Doom and more doom? Well, you tell me...

Having just returned from a trip to Holland to see  family I was rather pleased to see the cleanliness in general of the streets, green patches of grass and the motorway edges. In Britain and Wales we are drowning in all sorts of rubbish that float around streets, parks and everywhere else. You may ask – what is different? We are all human beings? Indeed we are but it is our attitude towards the environment. We in the UK have a different attitude, sort of ‘I have rights, and I can do what I want’. People in the UK have no respect for the environment, do not want to change their behaviour and have no intention to help clean up the environment. All under the adage of – It is not my problem, it’s not my job. We can talk endlessly about who should do what but in the end it all stays talk and no action. This Swedish girl is right, it is time for action, we have possibly just 10 years to get it right. It is time to stop putting our heads into the sand like ostriches. The lion of disaster is sniffing at our back-ends! It won’t be long before he takes a bite! In fact he is already having a go, the weather patterns are increasingly ferocious, storms, cyclones, hurricanes, tornadoes, it will only get worse!

We simply cannot carry on concreting over the countryside, it is ludicrous to encroach on green belt space to build more and more houses. We need to take head-on the plastics problem, we have to curb our appetite for car driving. Yes, it means investment in public transport, but if we want to survive and leave our children and grandchildren a decent life we have to act now! Our society, our western society has to change. With 66 million people and possibly before too long up to 75 million people and more, we need a better organised society. Businesses need to understand their role in society and their responsibility to the environment. The never-ending quest for money and fame needs to end. I am not talking like a communist or a socialist, these words are all common sense.

As society came together for the good of all during WW2, we need to do it again but without a war.

In that respect JC, no not Jesus but Jeremy Corbyn, is right. A lot of young people think so too. But changing a political system for another is not just about more talk, we can do it right now without changing politics, we need politicians to show the way forward, that is why we elected them. Not to squabble in the House of Commons and do a bit of penis waving of who is bigger. We need people who are not afraid to upset the apple-cart because yes, it is not going to be easy to drag all of us out of our cherished way of life. So wake up UK, wake up World!

Another delay...

It is absolutely amazing as to how present-day politics perform. One would have thought that a two-party system is the ideal way to govern. Because the party in power, with a decent majority, can get its policies through without too much trouble. Well, mainly true but not when the party in power is a minority government. Yet in other countries, like Holland, they work with coalitions, not just two parties but sometimes three or four forming the government. This seems to work well in the main. Taking Brexit (again) we can easily see the failings of a minority government. Especially when the party propping up the governing party is dead-set against the proposed policy. In other words – mayhem. Another thing that amazes me is the shallowness of UK politics, the way politicians use the media. It all shows an enormous amount of grandstanding. But the most amazing thing is this – in 2016 the government instigated a referendum on the question ‘Do we leave or stay in the EU’. A simple question really. This was passed into law and agreed(!) by the Houses of Parliament. The referendum was ‘OUT’ by a reasonable majority. Under the law that was passed it meant the UK was out of Europe. However, and here are the failings of the government, no-one had thought the voters would say ‘out’. So no-one had made any preparations for that possibility. No-wonder the then Prime Minister, Cameron, just pulled up his socks and disappeared. Bit of a coward’s way out I suppose. Anyway from then on nothing was done except trips to Brussels by the new Prime Minister and a few cronies to find out whether the cups of tea there tasted better than in Westminster. Jolly good time had by all but nothing was happening. It seemed like the government was just treading water, as they call it ‘running down the clock’. So, here we are, in the doldrums, experiencing delay after delay, simply because in the Houses of Parliament there is no taste at all to leave the EU. Despite their assurances and laws it is quite evident, politicians have a completely different idea of what law means. Probably because they think they made the law but don’t have to abide by it. Disgraceful attitude and behaviour. So, come on Mr Farage, steer us towards what was agreed in the first place and start negotiating afterwards. Thank you.

Councils fit for purpose?

Today’s reports in some of the national newspapers have highlighted one of the most damning things of today. Council fat-cats. In other words council chiefs who are ‘earning’ well over £100,000 per annum!

Most of us cave dwellers do not seem to worry. We should, because that sort of money for basically very little work or even responsibility, is an affront to society. This money comes in dribs and drabs from the backs of very hard working people who are enslaved in zero-hour contracts. I have heard all the arguments – we have to pay to get the best! Oh yeah, how deluded can you be? The best? Why then are most councils in the UK so badly organised? In my own backwater, RCT CBC (Rhondda Cynon Taf Borough Council ) by all accounts is one of the largest employers in Wales. Apparently to keep unemployment down. I suppose it is one way to deal with it. At least some of it will get back as council-tax. But in reality it is other working people who subsidise this type of social engineering. Instead of ensuring a sound basis for companies to thrive and employ people, councils are taking the easy route.This part of Wales is still suffering from the inability to control the end of the coal mining era. That is to say closing all the mines throwing out thousands of workers without any thought of what to do next. Government including local government did not have any idea whatsoever as to how to manage that calamity. I know that this was not local government who made those decisions but even so they have not managed the results incredibly well. It shows a lack of planning expertise, just sitting back thinking it’ll all be alright on the night. For that we pay chief’s salaries of up to £500,000 per annum. Even in a poor area such as the Rhondda the chief chair-sitter gets well over £100,000! That person lords it over a council whose governing inabilities are affecting all levels. From education to maintaining the infrastructure. I took a walk around my neighbourhood last night, the debris all around, the decaying properties, collapsing road structures reminded me of the aftermath of World War 2. It all shows a degradation within a society which these people are supposed to improve. It is no wonder we now have a Marxist leading the national Labour party, a sure sign that people are beginning to become fed up with all the nepotism, lack of progress, financial wastage to name just a few of the ills. Time to have a very good look at how we want society to be. This is not to advocate a new social experiment, I’m not a Marxist but we should have a look how businesses and government ought to interact to the benefit of the society we all have to live in.