Sunday 15 September 2019

"Let the people decide"

"Let the people decide" was the catch phrase of the Referendum party in 1997 and I still believe that the collective will of the 'People' beats the views of our politicians especially the likes of the illiberal undemocratic Liberal Democrats! However the point is that the people need really power, written into and recognised in a new constitution, for the will of the people to become a reality.

I'm now away on holiday in France until 26th September and wonder what will change while I'm away?

All I do know is that the more the Brexit debacle goes on the more convinced I am that I'd rather listen to the majority views of the people than the self-important opinions of our politicians.

THA's six demands, to reform our system of governance, are increasingly needed more than ever but they will not happen without the collective understanding and support of the people. Sadly, while some people can see our system of governance needs reforms far too many are too busy getting on with their lives and trying to make ends meet.

Spreading the word about THA is not the same thing as forming a new party as Nigel Farage did with his Brexit Party.

If anyone had the answer to promoting THA there was nothing stopping them trying but the reality is the time is not yet ripe but I do believe our time will come if we are patient.

Monday 9 September 2019

Real Local Democracy

I was reminded recently that Iceland has a population of 338,349 with 63 Representatives in their parliament and by my reckoning that is one Representative for every 5371 people.

On top of this they also have 59 local municipalities.                                                                                                                                                                                                           
On the other hand we have a population of 67,597,264 and 650 MPs making each MP responsible for 103,995.

In our second demand for Real Local Democracy we argue that local politicians , often responsible for up to 500,000 people, need real powers to run and manage things locally, like schools and hospitals, currently run from the centre.

In this way our national MPs could be reduced to say 400 as their main focus would be on Foreign Affairs and International Relations, National Security and Defence.

If this had been the case before Brexit we just might have had MPs who had some idea of what they were talking about.

Tuesday 3 September 2019

The wise words of Edmund Burke

"I am not one of those who think that the people are never in the wrong. They have been so, frequently and outrageously, both in other countries and in this. But I do say that in all disputes between them and their rulers, the presumption is at least upon a par in favour of the people."

"Why are our politicians so crap?"

I watched the Jeremy Paxman programme last night on Channel 5 "Why our politicians so crap?" and the following discussion chaired by Jeremy Vine.

While it was abundantly clear that our politicians are 'crap' with some of the obvious reasons explored and discussed both programmes were mainly 'noise' with little substance.

As to solutions the only ones offered by Paxman, at the end of his programme, were that the number of MP's should be reduced (THA demand two), the remainder should be paid more ( possibly but by local negotiation only) and that parliament itself should be moved out of London to say Wolverhampton (a silly idea!).

What we really need is to change the the complete SYSTEM of our governance based on the 'People' being recognised as sovereign.

What we need are THA's six demands.