A Tsunami of Political Problems is Coming.
A
tsunami of political problems is surging towards the coast of the United Kingdom
and Boris Johnson is sitting on the beach watching it come towards us!
Caroline Strafford
sets out below some of the problems that need urgent action, in no particular
order:
1
Possibility of Russia invading Ukraine.
2
Possible sabotage of telecommunication
cables on sea-beds by Russia.
3
Over dominance of China in our trade.
4
Increase in taxes and National Insurance in
the spring.
5
Oil companies keeping their prices high
when world prices have dropped.
6
Over “greening” of our policies with huge
cost implications.
7
Banning conservatories.
8
Continued sewage spillage in our rivers.
9
Dangerous shrinking of our defence forces.
10
Sorting out the NHS from a bureaucratic
point of view as it has so many committees about which the general public know
nothing and patients still having difficulty
getting
face to face appointments.
11
Allowing the UK to have a sensible power
storage system and take gas from new field in North Sea and not be reliant on other countries.
12
Stop the use of motorway hard shoulders as
an extra lane.
13
Get all the civil servants back to work
in their offices.
14
Stop statues being pulled down because a
few don’t like them and ensuring the police take action.
15
Eliminate illegal immigration by all routes.
16
Position of the country post Brexit.
17
Impact of inflation.
18
Impact of increasing interest rates.
19
Reduction of National Debt.
20
Get the Northern Ireland protocol sorted
out.
These are all fair points that my Conservative voting parents would have voted for.Johns comments on his recent RT interview about the Party being controlled by the Corporations and City of London Interest is at the nubs of the current malaise.Traditional Conservativ3 values are being displaced by deceits, outright criminality and interests that are completely contemptuous of the needs of ordinary working men and women.This schism of power in the "Ruling Party" is as big as that of the opposition.Frankly good men and women of all political factions need to coalesce in a new Party that reflects the older middle of the road politics that needs to be seen to be doing the right policies with accountability and transparency.
ReplyDeleteYou speak sense.
DeleteListing immediate concerns - not that I share them all - may be helpful but falls short of suggesting a pathway for (political) Conservatism to cohere as an idea in the 21st century.
ReplyDeleteLabour was hijacked by Blair and his cronies en route to personal enrichment. Starmer appears to be in thrall to BLM, the Board of Deputies of British Jews, 'wokism', and 'gender' delusionists. His party stands for nothing coherent. Yet, by default, for want of anything better, Labour may win the next general election. Under Corbyn it might have been a much needed radical party comparable to its 1945 manifestation.
For what do Conservatives now stand? Before Mrs Thatcher that was reasonably certain. There was a persistent undercurrent of "noblesse oblige" and decency (this bequeathed over generations by Britain's long established gentry. "Jack" was not deemed as good as his master, nor should be, but "Jack" was not always pushed aside with contempt. Particularly post-WW2, effort was made to assist "Jack's" able offspring to fulfil their potential; that is until the 70s when selective education collapsed and the late 80s when higher education was dumbed down.
Mrs Thatcher and most of her various cabinets were at heart decent people but were gulled into what's now called Neo-liberalism through Hayek's writing. Views consonant with the dismal mindset of the late Ayn Rand.
Thatcher's declaration "There's no such thing as society" marked start of end days for political Conservatism. When Blair came to power he took forward momentum generated by Thatcher, but coasted along by her immediate successors, and applied neo-liberalism in context of a government mired in corruption.
Post Blair/Brown, Conservatives in and out of coalition were led by two people of mediocrity and no discernible values and then settled on a knavish man whose cocktail party chatter and 'wit' was foolishly deemed as expressing intellectual depth. He and Charles Windsor are peas in a pod with the former being superficially more articulate.
During forty or so years of neo-liberalism we have witnessed rampant malfeasance and incompetence in the financial sector, foolish belief in markets having the "wisdom of the crowd" despite communal services demonstrably better run in the state sector than under "for profit" motivation; hence dismal railways and utility services like British Gas offering customers free entry into prize draws.
There has been one major financial crash which should not have occurred if a modicum of regulation remained and might have been deterred had financial malfeasance and incompetence led to CEOs receiving severe punishment as counterbalance to ridiculous bonus culture. Another crash awaits, this exacerbated in the UK by Johnson's silly measures against Covid-19 and naive expectation of "science" rushing in the cavalry (as in Hollywood movies). Well established disease control measures, these outlined in the Great Barrington Declaration, were sidelined in favour of political micromanagement by clueless 'leaders' clinging onto advice from snake-oil salesmen.
Hope for the country and for the Conservative Party rests upon reasserting the existence of "society". Recognition of profit maximisation - particularly when 'externalities' are ignored - being route to cultural sterility. Also, a sense of noblesse oblige fitting to 21st century requirements.