Money down the drain!

Our fifth demand 'No taxation or spending without consent' is essential as unless we have the POWER to control the government's spending plans they will still be able to waste our money as all governments seem to do.

This is far from a new problem and Sir Alan Herbert the distinguished MP, author, rhymester, wit and social reformer wrote this in 1930.

Well fancy giving money to the government!

Might as well have put it down the drain.

Fancy giving money to the government!

Nobody will see the stuff again.

Well, they’ve no idea what money’s for –

Ten to one they’ll start another war.

I’ve heard a lot of silly things but Lor’!

Fancy giving money to the government!

I like the bit about starting another war which Tony Blair did to our cost and loss in Iraq and Afghanistan, as did Cameron in Libya and May in Syria.

We need the POWER to control the government's spending, which afterall is our money in the first place, and I feel pretty sure the 'People's' spending priorities will be alot more realistic than those of our governments. 

Our MPs do far too much yet achieve so little.

Only somebody divorced from the realities of political life would not be aware that the corridors of Parliament are littered with the corpses of failed marriages, with Boris Johnson as the latest high profile casualty.

As one commentator said recently:-

"It is not just the obvious reasons; the long hours; the late-night votes; the drinking culture; the endless travel; the nights away from home; the birthdays,sport days and school plays missed in favour of that all important vote.

It's also the fact that, however down to earth you may be to start, once you get inside the Palace of Westminster, MPs are treated like a demigod by a culture that operates like a gentleman's club in Mayfair. Meanwhile, at home, they're still expected to take out the bins."

Implicit in our Second Demand 'Real Local Democracy' is that our national MPs would only concentrate on the issues of national importance such as Defence, Home and Foreign Affairs and of course the overall budget of the government, which would restore a better work/life balance. Meanwhile local politicians, in a much enhanced role, would take care of all local issues on a county basis with the powers to raise taxes a proportion of which would be sent up to Westminster to finance central government. This is of course a complete reversal of our current system where central government largely controls local government expenditure.

In their reduced role, concentrating on national issues, there is absolutely no reason why MPs should have to work every day of the week and indeed secondary employment would be encouraged. In such a way should the tally of failed marriages be reduced.

THA's demands set out a whole new way to govern this country in which the 'People' have real power, Local Politicans become important figures making real decisions and National Politicians only get to concentrate on the key issues of State.

As Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa wrote in his novel The Leopard "everything needs to change, so everything can stay the same"

  

Holiday time.

There will be a two week pause in my weekly posts as I'm off to France tomorrow until the 14th.

In the meantime those interested in really understanding what we are all about and how our demands would work in practise need to read and spend a while reflecting on our 29 page pamphlet:-

http://www.eureferendum.com...

It's all there, in this short document, and I still find re-reading it, especially demand four the 'People's Consent', very useful to confirm my understanding.

Finally I'll end with a 'Thought for today' from Ludwig von Mises:-

"The worst events which mankind has ever had to endure were inflicted by bad governments."