The governing elites are usually unpopular. They may have to make unpopular decisions. There will always be some who think they tax too much and others who think they give away too little.
The current governing elites of the EU are particularly unpopular. So are those officials, lawyers and other senior people in UK institutions that have a similar world view to their EU friends and opposite numbers. One of the reasons is the overarching bossiness, the we know best attitudes they strike on so many crucial matters.
There is first the discourse. They wish to talk about the road to net zero, the need to be generous to migrants, the need to follow international Agreements and Treaties, the need to suppress or defeat populist movements. Many in the public want their concerns to  be heard. How do I get a better job? How do I pay the energy bills? When can I afford a home of my own? Am I allowed to fly abroad? Can I use my car or van to get around without more charges and barriers?
The refusal of the elites to take many of the popular issues seriously adds to the tensions. The populists cry humbug when they see elite players flying round the world to green conferences, staying at air conditioned hotels and ordering the best meat on the menu whilst telling the rest of us to do none of the above. The elites shout back that the people must understand the priority of cutting carbon dioxide , the need to accept dearer energy and more fossil fuel taxes to get there. They explain their carefully contrived legal framework which turns out to thwart populist ideas of how to improve more voters lives.
As a result of this process most of the major governing and opposition parties in the EU of the late last century have been destroyed or have shrunk in the face of populist movements of the right and left. The splintering of their votes reveals an inner unhappiness by electors.
August 20, 2023
Good morning.
This ‘bossiness’ has many strands to it. But one strand is the need to justify ones existence and perpetual maintenance. For this there has to be more and more things to tackle. That is why we have the creation of non-jobs (Diversity, Inclusion and Equality) because the political class create laws for such coming pressure groups or lobbyists. This is why, despite automation and the computer, we have a larger State than ever before with ever increasing budgets and managerial costs.
We are eating our own tail.
August 20, 2023
Mark,
I think you underestimate the non-jobs. They actually change our culture and cost the taxpayer a fortune. Public sector riddled with them for inspectorate bodies to force compliance which then brings it throughout society. Blaire and Harmanâs policies and legislation should be scrapped not built on over 14 years by not the Tory party!
JRs party and govtâs resoundingly failed us.
August 20, 2023
JR, why not call The governing eliteâ by its true name, the Conservative and Unionist party. Poor deflection. 85 seat majority gave your party and govt all the power it needed to bring about election and manifesto promises. You and your colleagues failed in every single regard. Stop blaming others. Your party did not even try. Your party, your govtâs since 2010.
August 21, 2023
And that’s the truth. They didn’t even TRY.
August 20, 2023
Creeping fascism…. when people of any rank cannot construct a well reasoned argument they either shout louder and refuse to hear or simply dictate (because I say so mode)
August 20, 2023
+++
Or feel it is safer to conceal their true motives by larding them with moral outrage.
Which at the same time will serve to make others comply through guilt.
â You must do THIS to save the planetâ but in reality it is all about money.
The old industrial model has collapsed so a new way of making/taking wealth must be found.
And we will be the net losers and so must be controlled.
August 20, 2023
Quite so; and it’s playing out in real-time right now. Look at how many retailers, in which I include money retailers, are closing their public facing ‘offices’. The age of the retail high-street is drawing to a close. People are expensive and unreliable, sales will be online and impersonal. Delivery drivers is a growth industry, until that service get automated. We need to figure out how the world of Work is to be restructured.
August 20, 2023
+++
Agree.
But I reckon that the Wealthy Few are busy figuring out how to dispose of excess manpower.
Raymond Burr envisaged golf courses and opulent high rises set in lush green countryside.
Their view I imagine is somewhat less generous?
August 20, 2023
Oh my!
I thought Iâd put Raymond Baxter.
Not Perry Mason!
August 20, 2023
Delivery businesses to residences should be nationalised, apart from supermarkets.
It is crazy how many compete and drive along the same road every day – unbelievably inefficient.
August 20, 2023
@Everhopeful
When I read or hear the phrase “to save the planet” I have to smile.
The planet will continue to exist long after the human race has gone, as it did for many, many years before we arrived.
Perhaps they should say “to save the human race” ?
I’m not sure that the human race is worth saving. đ
August 20, 2023
It doesn’t seem we are doing a very good job of saving the human race from each other – the natural world might have less to fear from us.
August 20, 2023
Just about summed up by the German govtâs attitude to the AFD
We must save âdemockracyâ by removing your ability to choose.
August 20, 2023
The German attitude to the AfD is the same as the UK elites attitude to GB news.
If your not on message, ban it.
OFGEM have a permanent enquiry into GB news output whereas the Brussels Broadcasting Company continues unaffected with its lies and half truths.
August 20, 2023
+ 1
August 20, 2023
+++
And of course exactly what the U.K. elite actually did to the NF, BNP and maybe others ( taking into account any fake opposition groups.)
And now the U.K. public is TERRIFIED of anything slightly right of centre. Not realising that the Left is the heavy-booted nightmare everyone has been trying to avoid for the last 70 odd years.
( Germany is poll-wise almost 50/50 on whether a democratically supported party should be banned! )
August 20, 2023
It could be called Bullshit Brainwashing Conspiracy.
August 20, 2023
I came across an interesting statement from Roger Harrabin made during his acceptance speech for his doctorate from Cranfield. He considers that 73% of the truth is enough, on the grounds that it is an improvement on not broaching a topic at all. Yet propaganda works best when the 27% outright lie you want to sell is masked in 73% truth to give it plausibility.
August 20, 2023
I doubt we get even 50% truth anymore!
August 20, 2023
+1 Agreed Ian
August 20, 2023
I know very little aout the AfD (or their policies) but I do remember a TV documentary a year or so back about them. A small German (Austrian ?) village had all voted AfD apart from one person, so the reporter went along expecting to find a nest of Nazis. What he found was a small rural community full of farmers. He asked them why they had voted AfD and was told “The AfD candidate was the only person who actually came here and asked us what we needed, so we told him and he promised to help. We never saw any of the other candidates and they don’t seem to care about our problems out here in the countryside”
It amused me that the reporter had such dire expectations but the explanation was so much simpler! đ
August 20, 2023
Many will put up with unpopularity in pursuit of advancing their own personal interests.
There are fewer conviction politicians, of any stripe, in positions of power nowadays.
Instead careerist chancers are the norm.
August 20, 2023
Thatâs because they are the only ones allowed onto the Party Machine controlled shortlist. There are plenty of very good men and women – we need to find a way of SELECTING them and ignoring the party machine. BTW Farage also ran a party list, you paid for your place on it! So a ânewâ party is NOT the answer.
August 20, 2023
So true Lynn, I was recently at a local party PPC meeting choosing the upcoming candidate for our constituency. It was a remarkably well ordered and run event, actually. The candidates short listed for the members were.
A sound councillor.
A quango funded industrialist (good communicator)
A current MP being displaced due to boundary changes. (sound prospect)
A Special advisor working in Downing St. ex Cameron and current Sunak helper.
The one that was the most remarkable (for getting on the list) was the SPAD.
I won’t say anymore.
August 20, 2023
eliminate in this order:
The SPAD.
A Quango funded person.
and the choice is – an existing MP – doesn’t sound promising does it?
a ‘sound’ councillor’ – very suspect! – are you sure?
We come back to so who produced the shortlist, therein lies the problem the whole country has….
August 20, 2023
Yes but they had to raise money to finance it!
Unlike the Tories who get ÂŁmillions from people who want their situation ‘looked after’.
10.38
August 20, 2023
@Lynn Atkinson
Might one enquire – are you on the selection panel of your Tory constituency selection panel?
Are any of you on here that regularly bemoan the proliferation of âPPEâ candidates?
If not, why donât you get on the selection panels and change things? Or put yourselves forward?
August 20, 2023
Been there – get an MP deselected for making 1 speech in the House during a 25 year career. Selected a dinkum Tory, then he was given a dispatch box and we lost him.
August 20, 2023
PS, actually I made it onto Sir Norman Fowlerâs âtroublemakerâ list. You see I have worked, free of charge for MY politics all my life. The first objective, on which all else depended was of course, exiting the EU. The Remain Tory Party was not in agreement, but I believed that the people, when they knew, would be.
I would never make the Tory Party List.
August 20, 2023
“The splintering of their votes reveals an inner unhappiness by electors” Exactly!
The government’s Online Safety Bill proposes that we decrease the messaging security level in the UK. Nobody really knows how this should be done, but suggestions include message apps like Whatsapp, Telegram and Signal having “back doors” built in, compromising end-to-end encryption. Or more likely, that an AI monitors all communication at the level of the app and silently sends back warnings to the police if it âthinksâ the communicator is up to no good. Given the public’s justified concern over the endless miscarriages of justice, orchestrated by incompetent police, the very thought is terrifying.
This reverses the current MoD digital defence mantra: âSecure by Designâ. The police and the security services have long wanted the ability to crack into end-to-end encryption on the grounds of counter paedo-terrorism. This would, of course, entail the end of secure online banking as we know it. Breaking end-to-end encryption would not have stopped the Manchester Arena outrage; simply better communication between the Security Service and the police would have.
It seems that the government is willing to compromise individual privacy and banking security. However they will allow everybodyâs safety, those of children and adults, to rest in the hands of barely understood technology that is certain to be re-purposed by hackers in the future. AI is far more stupid than Plod.
MoD civil servants and the military use Whatsapp, Telegram and Signal of necessity, just like everyone else. “Secure by Design” is the only safe solution. Built in back-doors benefit nobody – other than the intelligence services of Russia and China, who will regard them as a gift and immediately hack into them.
August 20, 2023
Delighted to be in agreement for once.
August 20, 2023
LA
Make the most of it because itâs unlikely to happen again!
August 20, 2023
Sahara has logic. At last.
August 20, 2023
Mobile comms has always had the back doors for location and traffic monitoring, originally courtesy of CALEA – the “Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act” established in the home of the free.
August 20, 2023
You have this spot on! Nothing to be added!
August 20, 2023
+1 S G.
August 20, 2023
To kick up a bogus ( ie cite a bogus motive) moral storm in order to get oneâs own way and at the same time nobble the opposition is a very old trick.
It was used to abolish slavery.
August 20, 2023
Slavery was never âabolishedâ. Merely outlawed in the British Empire. There are currently 700,000 slaves in Africa this day. Plenty in the U.K. too.
August 20, 2023
Never mind.
The Wealthy Few have furnished themselves with a wonderful tool which they can unleash at any point to quell or divert when the true horror of all this has finally dawned on the U.K./European population.
And if they can âdoâ the plandemic they can do that!
August 20, 2023
Groupthink does not allow discussion.
So we have had absolutely no discussion allowed about climate change, net zero or silly electric cars and heating. Instead we are insulted (“deniers”). The contempt of the BBC, ITV, government and education at all levels for us normal people (look at the silliness about “trans ideology for example) is reflected in the current despair.
Which is exactly why dictators arise and why revolutions happen.
August 20, 2023
Indeed add to that the “group think” pushed by government of the coerced vaccines which has killed and injured about 10,000 more people than nurse Lucy Letby. Similar for the net zero agenda which will kill even more if it continues.
See Dr John Campbell recent videos on the corruption of the regulators and the (surely corrupting) revolving doors for government “experts” and big pharma.
August 20, 2023
LL
I think that youâve seriously underestimated the true numbers affected!
August 20, 2023
I meant 10,000 times more than her⊠but I agree even that is an underestimate, even just for the UK. Including many young people who were never at any real risk for Covid.
August 20, 2023
Great post Mike. You respond to a post about climate change, net zero or silly electric cars and heating by telling us we have had absolutely no discussion allowed about climate change, net zero or silly electric cars and heating. The truth is that there is plenty of discussion, and everyone involved apart from wild-eyed right wingers is trying to find solutions to difficult problems. The one time you wild-eyed right wingers were allowed to get your way – Brexit – is the biggest policy disaster this country’s chosen in hundreds of years
August 20, 2023
The failure to deliver a real Brexit you mean – largely due to the remainer MPs, the traitors of the Benn Act, the speaker and the appalling Theresa May. Who also gave us the equally appalling net zero lunacy and modern slavery acts.
August 20, 2023
@Lemming
It must worry you greatly that 52% of those that voted are swivel eyed, right wing nutters. You should move abroad and make way for someone who doesnât mind us.
I voted to leave the EU because I donât like autocracy and, specifically, I didnât like the way Greece was treated. But, hey, my eyes are swivelling. Odd that, as a presumed âright wing nutterâ, I vote Green at every election. With the exception of the 2014 EU elections when UKIP got my vote.
August 20, 2023
Lemming. There is no discussion about climate change. The science is settled.
August 20, 2023
A good article and one that nearly hits the spot, nearly but at least SJR recognises the threat posed to freedom, democracy and the popular mass of civil people by the ‘elite’ who now use all forms of authoritarian tactics to snuff out any threat to their gruesome, barbaric agenda. This agenda will prove their downfall for at some point the mass will remove its compliance.
Covid was the gateway issue to the rise of State endorsed (US led, UN driven, EU promoted) progressive assault on the civil world.
Dissent crushed, race agenda used to demonise tens of millions, gender politics to confused destroy the natural balance, climate change politics to justify oppressive policies,promotion of drag to sexualise the young, legalisation of crime, feminist ideology to slander white men, all part of the filthy ESG agenda to infect, take control and use and abuse power.
Feelings and fakery replace reality and truth
Digitalise of cash will be a step to far for many when they wake up and realise that control of their economic life now rests with bureaucrats.
August 20, 2023
Those have been my thoughts for quite a long time DOM.
We also have the EU grab if Northern Ireland. I now see they have â Border Forceâ who cannot turn round the little boats but are able to stop lorries from NI to search their loads, the EU now own Northern Ireland despite our stupid PM ! All driven against the people by the corrupt Supreme Court, work of T Bliar!
August 20, 2023
and all those dodgy ‘cash’ transactions made harder. Banks cream off transaction profits, Treasury taxes profits- what’s not to like in that brave new world?
August 20, 2023
+++
Youâd have thought that somewhere post 1789 folk might have realised that putting their gold and trust in banks, paying taxes, going to war and into factories was not such a great idea.
No such luck! All relinquished for convenience and tremble, bleat, trembleâŠsafety ( đ)
August 20, 2023
Yes. Behave the way we want you to or your accounts will be cancelled.
Already the Diversity and Equality officers (commissars from our universities) are in all major organisations and the woke symbolism (rainbow flags, trans with mastectomies etc) is not there to signal virtue to the customer but to show the employee who is in control of their life and their opinion now. “Don’t dare question this ideology.”
Thus conservatism has been outlawed.
August 20, 2023
10,000 hospitalised in the USA with the new variant of COVID.
August 20, 2023
from what ? 400m people?
How many from being shot by legal guns?
August 21, 2023
The problem with a relative approach is that other factors link on to the original statement.Speed of spread and conditions for allowing that spread take precedence,whereas the likelihood of deaths from guns gives humanity a little control in contrast to the constant fight against pathogenic control.
August 20, 2023
Much of this may be true, but following the Truss debacle – we could call that âERM 2.0â as it seems it has had the same effect on the Conservativesâ political fortunes as did the ERM debacle in the 90s, and for the same reason – the public are likely to vote for an even more bossy govt next year.
In 2019 it was argued that the 80 seat Conservative majority was a resounding re-endorsement of brexit. Of course a big Labour majority in â24 will be spun by continuity remain in exactly the opposite direction – as a big rejection of brexit and a vote for rejoin or at least rejoin in all but name. Every single member of the next Govt from Starmer down will be an avid remainer. While they might not dare to put rejoin in their manifesto, be in no doubt thatâs the objective. Step 1 will be sector by sector deals to âimproveâ the current eu deal. This of course means signing up to applicable EUs rules and regs (but with no say). Itâs a short jump from there back into the CU and the SM and from there a short (and logical) jump to rejoin.
We better get used to bossiness weâre about to get much more of it, including a whole new layer from the EU, as Labour in effect puts us back under its suzerainty.
August 20, 2023
No prospect of rejoin. Maastricht rules require a country’s debt to GDP ratio less than 60%, and there’s no chance the UK will achieve that.
August 20, 2023
Rejoin in all but name is already underway with Sunak. But he’s a better spin merchant than Starmer who may equibvocate but at least he says what he means at the time, whereas Sunak says what he thinks, or his advisers tell him, the public want to hear.
August 20, 2023
Brexit is no longer a topic under discussion. Neither is rejoining. The default victory of Labour will not indicate a change of mind regarding Independence.
August 20, 2023
In fairness Sunak just sold the country down the river with his Windsor EU sell out! He also pledged not to be competitive with neighbours! The level playing already ensure the UK is in lockstep. The 85 seat majority was to do the exact opposite, get the UK, including N.Ireland, out of the EU. No ECJ, no ECHR, no money and control of our borders. The treacherous and traitorous Tory party lied and acted against why they were voted in office.
In 2010 they were elected to sort out the economy and to a smaller scale parliament ! Structural deficit being central and deliberately never achieved!! All parliament rules change to hide MPs wrong doing from public! No proper public right to recall ever properly implemented! We just had the Harman stitch up committee acting like a kangaroo court when Blaire never faced any such sanction!!
August 21, 2023
We have been set up by the Westminster Uni-Party to be in the outer tier of a two-tier Organisation – which will be implemented when the Ukraine war is over.
I predict:
Inner tier = EU = Eurozone countries and those who intend to join (ie not Sweden which is supposed to be committed to join, but is not doing it)
Outer tier = outside the Euro, but complying with EU Regulations across a swathe of policy areas = the UK, Turkey, Ukraine and probably the current non-Euro members who are supposedly committed to join but are also refusing to completely surrender their Sovereignty
August 20, 2023
Good article, Sir John. Sums up how many of us feel about the present governance of the UK. We are trapped in a Kafkaesque nightmare.
August 20, 2023
From one cynic to another Iâm in total agreement!
August 20, 2023
Then I must be a CYNIC too, as I Argee!
August 20, 2023
how can you be cynical about the truth?
August 20, 2023
The populists are now fully awake to the fact that the elites are liars.
They lie about ACC. They lie about NZ. They lie about CO2 and the effect it has on climate. They lie about the effectiveness of green intermittent energy. They lie about the harm to the environment, the slaughter of birds and bats, the recycling (or not) of wind turbines and solar panels. They lie about masks, lockdowns and social distancing. They lied about vaccine effectiveness and harms. In fact it is difficult to find any area of our lives where they tell the truth.
We know they lie. They know we know they are lying…………
August 20, 2023
+42
August 20, 2023
They know we can do nothing, sheep, lemmings, apathy.
‘Great’ Britain no longer.
August 20, 2023
BOF
Indeed!
But no sign of it stopping
August 20, 2023
+++
And they know we know they are lying.
A cornered rat is the most vicious and dangerous sort of rat!
Are they going to sacrifice their own dear NHS on the back of MSM wallowing in supposed infanticide rather than allow the plandemic truth to come out?
August 20, 2023
The Governing Elites of the UK are no different to the Governing Elites of the EU for the very good reason that they are one and the same: Globalist puppets of the WEF.
Both the EU and UK maintain a chimera of democracy but the Elite are governing with no democratic (or popular, if you prefer) consent for the CONsensus policies they are pushing. They don’t even bother trying to hide it. As Jean-Claude Juncker, former EU President said “âWe all know what to do, but we donât know how to get re-elected once we have done it.â So the Elite have ensured that elections don’t affect the imposition of the policies they know will not get democratic consent.
We saw an example of it in the UK only a few days ago. Net Zero, which will have a massive impact on the population, has no democratic mandate in the UK. We have not been offered a choice by one of the only two parties which can form a Government under our stitched-up electoral system. The policy has been imposed on us by the Westminster Uni-Party operating a CONsensus to deny the electorate an option to reject the process. The policy doesn’t originate in the UK – it originates with the UN (undemocratic); devolved to the EU (undemocratic); pushed by the WEF (undemocratic); imposed by the Westminster Uni-Party (undemocratic); propagandised by the BBC and other media organisations, often with no counter debate permitted.
Now the full costs and impact of the policy are becoming clearer, calls for a Referendum are growing and, following the Brexit vote, the Elite are no longer confident they can scare and bully the electorate into complying with their demands. So Sunak immediately squashed any idea of a Referendum. He knows he won’t be re-elected (not that he was in the first place) but that doesn’t matter to him because as a member of the Globalist Elite doing what is demanded of him, he will be “looked after.” And Starmer, another self-declared WEF Puppet, will continue pushing the policy which has no democratic mandate.
August 20, 2023
@Donna +1
Jean-Claude Juncker – He is atrributed a saying Demoocracy has no place in Government
August 20, 2023
JR and his colleagues could have stopped Sunak and Hunt. They chose not to. JR and chums could act and oust Sunak and Hunt after his Brexit betrayal of his Windsor sell out! They chose not. Party more important than national interest or why they were given 85 seat majority. Who in their right mind would have Europhile Hunt as chancellor in their party given the public mandate! Now most ministers are remainers with a complaint helpful europhile civil service- increased in number over 7 years by 100,000 at a total cost of ÂŁ15.5 billion!
I am afraid JRs blog does not wash, it is another attempt to convince the public there is some form of conservatism in his socialist party.
August 20, 2023
Daily he complains that there is not enough conservatism in the Tory Party. Before you pull the trigger, take a look at what you are shooting at.
August 20, 2023
@Hope. – for the most part +1
August 20, 2023
It’s not that the ruling elite are not listening – they know exactly what we want them to be doing, but they have their agenda, which means our views are unimportant.
For some years now the elites have been pursuing a policy of asset stripping from the masses to make the rich even richer. We saw this with covid equipment purchases and sky-high taxes. It’s part of the socialist concept called wealth transfer.
The agenda requires that the masses become impoverished in every sense of the word, while the elites prosper at our expense. It’s not that we have been invaded by an alien race who hate Humans enough to wipe many of us out … BUT it might as well be for all the horrors being unleashed on the majority of Mankind.
August 20, 2023
Bryan Harris
You have struck the nail squarely on the headâŠ.
August 20, 2023
The problem started in 1973 when the ratio of GDP to wages diverged spectacularly. The capitalists decided that the workers were getting to big a slice of the profits. See this graph:
https://equitablegrowth.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/The-gap-between-productivity-and-a-typical-worker%E2%80%99s-compensation-has-increased-dramatically-since-1973.png
August 20, 2023
Is it not the case that Western governments represent a globalist cabal (I refuse to call them an elite) and not the people? They are working to instructions designed to control and impoverish the majority for the benefit of the cabal. Our democracy is shown daily to be no more than a charade.
August 20, 2023
Correct.
August 20, 2023
Well said Sir Brian , I will Knight you as our green so-called King wont as he is part of that green CABAL!
August 20, 2023
Looking through BoE stats at M4 and M4L, it is clear that the economy is slowing down; growth rates are sinking. The chancellor has managed to tax out a further ÂŁ130 billion to date, of spending power since the ÂŁ919 billion he collected in 2021/22. Then there are circa ÂŁ1,450 billion of mortgages looking at 7% APRC when the fixed terms deals run out.
August 20, 2023
Our motorways are a clear indication of our allowing bossiness to intrude into our lives. Technology is âsmartâ. Yet on the motorway we got stuck for 20 minutes slowed down to 60 then 50 then 40, the signs said there was an obstruction (there wasnât it must have been cleared before).
We allow our controllers to close off motorway lanes and other roads for years, not months, years with nothing being done on that stretch. Our local council allowed a stretch of dual carriageway to be closed down to one lane on either side for over two weeks now (causing massive queues in rush hour) just to allow for an off road portacabin (there is a low use single track road next to it) and parking for a couple of work vehicles that could have been accommodated alongside the mile of road closed because of work in the grass verge on the other side of the dual carriageway. We just all quietly and frustratedly go along with this sort of things for months and years.
We allow this âbossinessâ of a handful of people, because wellâŠwhat can you do about it?
August 20, 2023
Indeed and if you give the state sector these powers they will most certainly use and abuse them to control, fine, tax, licence fee taxes, mug and boss people around to a very huge degree. Motorists especially easy targets for this but also businesses, the self employed, landlords, property ownersâŠ
August 20, 2023
Present elites are now viewed clearly as betraying the people. It is not a good a look and eventually (tiresomely slowly) there will be revolutions (best defined, alas, as circulations of elites).
August 20, 2023
It’s not just business, it’s also the lack of respect for free speech. With lots of factions jostling to be the arbiters of what should be acceptable speech. So that now anyone expressing main stream majority views will be cancelled, prevented from working at comedy festivals, working in the NHS, erased from main stream media, etc. And factions branded things like equality are nothing of the sort, they are often little disguised active discrimination against white male hetro working class people, the very opposite of decent. Then we have the “take it or leave it” attitude from public services, where you have to be a member of a famous band to get half decent service out of the NHS, some are more equal writ large for all to see. There is no meritocracy, only awards for box ticking, or contacts in the liberal elite.
August 20, 2023
Should start not just bosiness of course…
August 20, 2023
I suspect not much has changed over many decades apart from the EU which has squashed national democracies but then that was the point allegedly to stop conflict but really to create a social democratic economic closed shop as a counter balance to the US and neuter Germany.
Populations relied on radio, TV, newspapers but as with so much else, the internet has shine a light on their untrustworthy nature but more importantly it has brought transparency, or certainly, much more to political decision taking and performance and made discussion and dissent instant.
It has shown how ill served we are by many of our politicians with Orwellian snouts in the trough and naked ambition driving a belief in nothing but their advancement with amnesia leading to u turns on an industrial scale,
Hence our anger. What is their answer. We are already seeing it. If comments in the papers this morning are to be believed about Ulez, threats and censorship to close down debate and on a wider scale, we saw it with Covid.
We see how the elites despise the populist Farage. We need someone to emerge from the ashes of the Tory party and don most, not all, of Thatchers mantle.
August 20, 2023
Somewhat apropos of this, here is a letter that I have sent to the Maidenhead Advertiser:
“I have no idea why James Aidan should imagine that I blame officials for our rotten Brexit deal, as I have repeatedly made it clear that the blame lies with politicians.
Above all Tory politicians – David Cameron and George Osborne, then Theresa May and then Boris Johnson – who between them have split up the United Kingdom.
It will be recalled that when the first two found that “Project Fear” had not won them the referendum they scooted off, and the third put herself forward to take over.
It was because she fell down on the job that we ended up with the Great Charlatan as Prime Minister, and he did what both she and he had said should never be done.
Creating a customs and regulatory border within the UK, between Northern Ireland and Great Britain, instead of at the international frontier with the Irish Republic.
Not only are there obstacles to the movement of goods into Northern Ireland, officials are now holding up goods moving from Northern Ireland to Great Britain.
That is being classified as the “importation” of goods, as if they were coming from a foreign country rather than part of the UK, further negating the Acts of Union.”
Reference:
https://www.newsletter.co.uk/news/opinion/columnists/jim-allister-unionists-should-be-wary-the-protocol-noose-is-tightening-4259779
“Hitherto the focus has been on the fettering of Great Britain to Northern Ireland trade, but in recent days lorries carrying goods from Northern Ireland to Great Britain were stopped by Border Force at Great Britain ports and details on the consignments demanded on the basis that they were being âimportedâ.
The fact that moving goods from Northern Ireland to Great Britain is now classified as âimportationâ is telling confirmation of the constitutional and economic detachment wrought by the protocol.””
August 20, 2023
Denis when we rejoin the EU single market and CU all of these problems you talk about will fade away we will become a province of the EU again.
August 20, 2023
That is the plan.
August 20, 2023
That will be the same day as the Ukrainian victory over Russia.
August 20, 2023
The clown government we currently have should spend the relatively short time they have left U-turning on virtually every policy they have been pushing.
August 20, 2023
Or, they could run up a massive debt for Labour to sort out. Hold on, is that a ship pulling out of port?
August 20, 2023
SirJ, a heartfelt message today …one I agree with
August 20, 2023
Don’t know why we are talking about the EU again – john says the current governing elites of the EU are particularly unpopular but I don’t know about that because personally I don’t know any elites in the EU – I don’t know how he does. But I do know this that we listened too much to the British elites here in their bossiness who galvanised popular belief and brought this country down – IDS, Rees-Moog, Gove, Boris, Farage etc the ones who promised us everything including the sunny uplands with a pack of lies. All these elites mentioned here are the bossy types – they talk down to us from on high and too many believed them.
August 20, 2023
@fairweather. Nonsense from the first word to the last. All weâve had since we voted to leave the EU is a refusal by the elites to actually do it. What theyâve half done (well, quarter done, if that) is the worst of all possible worlds.
August 20, 2023
âïž 180! Good darts Mike
August 20, 2023
I went to my Grandsons birthday party yesterday Sir John. My son’s In-Laws mentioned that you had knocked on their door recently, presumably doing a bit of canvassing. I asked them what you had said but was told it was just nonsense, as “all the main parties are the same and none of them will make any difference to us”. Apparently they don’t intend to vote at the next election.
It seems one of your biggest challenges is voter apathy. People have just given up on the political process, having lost faith in your ability to achieve anything for them – any of you. I didn’t bother arguing, just nodded my understanding.
August 20, 2023
Indeed. I am certain it will be a Labour landslide on an extremely low vote. Most Tory voters have given up on the Tory Party and will not bother voting.
August 20, 2023
pretty fair opinion – where can I get bookmaker odds on that?
August 20, 2023
You could tell your son-in-law to come and live here.
Heâd see no politician whatsoever and get no reply if he tried to contact one.
You could also say that if JR did indeed knock on his door then he should admire him greatly for his unwavering loyalty and courage.
And vote for him, grateful that he is still lucky enough to have representation.
August 20, 2023
We’re importing over one-fifth of our energy from europe today …don’t remember seeing that policy in the last manifesto …interconnectors as at 09:00hrs 22.6% (imported biomass and lpg gas – unknown/not recorded)
August 20, 2023
I get the impression that in the UK various vested interests, lobby groups, call them what you will, have decided the democracy does not suit their interests. The current consocialist government is as guilty of this as any body outside government, after the Truss coupe. Those that disagree should reflect on all that was done to reverse the 2016 referendum result. When unable to reverse it, they ensured that the divorce was as messy as possible to ensure that the benefits were diluted in the hope for a path back.
The latest example is the banks who want to live in a totally controlled currency world probably on an international scale. It is oft said, follow the money to get to the truth. In the case of bank behaviour they wish to own the money and ergo control the agenda. I will be very critical should this government fail to put them firmly, and with legal constraint, back in their box.
Consocialism is weak in failing to deal with illegal immigration robustly. Any organisation with their own agenda senses this like a wild animal and is encourage to persue self interest. Witness Just Stop Oil, Greenpeace, the LBGT Stonewall education changing rabble who fly in the face of Biology and the Oxford English Dictionary. Government is not governing in the interests of the British People or even the electorate who put them in place. The next government has one hell of a challenge, not only to get elected , but to fight all those interests that wish to exert power outside democracy.
August 20, 2023
I am optimistic. History has shown that regimes that excessively use propaganda and the threat of force to suppress the popular will eventually crumble.
Propaganda is a house built on sand. Brainwashed people eventually discover they cannot argue their points since they donât know what they are arguing for. They begin to question the lines they are being fed.
We are being forced, by threat of jail, to hand over our money for their bizarre ideas. They rely on officers of the police and armed forces to back up their regime. One day, these officers will refuse and will side with the People.
I donât know when it will happen, but it will happen.
August 20, 2023
It is not unhappiness, John. It is absolute awareness that the political class are knowingly malicious. Worse than that, the political class are aware of their standing in society, yet they refuse to change?
Cromwell’s speech to Parliament comes to mind. If such a man was living among us today, the nation would welcome his marching into Westminster and ordering the gathered host of knaves and jackals possessing less integrity than his horse, to be gone…. Go!!!
August 20, 2023
Which Conservative PMs in our lifetimes have ever stood up against this bossiness? Margaret Thatcher, of course, and look what happened to her when she delivered the ultimate slap down “No! No! No!” For a short while, Boris Johnson did, when he was in his visionary phase rather than his terrified, henpecked and green phase. Possibly Liz Truss but without enough time to prove herself.
Which potential future Conservative PMs – if that is not now an oxymoron, for well known reasons – would be likely to stand up against it? Possibly Miriam Cates, who has allied herself with Jordan Peterson’s Alliance for Responsible Citizenship, an anti-bossiness organisation if ever there was one. There’s JRM, of course, who has observed that politics should not be about making people’s lives difficult. But the bossiness of the PPC approval and selection process has otherwise left very thin pickings.
August 20, 2023
âThe governing elites are usually unpopularâ that suggestion alone highlights the problem âelitesâ is a personal mindset and a personal opinion.
âThey may have to make unpopular decisionsâ Thatâs the next belief situation in a Democracy that is wrong – it is not their function.
âThe current governing elites of the EU are particularly unpopularâ That is their own personal Choice. They are unelected, unaccountable and not responsible for their Diktatâs and actions. The EU Commission was set up to be a trade Commission, not a political policy making forum, they over stepped position and as a result have dismissed Democracy.
Those within the UKâs State infrastructure in thinking they are âeliteâ clearly want to mirror they way EU is Governed in the UK. They are there just to serve the Elected Government they are not the Government.
The UKâs problem is that 13 years of Conservative Government rule were the elected members reject serving and instead pick up the baton of ruling. One can on believe they see being as an MP, a Government Minister it is a stepping stone to becoming an âeliteâ. A fractured, destroyed Democracy by those that are there to defend it.
August 20, 2023
Good morning Sir John
A very take on the World as it is today.
What is an âeliteâ, there is no such thing, its a mind set of people that would in the real world fail.
Professionals doing their job I get. If we had a Conservative Government that could do its job and manage I would also get it. But once those empowered and paid by the democratic process start to take their mandate from an alternative source that is not their electorate, they have failed and need to resign.
Once someone is funded at any stage by the taxpayer, they become servants of the Country and their management is always the Government of the day. As the say the âbuck stopsâ with the PM â he has failed those that elected him.
August 20, 2023
Plus 1
August 20, 2023
Ian B
Hang on, I donât remember anything about other current PM being elected?
I know that weâve had a lot just recently and my memory isnât as good as it was!
August 20, 2023
@Lester_Cynic, correct, the Conservative Party was elected by the people and they were denied the right to elect thier leader. The modern elitist version of how to rule – first deny democracy
August 20, 2023
Ian B
Wait a minute, perhaps the World Economic Forum held a vote
I hadnât taken that into consideration,
August 20, 2023
@Lester_Cynic – that is also correct, they didn’t like Tuss so appointed the own kind
August 20, 2023
From today’s Media – Liz Truss was refused a Monzo account for her Conservative leadership campaign because of her status as a politically exposed person (PEP), it has been claimed.
August 20, 2023
These are âelitistsâ – not the elite.
August 20, 2023
Good morning Sir John
A lot of what you are saying is about are we a Democracy or Not? If elected members cant stand up defend and fight for the purpose and reasoning of a democracy they shouldnât be there. As I read what you infer, do we need MPâs â they serve no purpose. Do we need and elected Government – it serves no purpose.
Democracy needs to be taken back, Parliament needs to step up and the Conservative Government needs to start âmanagingâ
August 20, 2023
So much common sense expressed by your contributors Sir John
They represent a cross section of the views of the vast majority of the indigenous population of this country, how much longer will we be ignored ⊠slow to anger âŠ.
August 20, 2023
I read a good piece in the Brexit 4 You website about CO2 yesterday https://facts4eu.org/news/2023_aug_greta_grief.
All believers and this Government should be made to read the stats produced and the ridiculously stupid policies produced by the Uni-Party on Net Stupid. Self harm is an understatement and that’s without stating the bleading obvious that CO2 is a trace gas that feeds the worlds plants and in turn ALL LIVING THINGS! Without it we all die.
August 20, 2023
Missed out was those that move to populism recognise that the elected government lack sufficient power to overcome the ruling elite.âAnd those that try too hard come a cropper.âTrump failed to drain the swamp.âBoris’s lack of care exploited.âThe Bank of England’s careful scheduling harmed Truss’s budget.
Lord Rees-Mogg, father of Sir Jacob, co-authored ‘The Sovereign Individual’ in ’97 which explained how governments would become weaker as they’re deprived of income by a workforce which can more readily relocate and pay taxes where they choose.âAnd that governments will also lose the monetary hegemony and with it the ‘tax’ of an inflation target as a cryptographic Internet money is chosen as a harder money to some national currencies, just as the US dollar is preferred now in many higher-inflation countries.
A black market today trades in cash to avoid leaving an electronic paper trail but cash loses value through deliberate inflation. Those working on an Internet money value privacy.âIf that is achieved then the combination of a black market and a private electronic payments system with no central control would weaken a high-taxing government’s income further.âIt would help foster a ‘parallel society’ as we saw behind the Iron Curtain.
It is the pressure of threatened emigration and a growing black market which will encourage low-tax sound-money governments to compete for tax payers.âNot political pressure from voters who still lack power when their chosen reformers are elected but thwarted.
August 21, 2023
Ralph
I suppose that is what happened in the former East Germany. Once there was no way of stopping them leaving for West Germany they effectively voted with their feet and the economy, such as it was, collapsed resulting in a loss of authority of the East German government.
But the process will not happen quickly like in the former East Germany, but in a drip, drip fashion much like it is happening now.
August 22, 2023
Hi Mark, And some of that drip is emigration of those paying the most tax.âI don’t mean those that end up in Monaco, just the ÂŁ60,000/year type.âWhat’s not often counted is the knock-on effect.âThat ex-pat may have a younger sibling.âHe follows big brother some years later even though lower tax has returned here as his eyes have been opened to the weather, lifestyle, etc. from visits.âAnd then there’s further tax loss as they’re both likely to have children who in turn become high tax payers.
It’s interesting to see the competition between American states at the moment.âFollowing Douglas Carswell is one way to do this as he now heads up a Missippissi think-tank arguing for low state income tax, now down to 4%, better public schooling, etc.âSeeing competition within England on a similar scale would be interesting.âCounties are too small but we have the nine regions of England, e.g. East Midlands. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regions_of_England#Regions_as_areas_of_administration
August 20, 2023
Those who take on positions of representation and responsibility do not have to face a filtering process that includes how they will subsequently react when appointed . Effective supervision must always exist from the top down and if it is not constantly present the public will suffer afterwards one way or another . Constant checks on aims and progress are essential ingredients in supervision and the voting public periodically informed . Egos must be restrained .
August 20, 2023
âThe refusal of the elites to take many of the popular issues seriously adds to the tensions.â
Not only are our elites pursuing unpopular policies, such as mass immigration and Net Zero, for which they have no mandate, they two finger us by ensuring that no matter how poorly, or even criminally, their membership performs in their jobs they remain part of the elite group by transferring to another elite job garnering golden goodbyes and hellos on the way whilst curbing free speech.
Since there is no Parliamentary party for whom I can now vote, and despite many years of supporting FPTP, I now consider that our only way out of this hole and drain the swamp is by pressing for proportional representation (actually I would really prefer AV) and referendums on these major issues.
August 20, 2023
Original Richard
Iâm sure that you will already know where the two fingered gesture originated from?
If the French captured an English Archer they would chop off the index and middle finger of their right hand so they were unable to draw a bow, the Archers at Agincourt indicated to their French opponents that they still possessed the 2 essential digits in the now well-known gesture, different matter if the Archer was left handed though!
I miss Robert Hardy, an expert on the Longbow, he was able to examine the vast quantities of Bows and Arrows recovered from the wreck of the Mary Rose and in many cases he was able to draw the Bows and shoot the original Arrows, he was astounded by the draw weights of the Bows
We were on a ferry destined for Cherbourg from Portsmouth when they were raising the wreck
Sorry Sir John, I was on a roll!
August 20, 2023
14 years of Tory rule and much of it with a huge majority. Everything that happens can be called Tory policy. Own it.
You’ve really hurt us and you’ve seriously hurt our kids.
You expect our votes ???
August 20, 2023
+1
August 20, 2023
It’s Tory policy. For all to see. No EU to blame. Tories HATE Tory voters.
August 21, 2023
In precursors to Hillary Clinton’s “deplorables” comment ….. never forget that Cameron called many, if not most, of his own Party’s voters “the Turnip Taleban” and “swivel-eyed loons.”
Oh, and those who had already deserted the Party over its decades-long EU treachery were branded “fuitcakes, loonies and closet racists.”
August 20, 2023
âThe splintering of their votes reveals an inner unhappiness by electors.â
And, remarkably, the response to this is not to address that unhappiness, but to try and use force to ram what we explicitly *donât* want even further down our throats.
Professor Matthew Goodwin has written a very good book about this called âValues, Voice and Virtue: the new British politicsâ, which starts by saying how incredible it is that we now live in a country where more than half of people think ânone of the main parties represent me or my valuesâ, where seven in ten people in Britain now think âthe experts in this country do not understand people like meâ (citations given in text).
I foresee big trouble ahead.
August 20, 2023
experts are people who have found a way of persuading everybody that what the expert wants is good.
August 20, 2023
I think what the elites are not understanding about immigrants is that if they were treated like the rest of us, no free homes or even basic accommodation, no low cost social housing in our big cities, no help with grants during our higher education, no free everything and top ups to our schools teaching British born kids no they go lower and lower down the allowances. People wouldnât be as bothered because theyâd sink on their own and probably wouldnât stay. Just what % of low cost assisted cost housing is provided to white British people in our five top Cities in the age group 21 to 30?
If you go to a major city now, the eyes may deceive, but the people seemingly getting social housing with âcar parking spacesâ donât appear to be white English speakers, do you have statistics to disprove that because that would be useful.
We talk about diversity in the NHS and other big public organisations but the hiring teams in our big cities seem to be going the other way and hiring disproportionate numbers of our nations citizens thus blocking access to trainees from elsewhere in the Country to the best teaching hospitals. I know plenty of people that think a ÂŁ29k pa salary for a 21 year old grad nurse is a great salary, how many of our children are being refused nursing training places per year? We should look at who are being selected how many of them are working class girls and boys with parents who jointly earn around ÂŁ30k pa?
August 20, 2023
One thing the ‘elites’ like is an electoral system like FPTP which allows them to impose their policies on a nation through their ownership of the two main parties via their back pockets without the difficulty of challenger parties forming to oppose their agenda. When that is not the case, they have to break cover in order to ban them as they are proposing to do in Germany. ‘Elites’ do not like exposing themselves to the light of day; they would rather we were ignorant of their existence for which they are heavily reliant on the MSM to distract our attention with stories to excite, enrage and frighten us.
Even where there is a FPTP electoral system, as we have, that effectively blocks challenger parties from entering the political arena, if there is a presidential system as in the USA, then a challenger candidate, not previously endorsed by the ‘elites’ of a party, can put himself forward to stand for election; in that case, the ‘elites’ have to invent legal reasons why the challenger candidate is unsuitable or unavailable.
Such are the travails of the ‘elites’ whose self-appointed role is to rule over us despite their living in nominal democracies in the ‘free’ West.
August 20, 2023
Not so or the arch-elitists in the EU would have FPTP. What they want is for no government to be able to be elected or sacked! Then they horsetrade behind the scenes. They also have an excuse not to deliver any manifesto.
Anything other than FPTP canât be called democracy.
August 21, 2023
The EU has majority support from the electorate. However, proportional representation means that challenger Eurosceptic parties have appeared in Germany and Italy and and elsewhere that are winning parliamentary seats and in Italy have their leader, the Prime Minister of a party formed in 2012. Despite distaste with the EU in England, no challenger candidate has won a single seat.
Keep hoping the Tories will come good? Dream on; that day is over.
August 20, 2023
This is what I have been describing for years as the cancer of EU elite culture eating into Westminster and Whitehall. It is inimical to democratic government. Those affected despise democratic accountability, such is their sense of superiority.
It accounts for the failure of UK governments to take advantage of Brexit. They have yet to be cured.
It accounts for Sunak’s aquiescence in EU power over the UK, his acceptance of permanent EU rule and ECJ jurisdiction in Northern Ireland, his acceptance of the need for UK’s regulatory alignment with the EU so as not to upset UK’s powerful and malign neighbour.
Sunak is a technocrat who would be more at home with his like minded colleagues in the EU than alone and awkwardly trying to appeal to the great unwashed of Britsh society about whom he knows little and doesn’t want to know except that he must if he wants to remain in office. How distasteful for him.
August 20, 2023
Just reading other comments on here I hope Sir John is not surprised to find what he describes of EU governance is exactly the view very many Brits have of UK governance under the Tories. If he is surprised he should tune in to Matt Goodwin who has been charting this for months and months. Sir John is one of the few decent honest Tories who is genuinely patriotic and cares about the UK and its people. Too many of his colleagues do not.
August 20, 2023
The Lucy Letby let off and apologise case in the NHS is the “ultimate bossiness” example where “we k(no)w best” bossiness leads to disastrous outcomes and where the original aim to protect the most vulnerable of vulnerable with no voice or ability to complain led to the total opposite!
This should be the final straw to break the back of this know all bossiness culture in Britain starting with the NHS and followed by the BBC, Civil service and many others too numerous to be listed here.
The Uncommon sense must prevail (once known as Common sense).
A full Public inquiry should now let no stone be unturned in getting full accountability, full transparency and full disclosure where whistle blowers are denied and instead “weaponised” against each other and made to effectively apologise instead. Unbelievable, totally out of order. Sheer insanity!
August 20, 2023
Hopefully all the information required for any public inquiry should be easy to put their hands on having investigated this fully and thoroughly, recording each incident at the time of each death or critical near death. One of the head guys was reported in one paper today saying he wasnât made aware one of the baby deaths involved insulin so I suspect a âI canât recallâ will play a big part in whitewashing the senior leaders role in this.
Itâs certainly an odd case this, Lucy seems to have been a managers favourite as someone willing to do late shifts, extra cover shifts at short notice, seen as indispensable, I think what brought this home to me along with the strange hand written notes and bags full of handover sheets she wasnât supposed to take home was the tick list that every baby who died or nearly died was when she was on shift and the other nurses were only present at most six of the seventeen incidents so why on earth didnât that start a police inquiry immediately? Especially as it seems that number of incidents was significantly higher than the historic averages.
August 21, 2023
âRishi Sunak insisted that a non-statutory inquiry would be the quickest method of doing so.â Iâm concerned about Rishiâs political antenna is faulty, Sir Keir has now made this known he would have a statutory inquiry and it shouldnât take any longer, so the union bods in the NHS will refuse to give non-statutory evidence their unions will frustrate the Tories every move so do it properly. Head it up with someone that is looking for a genuinely fast statutory inquiry and is capable of delivering that because they are already respected in the NHS as fair and thorough. Or they will string Sunak up.
August 21, 2023
Only a full Public inquiry can force those who took the fateful and fatal decisions be made to face up to their responsibilities and not be cowardly like the non appearance of Letby.
August 20, 2023
Andrew Neil has an excellent article on how bossiness by the once untouchable elites of the German and China powerhouses plus Russia have made bad decisions and sent them on a downward trend instead of what they envisioned. The exact opposite for Merkle, Putin and Xi.
August 20, 2023
Neil is very confused! Obviously.
August 20, 2023
That language really bugs me. They donât âGIVE ANYTHING AWAYâ. They take endless amounts of tax from us and largely piss it away like drunken sailors.
August 20, 2023
hilarious – taxed to the very death, and now a tiny reduction in some small sphere and it becomes ‘giving away too little’……well thank you for nothing.
August 20, 2023
In a general election every voter should vote in their own personal interest. They tell us that Green energy and EVs will be cheaper. My last energy supplier, before they went bust, told me that they were supplying me with 100% renewable electricity but the price I paid was identical to electricity from gas. Energy will never be cheaper to buy and EVs will never be cheaper to buy and run because that would imply the government reducing their tax and duty income on them. So I have no economic incentive at all to vote for Net Zero. I also have no ethical
incentive either because achieving net zero in UK will have precisely zero effect on the worldâs climate.
August 20, 2023
You can inflate the housing market – endlessly – and force each generation to take on ever larger debt. You can destroy the unions and outsource industry so many people struggle to survive in your gig economy. You can get people working two or three jobs and they get their heads down and get on with it. You can raise taxes to the highest level since the war and use them to provide useless public services.
BUT, if Facebook and WhatsApp withdraw from the UK because of your âOnline Security Billâ, I wouldnât be surprised if that caused very serious problems. You can only push people so far.
August 20, 2023
And, of course, WhatsApp has threatened to shut down the UK rather than comply with making its messaging non end to end encrypted.
August 20, 2023
Encryption didnât help Matt Hancock much but wait a minute ⊠we had Isabel Oakeshott to reveal the hidden messages
Perhaps it was a ploy?
Who knows
August 20, 2023
The American journalist Bari Weiss in her resignation letter-
” a new consensus has emerged in the press,…………
: that truth isn`t a process of collective discovery, but an orthodoxy already known to an enlightened few whose job is to inform everyone else ”
The letter is online.
August 20, 2023
Suddenly very popular?
August 20, 2023
Read in Mail this a.m ( it’s gone now ) some correspondent bewailing the human detritus soiling the streets of Bath.
This story is being pushed promoted about places in US too. So it’s an agenda !
Most ordinary people’s natural inclination is to help life’s unfortunates.
I am wary of everything these days but I enjoyed
Rich men of Richmond song on Youtube.
August 20, 2023
There is something wrong with a Government that prioritises:
âhurty feelingâ investigations above that of real crimes;
Illegal immigrantâs welfare above that of its own people;
Net zero goals above the need for affordability and deliverability;
Giving away our sovereignty to non-elected institutions like the WHO, WEF and the UN;
Kowtowing to foreign powers and giving away part of the UK;
Giving away our fishing waters;
The list could go on and on. Itâs as if our elected politiciansâ aim in life is to inflict as much damage on the country as they possibly can. I canât think of one positive policy this government has introduced in the 13 years it has been in power. What a sad indictment. We have had a string of PMs who have gone off on their own insane agendas and ignored the voters who elected them.
August 20, 2023
Christine – Govt has not gone off on their own insane agendas but have gone off on their hols.
Think last year the Suez Canal was blocked by that ship Ever Given this yesr traffic is slowed down in the Panama canal and queuing time to get through for ships is twenty days because of no water no rain. And here we are signing agreements for trade with countries in the Pacific region and the Far East – no wonder they are gone on their hols – we are screwed.
August 20, 2023
+many
August 20, 2023
Now Christine, that looks a good statement to finish on!
It totally sums up all the opinions expressed today.đđ»
August 20, 2023
Christine +++
August 20, 2023
This blog is on a complicated topic and is better suited to University work than as a blog for short comments.
So a few short thoughts. There has definitely been much change in electoral disputation from economic equality (Socialists can’t convince many voters any more that they will make the poor richer by making the rich poorer after many decades of failure to achieve that) into woke and anti-woke world views. The governing elites are usually or at least pretend to be woke while most ordinary voters see the unrealities and craziness of woke.
It is also evident where they have survived, some of the traditional parties, the U.S. Republicans with Trump and to a lesser extent the British Conservatives in the Boris Johnson era, even Tony Abbott in Australia, have incorporated significant elements of populism (causing huge resistance from the traditionalist politicians within those parties).
Furthermore populist policies are not enough to overthrow the traditional order but it also needs a very charismatic leader such as Berlusconi or Trump (Nigel Farage was not widely charismatic enough to succeed).
Finally here I suspect bossiness from the elite is more a symptom rather than the cause of their problems, a symptom caused by a sense of superiority to lesser people, reinforced by overwhelming agreement from their associates from their elitist groups.
August 20, 2023
Home Office data 19th August
Illegal Economic Criminal Immigrants â 130
Illegal Boats â 3
Enough to fill a barge every day
August 20, 2023
I can’t think of anything bossier than ordering the entire population to stay at home and stop working, removing the ability to earn a living while financially supporting large corporate interests, allowing food retailers to refuse to deliver food, and penalising the self-employed, who nearly starved.
Who did that? The ‘Conservative’ government, swallowing every fake medical propaganda fed to it. And the Tory majority in Parliament voted for it.
August 20, 2023
“The splintering of their votes reveals an inner unhappiness by electors”
The difference in Europe is PR rather than first past the post (FPTP).
PR has its problems – and there are many forms of PR, each with its pros and cons – but the advantage is that it’s always worth voting for something you want rather than voting against something you don’t want (i.e. tribally) as in FPTP.
The Social Democrats came closest to breaking the mould, perhaps because they had some fairly heavy hitting mainstream policians who defected to them. I’m surprised to see such low vote counts for Reform UK and Reclaim in by-election. Sooner or later the UK electorate needs to realise that none of the parties currently in Westminster is the answer (Bridgen aside), they will always be in a position to ignore the electorate as long as this continues.
August 20, 2023
In essence the Conservative Party has betrayed the UK, they stood in elections on a Conservative Agenda, got the votes, then immediately went off on a egotistical crusade of the Socialist WEF.
This discussion today wouldn’t be happening if there was some common decency and desire to fulfill pledges and serve the electorate
August 20, 2023
”Sadiq Khanâs office tried to discredit and âsilenceâ scientists who found that his ultra-low emissions zone (Ulez) policy had little impact on pollution, The Telegraph can disclose….”
August 22, 2023
And once again we find Imperial College involved, via a research department to which the Mayor was giving an annual ÂŁ850,000 of London taxpayers’ cash in return for ‘support’.
August 20, 2023
We now have several very serious rifts between our politicians and voters. The two most acute are over Net Zero and net immigration, although there are others.
We have a situation where every political party represented in Parliament is wedded to Net Zero by 2050, yet almost all of the public know this is unaffordable and unachievable for many reasons. This is very dangerous for democracy, although we are a long way from the German situation where there are calls to ban the AfD party, despite it polling at more than 25%.
We will be going into the 2024 general election with no party ready to reign back on the cost of Net Zero and almost all parties less than serious about reducing net migration to manageable levels. By that, I mean a level our infrastructure can absorb without the lifestyle of our existing population being made worse. Say, no more than 100,000 net new arrivals a year.
This is a threat to Democracy itself. If Politicians do not take note of the wishes of voters, the electorate will look for alternative ways of having their desires met. Should Sunak lose the election, I can see the Conservative party descending into factions blaming each other for the failure. The same will apply to Labour.
Sooner or later a party taking a sensible and realistic approach to Net Zero will start winning by-elections. ThIs may well be a new party which will, like Brexit, will frighten one of the traditional parties to change course on Net Zero and immigration, but they will also have to change the law to enforce voters’ demands to dramatically reduce inward migration.
August 21, 2023
I think the EU Commission is very bossy because our officials sounded out some of the EU countries on an individual basis over trade matters and when the commission found out they advised all EU countries to disregard the UK approach so I think Instead of being so bossy these countries should be paying more attention to what UK have to say.
August 22, 2023
JR: “The governing elites are usually unpopular.”
Would you describe a member of the Privy council and a former minister of the Crown, a member of the governing elite?