New dark ages in sight?

Two stories that have been getting plenty of column inches are the future of electricity generation and chaos in NHS emergency departments. In both cases government mismanagement and not lack of funds is the root cause.

During the recent cold spells the UK came very close to power cuts due to lack of generating capacity. This has partly come about because of EU directives and consequently signing up to carbon reduction commitments – which few others appear ready to implement – and partly due to simple indecision by successive energy ministers (and thus governments). Now the UK has a very expensive windmill building programme which can never deliver the energy security the UK needs because the wind does not always blow and in any event the country would need to be covered end to end in windmills to get anywhere near the energy required. The UK is closing coal powered stations for dubious environmental reasons and instead relying upon imported natural gas. There is a steadfast refusal by those in charge (the energy minister) to acknowledge the risks of this policy as that would in effect mean agreeing that the all-renewables agenda is not realistic. On top of that the UK potentially has self sufficiency in gas by fracking but the green lobby will have none of it.  Of course cheap energy is not just wanted by households – and those bills are rising fast – but also by industry. The US is said to be recovering from the world wide recession largely because fracking has significantly reduced energy costs making manufacturing in the US viable again. It seems nobody is watching in the UK as the politically correct cuddle up to agenda green and climate change concerns – which are evaporating in the real world since there has not been the global warming that was ominously predicted.

The National Health Service in the UK has had money thrown at it by successive governments but few believe it is getting better and there is evidence to the contrary. The latest crisis is in casualty departments which are now overloaded and in many hospitals unable to provide prompt and satisfactory services. There are many issues which have contributed to this – a popular villain is immigration although doctors opting out of late night call outs has also been blamed. However there are many other reasons from the fear of medical errors – Doctors used to trust their judgement now every diagnosis made by a GP has to be checked (which is one reason a new help line will never work); to modern culture which has a ‘know my rights’ mentality as well as little thought about the options. The mentality of the average person when the NHS started, just after WWII, was totally different to today’s mentality. I have never seen a breakdown of the percentage of ER cases that the medical staff really think are emergencies but I would not be surprised if it was less than 50%. The next problem for the NHS is that as medicine advances so do medical costs and people living longer has created a crises in elderly care with many elderly citizens ending up with dementia.

In both cases the politically correct have tried to stifle discussion and debate – suggestions that carbon concerns are over blown will be met with fury and denial by suggesting such comments betray the future of our children and the world – if the lights go out they care not - unless of course it their lights.

Much the same can be said about the NHS. The PC oppose any reforms which involve the private sector or any form of charging. Why? I for many years was in the restaurant and bar business. If I put a tray on the bar that said free drink – everybody would take one. If I put a tray on the bar and said Glass of Champagne 50p – normal price £5 - only a few will take one even though 50p is ludicrously low price. If a visit to casualty cost £5 how many would it discourage – more than a few I guarantee. Of course if somebody is in no state to pay – they are injured or too ill – they would be treated as a matter of priority.These are two glaring examples of politically correct dogma ignoring the bleeding obvious – elsewhere are welfare services are in a mess for much the same reasons, immigration has been ignored and we must regardless of size, strength, gender and IQ all be equal. Aristotle is quoted as saying  “The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal.” A point the PC appear to agree with as our ruling elites are most definitely more equal than us!

The volumes of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire were written in the late eighteenth century by historian Edward Gibbons. This is a summary of his conclusions as in wiki

“The Roman Empire succumbed to barbarian invasions in large part due to the gradual loss of civic virtue among its citizens.] They had become weak, outsourcing their duties to defend their Empire to barbarian mercenaries, who then became so numerous and ingrained that they were able to take over the Empire. Romans, he believed, had become effeminate, unwilling to live a tougher, "manly" military lifestyle. In addition, Gibbon argued that Christianity created a belief that a better life existed after death, which fostered an indifference to the present among Roman citizens, thus sapping their desire to sacrifice for the Empire. He also believed its comparative pacifism tended to hamper the traditional Roman martial spirit.”

If you look back at the UK over the last 60 years from the end of the WWII we have outsourced much of our governance to the EU, civic virtue is virtually nonexistent with the ruling elite leading the way, our armed forces are depended upon others (USA/NATO), welfare dependence plagues our societies and we no longer worship any gods of any kind except maybe Mammon.

Are we heading for the new dark ages? I hope not but I suspect in 50 years time much will be different and I doubt that the kind of welfare state the UK currently has will still be in existence unless we drill for that shale gas and find far more than we can ever want! Because that is the only way we will be able to afford it! We will also need to regain national pride, give up on national sloth and realise, that in reality, that the only person who will help you is yourself!

Taking responsibility – why democracy is failing.

Anybody who has run a business will be aware that often it is not easy. Sometimes it is downright soul destroying when hard decisions have to be made, sometimes there is a feeling that events are outside the manager’s control, but sometimes it is easy and fun. Almost inevitable all these emotions will be felt over time. Needless to say if the hard decisions are not taken then matters get out of control and the business fails – certainly the sunny uplands of a fun business – and serious money becomes a distant and a fading mirage.
I have lived for a number of years in countries with no free proper health service and no social security. When people get ill they may get to see a doctor, or nurse, for free but any treatment has to be paid for and hospitalisation means paying out money that people seldom have. Generally speaking the extended family have to chip in and somehow find the money but sometimes they simple don’t have the money. In life or death situations often the option is sell an asset and usually the only asset is the family farm – be it little more than a rice paddy, or a coconut grove. And the problem with selling that is it then impoverishes the family even more – they go from a very poor subsistence farmer to beggars. So the family has a hard choice – an almost impossible decision of a life or a family destroyed to save a life. However if a logical person looks at the issues they will almost certainly say the welfare of the whole family is at stake so why should they save one, that is doubly so if the one to be saved is well past their prime. Apart from anything severe poverty is likely to kill more family members – so it could even be argued that saving one life will cost lives in the future.
I look at these examples to compare them to our politicians - the idea of democracy was that citizens elected the best leader to manage the affairs of the state/town/ country for them. By implication they took responsibility and sometime those decisions would not be easy – sometimes, in war in particular, they would be sending people to their death. However the leader’s job was to take responsibility and do what was best for the majority of his people. That person was elected so he had to do roughly what the people wanted. Needless to say the implication was that leaders vying to be chosen would debate the issues and give the voters an opportunity to consider the best solution.
There is another area of responsibility and that is from those that choose. Is their choice purely selfish or does it respect the good of the community as a whole as well as their immediate family. JFK famously said “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.” A commendable idea which seems to have been consigned to the WPB and it is not just the bankers and tax dodgers, who have now become the Aunt Sally of the political class: it is the political class themselves and far more seriously the majority of voters.
Democracy depends upon both the voters and the leaders (politicians) making responsible decisions. The voters must vote for the person or persons they believe will be best not just for them but their children and the country as a whole.
What is clear is that hard decisions have to be made in the UK and many other western democracies but those decisions are not even being considered because the ruling elite will not do their job and take responsibility since they believe they will be voted out by a voting population who have also lost touch with their basic responsibility: to be responsible not just for today but tomorrow and the future.
The juxtaposition between the easy lifestyle of the west where hard decisions revolve around the colour of the next pair of trainers and the very poor of Asia is interesting. Asia is barely a bastion of democracy and in far too many cases the vote goes to the person who supplies the most direct incentive. And that is an easy way to dismiss the third world – they are not fit for democracy is the cry.
But democracy demands responsibility and hard decisions. Alexis de Tocqueville wrote "The American Republic will endure, until politicians realize they can bribe the people with their own money." He was in effect talking about democracy as a system and not only was he a cynic he was right. The world is now a place where the traditional democracies are stagnant in terms of growth. Europe is a mess having been plundered by democracy and the US is probable not far behind as immigration and welfare policies copy the mistakes of Europe.
On the other hand authoritarian regimes that have allowed capitalism to flourish are bursting ahead. A Chinese person can make as much money as they like and have a consumer lifestyle but they cannot challenge those in charge. It is much the same in other successful authoritarian capitalist societies from Russia to the Gulf States to the state that started it all Singapore as well as many African and South American nations. But those in charge still have a responsibility to see living standards are rising and the capitalists are delivering the wealth for that to happen, or they will face dissent and revolution.
Our Western politicians have not been responsible nor have our voters and that is the minimum demand to make democracy work. An entrepreneur has to take care, a poor subsistence farmer in the 3rd. World has to take care, even an autocratic ruler has to take care – why don’t modern Western Politicians take responsibility – that is all that is demanded of them?

New Magna Carta needed

All Magna Carta means is great charter – however it was the first acknowledgement by an absolute monarch that any of his subjects had rights. It was only a few lords, certainly not the whole population, but it was, in effect, a quantum shift of power which over the centuries led to a vote for all; and with it a supposed say in government. What bought on the revolution which forced the King to abdicate his absolute powers was simple – it was tax. The Barons thought they were paying too much– even if they did then collect said tax from their subjugated citizens.

We now have full democracy we are told – but do we? The rise and rise of the European Union must raise the question of how much we really control our own destiny. On top of that there is a growing-well-paid- governing elite of politicians and civil servants who seem to pay little attention to what people actually want but more to that which they think they should want.

Political correctness has become the religion of the ruling classes and woe betide anybody who goes against it. The zeal with which it is applied - often to protect the position of the same ruling class applying it – is similar to the zeal with which the medieval church protected its own members. We don’t yet have special courts for the PC advocates but their PC rules are being enthusiastically applied to the justice system. The right of the individual has been trampled all over with the need to protect the supposedly-disadvantaged, the immigrants, the gays, the gypsies (well anybody who says they are a traveller) it is all done in the name of fairness. But if you scratch the surface it is blatantly obvious being fair to one is often being unfair to another. The classic situation was the education system that was dumbed down so far everybody qualified making the entire qualification worthless and thus disadvantaged all who were capable of passing the proper exams. In a way the arrival of terrorism was a gift from heaven for the ruling elite – it gave them a reason to further erode liberties in order to stop terrorism. But the real reason terrorism is such a threat to our countries is that the PC brigade have allowed in millions of aliens from diverse communities which have created their own ghettos and have a religion that is sworn to destroy our founding believes - which are principally Christian. But we are now not allowed to be religious unless we are a minority – and that might happen sooner than we think. These are all matters which get up the average Britons nose on a daily basis. But on the whole we are a tolerant people and have accepted all this with some stoicism.

The main reason we have allowed all this to happen is partly because living standards have been rising and partly because a significant per cent of the electorate have been bribed by the welfare state in all its manifestations. However most Brits are now firmly in the middle class with their own home even if the nanny state is also becoming part of the norm particularly with free health service and pensions (They are not as they are paid for by tax payers). On top of that most Brits are hardworking – they need to be to pay to stay in the middle class- and simple don’t have the time and energy to get involved in politics. Sadly they believe that whatever they do, or say, will make little difference. Seldom do hard working folk get into politics at any level – even parish councils are dominated those with self-interest – even if it is only to hear the sound of their own voice. And assuming parliament is the height of politics then more and more candidates, and thus MPs, are effectively selected by the major parties political machines and are thus recruited from the ruling class.

But a decade of spectacularly bad economic management is threatening to change everything. The exchequer is broke – the very basis of modern government at risk because it no longer has the funds to bribe its constituents – the last five years have seen government borrowing escalate exponentially as governments have struggled to maintain their spending programs with a vague hope something will ‘come right.’ But it has not happened and government knows that to cut welfare spending is the only real option – nothing else really matters – defence will be a target but the reality is that it is less than 10% of welfare. So there is only one place to look – more revenue. As a result we have the great tax clampdown. Multi nationals are accused of using perfectly legal tax schemes to avoid tax however multi nationals are strong and they will shrug off such accusations. On the other hand individual taxpayers are not. When I ran businesses in the UK, the last one nearly 15 years ago, the self-employed were presumed to be tax cheats and had to prove otherwise. But soon it will be every tax payer, every person who may or may not do a nights babysitting for a friend, or a kind soul who runs someone to the airport – the tax man will be standing there demanding you prove you did not take a sly tenner or made a profit on the fuel allowance. And don’t even mention the so called stealth taxes on pensions and other saving. It will get worse and worse.

Not only is income tax applicable to income but national insurance is added to it and then most spending is subject to some form of tax – excise duty of fuel and alcohol, and VAT on many items. There is then tax on any investment income – in the off chance somebody has managed to save, another tax if you managed to invest and then make a profit and don’t for heaven’s sake die – the ferryman will only get a look in after HMG. I cannot find a calculation but my guess is the average middle class person earning a modest salary of 35k a year is paying at least 60% to the government one way or another.

That is why I say we need another Magna Carta – it is essential that our government is made to spend only what it has and there should also be a maximum level at which any person can be taxed at. I believe that should include indirect taxes – they are sometimes considered as optional but the reality is many are not.

We should be horrible aware that borrowing at our existing levels can only impoverish future generations as well as ourselves in in our dotage, There is only one way the debt will be run down and that is by inflation – which takes money out of the average person’s pocket just as effectively as tax.

The middle classes must soon realise they need a fiscally responsible government and as successive governments, despite assuming absolute powers, have proved to be unwilling, or unable, to manage that - like King John before them they should be held to account and their powers to tax and spend restricted. And as with the original Magana Carta, over time, it will change a great deal more than just tax. Hopefully we will also end up with a better more objective government. I have always said that business only start working properly when they run out of money – I suspect government is much the same!