David Levy – What change looks like – Nov 2025

In two months I will have been writing a monthly blog for thirteen years. Not quite Alistair Cooke’s ‘Letter from America’, but a fair time for a personal reflection of the environmental and marine world.

In that intervening period I have developed a strong aversion to politics, and also to the public body of bureaucrats who administer the political will of the various Ministries, regardless of who is in power. The civil servants who run these Ministries want their particular one to rise in importance, believing its sphere of influence will grow in line with the greater number of people it employs.

The truth is, it is the bureaucrats who control the Ministries – or so they claim – and they plough ahead with the knowledge that they are right, regardless of the reality. In fact, the reality is that they are heading for multiple disasters.

In many cases they have already steered us towards the abyss. The water industry is a classic example of their ineptitude. The principle that guides these interrelated Ministries is the primacy of finance, and who controls it.

Last night I watched a revealing documentary on the rise of Margaret Thatcher to the political heights of Prime Minister. Regardless of your own politics, you have to respect her for her work ethic and positive vision for this country. She made decisions and got things done, and now I feel the country is screaming out for another such person to lead and make change. At this moment in time, it is not clear where that person is coming from.

What is clear is that the public are growing tired of the lies. In the case of many, it is easy to see how they are being influenced by social media, as it flings mud and innuendo. It sticks, along with the blatant erosion of truth. At one time we all had a clear idea of what the truth was but, nowadays, we have lost that and society is much poorer because of it.

I also briefly caught a TV programme based on shafting your opponent to win the prize, hosted by Amanda Holden. Is that what prime-time viewing should be showing ? Is it the message we want to pass to future generations?

These things concern me.

Makes you wonder why China bothers to spy on us, as we are self-imploding without any input from them.