Where did political unity go and why.

 Subject: Where did political unity go and why.





The fluidity of political thought and it’s divergence is seen nowhere more predominantly  than in the jockeying for political influence in the European Parliament.

The upsurge of the far right parties over fears on immigration to the pressure of the Greens over climate warming are examples of a political divide rather than what should be a collaboration for an overall better balanced Europe. It seems over in Europe, as in this country, that the means to an end is mired in ideology which unfailingly suggests different ways of doing things rather than finding solutions to a range of problems.

Do we have too much ‘unaccounted’ and ‘unmanaged’  immigration. Have we allowed market forces to overtake and destabilise the balance in localised food production. Are we not properly evaluating the range of need in house building against the free market solution which determines what is profitable for the builder to build. Have we not undervalued our doctors and teachers in the obsession with centralised control and the reduction of the cost of the public sector and its place in government spending.

The list goes on and, particularly in this country which has seen the pressure build as public sector pay deals were kept deliberately below cost of living as if it were the solution to balancing the books.

The productive element in both public and private sectors of the economy has declined through lack of long term investment, it was too easy to buy at the bargain basement bazaar in China, whilst transferring our industrial capacity wholesale to the Chinese.

Politics used to be viewed as having a set of ‘commitments’ which the voter could recognise and which affected them. Todays soundbite politics has little commitment and instead has fostered a whole lot of mendacious lies which, straight faced, the modern politician is willing to stare down from the television screen on virtually any subject and lie through their back teeth. He/she seems unbothered by the lies, satisfying themselves instead that it’s in the parties interest if not the countries. This supplanting the country to the needs of the Party, playing with the needs of the people in a sort of rhetorical game in which outcomes become irrelevant because they are ideological rather than beneficial.

As we enter the high season of general election politicking we are made aware of the implausibility of the whole democratic process since other than the moment when the voter drops their vote into the box, the ultimate example of some sort of equality, the elected uniquely are not tested on their suitability to govern, still less their ability to make decisions other than those of a pack animal, they simply chose a pack leader and hope they can make the decisions for them. Accountability goes out of the window as everyone in the pack devote themselves to doing what’s best for them and we, the uninitiated are soon forgotten as is the manifesto, on which we placed our hopes is thrown in the rubbish bin.

Vladimir Putins Russia or Xi Jinping China, Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran or North Korea’s Kim Jong Un have no such worries and so is democracy fundamentally flawed.  Can we ever find agreement and be encouraged to give up some of our hard won gain in balancing the books. It’s hard to do as we notice the yearly increase in stratospherically rich people who earn far more than they can spend. It used to be the argument in the 1950s regarding high taxation was that above a certain amount income couldn’t be sensibly spent, your needs and consumption argued that for 19shillings and sixpence tax in every pound you earned above £100,000 pa you only received 6 pence. Of course £100,000 was out of sight for all but a few and riches were progressively taxed to pay for general expenditure and long term investment plans. The executive and powers that be who hold the levers of power were greedy needing to feed their ego with yachts and high valued motor cars and real estates. The divide between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have not’, which the 1947 labour government had begun to close has steadily reopened and has since become a preposterous scar in our social attainment.

Send in Xi to lay the ground rules on what is needed to invest and where plus the remuneration package which is handed over according to skill and societal need.