To continue from R.T 37. I have been interviewed by over a dozen councillors, who were not so much interested in what I knew as what I professed to know by all the letters after my name. I have been interviewed by professionals who presented me with a vast technical problem to solve, containing inherent traps. Thus it is often the people who are doing the interviewing who know less about the subject than those interviewed. I’m amazed that the interviews were not just conducted by the head of the section seeking a recruit, the technocrat in charge of that section, and the head of staffing. why so many? Is it something for them to do? Which then begs the question, Why so many councillors? I realise there are differing political divisions to be catered for, and that representation at grassroots level is paramount, but how often have you referred to a councillor for help? Do we need so many?
I find it interesting that the route to becoming a MPs in the government, starts with interviews at grassroot level, in the constituency and we finish-up putting our money where their mouth is. We demand people who take responsibility for our health, our finances, and our dealings in legal matters to have been properly trained and qualified. Most of them carry insurance should things go wrong, and we trust them implicitly, but when you consider what is generally involved with our dealings with these people, compared with the responsibility that we put in the hands of the members of the government and even local authorities, it must seem very odd that they too are not trained in the work, and don’t carry insurance against mismanagement. In effect they have a blank cheque, and they expect us to trust them with our lives, our way of life, our international dealings, and a large portion of our income. I can only speak from my memory, but I believe when I first became interested in politics, there were not the vast mood swings, sweeping changes in policy, and a self interest which seems to tie their hands in circumstances where their conscience should have been their guide. Above all, I do not believe that they are as professional politically, as they were many years ago, and as they should be today.
To be politically aware, one is required to have studied the history of politics, in effect, learning by others’ mistakes, have an innate ability to analyse and criticise intention, legislation, and productivity, both in implementation, and success. Politics should be slowed down to a speed which allows these attributes. To rush headlong into agreements, actions and legislation, without careful thought of the parameters that are involved and the outcomes that can be predicted is a recipe, as we have discovered, for not only loss of life, a waste of money, and the complete destruction of our financial balance, but it takes us into areas from which it is very difficult to recover. I’m not only referring to the wars in the Middle East, but the changes that have been wrought on infrastructure, the health service, and the well-being of the nation as a whole. Not everyone will agree with me, but joining the EU may have enabled some people to improve their commercial position, but we have lost so much that should never have been tinkered with. And it is only now after all these years that those in charge, if one can say that, are beginning to realise that many of the things that we had lost, including closed borders, and our weights and measures system, our indigenous products which are produced for local consumption, but have been outlawed, are only some of the minor pinpricks in a vast array of mismanagement.
I have recently mentioned that as a helmet diver, it was necessary for me to learn that the various parts of my body my thumb, my hand, my outstretched fingers, and my outstretched arm, enabled me in black waters to take measurements, something I could not have done as easily just using metrication. The whole of our life, like this example, was arrived at over centuries by attrition, and in a matter of just years was taken from us to some extent, merely to conform with the EU and save traders having to put measures and cash in two versions instead of one. At the change over people like myself, using complicated formulae, for some time had to work in Imperial measure to be sure of accuracy and merely change the outcome. Politicians today theorise and then implement, on the basis of some knowledge, the amount is problematical, in spite of protestations by those who have more experience – the Dome is a case in point. Advisors, some call them spin doctors, have to provide a continuous input to justify their existence, otherwise there would be no reason for them. Legislators in Brussels, too have to justify their salaries, their staff, and their expensive lifestyle, which I suggest prompts them to meddle rather than sit reflecting. I plead with our politicians to take more time, consider more deeply, and then only act by consensus, when everyone is satisfied and has heard all the arguments.