Category Archives: British Culture.

THE BEADY EYE SAY’S. THIS IS WHY ENGLAND IS IN SUCH A MESS.

21 Friday Oct 2022

Posted by in 2022: The year we need to change., British Culture., England in five years., England's future., ENGLAND'S SNAP ELECTION, England., English General Election., English parliamentary proceedings., Uncategorized

≈ Comments Off on THE BEADY EYE SAY’S. THIS IS WHY ENGLAND IS IN SUCH A MESS.

Tags

, , , , ,

It lack a culture of consensus, and has now lost the means of building and developing one.

Why?

Because it has a democracy that is managed by a narrow elite who for centuries have put power and wealth before its people.

The Brexit referendum and the increasing ideological polarisation in both main political parties are a sign of this.

Britain is about the only country in Europe with a primitive ‘first past the post’ electoral system rather than a proportional electoral system.

Why has this mess developed only now?

I am sure that few people in England are now really nostalgic for empire, although a great many don’t realise just what a hideous mess it often left behind.

Nationalism and sectarian politics feed on nostalgia like vampires feed on blood.

One outcome of the inability to compromise in Britain, has been the ‘austerity’ economics practised over the last eight years. More than anything else this is what is driving so many people into poverty (20% now below the official poverty line) It degraded health and education services, shutting museums and libraries, causing physical infrastructure to break up and much much more.

Britain does not have a constitution.

It is therefore ruled by antiquated institutions such a the Crown.

The set of laws, rules and yes, that great British favourite, the ‘Gentleman’s Agreement’, that make up what amounts to a constitution has evolved organically over time, but has not developed to reflect a world driven by theological data or a country that is populated by immigration on low wages and benefits.

The system does not cope when politicians that are intransigent and ideological as they are now.

The system is now essentially ‘presidential’, i.e. the Prime Minister has the power and Members of Parliament follow the party line.

There is no expectation that Parliament takes the initiative, so when they have done, as now, there are no rules to call a general election, the ship of state is left drifting and rudderless without the voice of the people been heard, so the elite consensus that managed the binary oppositions starts to fall apart.

Its a country where anyone can call themselves a builder and start selling themselves as such, there are no identity cards so the government does not know who the **** we are.

There is no list of citizens. In fact the citizens are not really citizens at all they are surfs.

There is an electoral register (i.e. who can vote), passports (but if you didn’t travel you wouldn’t have one) and National Insurance numbers, which are about working and tax payments. There has never been a register of British citizens as such so in fact, government does not (or did not) really know who had a right to be here, and who didn’t.

Every country and ethnic identity is racist, that’s part of the human condition, but what is odd about a lot of English racism is that it is not directed so much at black or brown people but at other Europeans .

The ‘wogs begin at Calais’ attitudes, send them to Rwanda.

The EU is seen as a Franco-German plot, targeting Britain.

History shows that It made its wealth on the back of an navy that circumnavigated oceans and seas, which created an empire on the backs of slaves and sugar – a sad truth.

Who owns England?

Behind this simple question lies England’s oldest and best-kept secret.

It’s a secret that goes back to the Domesday Book – and an issue that goes to the heart of many of the biggest problems the country has – affordability of housing, unable to grow enough of its food, not much space left aside for nature. 

Rural landowners, meanwhile, are rewarded by the taxpayer for simply owning land through farm subsidies. The Common Agricultural Policy has paid landowners according to the area of land they farm, rather than the public goods they deliver, thereby propping up a system of intensive agriculture that has decimated wildlife and natural habitats.

For most of the 20th century, the aristocracy showed itself remarkably indifferent to the welfare of the nation, After democracy finally shunted aside hereditary lords, they found new means to protect their extravagant riches. For all the modern tales of noble poverty and leaking ancestral homes, their private wealth and influence remain phenomenal. 

The British aristocracy’s defining feature is not a noble aspiration to serve the common weal but a desperate desire for self-advancement. They endlessly reinforced their own status and enforced deference on others through ostentatiously exorbitant expenditure on palaces, clothing and jewellery. They laid down a strict set of rules for the rest of society, but lived by a different standard. Such is their sense of entitlement that they believed – and persuaded others to believe – that a hierarchical society with them placed firmly and unassailably at the top was the natural order of things.

The secret of their modern existence is their sheer invisibility.

According to a 2010 report for Country Life, a third of Britain’s land still belongs to the aristocracy.

The financial sector is hailed as the crowning glory of the UK economy. A massive financial sector on the tiny island is making a visible minority filthy rich but as it blooms, everything else withers.

The power of London finance is hurting Britain, to the tune of £4.5tn.

Many people in Britain, it is true, are ambivalent about all this. They rightly fret that the City is a global money-laundering paradise, harming other nations, but (whisper it quietly) they like the hot money and oligarchs it attracts to its shores. There is a trade-off, they think, between doing the right thing and preserving our prosperity.

Underpinning all this is the fallacy of composition, of a trickle down economy, whereby the fortunes of big businesses and big banks are conflated with the fortunes of our whole economy.

This is where the myth of great, finally dies.

As Liza Trust now knows economies, tax systems and cities are nothing like companies, and don’t compete like she might think – scrap TAX ON HIGHT EARNERS.

The finance curse of Quantize Easing shows that too much finance harms your economy, then pursuing more finance through the competitiveness agenda only makes things worse.

There is no trade-off WITH CREDITORS.

Blaming the problems on Brexit and the Ukraine war, or the price of energy, inflation, does not close foodbanks, or stop zero- hours contracts, or attract investment.

Rule of law, a healthy and educated workforce, good infrastructure, access to prosperous, thirsty markets, good inputs and supply chains and economic stability. All these require tax revenues.

The race does not stop when tax rates reach zero.

To prosper, Britain should increase its effective corporate tax rates, at least for financiers and large multinationals, plus a surcharge to cover the roaming members of the billionaire classes who won’t. 

By leaving the EU and joining the “competitive” global race England has not only been beggaring others – it has beggaring its selves, too.

In order not to be stuck in ugly race to the bottom, THE COUNTRY NOW NEEDS A MASSIVE RESET.

A good place to start to create a future of largely harmonious multi-cultural society, would be to abolish students debt and start educating its young for free.

I recently heard a Labour Politician advocate that England should create an sovereign wealth funds, Fund. With what? It’s too late now:

There is only one way forward simply step out of the race, unilaterally by appealing not just to national self-interest, by mobilise the biggest constituency of all its people and put finance back in its rightful place: Serving Britain’s people, not served by them.

Tragically we are watching a country of Plenty turning to poverty for the sake of short-term profit.

That last word, unilaterally, is key.

The land of the few.

All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin

Contact: bobdillon33@gmail.com

 

Advertisement

THE BEADY EYE ASK’S. WHO OWNS ENGLAND AND IS IT GOING DOWN THE PAN?

04 Sunday Sep 2022

Posted by in #whatif.com, 2022: The year we need to change., British Culture., Climate Change., England in five years., England's future., England., English General Election., European Union., EU_UK relations for the foreseeable future., How to do it., Human values., Life., Modern day life., Modern day Slavery, Money in Politics., Our Common Values., Political Trust, Politics., Privatization, Profiteering., Robot citizenship., Russia / Ukraine ., Stimulus package., The common good., The Obvious., The pursuit of profit., The UK Class system., Universal values., We can leave a legacy worthwhile., WHAT IS TRUTH

≈ Comments Off on THE BEADY EYE ASK’S. WHO OWNS ENGLAND AND IS IT GOING DOWN THE PAN?

Tags

, , , ,

( Ten minute read)

This is a country that sold is nations assets to private enterprises – energy, water, rail, etc, (In the ideology of Maggie Thatcher, shop till you drop), believing that the free market would give its citizens the best deal.

The massive privatisations of public assets undertaken by Mrs Thatcher and subsequent Tory governments since the 1980s now with the help of multilabel other world problems have come home to roost.

Below are a few examples of this.

[ARM Holdings, one the key British companies for research and innovation in electronics, was sold off in 2017 for £24bn to the Japanese company Softbank.

Amazon, a US corporation, now dominates retail in the UK.

Apple has shifted its tax liability in the UK to Ireland.

The key national airports in the UK – Heathrow and Gatwick – are both in foreign ownership.

Liverpool, Glasgow and Great Yarmouth ports are owned by Deutsche Bank. Felixstowe, is owned by one of Asia’s richest men and incorporated in the Cayman Islands.

Even Associated British Ports, which manages many UK ports, is owned by the Singapore foreign reserve fund and Kuwait’s sovereign wealth fund and registered offshore in Jersey.

Waterstones, the only surviving national book chain in UK, is also Russian owned.

Facebook and Twitter are now the main source of news for most British people despite its biases and its inadequate constraints on the dissemination of fake news. Both of these companies are effectively unregulated despite their critical social media roles, and both make enormous sums of money from advertising that goes untaxed.

The NHS, which is thought of as the great British innovation, is also increasingly being infiltrated by American health providers. Social care Southern Cross purchased by Blackstone, a US company.

Boots, which has 2,500 shops in the UK acquired by private equity in 2007, asset stripped and saw its HQ moved to Switzerland to avoid UK taxes. It is now wholly owned by the giant US pharmacy chain Walgreens.]

What are the common elements in the above?

With London becoming the global centre of such transactions because of weak regulatory systems, especially in respect of privatised utilities, it has been price gouging at the expense of consumers in the UK.

It is now clear that some at least of the purchasers of domestic assets have used the opportunity to launder illegally acquired money.  Russian millionaires had a field day.

We are now looking at a country that recently spent nearly $8 billion building two new large, conventionally-fuelled aircraft carriers, spending between £72.1bn and £80.4bn, on a high-speed rail HS2 to save thirty minutes traveling time, while its people can’t afford their energy bills, to feed themselves, to house themselves, or afford the cost of a rail ticket.

A country that turned its back on the biggest market on its door step the EU with £25bn left to pay by 2057.

A country that in the first year of the pandemic, from April 2020 to 2021,  borrowed £299bn, the highest figure since records began in 1946, to save it economy more than its people with, the cost of Government measures announced so far range from about £310 to £410 billion.

Most of this extra money was spent on public services (such as the NHS), and support for businesses.

In the space of 15 months, from March 2020, the three main Covid loan schemes – bounce back, CBILS and a scheme for larger loans, CLBILS – handed out nearly £80bn to businesses with fraud losses estimated at £4.9bn at the end of March, money the government is unlikely to ever recover.

The UK government wasted hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money on poor quality and unusable personal protective equipment (PPE) while leaving frontline workers insufficiently protected from covid-19. The decision to prioritise hospitals meant that social care providers were left exposed by the lack of PPE contributing significantly to deaths in care homes in the first wave.

Among the government deals was a contract with a jeweller worth £70.5m (€80.5m; $97.6m) to buy sterile gowns. It also signed contracts for millions of face masks, which were not usable in the NHS because they had the wrong type of fixing.

The question of whether greater investments in health care in non-crisis times may have reduced the level of emergency funding needed to respond effectively to the pandemic warrants important reflection.


Money

Now with more money going out and less coming in, the English government has only one option – to borrow.

When a government spends more than it collects, it runs an annual budget deficit. The level of the national debt in the UK equates to 108% of national output (GDP) and the average amount of debt owed per person in the UK to day is ten thousand pounds.

This is a country that sold it soul to consumerism,  which is still spending millions on football with millions of lotto funds spent to win medals, with a homicide rate was 11.7 per million population, while small businesses and charities are going bust.

Like most of Europe it is in a downward spiral economically, with inflation and energy cost mounting ( due in part to the Russian invasion of the Ukraine,) and will have to borrow another £200bn by the end of the year.

 Its’ no wonders it is going down the Pan.

————————

 In the back ground there are other reason for its troubles–  its class system, its colonial history, its antiquated education system, its benefits system, its first past the post election system, to mention a few.

Its colonial past making it a very ethnically diverse nation,( People born outside of the UK account for 10% of the UK’s population.)

It has lost its once dominance as an empirical power in the world.

Once a rich country the crimes of your past are catching-up with you.

Britain was the world’s largest market for transportation of human lives, bowing to the new citadel whose tentacles reached out into great swathes of colonial wealth – and steadily drank it dry until the slave trade was finally banned by an act of parliament.  The arrogance and greed of your masters could not go unnoticed – could not pass-by unatoned for.  Nor could the pacifistic stance taken by the greater populous when confronted with such frequent acts of national and international vandalism.

Like most of us it has now become enslaved to the smart phone.

Now a country of digitalized citizens, with short term ambitions, in desperate need of a written constitution.

Why?

Despite considerable social change, and strong policy intervention, it still have some way to go to address equality of opportunity and racism.

—————————-

In the next few days the Conservative party will elect a new leader to take control of the country, without a general election.

He or she is facing social, unrest, as the UK economy is now too weak for sharp spending cuts due to the recent financial crisis, and Covid  pandemic, it is now currently facing serious issues in terms of cutting its unemployment rate and reducing its national debt.

Not to mention other current issues such as immigration, internal ethnic relationship, internal security, economic recovery, and Britain’s relationship with the EU all acting as major blocks to the progress of the British society.

Whatever the next British government may be, these are the issues that party has to address and solve. 

Modern British society has to find ways to deal with these crucial issues in order to move towards a brighter future.

So who owns the country?

Private no right of way sign

Behind this simple question lies England’s oldest and best-kept secret. It’s a secret that goes back to the Domesday Book – and an issue that goes to the heart of many of the biggest problems the country face to day.

Central government owns more than 16 million square metres of property and land across the UK – six times the area of the City of London. There are over 97,000 properties owned by foreign firms in England and Wales.

Collectively, the Royal family owns 180,550 acres of land, or roughly 282 square miles with an elite of less than 1% of the population owning half of England with a few thousand dukes, baronets and City bankers now owning far more land than all of Middle England put together.

As Mark Twain once said, “buy land: they’re not making it anymore” – and in England, its scarcity has made it so sought-after that land values have increased fivefold since 1995.

Just over 400 hectares (1,000 acres) of central London’s super-prime real estate belongs to the Crown, the Church, and four wealthy aristocratic estates.

Over 200,000 hectares (500,000 acres) of the English uplands are tied up in huge grouse-moor estates owned by around 150 people. The Duke of Northumberland, whose family lineage stretches back to Domesday, owns 40,468 hectares (100,000 acres) – a tenth of his home county.

Corporations own around 18% of England and Wales.

The Crown Estate owns London’s Regent Street, including the freehold for Apple’s flagship UK store, from which the Crown collects more rent than from all its agricultural land.

The National Trust owns around a fifth of the Lake District National Park in Cumbria.

The Duchy of Cornwall owns London’s Oval Cricket Ground, Maiden Castle in Dorset (above) and Ham Hill in Somerset.

Paternoster Square in the City of London, home of the London Stock Exchange, is owned by the Church Commissioners.

The Crown still owns the freehold OF the Houses of Parliament.

The housing crisis hasn’t been caused by a sudden rise in the price of bricks and mortar, but rather in the value of the land on which homes are built.

The vast gap in living standards between the precariat and the executive class are all to some extent the result of increased foreign ownership of almost everything that continue to call ‘British’.

There is hope, however to be fair few countries will escape the fever that’s upon this world – Climate change.

A fever for which the only cure is the unconditional metamorphosis of man himself, washed through and through, cleansed of that reckless hubris which has brought us to this tipping point of all of us having to live without the all gentle arts that nature had so diligently taught us.

The tide is turning upon mankind. Now it is our turn to be on the receiving end.

In the coming years Climate Change will make the cost of living we see to day ingenuous, compared to what is in store.

No man or woman can turn his or hers back for long upon her simmering powers.

When it comes to climate no man can lay claim to having pacified and sold her soul – because passivity was not on her agenda, and her soul was never for sale. And those who sought to profit from her bounty will soon leave empty handed; for that time, prophesied of old, has finally come. And yes, nature it is that once again rises up in defiance of all attempts to bring her under the control of those who would use and abuse her for their private wealth and make of her a platform for staging their profit driven foreign wars.

Not even the vicious technologically engineered destruction of our climate can suppress the rising winds of change that are upon this scarred and battered jewel called Earth. It can only increase their velocity.

The result is only too obvious with unstable work, often poorly paid, and increasingly inadequate to support a family. It is unsurprising therefore that there has been a sharp increase in poverty much of it in families in full-time work.

Prepare yourselves for the deluge – a great cleansing is upon the island; a cleansing that will jolt befuddled minds into memories of great stories of other eras, when lands were not swallowed by mighty acts of nature.

You were so proud to turn away from nature and forge your industrial steel into the wheels of the brave new world of mass consumerism  you new face a heavy price for its blinkered, stubborn occupants, who for so long turned a blind eye on deeper truths and refused to look upon the blood encrusted pages of your colonial history.

Oh England, my England, so where is your soul today?

————————

At this point you may well be asking what if anything can be done?

The master Conservative plan is levelling up. The big idea for post – Brexit Britain.

It identifies six capitals: physical capital (i.e. infrastructure and housing), human capital (skills and health), intangible capital (ideas and innovations), financial capital (business finance), social capital (community and public trust), and institutional capital  (local leadership).

The plan comes at a defining moment but it will fail to devolve enough power and money.

Why?

Because the places that have an abundance are now in a virtuous circle, where the different capitals reinforce one another.

Because is not matched by the scale of investment or the proposed solutions. Missing are a clear set of mechanisms that break the vicious cycles in places that are lacking in the six capitals.

Because this work has to be done at the local level because places face different challenges and have different growth potential.

Because if there is going to any levelling up is going to happen centrally from Whitehall.

Because the existing system for distributing money is highly complex  inequality will be aggravated and come to the forefront in the next general election.

Levelling up is a scatter gun approach for votes and it is on this feeling that the Government’s future electoral hopes hang.

IN THE END HERE IS THE BEADY EYE’S ADVICE TO WHO EVER GETS INTO POWER.

APART FROM A WRITTEN CONSTITUTION,  MAKE EDUCATION FREE AND BRING BACK A YEAR OF NATIONAL SERVICE TO TEACH THE VALUES THAT ARE NECESSARY AND FUNDEMENTAL TO THE FONDATIONS OF ANY NATION.  PUT THE PEOPLE FIRST NOT THE GDP.

All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin..

Contact: bobdillon33@gmail.com

.

THE BEADY EYE ASKS. WHAT IS BRITISH CULTURE ? IS IT THE REASON THAT THE COUNTRY IS NOW IN SUCH A MESS?

27 Wednesday Jul 2022

Posted by in 2021. The year for change., British Culture., The UK Class system.

≈ Comments Off on THE BEADY EYE ASKS. WHAT IS BRITISH CULTURE ? IS IT THE REASON THAT THE COUNTRY IS NOW IN SUCH A MESS?

Tags

,

( Six minute read)

The great things about Britain, are the sheer amount of bright minds this country had during its history. There are myriad of inventors, writers, musicians, bands, rock stars, scientists…All British!

However the trouble is that the fabric of English society has so many strands, that the “inertia” of the British class system is less elastic than one might  think – even if one generation pulls away, the next is tugged backwards.

In a country that is now struggling to keep the wolf from the door, to correct the idiocies to which ideologically based government have taken England and return it towards reality, it must first look at its culture.

(ES Composite)

Last night debate between the two remaining candidates for the leadership of the Conservative Party and thus the next Prime Minister of the country highlighted this class culture. 

Bling earrings against posh shoes.

The British obsession with class isn’t so archaic, like it or loathe it, many see the class system as a quintessential element of British life. Class distinctions do not die; they merely learn new ways of expressing themselves.  

Whether you are a lord, a “toff” or just the Queen, everyone in the UK fits into the class system, this is what influenced their occupation, social status and political influence.

It's not just our parents - our whole social milieu, from our wider family to their friends and contacts, can influence our progress in life (Credit: Alan Crowhurst/Getty Images)

It takes around 10 generations for someone at the highest or lowest levels of society to reach the middle classes. 

This the vast and elaborate structure grew up almost in secret.

How much of England’s  position today depend on the people we’ve never met?

Perhaps a more pertinent question, then, is not whether class distinctions exist, but whether it is possible to move out of one pigeonhole and into another.

Lower class- Working class- Middle class- Upper Class. Royalists Aristocrats. Class might not have same status as it once did but the British class system has its protections at every level, a built-in inertia from its colonial days of ‘divide and rule.

We are all human so it no wonder the debate last night was influenced by short term populisms subjects on the economy, hungry consumerists and investors.

                                  —————————-

Thanks to Maggie Thatcher policies the culture in Britain moved from brilliant to consumerism – shop till you drop – ignoring the rise in racism and growing ignorance due to the lack of free education. 

At least it was before the Brexit idea, there are few things which surfaced with this whole Brexit situation.

We learned that the vast majority of people in this country is racist. Politicians are liars (promising more money for academia and the NHS…). Politicians are trying to get rid of the Human Rights (read about it if you don’t believe me) and without a flinch, the great British government passed “the most extreme surveillance law in the history of western democracy” (to quote Snowden).

To start cleaning up the mess. 

You don’t start about “taking back our sovereignty.” That is petty as hell, countries are not self sufficient. We rely on each other.  I would hold a public enquiry into the Brexit. 

You dont start solving the problems talking about levelling up or down, reducing taxes, the price of fuel, the NHS, Brexit opportunities, the Ukraine war.

Everyone understands the financial services is the big kahuna for the UK.   

“ The City “ the financial sector, still has this idea that it’s basically smart to game the system. If these are the people, and the culture, that is coming into public life then we’ve got a real problem.”

Outside brilliant minds are no longer welcome to contribute to the Great British societies and money is being invested in privatisation and corporations as opposed to a stable economy, educated, informed and healthy population.

It is shocking to still hear people moaning about immigrants coming to Britain for the sake of benefits, whereby it is the vast majority of immigrants who pay the most taxes. It is the immigrants who maintain Britain afloat, and it is because of the immigrants that we have good doctors, dedicated teachers and hard-working baristas in the local cafes.

Unfortunately, the relative proportions of people moving up or down a class now seems to be reversing. More men and women are experiencing downward mobility and fewer of them experience upward mobility.

It is shocking to watch day time Media full of begging for support for ever think from Food banks to save the children.   

Britain is indeed among the worst countries for certain measures of social mobility, with the parents’ wealth strongly influencing the child’s prospects of higher education and a good salary.

NO COUNTRY IS PERFECT.

Even though Brexit was a pissing contest, and either party hailing “the Brexit deal” a “victorious day” was stupendous by all accounts.  (accountable politicians should have been fired on the spot for even daring to see that as a victory) 

The country now needs long term actions.

No longer a Mantra Carter or privileged Royals rather a Written Constitution to level up and enter the age of technology.

Why?

To provide the courts, the police, the infrastructure, education and training on which business relies a set defined values and insure that when a leader is removed from office for what ever reason that all of its people get say on who is to take his or hers place with a general election not the members of any political party, that happens to be in power. 

Why?   

Because people are embedded in a circle of connections and that social milieu is very influential in terms of people’s outcomes.

Because immigrants are the people who are willing to give up their rights, liberties and cultures, in order to work for the sake of your government, your country, your society and your benefits.

Because for too long business, especially multi-national business have been parasitical on the nation state. It is time that they learned to be a sensible symbiote and to nurture not drain and destroy its host.

This is a beautiful country with a  country with a murder a day, (According to the Global Peace Index, the UK is the 47th safest country in the world (and the 26th in Europe), well below Romania, Hungary, Germany and Botswana. Portugal is the 4th safest country in Europe ) … with a scurrilous Press, with 430 people per square kilometre, ( England is nearly twice as crowded as Germany (227) people per sq./km) and more than three times as crowded as France (117 people per sq./km).

Its time to get out of the phone box and take an in-depth look at some genuine solutions. 

Britain is too heavily populated to manage centrally, so things need to be micro-managed.

Council tax. Should be  income-based.

Education in all its forms  should be free.

Public Transportation is insanely, painfully expensive.

People Assemblies less power for the elites and more power for the people. 

Tackle Racism Discrimination which has have been emboldened since Brexit.

Free Grants to drive green energy. Not a moratorium on Green levs’ Climate change is a global emergency. 

Proportional representation for general elections.  

Make it illegal for a newspaper to publish “information” that they knew to be false.

Ban advertising that prompts unsustainability.  

The British empire has been responsible for some of the worst atrocities in history, but the UK has mellowed out over the past few generations, though under no circumstances should anyone ever trust a British government leader that is not  elected by all of its people.  

All human comments are appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.