Making the wrong decisions!

The above image will not be unknown to many BG readers. Those familiar with this situation will immediately have recognised that whoever tapped the return key will have “past the point of no return” as the action is now irrevocable, this because cancelling the format after it has started will have damaged the disk image to the point where the man (sorry, person) with the hard disk recovery software will have to be called in – and paid!
Amongst other things, my friend, Doctor Richard North in his blog-post today (http://eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=87695) laments upon the poor decisions made by the incompetent and self-regarding coterie of cretins that have conspired between themselves to govern this unfortunate United Kingdom.
Doctor North draws his readers attention to an extremely important point: Many of the politicians get their information from the same inaccurate and unreliable sources as their constituents! This sad situation is indeed the case and to use the hackneyed phrase: “Something must be done” [about it]!
There are of course two issues here:
#1: Improving the quality of the MPs
#2: Improving the quality of their information sources.
One thing is sure: Improving #1 without improving #2 will NOT be a total waste of time, as hopefully their decisions will be less wrong than they otherwise would be! The optimal situation will of course be competent MPs making decisions based on full and accurate information.
Improving the quality of MPs is in fact an extraordinarily difficult thing to do. This is because despite the dreadful electoral system and the ever increasing encroachment of the citizen’s freedom of expression, the UK is still a democracy ~ which means that if one of the mainstream parties selects an idiot as a PCC in a safe (for them) seat at a general or by-election, the idiot will be duly elected.
In this age of political correctness where a candidate’s ethnicity, faith, gender and sexual preferences are key factors in the parties decision making process; having idiots, incompetents and outright crooks is an ever present danger.
The malign consequences of this institutionalised corruption of governance is made worse by the arrival of a new species of political animal. This is a hybrid species; the “political adviser”. These are not civil servants and they are not elected politicians. They are an unsatisfactory combination of both. They were created because of the desire of elected politicians to receive advice from persons with their own prejudices and political opinions. Over the years these individuals have gained more power and more influence in the governance of this kingdom. A certain Mr Dominic Cummings is the culmination of this.
This corruption of governance needs to be ended and ended ASAP!
No more political advisers!
What this will mean that in addition to ministerial “political advisers” the “political researchers” of MPs will have to go as well.
What we need is a fundamental reform of the way MPs work. At present, they are paid a lot of money in the form of expenses to hire and employ full time research staff. This should end. In their place there should be staff provided by a Parliamentary Secretariat – full time civil servants employed to provide research and secretarial services to MPs. The MPs would have an office in a building and their staff would be appointed by the civil service. They will not need to read newspapers (in in print or electronic form) to get the information and news they need. Their information source will be free (to them), detailed and accurate!
This of course would help reduce the numbers of political apprenticeships that the positions of “political researcher” represent. BG readers will be familiar with the route:
A school leaver reads “PPE” (Politics, Philosophy & Economics) as an undergraduate. They graduate and obtain a position as a “political researcher”. After a short while they get elected as a local councillor, then they become a PPC in an unwinnable seat (for their party) then they become a PPC with a fighting chance.
At the same time other PPE graduates become “researchers” for “think tanks” and then later become “political advisers” to ministers.
This is a classic case of the blind advising the blind! Blind that is to opinions other than their own!
This is why this unfortunate United Kingdom is in so much deep excrement.
NB: We have lady readers.
The FACT is that this corruption of governance has cost lives and continues to cost lives; this in the form of the government’s reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Two strategies should have been pursued.
Firstly, a state of emergency should have been established by an Act of Parliament, the Emergency Powers Act, 2020.
The so-called “Nightingale Hospitals” should have been more in number and rather than sending COVID-19 patients to the general hospitals, all should have been sent to the nightingales. This was what was done in the past. They were called “fever hospitals”.
Then President Putin’s suggestion about shielding the vulnerable (to COVID-19) should have been pursued. “Carrots and sticks” should have been put in place for the vulnerable, along with other measures.
Carrots would have included:
– suspension of ALL Council Tax for those affected. This would NOT be means tested so the multi-millionaire lining in their 10 bedroom mansion on the St. George’s Hill estate outside Byfleet would cease to pay their council tax along with the poor person in a council flat in Birmingham.
– suspension of the TV Licence, again for ALL.
– suspension of Car Tax – their vehicles SORNed. This would mean suspension of car insurance and refunds.
The “stick” is obvious: The affected person could no longer drive their car on the highway. Doing so would mean driving without insurance and driving without road tax. In addition, for those car owners adversly affected with their vehicles requiring repairs such as new batteries and brakes (and other exposed items) due to being being immobile, grants should be made covering the cost of repair. NB: This would be expensive!
At the same time: ALL PCP/Hire Purchase/car finance schemes would be suspended insofar as private vehicles are concerned. The banks and finance companies would have no choice and there would be NO penalties to the borrowers.
At the same time: Special measures would be introduced suspending anti-competition legislation and measures such as data sharing and resale price maintenance to enable the supermarkets and other retailers to co-operate in home deliveries. Furthermore, home deliveries to those other than the stated vulnerable would be banned! In addition, there would be NO delivery charges! Practical minimum order requirements would apply however. To prevent hoarding retailers would be required to limit supplies to individual customers.
NB: It could be possible to “layer” the level of support and restrictions imposed in relation to the assessed level of vulnerability of those affected.
At the same time: Special provisions relating to the employment and living arrangements would have to be made for health and emergency service workers to protect them as well. This could involve the requisitioning of taxis and possibly mini-cabs to provide in effect a state funded chauffeur service to such workers and on occasion to the vulnerable – for such as hospital and visits to doctors, dentists, opticians &C.
Would this stop COVID-19?
NO!
What it WOULD DO is to protect those MOST at risk from dying from it!
It appears to be a FACT that when many young fit and healthy persons are infected with COVID-19 many will either experience mild symptoms and many, no symptoms at all – throughout the course of their infection.
NB: This is what makes COVID-19 so dangerous.
It is however the case that in rare cases when a young fit and healthy person becomes infected with COVID-19, they do develop severe symptoms, requiring hospitalisation and sadly, some die. However, it is practically impossible for a government to fully protect it’s citizens against all possible risks.
The result of this policy would have been that in all likelihood COVID-19 would have “burned itself out” in the UK with the so-called “herd immunity” having been established but with most of those vulnerable (to dying of COVID-19) alive and well, albeit suffering from very severe cases of “cabin fever”!
This would have been expensive for the UK’s taxpayers but not nearly so eyewateringly expensive as the present “CCU” (Conservative cock-up) threatens to be!