What are you up to Creasy? This is clickbait right?
Wrong!
But it must be! You can’t honestly be saying that you want the Conservatives to win the next general election….that’s….that’s….illegal
Turns out it’s not actually, but I can see why you might have thought so. So difficult to find anything on the real news that is positive about the Conservative Government in the UK. Even harder to find anything in the echo chambers of Twitter, Facebook or LBC (Labour Backed Chat – it’s a radio station here in the UK).
If I’m being honest, I kind of get why there is nothing positive being said about them. They are, after all completely fucking useless, having burned more political capital since the last General Election than a burny thing. Well, almost. It’s a bit like that Monty Python sketch in Life of Brian….
“What did the Tories ever do for us?”.
“I mean, they did get Brexit done (a self evident good unless you are an out and out global capitalist), at a time when we were on the verge of civil war.”
“Ok, but apart from that what have they done?”
“Well, that whole saving all our jobs by spending billions through the furlough scheme during the worst Pandemic since the Flu pandemic of 1918 was pretty useful, right?”
“OK, apart from averting a civil war and saving all our jobs, what have the Tories ever done for us, eh?”
“I suppose being first in the world to get everyone vaccinated against COVID (twice) wasn’t a bad effort, was it?”
“Alright, apart from averting a civil war, saving all our jobs and saving all our lives (twice), what have the Tories ever done for us?”
“Well there was that time….”
“Shaddapp we’ve gotta get rid of ’em ‘cos they are completely useless!!!”
Ok, but I have come across many many completely fucking useless people in my time and sometimes, ok a very few times (struggling to think of one specific example), through a combination of wise counsel, a good amount of introspection and a healthy dose of courage, they are capable of coming good when you least expect it. I think that may be true for the Tories, but only if they read this blog (I’m going to send it to Rishi so I’m sure they will).
But why would you want to save them Creasy? Why? Why?
Well, apart from the whole averting civil war, saving all our jobs and saving all our lives which I think earns them another go, it’s because the alternative is 5 years of Keir Starmer and his band of useless gits. Worse, it would be 5 more years of James O’Brian (Labour Backed Chat host), smugly preaching on and on about how Jacob Rees-Mogg almost lies down on the benches of Parliament and how Brexit was the downfall of the Tories which was all Jacob’s and Boris’ fault and how he told us Brexit would be a disaster but that everyone who voted Brexit were idiots for buying the Brexit campaign slogans instead of listening to him and how the Tories had messed up the COVID pandemic and how they were all corrupt for having a bev in the back garden of 10 Downing street when everyone else (except the millions that went out every weekend to have a bev and a dance) were all imprisoned at home and how the poor NHS is massively underfunded despite it being the highest spending department of all departments
(£189bn) and 151% higher than the next highest department and the highest it has ever been and how all the pay rises being asked for by Transport workers and NHS workers should be granted even though all that borrowing we did to pay for the furlough scheme during COVID to make sure that people didn’t lose their jobs still needs paying off because obviously Junior Doctors who will be earning a mint for the rest of their lives deserve 35% pay rises and those tube drivers who earn £65k a year to push a start/stop button all day but sometimes run over the odd “passenger” and that Mick Lynch is a great fella so they should definitely get their pay rise and didn’t we all go out and clap for the NHS workers during COVID so they should get theirs too and of course the useless NHS leadership should never be mentioned for flushing billions down the loo because it’s all the Tories fault expecially Boris…and Jacob Rees-Mogg… because they are complete twats and he hates them hates them hates them because they are a snooty public schoolboys (just like him and oh a billion other politicians) that have never ever done a proper days work in their lives (…..) and unlike every other politician there has ever been tell lies!
That is why we need to save the Tories readers, that is why. I just can’t stand the idea of listening to him whine and moan and bleat and groan and go on and on and on…I’m listening to him now and he’s been going on and on about some Nadine Dorries bird ‘cos she ain’t doing her MP job properly FOR 30 MINUTES STRAIGHT!!!! We have got to find a way to get him to shut the fuck up (now he’s going on about Brexit again FFS). Do you see the problem? Jim O’Brain is the problem, and the solution is to get the Tories elected again in the vain hope that the shock of that result will cause him to lose the power of speech. And yes, I have spelled his name wrong. I did it on purpose to piss him off because he’s bound to read this. And yes, I am aware that by talking about him I am, in some perverse way, promoting his shitshow of a daily party-political broadcast. So, I am writing all of this and saving the Tories (he’s going on about the Tory decline now) so that we can shut down this public schoolboy wannabe socialist git.
And while we are at it Jimmy, most people who voted Leave took about 10 seconds to make that decision. It wasn’t about immigration or rule Brittania or economic prosperity or Lbs vs kg or Pound vs Euro or Farage and his band of gits or Boris or Cameron or Rees-Mogg or the big bus commercial (apparently Dorries is a national disgrace now….groan…moan…woe is me…blah, blah, blah). No, it was different things for different people. For example, for me, it was ONLY about stopping Globalisation which I believe is the single biggest existential threat facing humanity today (way bigger than climate change). Not that I care a jot about humanity ‘cos I don’t generally like humans, but I really don’t like Globalisation. Only die-hard capitalists could support Globalisation and therefore the EU which is the single largest Globalisation movement in play today. That, my weak-minded chat show host, makes you a true-blue capitalist (he’s going on about cabals of corruption now and I’ll bet he starts promoting his book or his podcast in a minute. No, I was wrong, he’s going on about fat germans on a nudist beach).
Well, when you put it like that, I suppose I do see the problem Creasy, but what’s the solution? Surely there is no way to save the Tories from the most humiliating election defeat in history….or is there?
I think there might be but it’s not obvious nor is it guaranteed. It’s a new political strategy that has hitherto been ignored by the Tories, and indeed all political parties since the dawn of politics. I call it…
“The Grow a Pair of Bollocks Strategy”
Now, there are all sorts of policies and politicians that this strategy could and should be applied to, but I am going to pick just one policy because it is pissing me off so much. Let’s look at this blog as the Amuse Bouche for our erstwhile political leaders, so that they may gain enough understanding of having bollocks to be able to apply the same ballsy moves to other areas of policy, and by so doing, snatch victory from the jaws of inevitable defeat in the next General Election.
But which area will you choose Creasy because surely it must have enough gravitas to change something important to the people, and at the same time be so well thought out that O’Broon will not only be unable to moan about it, but will be forced to support?
You are correct of course and I can see you champing at the bit to know where I will break ground. I will dally no further and I tell you that Immigration is the policy that we must address.
IMMIGRATION!?!?! Don’t be ridiculous Creasy, nobody could fix the Immigration swamp that is the Tory policy on immigration. To suggest as much is just tish and nonsense!
I admire your skepticism and challenge my faithful padawan. It’s true, this is no mean feat, we have not seen such a balls-up of something since Bezos tried to compete with Musk in the space race. I mean the Tories have burned more political capital than you would have thought possible, but immigration is their on-fire Mona Lisa. Flights to Rwanda, smirking Frenchmen with false promises reaching into our pockets for mo’ money, mo’ money, mo’ money, and organised crime drowning people at sea. It’s proper fucked, and that’s what makes it the perfect Grow a Pair candidate. I intend to demonstrate, that by growing a pair of bollocks, not only can immigration be fixed, but it can be fixed to the satisfaction of all except a few racists who nobody gives a shit about.
Here we go. Stay with me as this is complex and there are twists and turns in this policy that must be carefully navigated if we are to be successful.
Ok.
Let them in!
Let them in.
Eh?
Let them in.
Let who all in?
Everyone who wants to come.
What everyone?
Yes, except for anyone with a criminal record or who has links to terrorism, we’ve got enough criminals as it is, mostly in Liverpool and Manchester but they have to stay because they’re British, but other than that let everyone in.
I don’t get it
I told you it was complex.
IT’S NOT COMPLEX THOUGH IS IT CREASY!! IT’S FACILE. YOU CAN’T JUST GO AROUND LETTING EVERYONE IN YOU MORON!
The EU did.
What?!
The EU did. Well, for anyone who was part of the EU club. People just wandered around in the EU like there were no borders. Except for criminals and such, they couldn’t just move around. ‘Specially if you were like a terrorist, ooh no, no entry for you my son. No, you can fuck right off. So we could just do that but like, bigger. In the words of the entrepreneur/lawyer/lecturer/writer Claude Bristol, “You have to think big to be big”
But everyone will come Creasy. It’s only a little island and there’s only so much money and so many jobs. It just won’t work.
Tosh, of course it will work, but we just have to have some simple rules to deal with some problem areas to do it properly. The problems I see arising from this scheme/policy are:
Migration Classification
State Benefit Entitlement
Health Care Entitlement
Education Entitlement
Housing Availability
Jobs Availability
Racism
Fundamentally, this concept depends on one single defining principle: Legal Immigration into the UK is a net benefit; culturally and economically and always has been.
So do we get to go and live/work in their countries then?
Don’t care. Nice if it happens but shouldn’t stop us from letting everyone come here. Again, if you believe that Immigration produces a net cultural and economic benefit to the country, then do it regardless of reciprocation. Don’t get hung up on that EU-type thinking.
So, let’s get at it.
Migration Classification
There will be only 3 classes of Migrant
Refugee
Economic Migrant
Student Migrant
Refugees are defined by the UN as “persons who are outside their country of origin for reasons of feared persecution, conflict, generalized violence, or other circumstances that have seriously disturbed public order and, as a result, require international protection“
An Economic Migrant is defined by the Oxford Dictionary as a “person who travels from one country or area to another in order to improve their standard of living.”
Wikipedia defines Student migration as “the movement of students who study outside their country of birth or citizenship for a period of 12 months or more.”
Benefits available to each Migration Class
Some people care about whether folks from overseas are coming over to rip us off and live off our generous state handouts. Obviously, the vast majority of migrants are not, but some people worry about it because they are ignorant of the facts. Most people understand that migrants come to find work, that pays well and which will improve their lives and the lives of their loved ones, or they want to come here to find safety from harm. Smart people understand that both types are beneficial to our country culturally and economically and always have been.
I think we can address the benefits-scam worry and be fair to people coming to our country at the same time.
I have had a look at each migrant class below to address all the problems enumerated above except for racism which I will deal with separately.
Can I be a Ukrainian too?
Refugees
To become a Refugee seeking asylum in the UK, the process will be very simple. Go to your nearest UK Consulate, Embassy or UK port of arrival and declare that you are a Refugee. This can be anywhere in the world. For example, if you go to your Consulate or Embassy in Afghanistan, it’s the same as arriving in Dover. If you arrive in Port Stanley in the Falkland Islands, it’s the same as arriving at passport control at Heathrow.
Refugees need to be able to pay for and arrange a one-way ticket to Mainland UK from where they are, for themselves and any accompanying dependents. After all, we are not a travel agent.
You will not be allowed to enter the UK unless you identify your country of birth. You can only arrive in the UK by legal routes. If you arrive via illegal routes, then you will be incarcerated until such time as you identify your country of birth/citizenship. Once your country of birth/citizenship has been established, and once you have declared that you are a refugee, your asylum application will be processed in the normal way and you will have the same rights as a refugee applicant that arrived by legal means.
Upon physical arrival in Mainland UK, you will once again declare yourself to be a refugee and will be processed as a refugee in the normal way.
During the period that you are being processed as a refugee, you will be provided with suitable accommodation, primary and secondary education for any accompanying school-age children, healthcare and cost of subsistence (E.g. Food and Utilities) by the state.
You will be required and encouraged to seek employment (or establish your own business), during the period you are being processed as a refugee. As there are over 1 million unfilled positions in the UK, finding a job shouldn’t be very difficult, especially as UK citizens apparently don’t seem to want these jobs albeit they don’t want you to steal them either. We are particularly keen to hear from anyone who wants to become a nurse. This is so that the costs associated with your housing, education, healthcare and subsistence can be fully or partially mitigated as soon as possible. You will need to be able to show your efforts to secure employment.
If you do secure a position in the UK, you will be entitled to normal rates of pay including the national minimum wage. Any employer who attempts to pay you less than this will be classed as a racist (please see the section below on racism).
Your right to Refugee benefits ceases when any one of the following conditions are met:
You are found to have a criminal record or have links to one or more terrorist organisations. At this point, you will either be immediately returned to your country of birth/citizenship with no right of appeal, or prosecuted as a terrorist.
You find a job, have no criminal record, have no links to any terrorist organisation and have been employed for 6 months. Note that if your wages do not cover all costs associated with accommodation and subsistence, the state will subsidise your income until you can cover all costs yourself. Your status will remain “Refugee” until your application has been processed. If you lose your job while your application is being processed your right to the refugee benefits previously listed, will be re-established immediately.
Your application for asylum is denied and 6 months have passed since it was denied. At this point, you will be reclassified as an economic migrant and will have the rights available to economic migrants (See section below). You will not need to leave the UK.
Your application for asylum is granted, and 12 months have passed from the date it was granted. Because you effectively have nowhere to safely return to, you will also be granted full UK citizenship immediately after your application is granted, and will inherit all citizen rights.
I’ve done ever so well…
Economic Migrants
Any Migrant arriving in the UK, who does not immediately claim to be a refugee or who is not registered for a course of study in a UK educational establishment, will be classed as an economic migrant.
Arrival in the UK must be by LEGAL means and routes. An economic migrant and any accompanying dependent (husband/wife or children) must be in possession of a valid passport. Economic Migrants and any accompanying immediate dependents will have NO entitlement to state benefits EXCEPT for primary and secondary education for any accompanying school-aged children. Education will be viewed as an investment and be viewed as a self-evident benefit to the country.
All economic migrants and their accompanying dependents must have valid passports from their country of birth/citizenship. Any Economic Migrant and his/her dependents arriving in the UK without a valid passport will be incarcerated until such time as their country of birth/citizenship can be established. Once this has been established, the economic migrant plus any accompanying dependents will be immediately returned to that country. They will have no right of appeal.
Arrival in the UK by migrants who fail to declare themselves to be refugees, by ANY illegal means or route, or without having a valid passport, automatically disqualifies a migrant and any accompanying dependents from remaining in the UK or from ever returning to the UK as an economic migrant. These migrants will be incarcerated until such time as their country of birth/citizenship has been established, at which point they will be immediately returned to that country. They will have no right of appeal.
Economic Migrants and any accompanying dependents arriving in the UK must have a valid address they will be living at during their time in the UK. Migrants will be required to notify authorities of any change of address during their time in the UK prior to obtaining British Citizenship.
Economic Migrants and any accompanying dependents will NOT be able to use the NHS free of charge for any reason. Migration to the UK as an economic migrant is voluntary and it is unreasonable to assume that healthcare will be free when the migrant has not contributed economically to the country for a long period of time. Upon arrival in the UK, economic migrants must be able to show that they have a valid and current health insurance policy from a reputable insurer. Upon attending any NHS facility, an economic migrant MUST show their insurance policy when they are checking in. Where insurance policies have an excess, this excess must be paid in full at the point of care, before treatment is provided. If no insurance policy has been taken out, then treatment must be paid for in full and in advance of any treatment or consultation, at the point of care.
Economic Migrants will not be able to claim any state benefits prior to obtaining British citizenship if they lose their job or their business fails. In this circumstance, they must be able to self-fund or can choose to return to their country of birth/citizenship. Returning to their country of birth/citizenship does NOT preclude them from returning to the UK at some future date as an economic migrant.
If an economic migrant is convicted of a criminal offense at any time prior to obtaining British Citizenship, they and any accompanying dependents will be immediately deported to their country of birth/citizenship without any right of appeal (they will have the right to appeal their criminal conviction through the court system, but once these have been exhausted, no further right of appeal against deportation will exist).
If an economic migrant is found to have worked in the UK without paying Tax and National Insurance (Black Market=tax evasion which is a criminal offense), the economic migrant and any accompanying dependents will be immediately returned to their country of birth/citizenship without any right of appeal. In this circumstance, they CANNOT claim refugee status to avoid deportation, nor will they be able to ever re-enter the UK as an economic migrant or Refugee at any time in the future.
Once an economic Migrant is able to show 5 years’ worth of PAYE & National Insurance contributions, they and any accompanying dependents will be granted full British citizenship and will inherit all rights associated with British citizenship.
I reckon I will do ever so well….
Student Migrant
You have to pay for everything and are entitled to nothin’.
But you can come too.
Racism
Any person in the UK who racially abuses or discriminates (consciously or unconsciously), against migrants or any other person of colour (whether they be Refugees, Economic Migrants, Students, people on vacation etc.), will be relocated to Rwanda on the grounds that they are of no use to anyone.
Note that white immigrants and white people in general cannot claim racism or racial discrimination against them because, well, they are white and we all know that we don’t care if anyone calls us cracker or white devil or honky or gora or frankly anything else. Actually, we only really care when we are called Racist, which is ironic when you think about it.
To avoid unnecessary landing costs, racists will be asked to leave the aircraft (at gunpoint), as it passes over the Rwandan border. Parachutes will not be provided by the state so racists must provide their own…or not…we don’t care. This approach will have the added benefit of opening up space for more immigrants (who will be gifted the homes, jobs, businesses and credit balances of the racists’ bank accounts on a first come first serve basis).
Summary
So there we are then, an election-winning immigration policy that pleases everyone except racists, which the policy deals with efficiently (especially the ones who can’t afford a parachute). Even James “I’m a proper socialist” O’Brian and Keir “I have nothing to say” Starmer can have nothing but praise for this policy.
Apart from the obvious benefit of consigning Keir Starmer and the Labour Party (who nobody likes), to the file called “Useless set of gits”, this policy has the added benefit of consigning the nutter right-wing of the Conservative party (who nobody likes), to the file marked “Nutter right-Wing of the Conservative Party” both of which can then be set on fire.
The policy is fair, tough, welcoming AND respects the rule of law. It treats people with dignity. Most importantly it has bollocks because it sets out to do the right thing for EVERYONE even if some of those folks don’t know it’s the right thing for them (Middle England you know who I’m talking about).
Oh, and it’d be nice if someone competent in Government set out a clear and factual picture of how immigration benefits us all so that they can communicate properly when they introduce the policy.
Let’s remember that the primary role of Government is to Govern or, put another way, to lead. Nowhere is it written that Government has to please. Having the bollocks to do the right thing which is typically the hard thing, instead of doing the pleasing thing which is typically the domain of the intellectually lazy, will earn the Tories the grudging respect of the British people and, if applied widely to all policy areas, the next General Election. After all, what do they have to lose?
One final thought, it’s interesting to note that we could not implement such a policy if we were still members of the EU. That IS interesting isn’t it Jimbo? Yeah, that’s shut you up!
To those who can hear me, I say – do not despair. The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed – the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish. …..
Charlie Chaplin – Final speech from The Great Dictator
Which brings me nicely to Golf Clubs.
I love Golf, always have. Me and my mate Pete (yes the same one that ate my pies in Shouldn’t We all be Northerners), used to spend entire days on our local Golf course, a gorgeous little nine-holer in Rishton Lancs. We would set off in the morning, and just keep going around and around until we were hitting the ball into the dusk. You wouldn’t so much see your ball land as intuit the flight of the ball from the feeling on the clubhead, and then you’d walk the resulting line of the shot to hopefully find your ball somewhere out there in the dark.
We played enough, that we were both members. Pete’s dad Joe, a Spaniard, was a full member and was a regular player. You could generally tell his whereabouts on the course from the clouds of pipe-smoke that he left in his wake like some 19th-century steam train forging its way through the Northern countryside. That man had the slowest backswing I have ever seen though. By the time he had completed his backswing, you could have polished off two bacon-buts and a brew. His shot was generally followed immediately by the words
“Ach ach ah Caramaba, ach, ach, Madre mia vaya con Dios”
or
“Ach, ach, ach…bluddy bal…ach ach, Sevé would, ach ach, never have hit a bluddy shot like that”
or he might break into song…
“Ach, ach….like a breedge under troubled waters….ach, ach…”
“Ach” was Joe’s all-purpose filler. It was used in the same way as a rest is used in music or a half-halt in riding. It slowed things down whilst he picked the exactly correct phrase to convey his meaning. It appeared many times in every sentence. You got used to it. It made you a better person. More patient.
When I was a very young man I worked for a period as an apprentice mechanic at Joe’s garage (he owned a garage in Great Harwood). Joe took apprenticeship and learning seriously. You couldn’t just come in and do your hours and then go home. Joe would give out homework. On one occasion the homework was to learn by heart how the internal combustion engine worked and what the major components were in this process.
About a week after he gave out this homework, I had a question for Joe about this process. When I got into work, myself and Mario (the oldest young man I ever met), went in to the office to ask Joe this question.
“What’s the torque you should apply when tightening spark plugs Joe?”
…and then we waited. While we waited, this happened.
Ach, ach, ach….ach, ach”
Joe reached into his pocket and pulled out his leather tobacco pouch, his old metallic “mechanichy” looking pipe with a knobbled wooden bowl, and a set of keys.
Ach, ach….ach,ach”
Using one of the keys, he painstakingly and precisely scraped inside the bowl of the pipe to loosen the charcoal from his last smoke. It was a practised unthinking motion, and it filled another minute while we waited for the answer.
“Ach, ach, ach….”
He stretched the arm holding the pipe away from him and squinted so he could examine the pipe, and then scraped one more time to clear out the last remnants of the scorched tobacco before depositing the keys back whence they came.
“Ach, ach, ach”
A good 5 minutes had passed by now and unconsciously, we had all leant in toward Joe like bamboo in the wind, hardly breathing, waiting for the answer. Between work-hardened thumb and forefinger, Joe extracted a knob of tobacco big enough to fill the bowl of the pipe and pushed it in. He then reached into his oil-shiny, blue overall pocket again, producing a yellow box of Swan Vesta matches, and removed one match. He pulled his chin tightly into his chest and looked down at the pipe. Gently, he packed the tobacco deeper into the bowl using the square end of the match and part of his middle finger.
This was surely the moment we had been waiting for. His eyes turned up toward the office ceiling as if the answer to our question was somehow invisibly inscribed there. He struck the match against the coarse side of the match-box. His pipe and the box of Swan Vestas in his left hand and the lit match in his right, Joe brought the pipe up to his lips and the burning match above the bowl of the pipe where, for what seemed an eternity, he inexplicably hovered.
The air was still. Nobody was breathing now. Every eye in the room was focused intently on the flame as it crept down the length of the match toward Joe’s fingers. If the flame touched Joe’s fingers, the moment would be over and the question would be lost in time. It must be burning his fingers now. So close. So, so close. As the flame began to burn his fingers, Joe shook the match, extinguishing the flame and said…
“Ach, ach…ach”
…before taking out and lighting another match. Our incredulous eyes followed the minutiae of every movement but this time, he hesitated for only a second before dipping the lit head of the match close to the tobacco whereupon he commenced a deep sucking on the pipe. He drew the combustible mixture of heat and oxygen down into the tobacco time and time again; each inward bellow-like breath encouraging the tobacco to take. He wasn’t lighting a pipe, he was performing a ceremony and we were hypnotised by it.
Joe’s head had disappeared. For every inward breath, there was a breath out and with each outward breath, a cloud of tobacco smoke would pour out of the side of his mouth until his head was literally invisible. The pipe was finally lit. The complex smell of pipe tobacco filled the little office and to this day, if I ever catch a whiff, I am back in that office again.
Joe took a pull on his pipe and inhaled the smoke. That doesn’t do justice to it; not at all. Joe sucked on his pipe as if it was the last breath of oxygen in a scuba tank, and he was one hundred and fifty meters down with an anchor chained to his ankle. Having pulled on the pipe, his inhale of its product was like a blue whale getting ready to dive. Then he held it. FOREVER!
We held our breath too. After the end of Time, but what was in reality only forty-five seconds, Joe exhaled. That doesn’t do justice to it either; it really doesn’t. Joe’s mouth opened and in one endless exhale, all the smoke from all the wars ever fought, and every Blackburn chimney that ever blackened the Northern skies, and all the dark clouds of retching smoke that were ever vomited from the sulfuric fires of Hades poured forth. It was never going to end. The look on our faces had turned from expectant frustration to awed horror. Maybe this was hell. Maybe that was what hell was; endless waiting for answers to questions that would never be answered!
If Joe had emerged from the smoke sporting horns, a pitchfork and a pointy tail, NONE of us would have been surprised! When the smoke finally did begin to clear, Joe blinked twice, and with tears streaming down his face, said…
“Ach, ach, ach……I dunno”
EH?
WASSAT?
Anyhoo, that’s by the by and a tiny tad off topic.
Rishton Golf Club was years ahead of the times. Even as a small child I can still remember that we had women members. Not only were they members, but they were allowed out on the course every now and then too! To play golf! They even had their own little room at the end of the Club House with a portable heater. Here, they would gather for a glass of sherry and a good gossip about Perry Como, while knitting golf pullovers for their enlightened husbands who at that moment were sinking pints and talking serious business in the cosy glow of the men’s bar next door.
If you think about it, it was a stroke of genius to let women be members. This way, the menfolk could retire to the 19th green (that’s what we golfers call the bar….hehe), and not have to worry about trying to get behind the steering wheel when he was drunk later in the evening. The little woman would be soberly waiting for her man to wobble out of the clubhouse so she could prop-him up and help him to the car. Once there she would pour him into the driver’s seat before climbing into the seatbelt-less passenger seat.
“Why didn’t the women just drive home Creasy? Surely that would have been safer?
Lol! hehe….hahahahahahah…
Oh God, I can’t breathe….hehe…hehe. That’s good, oh dear…hehe. You’ll be suggesting they should all go out and vote, or go to work next….hehe
hehe…hehe….ahem
No seriously, because it’s obviously a very serious matter. You can’t just go about letting women operate dangerous machinery. Why do you think there are no women drivers in F1? Well, for one thing, there is no central mirror in an F1 car so how would they do their makeup? Also, could you imagine trying to drive with a drunken lech in the passenger seat? No, much better, safer and prettier in the ole passenger seat.
Thank goodness all that has changed now! Only last year (2019) Muirfield’s (male) members all voted to allow women to become members. It didn’t have anything to do with the fact that the R&A banned them from hosting the Open and them losing the hefty revenues therefrom, when the membership turned down women members in 2016. I’m telling you, the world’s a changed place.
I love golf. I do. It’s actually the best game on the planet. It is challenging (try a round at Southerness in winter if you don’t believe me), precise, rewarding and yet the most frustrating and heart attack inducing pastime of all time. It’s a game you can play on your own, or with a group of people, in amazing natural settings and is usually the prologue to a great day. I would recommend golf to everyone.
It’s the “members” who play the game I can’t stand. A more egotistical, mealy-mouthed, misogynistic, snobby-incompetent-middle-managerish, little Hitler group of Jaguar driving, bureaucratic, committee-sitting no-hopers you will never find.
And this brings me to the throbbing little nub of this story.
Remember the lockdown back in the Summer? Course you do. When everything closed down and everything went quiet? I think many of us will remember that time as a time of renewal, not just as a time when a killer pandemic raged across the world. It felt like the world was taking a break from us.
Well, during that time, one of my favourite things to do was to go out with my Wife, my Daughter and our dog Bob. Bob is the wee black smudge in the picture opposite darting off toward that little flat patch of grass below that amazing sunset. That’s the 12th green of our local golf course. I think I mentioned in Shouldn’t We Listen, that this golf course is just across the fields opposite our house and through a narrow, but beautiful strip of woods beyond the fields.
During the lockdown, the golf courses closed. A little at a time, some of us started poking our noses out beyond the woods and looking cautiously up and down the fairways of this golf course like the apes in 2001 approaching the monolith for the first time.
Gradually, as we realised the there was no threat present, we became more confident and stepped out from the woods into the rough (You have to imagine the theme music from 2001 about now “dah, dah…daaaahh……Tadahh! Dum, dum, dum, dum……dah, dah….daaaaaaah……….TADAAAAGH!”)
Before you know it we are striding up the middle of the fairways, laughing children scurrying about as if they have just landed in a strange new paradise, and yapping dogs with smiley faces chasing balls! It was a happy time! A time without worry or stress! A time of FREEDOM!
“Is that a golf club in your hand or are you just pleased to see me?”
My son TJ, made light paintings with my daughter Lu for his End of Year Show at Lancaster University. The one below was made on the rear side of a pretty nasty little sand trap.
It was never a crowd of people. Just a few people in the know who had found their way across the forbidden zone and happened across the natural, albeit perfectly mown wilderness, that lay beyond. There were a few plonkers, there always are. A few kids riding around on their bikes. A few teenagers down on the 9th having a few beers and a bit of a fumble on a summer evening, but nothing outrageous and no damage being done. No vandalism. I walked the length and breadth of that course during the Lockdown, and it was as pristine on the day the course opened again, as it had been on the day it closed.
The lockdown ended.
Soon, ageing tartan-clad hackers were once again hobbling up and down causing more damage in a single round of golf than any of the lockdown ramblers, dog walkers and glue sniffers had in four months. We all recognised that the good times were over and that we could no longer just wander around the golf course freely anymore. We confined ourselves to the edge of the treeline like trolls in the shadows.
I am very nonplussed!
One morning a couple of months later, I came to the field to walk Bob like normal and found myself confused, horrified and outraged all at the same time. Bob was nonplussed too!
The opening to our field was barred! The field we had been walking in for the last 12 years! Mine and Bobby’s field! Well he’s only two and a half but I had been walking there for 12 years. A silver gate had been erected with chains and padlocks. It was almost as if whoever put this gate up didn’t want people entering the field!
“Not a problem”
…says I. I’ll just walk down the path to the next gate and go in there.
“WTF?”
I exclaim at the next gate, which had now been adorned with a brand new heavy-duty padlock which is also clearly locked! No flies on me, I determine to follow this thread of clues to its ultimate end, because something was definitely going on here that was different to the day before.
Other equally confused ramblers from the community were stumbling about bumping into the gates wondering how to gain entrance to the field to walk their querulous hounds, who were now hopping about, yawning stressfully because they needed to take a dump in the farmer’s field.
“I know, I’ll bypass the gates by walking up the path through the woods that border the Golf Course, and I will be able to get into the field at the top”
Like the Fox.
I head down and walk into the woods, and find the path that runs the length of the wood alongside the golf course and the field. After about 100 yards the path cuts in toward the golf course. Bob is leaping and bounding through the undergrowth ahead of me. The squirrels are out. I smile. I love to see him gambling through the undergrowth like this.
Suddenly Bob stops. Like a statue, he is looking straight ahead with one paw curled under him, hanging in the air. A low growl is rumbling in his chest
“What is it Bobzu?”
I whisper. Sinking to one knee next to Bob, I lay a calming hand on his back and through squinted eyes I peer through the trees, silently trying to spot what he has seen. Maybe a deer? I’ve seen them down here before. A Rabbit? millions of ’em around here. It can’t be though. If it was a bunny or a deer Bob would have been off after them in a flash. He’s a lethal hunter after all.
As my breathing settles, I think I spy something in amongst the trees.
“What is that Bob?”
“Grrrrrr”
Whatever it is, he hasn’t seen before. Rising to a low crouch, I creep forward slowly with Bob at my side, low to the ground like he is stalking prey. Step by step we move together, like sha-A-dows amongst the trees until…
“YOU HAVE GOT TO BE FUCKIN’ KIDDIN’ ME!”
It can’t be. Really? REALLY? It has to be a joke of some kind. Who would do such a thing? But there it is. It’s as real as the nose on Bob’s face and as permanent as the pyramids.
There in front of us is the unimaginable; the unthinkable. So new it was still gleaming. British racing green so that it would camouflage with the trees, and because it gave it a military effect. A green, metallic, threatening monstrosity that cut through the forest like an axe. My heart sank and I fell to my knees in front of it and held my head in my hands. I’m not too proud to admit that a single tear made it’s way down my handsome face, getting stuck in the designer stubble on my square chin.
The Golf Club had only gone and erected a fence along the entirety of its western border. Not an ordinary fence either. This fence would not look out of place in Berlin or Palestine. I’d include the border between the US and Mexico but, honestly what a waste of time. That “non-fence” is way less impressive than this thing. If this thing was along the border of the US and Mexico, the Mexicans would take one look and say
“Oooooh….thees senor Trump must be a mighty and eeempressive hombre…I not heven gonna try to cross theees huge eerecshon”
No, Trumps erections are way, way….way, less impressive than this.
The top of the fence was jagged and sharp. Not one spike mind, three spikes per pole, two of which were bent at angles to inflict the greatest injury should a peasant member of the community attempt to climb over. This thing must have emptied the club coffers. I reckon there is a good £50,000 – £75,000 of fencing here.
But here’s the thing. The thing that gets in your craw and just chews away until you ain’t got no craw leyft Peggy-Sue.
Why had they built the fence?
“I dunno Creasy, why?”
It was rhetorical. You don’t have to try and answer every question I pose. I’ll tell you why they didn’t build this fence first though. They didn’t build it to keep us out. If they had, it was an exercise in futility.
Firstly, there are a hundred different ways to get on that course and the fence doesn’t even go all the way around the course, just through this lovely little copse. So, in fact, you just have to walk to the end of the fence and then walk around it to be on the golf course, Maginot line style…except the golf course is Nazi Germany and we are the allies going back around the Maginot line to beat the Germans…….reverse like?
Anyway secondly, there is a public pathway that goes through the golf course which means that they had no choice but to make a gate in the fence that is open 24 hours a day so that we, the peasants people, can ignore the fence entirely and walk across, and all over, the course. After 6:00 pm at night and before 7:00 am in the morning, I can tell you for a fact that there is nobody around, so you can have your Bobbies gamble all over the place without leads and without interruption until you see the first pensioner golfer wobbling from rough to rough toward you.
So why go to all the trouble of destroying this unspoiled little woods then?
Because, it’s a long, green, spiky and spiteful message and the message says…
“We spend five thousand quid a year to be able to exclusively walk about on this grass, tearing up the turf with entirely the wrong club for the shot, and if you think we are going to stand by and do nothing while you bloody plebs turn it into a ramblers club or a place for your bloody dogs to take a dump every morning, you’ve got another thing coming”
And the “other thing coming” was the spiteful fence. Designed only to ruin a good walk, ironically what golfers say about a round of golf. Well, Mr Captain, I’m here to tell you that a) the foxes and the badgers use the bathroom way earlier than us and b) Bobby wouldn’t lower himself to take a dump on your fairways (although I am trying to train him to take one on, and through, your fence).
Fences don’t last though. Everyone knows that. No matter how tall or how strong you build them, eventually they come tumbling down. Walking through the woods, I noticed that all the trees along both sides of the fence bend inward toward the fence. This is unusual as the trees would normally bend according to the prevailing wind. It’s as if they have already started their offensive against this gaping wound. Imagine our glee when we came across one large tree that had already fallen and crushed a section of the fence. Right next to it was another tree that was only inches from the top of the fence. One good puff during the winter and I reckon that will come down too, crushing the fence low enough for the combined, and by now rabid, ranks of ramblers and dog walkers to storm the course like the zombies in World War Z only stopping to call…
“Come along Bobby…Walkies…Poo poos”
….over their undead shoulders as they tear down this edifice to pride and middle class dumb-shitted-ness
This fence is a microcosmic metaphor for humanity’s world view. Everything is ours. Nature always comes second. Poorer is lesser. Wealthier always wins. Sharing doesn’t work. It’s time humanity woke up to the fact that we are temporal whilst nature is eternal.
Sharing that Golf Course during the lockdown, was an unwitting act of kindness to the community. Peaceful morning and evening walks through a tranquil green setting, was a source of comfort when everything else in the world was worrying or upsetting. The community gave it back in the same condition it found it and went back to walking in the nearby fields when the lockdown finished. In a single act of spiteful, petty-minded revenge and pride, the Golf club reminded us that actually nothing had changed. We could still expect and rely upon the dribbling colostomy bags who make up the membership of institutions like golf clubs, to convene their horrid little committees to consider how best to dole out their little portions of incivility and misery.
I curse their course. I hope a ninety foot sink hole opens up on their 18th green so it looks like a building site. I hope an army of Irish travellers take up residence on the 3rd fairway (then you’ll see what taking a dump on a fairway really means). I hope Extinction Rebellion and Greenpeace organise a protest by thousands of tree-huggers to do a 4th fairway sit-in until the fence is taken down and the woods returned to their natural state.
It’s going to be April soon. More specifically April 1st.
There will never be a better time. We’re all down here. They’re all up there. Down here with us is the Coronavirus!
Oh come on! You have to see the practical joke potential in that for God’s sake!
Hang on. Rewind a bit. Just make sure we are all on the same page. The ISS is a big spaceship (International Space Station), which, at 357 feet is about the size of an American football pitch. It’s big, always occupied and orbits the earth 16 times a day. There are usually 3-6 astronauts there at any given time, floating about, doing all sorts of experiments and such, but it has been continually inhabited for the last 20 years. In total, 239 people have lived there. There’s a ton of other facts and figures about the ISS here but you get the point. Big spaceship, people on board, going round and round and totally away from the ole Coronavirus.
As long as we can control the uplinks to the ISS, we can tell them anything and they won’t know any different. Our current predicament presents an opportunity to execute the best prank since Orson Welles told us the Martians were coming!
There’s going to be a bit of co-ordination needed to pull it off mind, but there’s still time if we all dig in and put our minds to it.
What we should do (you’re gonna love this),….on April Fools Day (Larf? I nearly Coronavirused meself)…..just before the Astronauts wake up (can’t believe I came up with this)…..wait for it…………iiiss…….
WE SWITCH OFF ALL THE LIGHTS ON THE PLANET, GO SILENT AND MAKE ‘EM BELIEVE WE ARE ALL DEAD AND THEY ARE THE LAST HUMANS ALIVE!!!!!!
They’d be like
YAWN….”Hey Jess what time is it?”
“Hmmm? Mornin’ Andy. I dunno, I was asleep until you woke me, you dork”
“Hey Ollie, What time is it man?”
“Do I Lyook lyike a clyock you cryazy Amyericyan? Ayctyually I knyow thye tyime byecyause I am effyicyient Rysussyian Cyosmyonyaut….iyt’s Lyunchtyime”
“Ollie that can’t be right we always get woken up at breakfast time”
“Hold up Jess, he must’ve got that wrong. Need to get yourself an American watch Ollie!”
“Andy he’s right! We’ve missed breakfast – look at my superior American watch…IT IS LUNCHTIME!”
“WHAT? What in the name of snap, crackle and pop is going on down there in Mission Control”
“Houston? This is ISS. Come in please”
“Houston?”
“I’m not getting any response Jess”
“Thyat’s byecyause you hyave infyeryior American ryadyio eqyipmyent…lyet mye try on nyew myodyern Ryussyian Ryadyio Syystyem”
“Upravleniye poletom? Eto Olli, ya propustil zavtrak iz-za etikh imperialisticheskikh amerikantsev, zakhodite?”
“Privet, upravleniye missiyey?”
“I thyink thyey myust hyave gyone tyo lyunch. We hyave myany byeef styeaks in Myothyer Ryussyia”
Then, just when they are trying to figure out just what in tarnation and the heck is happening, we send the “Recorded Message”
ALIEN VESSEL, ALIEN VESSEL, COME NO CLOSER
This is a warning message from the ex-inhabitants (Wo/mankind or Huwo/manity) of the third planet (we called it Earth), of the star system with 8 (maybe 9?) orbiting worlds, to all Alien vessels (in the sense of extra-terrestrial, not immigrant) approaching Earth.
ATTEMPT NO LANDING ON THIS PLANET!
Our civilisation was attacked and annihilated by a Global virus called the Coronavirus. This virus attacks the respiratory system and unless you wash your hands, in the country we call the UK, you will die (cluster of little islands to the right of the big ocean, that looks like a squirrel eating a big nut. The nut is called Ireland. Note, you can wash your hands and survive in the North East of the nut but NOT, I say again, NOT, the South East, South, South West or West of the Nut.
ATTEMPT NO LANDING AND PLEASE MARK THIS PLANET WITH A SOPHISTICATED BIO-HAZARD BEACON (like in that awful movie After Earth) TO WARD OFF OTHER INTERSTELLAR VISITORS.
Live long and prosper.
And the ISS be like….
Nothing flusters Jess, but Andy and Ollie are crappin’ it. Especially Ollie who is apyoplyectyic!
“THyIS CyAN NyOT ByE HyAPPyENyING, THyEY CyOULDN’T DyROP US A NyOTE OR SyOMETHyING?”
We leave ’em stewing for about twelve hours with the message repeating over and over and over and over and over. This is plenty of time to stew a Russian, but you really must stir him every hour and a half if you want the meat to be tender.
We leave them twelve hours because no lights anywhere is going to be a bit inconvenient for us down here. Then, after twelve hours, all of a sudden, we turn on ALL the lights in the world at once, and we get the Bedouin nomadic tribes of the Sahara to make a huge sign with their campfires that spells out…
and the ISS be like
“PHEW!”
“But that was a good one eh Andy?
Andy?
Oi, Ollie where’s your bloody Soyuz gone?
Ollie?
ANDY?? OLLIE?? Where TF ARE YOU? IS THIS A PRANK?
She’s crappin’ it now.
See? We can only do this specific prank now because of the circumstances we find ourselves in, so shouldn’t we carpe diem the shit out of it?
A bit cruel you say. A bit inappropriate given the circumstances, you wonder. You feel I may have let my imagination get the best of me.
In my defence, there’s nothing to do because we are all locked in, and I’M BORED!
It does make you think though, doesn’t it?
I mean, I wonder what other specific things one might be able to do now, in these new circumstances, that we couldn’t, or wouldn’t, do before?
How often do you speak to your family? Especially if they live far away? I know I don’t do it very often, yet there is absolutely nothing to stop me. I have the time, and I am both a witty and interesting conversationalist. Who wouldn’t be delighted to hear from me? Who knows how much joy and light I might bring into their sad and mediocre lives!
Dunno why he keeps waking me up at 4 am…what the hell is wrong with him?
“Hey Google. Set reminder to call my sisters at 4 am every day”
I’m up with Bob at that time anyway so I’m sure they won’t mind.
Wasn’t it Reagan that said
“…. I couldn’t help but say to him [Gorbachev] , just think how easy his task and mine might be in these meetings that we held if suddenly there was a threat to this world from some other species, from another planet, outside in the universe. We’d forget all the little local differences that we have between our countries, and we would find out once and for all that we really are all human beings here on this Earth together. Well, I don’t suppose we can wait for some alien race to come down and threaten us, but I think that between us we can bring about that realization.”
Prophetic words. Nobody said the Aliens needed to be big, ugly, drooling, energy weapon totin’ human hunters. Turns out our Alien is a tiny little thing with pretty flowers sticking out like Shrek-ears, but look at how it’s affecting us. Our whole society is changing in a matter of days or a few short weeks. We have been confined to our homes and are unable to walk the streets without drones carrying megaphones telling us to get back indoors. Not here in the UK yet obviously, because we are made of sterner stuff and are impenetrable to the virus, but everywhere else.
Tangentially, the whole drone thing is just amazing out-of-the box lateral thinking and technology application. I cant wait to see ’em buzzing down our streets here in the UK blaring out….
“If you wouldn’t mind terribly returning to your home, it’s nearly tea time after all”
The most striking aspect of this crisis though is that we are all witnessing some very unusual human behaviours. On the one hand, you have the Moron Brigade hoovering up store loads of paper products, whilst on the other, we have whole streets of Italians standing on apartment balconies singing Bitch better have my money by Rihanna. This latter is just one example of how people are coming together, as confined, physical or online communities, to help practically or just to make people feel a bit better about what is going on.
People on Facebook and Twitter are circulating little leaflets to push through the doors of elderly or vulnerable people, offering help and support. Shop windows advertise local community support groups that are being set up to provide people in isolation with the aid they need.
Surely this is what Reagan was talking about. In our normal virus-free lives, altruism begins at home and rarely makes it out of the front door. We might donate a few quid to our favourite well-digging, child-caring, orphan-adopting charity every month, but bottom line? If you’re not a blood descendant, then you’re basically on your own.
(Sir) Bob Geldoff
Of course there are exceptions. That Irish chap did ever so well with Do they know it’s Christmas, Feed the Wooorld and Live-Aid. Then there’s Comic Relief that does a sterling job of raising money for good causes every year.
Over the past few years though we have increasingly seen less and less societal cohesion and more and more division. Urbanisation, Globalism, populist politics and careless thinking have all contributed to a society that more and more people are finding ruthless and unfulfilling.
Here’s the thing. I believe that the more we behave as though we live in a village the more we see the best of humanity.
I grew up in a village in the North of England. We left the doors open. People would just walk in and make themselves a brew. Simon, the milkman would come swooping around the corner on his bike, like a knight in shining armour, to defend the young kids on the street from any local bullies. We did visit ‘Lizbeth at the end of the road when she got dementia, and we sat with her as she asked “What time is it?” for the hundredth time in an hour. We all knew each other’s business and it was a good thing because it meant we were not only nosy enough but cared enough, to find out all about you before we went spreading rumours about you.
I lived in London for 23 years and barely knew who my next-door neighbour was.
So when I see village behaviours coming to the fore, when I see people giving a damn about not just their own family but everyone else’s, I become hopeful. How weird is it that all it takes is a little germ, admittedly capable of killing us, for us to change completely and be concerned for everyone.
I suppose the real question is, can we capture that and keep it safe? can we keep it up after we have expunged the little buggers? We live in interesting times. I’m hopeful.
Oh and Jess, Andy and Ollie. Don’t worry, we wouldn’t do that to you. After all, you’re the only ones who can see us all from up there.
Calm down, calm down. This is not a post about Brexit. It’s mentioned but it’s not about it.
So relax. Wooosa. Woooooooosa.
Smooth, calm water. Breathe in……Breathe out.
It’s been a bit of a wild ride for the last few years eh? Bit of a roller coaster. What with the old US Electoral College process? That’s a corker eh? Some genius came up with that one. Trump becomes president despite not commanding a majority of votes from the people he is supposed to serve. He becomes the Nero of our times, but with nukes this time, because of some arcane compromise dreamt up by the Founding Fathers.
Then along comes old Cameron with his wheeze of offering referendums all over the place.
“Were bound to win” he says, “I mean, who would vote to leave? Narf, narf. Pass me the porter old boy”.
And that was just the Scottish referendum in 2014. I’m betting he had a bit of trouble with the old sphincter muscle during that one ‘cos, for a time, it looked a lot like Scotland was going to vote for Independence. Just squeaked it.
Bolstered by his “victory” in Scotland, and getting ready for the General Election in 2015, he pops another bullet in the chamber and spins the barrel again.
“I know”, he says, “We’ll offer a referendum on whether we stay in the EU in the Manifesto. Nobody’ll vote to leave the EU – no way! But it just might get me a second term”.
Morning after the night before….
The EU? Are we talking about that least democratic institution on the planet bar Kim Jong Un, EU? The same EU that everyone in the UK has been moaning about for the last 45 years and who are still alive to vote in the referendum? That one? That EU? Really? We didn’t see that one coming?
Click! BANG!! Ooopsy! Alas, poor Dave, we knew him well. Awww….apparently, she makes dresses that don’t make you look fat now.
Then there was the aftermath of the Brexit Referendum Leave vote. Oh Dear Lord. Three and a half years of absolute carnage while all the “democrats” who lost the referendum, tried to clamber aboard the parliamentary equivalent of a DeLorean time machine. Such determination to get the leave vote overturned. “They didn’t know what they were voting for” and “Everyone has changed their minds” and “Just run the referendum again, with the questions we want, that’s all we want…pleeeeeeaaaase?”.
And then the political betrayal. All the grubby, disingenuous politicians, from all parties, scrabbling around in the dirt trying to find a way to use Brexit to win power and in so doing, forgetting that the majority had spoken. This ain’t Star Trek people! The needs of the few do NOT outweigh the needs of the many!
Luckily, and I do mean luckily, a sort of democracy prevailed at the very, very last minute, and the original referendum result was sanctioned via an overwhelming majority for the Conservatives in the 2019 General Election. If the general election hadn’t taken place it would have been close. The will of the majority may well have been overturned. It’s as close as we’ve been to a civil war since, well, the civil war.
Meanwhile in other news, the Democrat held House of Representatives in the US compile a treasure trove of evidence of Trump’s alleged malfeasance and corruption, the like of which has not been seen since Pirates of Caribbean. The House elects to impeach Trump but everyone knows he’ll get away with it because he’s going to be tried by the Senate, which is controlled by guess who? His very own Republican Party! We know they wont convict because they have stated that they wont convict, no matter what the evidence is! Did the same genius that came up with the Electoral College system come up with that one too? Since Trump took office, he has single handedly shown that the American Constitution is a toothless instrument, if you just have the will to simply ignore it.
So all in all then, WTF??
Mariam-Webster Dictionary
There’s an old saying “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. There’s another old saying, “if it’s Fubar, then throw that shit away”.
Parliamentary democracy is Fubar. Very fubar. Tremendously Fubar. It’s so Fubar it couldn’t be more Fubared if it tried. It has shown that it can no longer be trusted to serve the will of it’s master, the people. For this crime, there can be no reprieve or pardon. Orff with its head! or as the French would say “En route par Madame Guillotine”. Time to throw that shit away.
We are gathered here today brethren, to consider an alternative to Parliamentary Democracy. A better democracy. A democracy that re-empowers the people. A democracy that returns sovereignty to the people and rids the world of second rate, partisan, unintelligent, dishonest and self-serving politicians once and for all.
It is my thesis that Parliamentary Democracy is no longer fit for purpose. Further, I will show that a new, better and pure form of democracy is available today that could never have been available before . Moreover, I will argue that it’s implementation is feasible.
I’ll state up front that whilst on the face of it this might appear to be a simple proposition, in fact, it’s not. I spent the morning in my kitchen the other day redesigning democracy and, it turns out, it’s quite tricky. However, nothing worthwhile is easy, so I persisted, and by lunchtime I’d cracked it. I think if we all work together, stay objective and really get our shoulders behind it, I think we can get this all sorted out by Christmas. So come on let’s get started!
The Vision
Bob
We are going to keep democracy, but we must move away from a system of indirect representative government, to direct government by the people, supported by an expert administrative infrastructure.
We will replace national and locally elected representatives, and the unelected house of Lords, with a clever little App on your phone called Bob (My App, so I’ll call it what I want). More about this in a mo’ because Bob (the App not our dog), is the key in the door.
There will be no general or local elections because there isn’t going to be anyone to vote for. Political Parties will be abolished. Why should we be limited by one party’s manifesto and voting habits inherited from our parents and their parents? We should be able to progress any idea no matter where it comes from, and we should all be sufficiently well educated and informed to know the difference between good and bad ideas.
Just to show that this is not some lefty, Che Guevarian anti-establishment rant, we are going to keep the Monarchy. Firstly, we really like the Queen (not so much Charlie, but you win some, you lose some). Secondly, the business case for our monarchy is overwhelming and we, the people, are not stupid……..cha-ching!
Taken From Brand Finance Monachy Report
Annual taxpayer cost of £292.6m against a contribution of 1.8Bn? Sheeeit, I’ll take dem numbers eva’ day of the week Bra’ (Side Note: my wife has suggested I really oughtn’t attempt urban slang very often or indeed at all, but I tend to think it makes things so much more jolly) .
The Civil Service will be empowered to run the administrative departments of government (Transport, Defence, Education, Health, Trade, Foreign Affairs etc). Heads of department will be appointed based on their subject matter expertise in the specific responsibilities of that department. These heads will not change every 5 years. Their pay / bonuses will be tied to achievement of prioritised SMART goals (Specific, Measured, Achievable, Realistic and Timed), set by the people. If they don’t perform, or deliver, they get fired by the people right then via Bob (the App not our dog).
Apart from these national bodies, there will also be local Administration at the County and Town level, so that local issues can be decided by local people and not be held up by national priorities. Bob (the App not our dog), will handle both.
Any individual aged 18 or over (we’ll call these people “Adults”), can propose and, if a simple majority of the people support it, be paid by the state, to create or amend national and local laws with the support of these local and national administrations. Similarly, any Adult can propose new national or local initiatives, that do not require new law to implement (like building a new local bridge or something).
A word about the Ministry of Defence. Defence is tricky. All sorts of secrecy and ability to act when faced with threats to National Security issues to deal with here. We are going to need some deep and expert thinking about the processes needed to authorise, and subsequently scrutinise, military action when we no longer have an executive branch. These processes will need to maintain our ability to act in time, whilst maintaining the secrecy our intelligence and military communities need to operate. This means that whilst major strategic military interventions (wars) can, and should, be approved directly by the people with a simple majority vote via Bob, tactical or counter terrorist interventions cannot. At least not by all of them. We might need a suitably qualified people’s COBRA (Cabinet Offices Briefing Rooms, Briefing Room A) that can come together quickly, on-line or in person, at times of National need. Like I said, lot of thought needed here.
Oh, and we will repurpose the Houses of Parliament into a very nice bowling alley (you can see all the way through from the Commons to the House of Lords you know?), with nice cafés and bars in the lobby. Bungy Jumping off Big Ben and a zip wire across the Thames to the Big Eye. Anyway, we wont be doing any lawmaking in there any more.
Hey, the White House already has a bowling alley, so you just need to turn the oval office into a Starbucks and you’re all set! Bham! (See? Jolly).
It’s time to take a look at how all this could work, which means we need to take a closer look at what Bob can do (The App not our….Ok, so I might need to rethink that app name. Got it! BobsApp!).
How it’s all going to work.
Even though Parliamentary Democracy is broken, it has been around a while. The first parliament, called an Althing(i), was formed by Iceland in 930 AD). Britain’s Feudal system was actually a form of Parliament because William the Conqueror established it in 1066 to take advice from the nobility and clergy. Our first proper parliament here in Britain though, was created in the early 13th century and the Parliament we have today is directly descended from that.
I decided to take a deeper dive into how the Parliamentary Process really works to see if there is anything that we could salvage from the wreck of our current system to build into BobsApp (much better).
I mean, for something to last this long, and pass the test of time, it must have had some inherant goodness that prevented the people from sweeping it away in a barrage of musket balls.
Checks and Balances. I think it’s fair to say that the entire current model, is a way to make sure that we, through the offices of our representatives, don’t introduce just any old crap onto the statute books. this is achieved by forcing Bills (Proposal for new laws or amendments to existing laws), through many different stage gates. This process is orchestrated across three different institutions before they can finally become law. In its simplicity and practicality, it’s beautiful really.
Which is a bit of a bugger to be honest, and in the hands of another Blogger, might have caused something of a hiccup in the narrative. Not I. I am made of sterner stuff.
DOWN WITH PARLIAMENTARY DEMOCRACY! Down I say! It can no longer serve….ahh shit.
I can’t do it. it’s really not that complicated. Everything about Parliamentary Democracy works except one thing. Politicians are untrustworthy. Shocker. ‘Twas ever thus. The process is fine. The institutions are fine. Just think about the collective legal, constitutional and every other kind of wisdom aggregated in the ancient heads of the Lords. Do we really not want that collective wisdom to take a peek at the laws we want to introduce? Well I do. I wanna keep the Lords, and I want them to keep doing what they are doing.
I think Occam’s razor applies here. “All things being equal, the simplest solution tends to be the best one”.
We can’t burn down the whole house because one window won’t close. The problem we all have is that we don’t, and can’t, trust our politicians to vote in such a way that the will of the majority is reflected in the outcome. Ergo, the simplest solution is, don’t let them vote. Everything else can stay the same.
Any vote which currently takes place in the house of commons will now be taken by the people via BobsApp. We can leave the Lords alone, because ultimately power resides in the Commons, and we are going to move that power to the people.
There is no question about the viability of the technology. Each of us intuitively knows that such a voting app can be built. Every day I get crap coming into my phone via different apps that I’m supposed to do something with. It’ll be nice to have something important arriving for a change.
Removing this power to vote from our MPs however imposes a great burden on us the people. It will be up to us to follow, and be informed about, the proceedings both in Parliament and in the body politic. I think we are more connected today, more than we have ever been, but we’ll need to do more.
We will need to read the document that we are to vote on, and to understand what it will do. The way Laws are written will need to enable comprehension by lay people. This isn’t to say that lay people are not bright enough to understand them, but they can be complicated documents to read. If you aren’t legally trained or experienced at reading legislation, you could miss something.
There is a general assumption though that people are just too dumb and cant be trusted to deal with this stuff. These same people hold down jobs, drive cars, run their household budgets, put food on the table, take care of their families, go to church (or not), obey the law and sustain the fabric of society every day of their lives. They are more in touch with what matters to people than anybody else, because they are the commoners and they deal with real life all the time.
I would trust them every day of the week and twice on Sundays to make the right call over the Members of our Commons. It will be a new skill for sure but it will develop over time. We can add it into the school curriculum and get the kids to learn it from an early age. My daughter Lu (11) can tell you all about fusion, I think she can handle politics. In any case it has got to be better than what we have today.
So, Shouldn’t we remove the Parliamentary from Parliamentary Democracy?
Well no. It turns out it’s a really well designed system and we shouldn’t just throw that away. We should limit the power of it’s Members though because they now serve themselves more than they serve us. We can finally grant that power to all the people through our technology; BobsApp!
I hope you enjoyed this article! Please leave a comment and I’ll reply to you 🙂
