Andy's Thoughts

Upon reflection the media as represented by UK mainstream press and TV seem to think that the current Conservative party leader election is a presidential campaign.

As indeed do the candidates, with bold statements as to what they will do when elected.

I am sorry to disappoint the misguided but in the UK we have a parliamentary democracy with a constitutional monarchy.

The political party who gathers the most votes at an election will form a government and try to implement its manifesto pledges or as amended to suit the changing world.

The country has as a figurehead and head of state, the monarchy, and whilst the job falls to the next in line, the institution will ensure that the monarch is fit for purpose and deal with it if not.

The furore in 1660 and the restoration of the monarch saw to that and the 11 years prior to that of Oliver and Richard should act as a clear warning that presidents always turn bad; Power corrupts, hence why all terms are limited and repeats restricted in all well governed democracies.

The prime minster is charged with appointing colleagues to positions in the governing structure to ensure that an effective government can achieve its pledges

The conservative government needs to get on with delivering what was promised in 2019, the leader needs to be someone who organises their parliamentary colleagues to achieve that. The skills needed to do that should be what the election is about.

Can they lead is the question not can they hand out treats or pretend to be all powerful.

31st July 2022

Well some time since I have added anything here but much has happened in the world as well as my world.

Looking at the abstract

we seem to have a resurgence of the haves and have not debate thanks to Donald Trump and European migration.

How far do you spread charitable support, government support and the generally be nice to those who are suffering notion. If you give all, and fail as a result, then most can see that seems a folly but it can be much lauded especially when you have Mother Theresa as an example as she gained support and succeeded.

However it is surely a greater success to enable those that are suffering to succeed, rather than cripple your own success to ease their suffering.

The reality is going to be a mix, but if your surroundings are overrun by thousands of needy souls how do you allocate that mix?

Over 7.5 billion people in this world (20th July 18) and 828 million are under nourished, nearly 40,000 die every day from starvation but over 1.5 billion put their health at risk by being overweight. Clearly many of the haves would benefit by giving to the have nots.

Restricting a country’s view of the world to within its borders reinforces the nationalist fervour that led to World  Wars 1 and 2. It might play well to domestic politic but when it fails to produce the economic miracle promised where does the country look.

Russia has already shown that when a super power wants something they can just take it without consequence as long as it is limited. Feign going for the big bite and take the small one you wanted all along. We all watch with eyes wide as the risk disappears !

There seems to be a trend to knock true democracy as flawed,

supposing the elite know best and that China and Russia ( and North Korea) show, how a country should be run. Perhaps it is time to pause, the later day success of the Chinese Economy is due to copying western economic structure and Glasnost did much for the Russian economy that has been lost due to individualism and grab what I can.

There will always be haves and have nots, there needs to be a ladder to climb, but it needs to be fair, so wealth distribution needs to be fairer, freedom of expression needs to be accessible but the government mechanism needs to ensure that the loudest mouth or biggest gun does not always win. Government is about serving the people to ensure they get what they want.

If 6 people in 10 want something then the other 4 should accept that decision, the democratic mechanism and government by consent. If 6 want and 4 go and arm themselves to defend their view you get a civil war.

So in any governed area there needs to be a general consensus of view to avoid conflict; challenging in the UK between Scotland, Ireland and England, oddly in Wales who lost England to the Vikings and Saxons who then lost it to the Normans there seems to be broad agreement.

Tribal divisions still reflect in national view points,

100’s of years on, although migration has broadened those views but leads to some polarisation in society. Jumping to easy rhetoric, as the far right can do, fuels imagined wrongs and causes distress. Or like North Africa and the “Stans” consistent  pluralistic government seems impossible due to ancient divisions

The UK has, as far as I can see, a balanced view of itself but like all societies is not comfortable with extreme demonstrations of allegiances not from the home countries. It is assumed that if you choose to live in our country you want to adopt our society.

I think that we can debunk that idea given modern terrorism. Many people are not in a foreign country out of choice but merely because it was as far as they could go or where they got the best offer. It is rarely as good as they expected and never as nice as the home country they imagine will or would be.

There is a clear feeling of regret and anger that they have been displaced from where they would like to be which is easy to turn against any country or people shown to play a part in global politics.

It seems to be an assumed right that a refugee will be looked after and not shot at. The notion was enshrined when the number of refugees was small and the mass slaughter of your own population or the marauding hordes of ISIS were rare events.

No country can handle over a million new members from different cultures and still be expected to take on more. If they could just fit into the social mechanism that exists it would not be too difficult but they cannot; with language and cultural habits that do not align, except in often small national groupings that are also overwhelmed.

So much for legal immigration, illegal migration with large squatter camps, are also a hazard and a social disaster. The traffic in people fuelled by unrealistic expectations and poor home conditions is easily engineered via web sites and mobile phone technology.

The wealthy nations and the likely targets for migration need to be more proactive in creating a web presence that set realistic views of what to expect, and debunks sites that give the wrong views. They should also target the people that are trafficking more effectively.

I believe that there needs to be more direct action to stop murderous dictatorships and polarised opinions. There also needs to be more intervention in how countries are run.

It is all well and good to declare that we have to let people decide for themselves and we will simply deal with the aftermath. It is inhuman to watch tens of thousands of men women and children be massacred and then look after hundreds of thousands who avoided death by suspending their lives in camps for years just because we did not want to be called imperialist, arrogant or colonial in our approach.

Equally it must be absurd to take over the running of a country and fight a guerrilla war for years playing the target alongside civilians who are merely serving their country. To be fair the number of deaths should be less but asking soldiers of one country to give up their lives for little thanks to prevent another country from killing itself is a tricky message to sell for long to the people of the soldier’s country.

The Afghanistan model and the Iraq model rely on small groups and are bedevilled by tribal differences (including Shia and Sunni) all of these differences are not material to human existence, in that they all work, so should not cause death but they do.

So leave alone,- lets thousands die, get involved,- makes hundreds of your soldiers die with hundreds of the local population, set up a government,- tends to give civil war. Does this mean that a military solution is not viable? Possibly.

Adam Smith gave us the “Limit of sovereignty is the willingness of people to obey”, but he had never heard of the use of Sarin and total property destruction to clear the disobeyers from the country.

So let us be a little more analytical;

If the leader of a country is democratically elected with the mandate to butcher everyone in the country who did not vote for them. Is this acceptable? Who has the authority to take action to prevent this abomination? Same question I guess if they elected themselves

If the leader of a country is democratically elected with the mandate to butcher anyone in the world that disagrees with their religion. Is this acceptable? Who has the authority to take action to prevent such an atrocity? Same question I guess if they elected themselves

These are crimes against humanity, all 7.6 Billion of us, which includes the potential perpetrators, so we all have the authority and the responsibility to act to prevent the crime but not.. to revenge it, which would be a crime in itself.

Does the declared intention allow an early attack?

If the country is a great power and you are not do you concede and convert or defend your view and possibly perish.

Of course in the real world  NATO was intended to avoid this last question as the mutual assurance of the allies removes the risk of a bigger power. With Russia and USA changing the world order for better or worse with China fast becoming a world power militarily as well as economically. All will be seeking new partners and alliances and this question will occur again and will the alliances that are tested hold true?

What of a global society is it a solution or worse;

In the Corbyn view of a global society, with everyone behaving as he thinks they should for the good of all of us. It is a nice even world, no aspiration no disappointment.

In the Putin view of a global society, with everyone behaving as he tells them to for the good of his elite. It is a nice world in the elite and a not so nice out of it so the aspiration is to get in and so support it.

In the Trump view of the world, with everyone doing what he says so that they can do trade with him but must buy more from him than sell to him. Its a nice world for America and they really don’t care about everyone else as they have more “guns”

In the Xi view of the world, everyone works hard who can and many will be able to do better, as they swallow up all of the jobs that nations want done more cheaply. The state have rules and plans for most aspects of life. It is an industrial success but the high environmental and social cost is starting to hurt, so industrial conversion is about to modernise China and swing it in with everyone else competing for the same trade deals but they will intend to be better and stronger than most.

And there are several other views of the world equally as unworkable for everyone.

So what tensions will erupt over land, resources and remembered wrongs in this new world?

I think it should be clear that 195 members of the united nations and their 7.6 Billion people are not going to agree on a single solution or to live in harmony unless there is an enforceable agreement between most, so if the owners of the largest and second largest arsenals are no longer allies of the rest of the world.

The rest of the world needs to up its Arsenal and ensure it is  worldwide in spread to form the governing alliance between like minded societies and not rely on old technologies handed down from the big gunners of today.

So UK, Canada, Australia, India and Europe seems to about hit the mark as the core and add in a few. A good cultural spread and global presence so GTO and not NATO

21st July 2018,  Calella Spain

Hi, its been quiet, just a quick thought: At what point does restriction of the many for the benefit of the few become oppression and not social care? There is much bleating that 52% of voters can make the country teeter towards a political / cultural change despite economic risk but no comment that less than 5% dictate how we should live our lives without reference. Why do we all seem to assume that best practice can be cast in stone and only known to a few geeks?

The death of Charlie Gard, a tragic situation, unusually this situation has had a lot of informed comment as well as emotional hyperbole and self-interested hijackers. I have read some but not all of the available comment. I cannot imagine the pain that the parents will be suffering but it is clear that their pain was extended by American experts making unsubstantiated and in the end empty claims of a treatment that would make Charlie better (his mum seemed to hope cured).
For all the journalistic spin and rhetoric and claims that this is a landmark. The medical details came clear in the final hearing. Charlie’s brain damage was catastrophic and never looked at in detail by the American Doctor who did not take up an offer to come and examine Charlie for 6 months and his claim of new research was bogus, in effect a ploy to gain a human guinea pig.
We have as a basic principle that the legal system protects a child from harm even from its parents’ unintentional harm. That being physical harm, pain or neglect. We all see this as easy for paedophiles and neglect, also despite it becoming extremely upsetting, when this is at odds with religious or other beliefs, blood transfusions for Jehovah’s witnesses, FGM for traditional west Africans, our society seems to accept intervention must happen. But when we have a loving western couple who only want the best for their child and feel that trial treatments must be tried as their child is not as poorly as it is and miracles might (will) happen then; we struggle to see that any more treatment is abuse and has no chance of major improvement. I am sure there are cases where such a challenge would have a greater chance of success this one has become increasingly tragic thanks to ill-informed people (including the Pope and The Donald) applying their irrelevant views on Human life. As Charlie was already on artificial life support with no cognitive function how can the Pope comment and The Donald needs to sort the American care system out before his ideas should be attended to. False hope has extended the grief of the Gard’s and I can only feel sad and sympathetic. Also in the k knowledge that this will morph into a campaign for pro-lifers when it was never about state euthanasia, austerity or socialism.
God rest Charlie Gard and give his parents peace

In a democracy, the government are the servants of the people and rule by consent. There is no legitimate justification for violent protest in a democracy. Venting steam because you do not like a decision is not helpful or good for society. Impassioned debate and determination in the face of massive opposition is laudable but not if it is intended to cause a riot. So freedom of speech and action is only OK if it does not undermine the fundamental principles of the system.
The system of government in the UK has come under much criticism for;
Having a monarch albeit a constitutional one
Having a prime minister
Having a house of lords
Having an independent judiciary
Usually from republicans who feel that the US system is better or indeed the Russian system or just ill-informed anarchist or socialist
It is a shame that the system seems not to be fully explained to all those that come to live here or indeed grow up here. I accept it is complicated to grasp the nuance of a constitutional Monarchy or how an unelected second chamber works, and yes, I am sure that the arrangements can be improved but the basic concept, an elected government (built from the elected house of commons) proposes changes to our legal system which is voted for in parliament and then checked by experts who have the paid time to mull over the rules to see if they achieve and are feasible. And when enacted are kept in place by a legal system that is independent of government. Sounds good .. well that is what we have and then put in jeopardy with every riot or stupid act denying the “consent” of the basic agreement that fundamentally removes the needs to carry arms. Servants of the people means everything is done for the benefit of the electorate, fundamental requirement, anything done for self-interest has to disenfranchise that person.

We must protect the system we have to maintains the freedom of the country and its people entirely but we must have leaders that espouse the values we have not the values of the extremes we have.

Ok Jeff Bezos looks set to become the worlds richest man as his stock holding in Amazon has risen in value, so he may get over Bill Gates $90Billion

Alan Sugar’s suggestion of how much can you write a good cheque for seems  a better evaluation, when Amazon stops growing, and it will, the share price will tumble and the imaginary billions will fall away; will that Bezos or Gates better or worse people? Thought not, why do we spend so much energy looking who has the biggest imaginary pile of wealth, Neither Bezos or Gates can realise their shares value without ruination.

Oh well

Happy blog reading