Responsible

I do finally think I am a responsible adult. It has taken decades, but maybe that's actually what a life is for. To learn how to be the best you can be. All that experience, all those mistakes & hopefully you grow into a kinder, less judgemental, more open, human being, who can admit failure & move on.

We make choices & decisions every day of our lives. Those choices & decisions are made in the light of our personality, intelligence & thought processes. How we were parented is also important. We get our basic moral compass in the first 5 years of our lives, so parenting is crucial to the sort of adult we will be. The next most important influence is our education & then finally our friendships.

It's like the recipe for a sponge cake. All the ingredients can make a light fluffy cake that rises, or a solid flat lump, depending on how you put the ingredients together. (Sadly my sponge cakes are nowhere near as good as my daughters!)

I increasingly feel that our society is becoming more adept at not taking responsibility for the wrong actions which affect others adversely & sometimes do real harm. We are becoming more adept at justifying mistakes rather than simply owning up. I do believe that deep down we know, but we just cannot bring ourselves to admit fault. 

I used to think that it was mostly men who were unable to face up to their failings & the word most used by women was sorry. I'm not so sure now. For example the head of the US Secret Service director Kim Cheatle who tried to justify the unjustifiable, rather than admit that there were failings in decision making when Trump was shot. Also the chief executive of the Post Office Paula Vennells during the Horizon scandal. 

In order to be responsible, you must also be truthful, both with yourself & publicly. There are times when absolute truth can be hurtful to others, but in the main no one should lie to themselves. 

I have had an instance recently where I'm fairly sure a friend has lied to me & then been unable to admit the deception. I have also had a long, ongoing, complaint with a company in which they have consistantly prevaricated & actually lied. There was a time when I would have been upset by both incidents. Now I am just beginning to think that it is more & more likely to happen.

 

I've come to the conclusion that it's because the poor example comes from the top - from politicians, from dictators, from CEO's & company executives. It's everywhere. Many people in the public eye are just interested in their own position, influence, salary etc. 

I still believe that there is huge capacity for good & selflessness in people. But I'm beginning to think that the dark forces against us are winning. We each have the capacity for both, it's your choice.

Protest & the Police

Article 11 protects your right to protest by holding meetings and demonstrations with other people. You also have the right to form and be part of a trade union, a political party or any another association or voluntary group. You have freedom of assembly, expression & association. This does not protect intentionally violent protest. What you do must be neccessary & proportionate. The thing is, who decides what is or isn't? In a democracy, that would ultimately be the law.

Our police began as unpaid watchmen / constables. By the 1700's they were paid. All subjects of the crown were responsible for reporting crime & assisting in catching criminals. In 1829 Robert Peel introduced the Metropolitan Police Act. In 1835 royal boroughs were required to set up professional police services. Our police force can only operate by consent of the people, "based upon a consensus of support that follows from transparency about their powers, their integrity in exercising those powers and their accountability for doing so". 

The balance between the right to protest & the right of others to go about their lives without disruption, plus the police upholding the law, is a very difficult line to tread. For instance the policing of the Miners strike in the Battle of Orgreave is now widely held to have been completely unacceptable & brutal. But it was backed by the Thatcher government of the time. 

Currently the UK is experiencing a wave of protests against;-

• the Israeli government war against Gaza
• climate change
• stopping new unsustainable oil fields & mining         

The emergence of deliberately disruptive protest tactics has created additional challenges for the public & the police. When there are several protests at the same time & in the same place, additional police have to be brought in from elsewhere & the police have difficult prioritising decisions to make. It must affect the police ability to pursue other incidents & even criminality. The wo/manpower will only stretch so far. 

The public concern is for the disruption caused & the possible breakdown of law & order. On the other hand the protesters are members of the public themselves & believe that their cause is just & urgent & needs to be heard. Protest empowers communities to stand up to injustice & influence decision makers. Protesters just have to be very careful not to inconvenience the public to the extent that they alienate them.

Historically universal franchise, the bedrock of democracy, would probably not exist had it not been for the disruptive protests of women. Pride, Black Lives Matter & Apartheid, Peace Vigils & Fracking also spring to mind as injustices & causes that would probalbly not be allowed under the Public order Act 2023.

We need to be very careful not to give the police & Government so much power that public rights are so compromised that protest becomes a crime. Individuals need to be free to protest collectively without fear of a return to Peterloo.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peterloo_Massacre    
 

Poverty is Relative

I can't remember much about my childhood. I know my father worked as a copper smelter in Smethwick & my mother had part time factory jobs after I went to school. I don't think they had much in the way of savings, but they owned their own house, presumably with a mortgage. 

At first there wasn't much heating, just an open coal fire. The washing was done with a boiler & a dolly in the lean to. But our second house did have radiators & at some point a twin tub washing machine. We took in 2 university students as lodgers to help ends meet. There was always food at mealtimes, but not many treats. 

We didn't need big wardrobes. Unlike today, working class people didn't follow fashion. My mother made most of my clothes. I know she struggled to buy the uniform for my grammar school, which was very expensive. Especially Start Right shoes & a velour hat! We didn't eat out, takeaways didn't exist & we hardly ever had coffee or tea out. Holidays were either camping - absolutely dire, or in a B&B - not much better. I wouldn't say we lived in poverty. There just wasn't much spare cash.

I am utterly shocked that apparently there are 4.3 million children in relative poverty in the UK according to Save the Childrens 2023 -24 stats. Worse, there are now 3.6 million children in absolute poverty.

https://www.savethechildren.org.uk/news/media-centre/press-releases/children-in-poverty-are-being-failed-the-uk-government-needs-to-

How can that be possible or acceptable in a supposedly wealthy nation? The GDP per Capita in United Kingdom is estimated to be $46,453 international dollars

But poverty is relative. The 5 poorest countries in the world are;-

South Sudan ($455 | GDP-PPP per Capita)

Burundi ($916 | GDP-PPP per Capita)

Central African Republic ($1,123 | GDP-PPP per Capita)

Democratic Republic of the Congo ($1,552 | GDP-PPP per Capita)

Mozambique ($1,649 | GDP-PPP per Capita)

https://sapa-usa.org/top-poorest-countries-in-the-world/ 

Ukraine is the poorest country in Europe, with a Gross National Income per capita of $3.5K. 

I wouldn't dream of minimising the poverty of european families. But if there is to be balance we have to be clear what we mean by poverty. Extreme poverty is about not having enough money to meet basic needs including food, clothing and shelter. Poverty is “the state of being extremely poor”. The definition for poor as “lacking sufficient money to live at a standard considered comfortable or normal in a society”.The poorest people are undernourished, don't have access to basic services such as electricity & clean drinking water, they also don't have access to good education or health services despite being in poor health.

https://ourworldindata.org/poverty

It seems to me that, unbelievably, the UK is moving backwards

 

https://www.jrf.org.uk/uk-poverty-2024-the-essential-guide-to-understanding-poverty-in-the-uk

 

We need to tackle poverty, not just at home but worldwide. In order to do that we need to do something about wealth distribution. The current situation of extremes of poverty & obscene wealth are not acceptable. I find it completely indefensible that Jeff Bezos, for example, paid $500 million for the mega yacht "Koru"  in 2023 to travel around the globe.

 

 

 

•  

   

  
   

 

This too Shall Pass

Late June & early July isn't a good time for me. June starts with fathers day, followed by the anniversary of the accident, 15 years ago, that landed my husband, (literally, by helicopter), in intensive care in the last week of June. Then there are the anniversaries of his death on our 43rd wedding anniversary, his funeral, and his 67th birthday the day after. All of this triggers a range of emotions, from huge sadness to anger at the waste. He was up a ladder on his own & fell onto concrete. 

Iris Murdoch, a philosopher & writer, had a theory of "Unselfing". This involves turning away from ourselves and being attentive to the world before us. We should open our eyes to reality & detach ourselves from our ego. It's a simple idea, but boy is it hard to do.

It does fit in with my core Buddhist beliefs, but the ego is very dominant & can be pernicious. Emotional thinking is unhelpful thinking. A person bases their views of and makes conclusions about situations, themselves or other people, on the way that they are feeling. On the other hand rational decision making is based on logical reasoning.

I know all of this intellectually. But there are times when my emotions become dominant & it is really hard to subdue that. There are things that help;-

• Being active - swimming is my meditative life saver.
• Reading, doing things I enjoy
  
• Watching interesting & informative documentaries which show me how wonderful our world is, but also how much is wrong. There are always people far worse off than I am.
• Socialising
• Volunteering, giving my life purpose

It is true that "this too shall pass". The saying is believed to originate from 13th century Persia, where it was sung by Sufi artists like Rumi and Attar. Change is inevitable, little is permanent. We have to embrace that, especially in the unstable world we live in.

 

 We do have to have hope, but we also each have to be prepared to make an effort.

  

Right Wing - Left Wing, You Choose

I really hoped that election turn out would be high. It seems to have been about 60%, the second lowest turnout since 1885. I hoped that despite the general disillusion, with good reason, with politics & politicians, people would want to be heard. Would want a say in where we go from here.

We, the electorate, now all get what we deserve, whether we voted or not. Labour with a huge majority. A rise in right wing Populism with Reform getting 14% of the vote but only 1% of the seats thank goodness. Plus the very right wing of the Conservatives now about to fight with the more moderates for control of the party. Fortunately the Lib Dems & the Greens have done well. This is all happening elswehere too, notably in America which we seem to blindly follow.

Not only are we alone in Europe in having an undemocratic "first past the post" system of voting, we are also unusual in having an immediate handover to the new Prime Minister. It seem odd to me that we expect a new leader to start making very important decisions straight away with no handover period or chance to recover from weeks of exhausting electioneering & a sleepless night. There will be briefings from civil servants, but if the PM & Cabinet have not had experience of being in government surely a period of grace to get to grips with hugely complex issues might be a good idea. Personally I'd rather wait a bit for good decisions & allow people to really understand their job. 

https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/sites/default/files/Transitions%20-%20preparing%20for%20changes%20to%20government.pdf

There are so many ways we in the UK are stuck in the past, in history & tradition. If we are to prosper & survive as a country it seems to me that we do really need to change what we do & how we do it. Instead of looking back to our past, we do need to embrace the world as it is now & what it needs to become for the future. The old ways are no longer working or appropriate for a modern, interconnected & very complex world. We need to accept the chaos theory "Butterfly Effect" actually exists.  We need to use modern technology & communications to benefit everyone. We need to have better negotiation, better teamwork, more consensus building, more honesty. We need to accept difference. 

We can no longer rely on our island status to stop what is happening elsewhere from affecting us. We need to work effectively with other nations. The biosphere / ecosphere & everything in it is a complex, interdependent, entity. Humans have made many mistakes over milennia. 

If we are to stand any chance of surviving on our planet politics needs to be taken out of the equation & we all need to change how we think & what we do. Voting in a truly democratic system is a part of that. No one can & should evade their responsibility to do that.