We have a Constitutional Monarchy, but the monarch doesn't make any political decisions. That is the role of the Government (the Executive) & Parliament (the Legislature). The Prime Minister leads the government with the support of the Cabinet and junior ministers. In turn these are supported by the teams of non-political civil servants & a lot of "advisors". Then you have all the MP's - elected Backbenchers & the Opposition. Finally there are the unelected Lords.
You would imagine that with that whole panoply of expertise, plus MI5, (our version of Homeland Security), and, MI6, (our Secret Intelligence Service who are responsible for the collection, analysis, and appropriate dissemination of foreign intelligence), our government would be able to make informed decisions.
Sadly, increasingly, that doesn't seem to be the case.
The Conservatives came to power following the General Election in May 2010. Just in case your maths is as bad as mine I worked it out - 11.25 years. That is a long time, over 132 months. There should have been an aquisition of experience & expertise among our elected leaders in that time.
They inherited the worldwide Banking Crisis of 2008 & enforced austerity in the Recession that followed, they presided over the 2011 War in Libya with the USA, they engineered the 2016 withdrawl from the EU (Brexit), they have blundered through the 2019 Covid 19 Pandemic & finally are now making a complete hash of the withdrawl from Afghanistan.
Surprisingly I have sympathy with people who govern. Individual societies & the world are extremely complex systems. I really don't know how fairly ordinary human beings can assimilate all of the available information & make good decisions for the benefit of the biosphere & humankind. We the electorate probably have unrealistic expectations of them. However, for whatever reason - power, money or altruism, they chose to do it. So they should at least make a reasonably good job of it & behave ethically.
They don't. They lie, prevaricate & don't answer simple questions. They make it into an art form in the mistaken belief that we don't see through them. They blindly follow the wrong examples - the USA, Corporate Multinationals, Lobbyists with money & power....What they don't do is learn from history & countries who are better, more successful models. This government are not alone in making colossal mistakes. But they are the only ones who directly affect me on a daily basis.
The handling of the current Afghanistan situation is appalling. It was forseeable & was predicted.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/17/us/politics/afghanistan-biden-administration.html
https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/4185/documents/43162/default/
I am literally horrified at the mess we are responsible for creating & perpetuating. These are human lives that are being devastated & shown graphically on our TV screens daily, again. It always seems to be the most defenceless & helpless that suffer the most.
Are we really expected to believe that none of the politicians, analysts, advisors, MI5, MI6 forsaw this problem? If that is the case, what are they for?
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