Popular Policies are Doomed!

Have you noticed that if ever something turns out to be popular, the powers that be will try to curb our enthusiasm? You name it, it’s been cut back or made more expensive once people see what a good idea something is. Peace, for example, usually has to be seen as an expensive thing to protect and usually has to be fouled up by some governmental idiot or two taking offence or taking liberties. But I digress.

University education was seen a good idea back in the sixties, so much so that quite generous grants were available for some of us of mature years together with some pretty flexible entry requirements.The latter might still be the case but the grants are gone, debts are the alternative, and degrees from anywhere other than Oxbridge or the Russell Group are rubbished, usually by people from such universities. The real underlying motive is resentment that all these ‘Johnny come Latelies’ are muscling in on their nice cosy elite and would rather only see clones of themselves running higher, or even higher and higher, education. Sharing their resources would spoil it for them, while they seek to spoil it for others by asking for higher and higher fees and hoping that not too many comprehensive types get in under the wire. Getting over it would be out of the question of course.

Legal Aid is always a popular idea with ordinary people but always under threat because people use it. In the late seventies the system was improved, became popular and has been the subject of more and more cuts ever since. Once upon a time we were encouraged to take our bikes by train. This was clearly a good idea because loads of people did it so very quickly leaflets started to appear stating the complicated restrictions and where fares had to be paid. This was just a holding operation while they abolished the guards van to be replaced by small cupboards where our newly created ‘conductors ‘ could hide when things got a bit overcrowded or, more usually, late.

There are many other areas where this British disease can be observed. Decent pensions, retirement at 65, housing improvement grant, mortgage interest relief, subsidised transport, civil liberties. At a lower level grants for energy saving and even bus passes are too popular and must either be restricted or preferably made meaningless lotteries. All these ideas are apparently too expensive for the, allegedly, 4th richest economy in the world.

Is it just me but are their no good ideas which will be kept despite their popularity? Now that we are heavily in debt as a nation are we still so rich? Do we have that many great things worth defending? The National Health Service would be at the top of most people’s list, but even that is constantly under threat, as are our traditional liberties and freedoms. These don’t come cheap either. If there is no great list of great achievements to glory in, then what are we defending? Someone somewhere still thinks that there must be. Do these people have safe jobs, good incomes and final salary pensions I wonder? They probably are and will also make sure that we buy some nice new nuclear weapons on the ‘never never’. ‘Some new helicopters that work? Now that’s not quite so easy old boy’.

Dacier ( I feel better now)

Blogging By Candlelight Again ( See an early old blog) and the Length of Blogs

Those few who have seen these blogs may have been put off by their length alone, never mind the content. Yesterday one professional journalist gave voice on radio to her opinion that she was depressed by twitter and the blogosphere with the vast amount of banality it encourages. Sorry, I must have missed something in the popular press and have failed to discover the high minded content hidden behind the yob headlines of the red tops. I try to avoid banality, inevitably fail, but at least I have used more words in achieving it when it occurs. I have purposely built some banality in for the journalist concerned, although I have not dignified her by managing to remember her name. She is probably a very good journalist for all I know, but I also think that journalists do not have a monopoly of valid viewpoints and, even in my case, I am entitled to think that there is just a chance that something worthwhile might trickle down from my viewpoint on these beautiful hills.

This is all prompted by the fact that everything I want to write about seems to demand about 600 words. Sadly the blog posted just before this one could have taken even more words, but I think it was well worth a few more words than usual.

It was inspired by the blog I now provide a link to and I am very grateful to its author for having made me get round to writing something I have been meaning to do ever since I started inflicting my blog on unsuspecting surfers. If you ever thought civil libertarians protest too much then take a look at:-

http://monaxle.com/2009/07/08/section-44-in-chatham-high-street/

If you think this is an isolated incident try to rent out Taking Liberties directed by Chris Atkins. It is also widely available to purchase on DVD. See where all the new authoritarianism has come from and where it is all going. We have been through oppressive times before, but never with so much technology in the hands of those who also have all the power. Not voting, keeping quiet and watching your fellow citizens put into vans will lead in turn to your trip in the van, by which time there won’t be anyone left to write a blog about you. All rather far fetched? Yes it might be, and lets hope so, but do you really want to take the risk? Perhaps the power of the people’s internet technology must now be applied in favour of civil liberties so as to counter the State technology and rules which steal them. It is working with consumer campaigns that have already been successful against M&S, HSBC and now a mobile phone directory inquiry service. Mark Thomas has already started. Why should politicians with so much power need to worry about your liberties when they have been so busy of late taking so many liberties of their own? No more than the general citizenry who never go out late and never experience the use of police powers exercised against them. From my experience, down too many years I care to remember, they will not have found the encounter a model of customer service. As great libertarians of the past have said, the best citizens are those who are critical of their government and the price of liberty is eternal vigilance. Being critical should not lead to your loyalty being questioned. The dream is still worth keeping alive. Banal? I do hope so, but I still believe such things nonetheless.

Dacier