1.As I posted on Twitter the other day.
It should not be up to politicians, the MSM or pressure groups as to how we are governed but the views and wishes of the 'People' that should hold sway. This is why we need these reforms - http://harrogateagenda.org.uk/Default.aspx
2. I read in the Sunday papers about the plotting going on behind the scenes in the Conservative party as to who should replace Boris and it struck me that the decision to get rid of the PM should be up to the ‘People’ and not Tory MPs. Our third demand ‘a Separation of Power’ calls for an elected PM.
3. One of the reasons politicians are pressing ahead with the new legislation to ‘Tackle On-Line Abuse’ is because so many of them receive hate mail and death threats. I don’t wish to make light of this but I would suggest if politicians up their game and did a decent job of serving the wishes of the people, they were elected to serve, they might start receiving letters of praise rather than hate.
4.All the MSM are at it, including Andrew Neil in the Mail, which is that when they have been writing about the shootings in Uvalde, Texas they all fail to mention the ‘elephant in the room’ which is that the shooter was a regular marijuana user as pointed out by Peter Hitchens. One can only assume that with so many of their friends as recreational drugs users they don’t see this as a problem which it most certainly is especially amongst the less well off.
The Harrogate Agenda stands for a ‘People’s Democracy’.
Power corrupts. Moreover, unaccountable power corrupts. In Britain, this has lead to trial by jury. It lead to Magna Carta. It lead to the schism from the Pope.
ReplyDeleteThe Monarchy believes itself having the right to exist, most likely powers derived from God. Parliament took those powers in the name of itself? Parliament believes itself to be sovereign. It believes it has the right to exist in much the same way as the Monarchy. When I suggested to my former MP that the British people have the right to call their own referenda, he quite rightly said that having referenda not authorised by Parliament would nit be in keeping with the system of parliamentary sovereignty. And there we have it. The system needs changing. THA demand 1 right there. The people are the sole source of political authority in the uk. We are the masters. We have never constituted the Monarchy or Parliament. They are both institutions that grew over the people, not from them.
I'm just reading about the St Bartholomew's day massacre in 1572. Those in power do not give it up without a fight, and so it will be for us. To get from here to implementation of the 6 demands, is a huge leap.
DeleteI think Niall is right, that the current economic crisis will wake people up, especially as it develops. My worry is that opportunists will use the opportunities created to make their own power grab.
We need something more organised to get from here to their, but what?
First we need the awakening and then using the internet to spread the word we need to start a coordinated peaceful campaign following the principles of Gene Sharp.
DeleteI'm sure I remember a story where George Orwell saw a farmer leading a herd of cows. The question crossed his mind why a group of larger, stronger animals allowed a single human being to control them.
DeleteWhy do 70 million people allow under a thousand to do the same?
Because we don't act like a bull or even cows but like sheep. There was a glimmer of hope on Friday when the sheep, oops, crowd booed at the PM and her disheveled husband when he shambled into St. Paul's, however inappropriate their reaction was on the occasion.
DeleteGood points and the 'People' have let their power slip from them towards a monarch and then parliament without a real fight.
ReplyDeleteI've said for sometime that the people are too busy trying to make ends meet to think about these critical constitutional issues.
We must hope the current economic crisis wakes people up to the reality that our elected officials in general make worse decisions than would be achieved by the collective will of the majority.
Any future reform of our governance needs as much sortition put into the mix as possible.
What is the social or political contract between the people and the state?
ReplyDeleteIf I understand you correctly the answer is there isn't one.
ReplyDeleteNiall, wrt point 4, so drugs is the issue, I see. Did Peter think it is odd that an 18 year old is not considered mature enough to buy a drink at a bar in Texas but there is no issue with him purchasing 2 semi-automatic rifles and hundreds of rounds of ammunition?
ReplyDeleteThe mental gymnastics that people turn to try and blame anything except the ready availability of firearms in the US is a sight to behold. I’d ask Peter a simple question, if Ramos was a resident in the UK and a drug user, if he actually was as Hitchens seems to base that on one person’s quote, does he think he would have carried out a similar massacre and if not, why not?
I would have a lot more respect for the likes of Hitchens and gun supporters in the US if they were honest and just admitted that the regular killing of children is a price they are willing to pay to own the 400 odd million guns in circulation in the US, as long as they are someone else’s children of course.
Thankfully in the UK ,gun control laws will only ever go one way