Democracy is a very funny thing. I may be wrong, but I believe Winston Churchill described it as "The worst form of government, apart from all of the other ones". Today is Palm Sunday in the Christian year. The reading of the day, recalls how the Roman Governor exercised democracy with the crowd in Jerusalem, giving them the choice of freeing or crucifying Jesus or a chap called Barabass. Barabass won and Jesus went to be crucified. It is a good illustration of the fact that democracy doesn't always make the right decision. The concept was invented in Greece around 508 BC. The idea was quite simple, you would get better governance when everyone takes part and has a say. In its original form, it was not like the UK today. Women had no vote and many other citizens were not entitled to vote.
In the UK it took until the 18th century for the ideas of democracy to start to take hold. As Parliament became more powerful, the influence of the Crown diminshed. On of the problems with democracy is that to win elections, you need to be popular. To be popular, you often have to propose policies which are not good for the country but will get enough electors on side for you to win. I've stood as a candidate for the local council. I soon realised that telling the truth to voters will not win you any elections, when your opponents make up blatent lies. Apparently "it is all part of the game".
What is more interesting is how short, the memories of voters are. Few remember the promises politicians made last time around, or actually see what they delivered on. In several councils, Reform won during the last round of council elections. Their manifesto promised tax cuts. Instead, they found out the hard way that council budgets have no scope for cuts. Councils have a legal responsibility to provide many services. They cannot be cut. Sadly for voters, taxes have shot up in many of these councils. I actually beleive many councils are hopelessly inefficient in the way they do things and there is the potential for saving money by becoming more efficient. However, many of these things involve really boring attention to detail. It involves making sure everything is done in the most efficient way possible from the ground up. It involves listening to and engaging with staff, to see what can be done better. In truth, it is not a party political thing at all. It is a management issue. The problem is that most council leaders have no clue about running businesses. They don't know what to challenge in the budget with their officers. The senior execs have usually got no real business experience, so are also not properly focussed on costs.
When I realised this, I also realised that the same is true in national government. Sir Keir Starmer was a lawyer before he became a politician. Boris Johnson was a writer. Theresa May and Rishi Sunak worked in banking. None of these ever have had to worry about supply chains, or the effects of energy inflation on their business. Another unfortunate aspect of the UK not fighting major conflicts is that very few people have done military service. Men who have served on the front line are far more reticent about putting people in harms way, than people who dodged military service and just see armed forces as a toy box to have fun with. I think David Lloyd George was the last serving Prime Minister to lose a son on a battlefield in office. I have a mate who served in The Falklands, with the Royal Marines. He suffered bad PTSD. He told me that he eventually got his head together by going to Nepal and spending three years up a mountain smoking dope. The difficult truth is that serving on the front line deeply affects people in a profoundly negative way. My father, who was an officer in the RAF told me that almost every Leader that ever started a war did not achieve what they wanted and throughout history, most aggressors do not die peacefully in their sleep, having lead a happy life.
I entitled this blog "Is this the world we really want to live in", because I was reflecting on the idea that every adult who has ever voted on the planet might want to consider whether the politicians they entrusted their vote with, might wish to consider how many of those politicians have repaid their faith? I was at an event last night and we were discussing the current encumbant in the White House. He said "I have a good American friend who told me that although Barack Obama was a lovely man, he did nothing for America and that is why Trump is in power now". I don't study American politics, so I can't say, but I suspect that there is an element of truth in that.
My view is that we are at a crossroads on the planet. It is clear that many of the citizens on the planet are being badly failed. When there are people who are so rich that they own more money than whole nations, yet people in those nations are suffering famines, etc, no one can possibly say there is justice. What alarms me is that no one in power is talking about bringing some sort of redress to this. The only partys talking about this, in a positive way, currently are the Lib Dems and the Green Party. The Tories have completely abandoned any sort of fairness agenda, the Labour Party seems to believe in nothing. Both seem terrified of scaring voters into the arms of Reform, by talking about fairness and equality.
Lets talk about the flood of refugees into the UK currently. People leave their country of birth because they want a better life. Most people stay where they are, if they have a decent standard of living and can raise a child safely. My view is that enabling countries to provide a decent life for their citizens is by far the best way to "Stop the boats". Sadly the international arms trade, which has many politicians in its pockets, disagree. I fundamentally believe that until you fix the root cause of any problem, it will remain. Which means that until people like Donald Trump start addressing poverty in the Third World, we will have problems which fill our news feeds.
A few weeks ago, I counted the countries that I've visited. I made it 49. Currently there are over 10 that I would not consider visiting today, because they are simply not safe. When I visited, I had no concerns at all. It was a sobering thought.
