Strikes are a sign of desperation not seeking attention.

Government over the last few years has been slowly looking to erode the voice of the masses. Subtle changes to legislation making public protest and now strikes less and less likely. Along with constituency boundary changes they are doing all they can to hold on to power. Don't believe this is anything but stopping the free speech of the population. 

You might believe the lies that strikes are damaging and strikes are causing all of our problems. They aren't in fact we don't even strike that often as this image shows.

 

It is not about striking workers but not allowing the voice of the masses to be heard. This can't be allowed. Protect your rights to challenge our establishment. For our nurses to demand that they are listened to and that the horror of our NHS is really heard. 

Polystyrene no more... At last

People start with being the change you want to see in the world. That's a great start.

I also see the frustration when your small change is offset by corporates creating huge volumes of waste. 

We can do all we want but policy makers have to step up and respond. Polystyrene and plastic cutlery is due to be banned, but really everyone knows this is so late. It feels like the corporates won't be affected so we can do it now. Policy makers need to not react at the end of the chain but lead the change. 

As a nation we need to be leading on climate change but sadly we're just followers. Come on everyone let's wake up Westminster.

Time to swallow some pride...

It's time the general public new the reality of our political structure. There is one party that sells a dream of the right, a self determined dream of looking after ones wealth. One of low tax and a protecting the wealthy. Over the years several parties have emerged who challenge this. From Labour and the Liberal Democrats we also have the Greens and now the devolved states parties of the SNP and Plaid Cymru. At the last General Election the popular vote that brought the Tories to power was 13.9 Million votes. If we combine all of the other parties their total of votes comes to 16.1 Million. The first past the post seat is designed to benefit the broad church parties. It used to work with a broad Labour support but that has wained. We now know more and have more ideologies and sense of which party beat represents us. One of the key reasons the Tories are horrified of their party falling apart. 

If we are going to see change, we need to accept a different approach. We need to accept a grown up conversation about devolution but more importantly we need to see real leadership and let's ensure the Tories are not allowed to remain in power at the sake of political ego, pride or dreams. Every major party now backs proportional representation as the future of our voting system so let's make that a reality and rebuild our democracy where every vote counts. 

The sell off! Affordable housing is dead!

 

Photo by RODNAE Productions: https://www.pexels.com/photo/signages-for-real-property-selling-8292794/

So the 80's brought us public assets like BT, the Electricity Boards and British Gas, but they also sold our houses. 

In theory this was to us. We own it therefore can gain wealth from it's increase in value. For those living in any form of social housing this was a great chance to gain an opportunity for financial reward. 

For 30 years a generation and a half have benefitted from ever rising property prices, banks have profiteered as well with mortgage revenues like never before but the big winners have been the house builders.

Your house increases in value based on demand. Yes economic cycles and recessions play a part but who holds the key to supply? Land is "banked" by the major home owners, properties bought on stream to maximise revenues, house built to minimum standards to maximise profit and we are left with a over heated market of average to low quality housing. The UK Average house price is now more than 10 x that of the average salary. Remember a 3 x mortgage principle for sound lending. That has gone and we are left now chasing uninspiring homes at hugely inflated prices. We must stop land banking by developers and the government has to support the building of better homes, the retrofitting of existing properties and the provision of more social housing. Safe to say the idea of affordable housing is dead.

A modern democracy, right?

 The UK is the home of the modern democracy right. One of the oldest democracies in the world right? 

Well on a quick check we don't have a written constitution. Shocked... I was... 

Most countries have, at some point, had a redrawing of their boundaries, a shift in political influence or being founded or established. In the UK we have bumbled along with an ever changing list of acts of parliament. The monarchy and establishment have maintained control of our political foundation for hundreds of years. 

We may feel we are a long standing democracy but the reality is our adult population didn't fully gain the vote until after WWII. In reality we have had two generations who have been fully able to be politically active and sadly we now live in a society where apathy means only three quarters of that adult population vote. Only once since the WWII has the voter turn out exceeded 80%. 

This state of affairs has come under pressure from time to time. Revolution was in the air around the time of the French Revolution in the late 18th Century, the Tolpuddle martyrs, the Jarrow march all before WWII. Is it now time again. Can we have enough will and desire to see things change. A break up of the Union and seismic shift in Westminster is surely long overdue.

Waiting on our revolution?

Post WWII there was a air of new hope. The Welfare State, the NHS, Labour governments. A genuine sense of workers being heard and having a voice. This rhetoric changed over time and the late 70's and early eighties saw a seismic shift in our political landscape. The last stand of the unions pushed the establishment to fight back choosing to take control over our economic direction through non political means in the big British sell off. The shareholders and hedge funds took over.

In this moment, a set of circumstances came to life that have a huge impact on all us now. Union powers were crushed, we were forced into a free market economy. We became a low wage, service led economy as everything from energy storage, public transport, road building and even our public sector functions were outsourced. Over the last 40 years the rise of the tendering process and the litigious threat inherent in delivering contracts has led to more and more outsourcing (blame lies elsewhere). Shifting responsibilities and accountability but also allowing profits and revenues from former state assets to drift out of the publics grasp. Along with wealth our future social value through programmes like apprenticeships dried up as well as these corporations chased profits over long term vision for sustainability and rigour.

We have now been left with no public control over power generation or power storage relying on overseas imports and a hugely volatile market. We have stripped the opportunities of the state to generate profits and revenue, replaced with faceless shareholder lead corporations fleecing us of vital funds by milking lucrative public contracts won through overly complex and porous tendering processes. Our skills shortage is nothing short of laughable and is blatantly obvious for anyone who has tried to employee any trades people in the last few years.  

Within this backdrop our last remaining public services are on their knees. Education and Health are the final sections of the Public Sector that are not privatised despite been attacked at the edges by further outsourcing and contracting activity. Just look at the NHS data debacle for evidence of  the wasting of funds. 

So reliant on tax income we try to prop up our education system and our NHS as boomers retire on the prosperity of the post war boom generations are now left rudderless and leaderless with the only hope being a dream of miracle lottery wins or reality TV. 

That is not wholly true in terms of opportunities our nation is full of innovation, pioneering businesses and niche's to really become a success but these are few and far between. Now is the time we need a true representation of the population in our leadership. The time of peers and elite public schools has to be over and we need a new landscape for our future. Now is surely the time for a revolution. Maybe not by arms but by action. Supporting strikes, making our voices heard and ensuring at the next election this tyranny of the Conservatives and Westminster in general comes to an end. Now has to be our time!