David Levy – Understanding the Human Condition – Sep 20
Yesterday I spent time talking to friends about our perceptions on where humanity is today and why people have lost faith with Democracy.
I have to say that for all its faults — and they are many and growing — a belief in Democracy is far better than the alternatives.
How would my English soul cope with a totalitarian system where human rights do not feature and are not recognized?
Some may say, that is the reality here in the United Kingdom. But that is because we, the people, have lost the will to keep our politicians on track. Seduced by a soft life we have become over-tolerant, uncaring and self-centred, with a capacity to moan and bitch at those things that affect us.
Those who follow the Government-prepared consultations have to realise that these consultations are designed to waste our time, sap our resources and most importantly kill our spirit for change. For that alone, government should fall. Alas, we have been given no true alternative because it is the Civil Service and its full bureaucratic weight which perpetuates the system.
Politicians, meanwhile, have over the decades made decisions on ill-considered reasoning which has been coloured by economics, and not by what was needed.
Nuclear is a classic example of electricity energy production, born in its case from the development of the wartime nuclear bomb. Any sane person would look at the production of electricity and spot that humanity has available, free of charge so to speak, endless wind, solar, tidal and wave energy. All of which can be harnessed to provide for our needs.
All it takes is investment in the infra-structure. The rest is free, relatively.
If you want to see the merit in what I am saying just see the impact that wind power has now made on the National Grid.
Slowly the hubs for taking offshore power are being established, whereas nuclear is on a backward looking trajectory. Did we inherit the nuclear waste problem and decommissioning costs? Yes, we did. And nobody advised us of this in advance, at least not from amongst those who were listened to.
This brings me to accountability.
I have to conclude that our responsibility, invested in politicians, has somehow broken down.
In my opinion there is a missing layer of decision-making. We thought the House of Lords was that layer, and to a certain extent it has functioned that way. But I was reminded recently by a documentary maker, interviewing the people on the Streets of London, that ordinary people are incredibly intuitive. That is the missing layer in my opinion.
Where have we seen this model before?
Those who wish to remember will point to Communism as this example of people power and, to be truthful, some good things in theory would develop from this ideology. The ‘big idea’ however is demonstrated so well in 1984 by George Orwell, where the people represented by the horse are driven to exhaustion by the politicians (pigs) backed up by the Army (attack dogs).
What I would hope for are conviction politicians, such as the New Zealand Prime Minister who has reacted to each of her country’s issues with humility, humanity and in a spirit of humble service. I commend her, and will do everything in my world to find that in our politicians. Then you have something solid on which to face the future.
Finally in this blog, I have to highlight that these attributes are in my last MP, Dr Andrew Murrison MP. Following a series of MP surgery meetings with him, he came to follow and support the community group, The Air That We Breathe Network, which I chaired. Even marching with us through a police barrier to speak passionately to five hundred-plus constituents on a cement company’s property where tyres were being burnt as fuel to make cement, thereby affecting their health.
That is the type of MP I look towards and follow with my support.
Even today, as the Wiltshire County Council plan the building of another waste incinerator and chimney on another site in Westbury, he is there standing resolutely by the side of the people of Westbury in opposition to the plans.
He is the only one I know worth voting for, and even the Green Party have failed to inspire.
David Levy
