon the majority who they are led to believe have intentionally scorned them, in a way that suggests they can now impose their own values and morality unequivocally upon us all.
For example criminals and prisoners alike are now able to deflect attention away from whatever they have done, simply by complaining that their own rights have been infringed. They do so knowing that they have blithely and wantonly done exactly the same to innocent others. Innocents who more often than not remain out of the spotlight for fear of what reprisal they will experience as a result of the application of law now being toothless, simply because the rights of the individual are placed before the best interests of the community and therefore openly denied.
People will not go on indefinitely allowing an unjust system to exist. The civil order which is voluntarily maintained on the part of the wider community is as fragile as that of those and their supporters who feel themselves to be justified in taking to the streets and rioting because they now feel it safe to assume that when an opportunity for blame arises, it will always be the party which represents authority which has committed the true crime.
However, whilst we have cause to be genuinely concerned that the good will of the majority of the British People could and does have the potential to snap, we are culturally a very patient People, even beyond that which fear would deny.
As such, the break down of civil order and rioting on the streets simply over the issue of overstretched rights, may in isolation thankfully remain a long way off.
But that isn't to say that the resentment and true feeling against rights culture and the belief that the silent majority are obliged to play-court to the emperors new clothes which liberalism has made could not itself be the straw that breaks the camels back, should any one of a number of other pressing issues such as a financial meltdown or a consistent run of terrorist attacks increase the feeling that the genuine will of the people is being denied in such a way which precipitates people taking to the streets.
Revolution is a word which means many things to different people and the misguided romanticism with this idea of instantaneous change leaves the true meaning and impact of this type of societal transition completely denied.
Yet the feelings of mistrust and resentment against what is now widely considered to be an entitled political class and the interests of big business which rightly or wrongly are generally perceived to be behind it, could easily lead to circumstances where social behaviour lead those in power to believe that its genesis is progressively and proactively implied.
Fear leads even the leaders of people to do silly things. In such circumstances, with anarchy considered likely, or even if it is by then present on the streets, it is the immediate denial of the rights which will have previously been seen to promote any idea of complete freedom that would be quickly denied.
Whilst a model of governance like that of the Sons of Jacob may not appear to be on the cards, the power vacuum created as any voluntary form of democracy falls would indeed create an opportunity for any group which can organise itself where its own ideals for living can be implemented and then refined.
The building blocks are already in place for a fully functioning dystopian order and the predictive connotations of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty Four are playing themselves out daily within the technology that we are inviting into our homes, supported by the attempts of Government to remove anything which could be considered a safety net for our individual independence by paying lip service the idea that in this one instance, they will be protecting the greater interests of society as they do.
We haven't got there yet. We must all hope that we do not.
But if we do, it will be clear that the price to be paid for the results of a liberalised society which delivers equality for one by taking it away from many others will have proven to have been inhumanly high.
Categories: Ethics, National Politics, Uncategorized Tags: 2nd Industrial Revolution, Amber Rudd, Assumed Freedom, Balance, Brexit, British National Identity, Difference creates fear, Digital Revolution, Dystopian Future, Dystopian Government, Electronic Subjugation, European Referendum, Everything is based on fear, Failing public sector, Freedoms, Government Injustice, Liberal Elites, Liberalism, libertarian age, Libertarian Agenda, Libertarian Politics, Multi-Generational Transition, National Identity, Nineteen Eighty-Four, Pendulum of Liberty, Physical Subjugation, Prejudice, Rights, Rights Culture, Sub-Generational Transition, technology, The Establishment, The Handmaid's Tale, The more things change

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl