The weather is still very changeable in England. I need sunshine! It was a long winter and then we had snow in Spring. I want to take some photos of this beautiful landscape that we have in the Black Country.
I’d better not say too much or they’ll put a tax on it. I look at Google Maps and even Streetview to find places to go on a Sunday and take photos. I might have to venture farther afield this summer. It could involve dicing with death on the M6 motorway. The summer road works will start soon, just as you thought it was safe to drive somewhere. They’ll repair all the potholes and damage done by the ice and snow; then dig all the roads up again to lay gas mains or fibre optic for a super digital highway. I would rather have a super digital highway than more motorways or HS2.
This week, the divisions in society have been widened by the death of Margaret Thatcher. The funeral will further highlight division. We had a Labour government under the leadership of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, but did they help ordinary people? It seems to me the middle classes did quite well as their homes became more ‘valuable’ in a government induced property bubble. Meanwhile, rents for social housing were increased with local authorities claiming they needed to charge ‘economic rents’. We also saw empire building by those same local authorities. We didn’t see lots of new social housing, if we had the pressure on the housing market wouldn’t have caused a bubble. The consecutive Labour governments failed in that regard and in many others. Despite increasing energy prices, they still added VAT to energy because of climate change. Was the real reason climate change or did they just want the money? If the real reason was climate change, they would have introduced measures to limit consumption across the economy. They still call for ‘growth’ when we need sustainability. If poor people have more money, they will access the internet more, play games on Facebook, listen to music, watch movies. Give the rich more money and they want private jets, six holidays a year and luxury cars. The former might be sustainable, we can’t sustain the lifestyles of the super-rich. The thing ordinary people crave most is not goods or services, but financial security and peace of mind. We really need to reform the banking and financial sector so ordinary middle class people can invest for their futures and get a real return on their money. At the moment the super-rich are screwing the workers and the middle classes by buying the loyalty of the bankers and traders in the City of London. It seems they can even buy the loyalty and support of some politicians. Listen to the noises those politicians of all colours make this week, to understand where their loyalties really lie and it’s not with the British people; it’s with an ideology based on greed.
We see ‘strong’ people in all walks of life, they bully their way to success. If they aren’t full blown psychopaths, then they definitively have psychopathic tendencies. Should we elect these people to high office and trust them with nuclear weapons. We seem to only condemn them when the nuke is pointed at us. We applaud their strength when they are on our side. Look at the narcissistic personality of North Korean leader. Compare the funeral of the late Korean leader with the one this week in London. Notice any similarities?
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