Elections - What I need to know.

I am so p..... off with politicians & the run up to the election. So this is my Manifesto for what I want;-

• I want to know what qualifications, experience & beliefs the candidates have to be electable
• I want clear, unvarnished, truthful, intelligent, responses to questions
• I want them to listen
• I want respect for other politicians & the electorate
• I want them to actually care about the problems the electorate & the world is facing, not bluster
• I want them to be prepared to make unpopular decisions that are in the best, long term, interest of the UK & the world
• I want an election to be a level playing field, not dependent on how much money a party can raise to fund it's campaign
• I want effective, speedy, oversight & challenge when politicians don't fulfil my criteria. 
• I want real accountability
• I want a proper, representative, voting system, not this "first past the post" outdated & unfair current system
  

This is what I don't want;-

• I don't want candidates slag off the other parties
• I don't want candidates to be more concerned about power, influence & wealth than the issues we face 
• I don't want manipulation of statistics & lies
• I don't want an election to be a "bun fight" - It's too important for that
• I don't want the constant interrupting & talking over speakers by interviewers & candidates. 

Currently I haven't been able to stay with any TV debates for more than 5 minutes because I'm unable to tolerate the lack of integrity & understanding how serious this all is. It isn't just the UK that is in a dire situation. The world is. Everything is very unstable. 

 

Currently I've been sequestered in my front room for 2 days because I can't tolerate the heat. Climate change is obvious. It's the most important issue that humanity & the planet faces. Much of the world is voting this year. Our future depends on who gets power. If the loony religious right puts Trump back in America & populism wins everywhere I can't imagine the damage that will be done.

Extremism of any type isn't the answer. We need intelligent & calm leaders who understand the dangers & have the courage to make the right choices.

Contamination

Between 1970 and the early 1990s, more than 30,000 NHS patients were given blood transfusions, or treatments which used blood products, which were contaminated with hepatitis C or HIV. Over 3,000 people have died as a result, and thousands live with ongoing health conditions. The Langstaff Inquiry was published in May this year.

"Failures caused this to happen, each on its own is serious. Taken together they are a calamity".

There were "Systemic, collective and individual failures to deal ethically, appropriately, and quickly, with the risk of infections being transmitted in blood, with the infections when the risk materialised, and with the consequences for thousands of families"

"1,250 were infected with HIV. The best estimate is that this included 380 children" "Almost all infected with HIV were also infected with Hepatitis C and some with Hepatitis B and Hepatitis D as well." "Three quarters of these have died"

"A larger number still, (between 2,400 and 5,000 people with bleeding disorders), who were not infected by HIV, received blood products infected with one or more hepatitis viruses, and developed chronic Hepatitis C"

"People who were infected by transfusions, rather than by blood products, were infected in even greater numbers. Between 80 and 100 were infected with HIV after a blood transfusion. Approximately 26,800 were infected with Hepatitis C after a blood transfusion"

Needless infections were caused by;-

• Failures in the licensing regime from 1973 in allowing importation and distribution  of contaminated blood products
• Failure to ensure a sufficient supply of Factor 8 concentrates from the plasma of UK donors
• Failing to encourage and finance research into methods of viral inactivation of contaminated factor concentrates 
• Denial of the risks

On & on & on - See  https://www.infectedbloodinquiry.org.uk/sites/default/files/Volume_1.pdf

I posted on my Blog about  "Inquiry Culture Shock - Openness or Cover Up" in May this year. The amount of gross incompetence, cover ups & downright lies just seems to be never ending. I watched "In Cold Blood" last night.

https://www.itv.com/watch/news/in-cold-blood-the-award-winning-documentary-about-the-biggest-clinical-disaster-in-nhs-history/g8g3fsd 

What has led to the situation we seem to be in where people do not admit to any failure or mistake? Where people routinely lie & prevaricate to avoid responsibility? Where people will seemingly do anything, accept any consequences, including serious illness & death, in order not to accept blame & the consequences of their actions or inactions?

Are we as a nation so morally corrupt that we will just let this creeping toxicity happen? 

Why don't heads roll? Why aren't they sacked? If laws have been broken, why aren't they prosecuted? 

Thank goodness for the many brave people who fight for the truth, often at great cost, & often for years.

 

Independent v State Education

Around 5.9% of all children at school in the UK attend private schools. There are just over 554,000 pupils at UK independent schools. There are 16.9% more pupils in independent schools today than there were in 1990 - 05.09.2023

 

Non British Pupils in Independent Schools - 

(https://www.isc.co.uk/media/uukn4r3i/isc_census_2024_15may24.pdf)

                 Non British Parents Overseas Parents in UK % Parents Overseas % Parents in UK

Hong Kong   7,677          5,075                   2,602                66.1%                      33.9%

China           10,375         5,824                   4,551                56.1%                      43.9%

Japan            1,303              659                      644                50.6%                     49.4%

 

Russia           1,812              940                     872                 51.9%                      48.1%

Ukraine         2,055              750                   1305                 36.5%                      63.5%

Middle East   1,555              776                     779                 49.9%                     50.1%

Nigeria         1,553            758                  795                48.8%                   51.2%

Rest of Africa 1,953          687               1266                35.2%                    64.8%

India              2,028           244               1,784               12.0%                     88.0%

The average cost per child at a UK private school is now £20,480 per annum (£6,827 per term) for day pupils, and £34,790 per annum (£11,597 per term) for boarders. This represents an average fee increase of around 5.1% from last year’s fees, and an acceleration compared to the previous year (2020 to 2021) where fees rose on average at just over 4%.  

https://www.schoolfeeschecker.co.uk/blog/school-fees-2023.php

 

I have to come clean - I was a teacher & head teacher in the State system & would not have sent my daughter to a private school. I believe in the provision of an excellent education for every child & equal opportunity for all, regardless of income & background. The most important reason for my antipathy to fee paying education is that the world is not just made up of the wealthy who can afford it. It is important that children understand that & mix with & relate to a mixed & representative group of their own peers.

 

I would really like to know what parents who do value independent education expect it to provide that makes the investment worthwhile. Obviously high quality academic education, also probably better Arts & Sports facilities & teaching. Better buildings too from what I have seen in several major fee paying schools. But I also think that part of the hidden agenda is the Networking possibilities. Making lifelong friends with other wealthy, powerful & influential people, who will hopefully ease their childrens way through adult life.

 

There are 4 parenting styles - Authoritarian, Authoritative, Permissive & Uninvolved. There are also Tiger Parents - a form of strict parenting, whereby parents are highly invested in ensuring their children's success. Specifically, tiger parents push their children to attain high levels of academic achievement or success in high-status extracurricular activities such as music or sports. I hope to goodness I was somewhere in the middle of that, not at the extremes.

 

My point is that if parents have invested a lot of money in their childs education, I wonder how much of a return they expect. I wonder if those children feel pressurised to achieve what the parents want. Or whether they are free to live their lives as they want to & make mistakes. 

Not everyone can be academically brilliant or a money generating entrperneur. Not everyone can be a star in the artistic sense. I think we should think very carefully about what we think education is for. Is it's purpose societal or is it individual? Or should it be a balanced mixture of both?

 

Our society is very polarised between the small percentage of very wealthy & the vast majority of people who struggle financially. Unfortunately I think that independent education perpetuates that.

 

Ways to be Happy

I'm reading a book that says that the way to be happy is to "Improve your reality & Lower your expectations". I think that is rather difficult. It is important to be realistic - life is full of ups & downs. Sometimes the downs are dreadful. Very occasionally the ups can be wonderful. None of us has the right to expect a life that is truly blessed all the time. What is important is that we learn the lessons life gives us & understand that most people can & do deal with anything. Generally there isn't much choice but to deal with it. But everytime you come through, it gives you confidence that you can cope the next time. 

I do think that it is really helful to understand the importance of pleasure & enjoyment. I don't mean owning things, spending money or being selfish & hedonistic. There are lots of things that make me happy, in no particular order;-

• Clean, fresh cotton bed linen.
• Going to bed & reading a good book before sleeping - in fact just reading anytime
  
• Seeing the plants I have planted in my garden come back every year. 
• Being with good friends & family
• Swimming lengths
• Enjoying a nice meal I have cooked
• Being independent & comfortable in my own skin
• Being solitary but not lonely
• Learning & researching new things
• Going to art exhibitions
• Listening to music

I could go on. 

I think that the important thing is to accept ones reality. It is what it is. Often I cannot control it. Currently I have a Fibromyalgia / Arthritis "flare up", my knees & hips are stopping me from walking far. I have learned that being angry, frustrated or frightened of pain that affects my life doesn't help. I do try to deal with the symptoms though. So I am trying to improve my reality, but I have lowered my expectations about what I can do. It is annoying to have to cancel things that I was going to do, but continuing to force my body to do them would only exacerbate the symptoms & prolong the problem. Age does bring compensations - acceptance is one of them.

It isn't true that we only use 10% of our brain capacity  https://mcgovern.mit.edu/2024/01/26/do-we-use-only-10-percent-of-our-brain/  Neuroscience has disproved that fallacy & we now know far more about our brain & how it works. Our brain generates our thoughts. That is what we have to learn to control. How we approach our life influences how happy or discontented we are. Positivity & self belief is important.

In the words of Monty Python - "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" 

 

Misnomers

I think the National Health Service is a misnomer. It's actually a National Illness Service. The people who use it are already unwell & need treatment. That is very costly - medics salaries, ancilliary salaries, medical equipment, buildings, drugs....the NHS England budget is £164.9 billion as of 6 Mar 2024.

Maybe what we need to do is make a radical change in the whole mindset. Obviously people who are unwell need treatment. However, maybe there needs to be a much bigger focus on helping people to be healthy & avoid actually getting ill. Education must be a huge part of that, possibly focussing on nutrition & exercise. Early diagnosis also seems to be really important, so speedy access to well trained doctors seems vital. Just letting people become ill & then stepping in seems to me to simply increase the costs.

On those lines I also think that Leisure Centre is a misnomer. Leisure Centres provide fitness activities of all kinds - swimming, gyms, group exercise....It shouldn't be considered as leisure. It's actually an Activity Centre which aids fitness. In our age of the car, when many people have sedentary jobs, many get very little exercise. People really need well run, accessible & affordable activity facilities. We seem to be brilliant at watching sport, but not so good at participating in it. Again we need to change our mindset. We need to accept that we have a personal responsibility for our own health & wellbeing. 

Finally I think Refugee is a misnomer. In what sense does the UK provide a refuge to people who are fleeing war, persecution, dictatorship, famine & poverty? The Home office detains people in Immigration Removal Centres (IRCs) Residential Short-Term Holding Facilities (RSTHFs) pre-departure accommodation facility (PDA) short-term holding rooms based at ports of entry (STHFs) & prisons. Also in Hotels. Yes they have very basic facilities, but they are often traumatised & have suffered persecution & discrimination.

https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/immigration-detention-in-the-uk/

Over half of asylum appeals were allowed in the year to March 2023. Refugees may arrive "illegally" because it's the only route available, but most deserve to find refuge even given our very stringent processes.

https://www.refugeecouncil.org.uk/information/refugee-asylum-facts/top-10-facts-about-refugees-and-people-seeking-asylum/ 

I think all of this & more is important. We are living in a "post truth" era where "Spin doctors" are in charge & we, individually, need to verify the truth of what we are being told through the Media & in print. We can no longer rely on honesty from those in charge. Public opinion is manipulated all the time. It has never been more obvious than in this run up to a general election. 

It's 1984 with bells on!

Eternal Growth & Wage Increase

I wish I understood more about economics. I hate checking my bank statements & I simply cannot remember numbers. 

I can understand general principles & it seems to me that our politicians base the economics of running a country on ideas that simply don't stack up. I don't accept that it is possible to have eternal growth. Smith, Ricardo & Malthus set out the theory in the 18th & 19th century - "every economy has a steady state GDP and any deviation off that steady state is temporary and will eventually return". The 21st century is a very different place. The Solow Growth Model assumes if we double the level of capital stock and double the level of labor, we exactly double the level of output.

I just don't see much evidence over the period of my life that we can rely on continual economic growth. Any charts you look at show huge fluctuations over the period. It used to be called "boom & bust". It seems reasonable to me that major world events are going to continue to happen & will adversely affect economic growth. We have had numerous such events over my lifetime, but the UK & the world seems to have been extremely unstable for the whole of the period since the Global Finacial Crisis of  2007 - 2008. If we simply look at our personal experience of interest on savings & investments & the value of our property, if we are lucky enough to have them, we can see that huge fluctuations are normal & dependent on situations outside our control. Tell people struggling to heat their homes & feed their families that there is economic growth & see how they respond.

Then there is the whole wages situation. We have been in a period of long & disruptive strikes by people wanting wage increases to bring them back, in real terms, to what they earned years ago. Doctors want 35% for example. The questions are;- 

• Is it realistic for workers to ask for increased salary if productivity & efficiency haven't increased? 
• Also, if wages have reduced in value over time, for real terms increases back to a better economic time?
• Basically, do any workers have a right to expect that their salaries will automatically increase year on year regardless of other factors?

I have to be honest, when I was working I did expect my salary to increase. But shouldn't any increase be relative to productivity, qualifications, skill & experience, effectiveness etc. Shouldn't it be related to the economic realities of the job you do & the overall economic situation of where you live? There are so many variables.

That's why I find economics so difficult to understand. It seems to me we are living in an altered reality. We are not recognising the true factors relative to our individual position in the overarching determinants of what is achievable.

I do believe that workers need unions & professional bodies to represent their interests. I do believe that there should be proper pay negotiation. I also feel that if that negotiation is not carried out in good faith then the ultimate tool is to withdraw labour or work to rule. But I also think that striking is destructive & harmful to both the strikers & the public. It's very adversarial, like going to war. Ultimately in both cases there has to be proper negotiation. There has to be genuine determination to modify the stance on both sides. 

We seem to have reached a point of unrealistic expectations & demands in both Growth & Wages. It isn't doing anyone any good at all & it is harming a lot of people. We are living in constant personal & state debt. We cannot continue to borrow our way out of trouble. Debt has to be repaid eventually. What level of debt will my grandchildren inherit? 

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/uk-government-debt-as-a-percentage-of-gdp-17272016

Travelling & Holidays - What are we seeking?

 In my life I have travelled to;- 

• The Americas - USA, Mexico, Guatemala, Belize & Peru
• The UK - England, Scotland & Wales
  
• Scandinavia - Norway
• Europe - Spain, France, Germany, The Netherlands, Italy, Sicily, Romania, The Czech Republic, Greece & Turkey, the Balearics & Canary Islands
  
• North Africa - Morocco, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt
• Sub Saharan Africa - Ethiopia, Malawi, Kenya
• Middle East - Yemen, Jordan, Syria, Israel, Palestine
• Asia - India, China, Nepal

In some countries I visited several different places at different times. That's a lot of travelling for one person. Most of it will have necessitated flying, sometimes very long haul. 

Because we are so aware of the Climate Emergency I now reflect on why I did it & whether it was worth it. Was the benefit I gained from seeing so many different cultures & the possible cross cultural benefit to other nationalities from meeting me worth the damage tourism does? Were my tourist dollars worth the cost? What was my motivation in going? Was it simply tourism - a holiday away from my normal routine? Was I really seeking enlightenment & knowledge?

I'm not objective enough to know. I would say that there is a difference between travelling & holidaying. In the case of Malawi & Nepal I went there to work for charities. But visiting the other places it was mostly cultural, wanting to see the landscape, archaeology & arts & meet the people to understand that there are different, valid, ways to live. Although I have never been a beach holiday person, there were also times I went away to relax, often on walking holidays getting out into the landscape.

The thing I now realise is that although we think that holidays are a right, they are, in fact, selfish. More so now that we do know the harms that tourism does. I know people who are like birdwatching "Twitchers" who have lists of places that they basically simply want to "tick off". They are seeking diversion, distraction, new experiences away from their normal lives. Some people are seeking to leave their daily problems behind, not realising that most problems stay within us. 

 

I'm sure that not everyone is like that. Many travel for knowledge & to broaden their horizons. But I wonder whether we can justify that any more. There are positive & negative effects.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impacts_of_tourism

In 1950 there were 25 million international tourist arrivals. By 2030, 1.8 billion tourist arrivals are projected. Negative environmental impacts of tourism are substantial including;- 

• The depletion of local natural resources 
• Pollution and waste problems.  
• Pressure on natural resources through over-consumption, often in places where resources are already scarce. 
• Enormous stress on local land use, which can lead to soil erosion, increased pollution, natural habitat loss, and more pressure on endangered species. 
• These effects can gradually destroy the environmental resources on which tourism itself depends.

We need to re-think our attitude to travel. Not just tourism travel, but all travel. By 2030, a 25% increase in CO2-emissions from tourism compared to 2016 is expected. From 1,597 million tons to 1,998 million tons.

https://www.theworldcounts.com/challenges/consumption/transport-and-tourism/negative-environmental-impacts-of-tourism