Politicians have always known how to play to our prejudices and to keep us thinking about supposedly simple answers to complex issues. Of course, little in our society and world can be solved by simple sound-bite political slogans but how many of us are sucked into simplistic/easy answers whilst we can’t really be bothered with all the complexities? I’d been thinking about this for a while and then an issue popped up again which could well be of great significance but which has mainly been brushed under the political carpet. See the link below:-

www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jul/16/carole-cadwalladr-boris-johnson-lebedevs-prime-ministers-defining-scandal?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

Carole Cadwalladr is one of the foremost investigative journalists of our times or if you are into simplistic answers from the right of our politics, someone who should be silenced and ridiculed. Of course, the Government will dismiss her concerns as ‘nothing much at all, let’s move on’ but the murky world she’s been uncovering should really worry us all.

Leaving the EU was an example of a hugely complex matter, no matter what view you held, yet we had a simplistic debate and a ridiculous referendum that couldn’t possibly have delivered a considered result through which the electorate expressed a clear and most importantly an informed opinion. It was a ‘let’s play to the anti-EU prejudices of an ill-informed electorate’ built up over generations by our right-wing press. That vote also played into racism and Little Englanderism yet it was a massively complex matter where the implications of Leave were not understood by the majority of us. Even the lead Brexiteers seemed to have their own individual versions of what Leave meant. But all this is now very much apparent with recent opinion polls telling us that we know we made a pigs ear of a hugely important matter because many of us were voting for things which had little if anything to do with the EU.

But what else is being fed to us by our populist political classes and/or what do they sweep under their carpet which they very much don’t want us to know about? Presently, we are being promised tax cuts by the Tory Leadership candidates and cutting of EU red tape, despite the fact that leaving the EU has created huge amounts of er red tape! Obviously, simplistic answers to the complex mess the UK presently finds itself in just won’t cut it but, of course, those candidates are actually only speaking to the 100,000 to 200,000 Conservative Party members as no one else will get a vote. Just think, those members will predominately be of a mature age, mainly anti-EU, anti-foreigners, wealthy and consumers of the Daily Mail. On that basis, you can dismiss the candidate’s rhetoric as pretty much irrelevant to good governance as they’ll all mostly say anything to win a majority of this small electorate. Yet with all of us, except the Conservative voting well off, feeling the pinch at present someone offering you a tax cut and the cutting of red tape too may well get a hearing with the wider electorate.

Our public services are in a terrible mess across the board because of austerity, poor governance, Covid, Brexit and global economic conditions. More tax cuts will inevitably mean more cuts to public services no matter how you look at it. Yes, you’ll be told that ‘we’ll make the NHS, Councils, our railways etc.’ more efficient to counter the reduced money being given to them but shouldn’t the government be doing that all the time? In reality, the efficiencies will be negligible but the cuts will be deep. However, the very same politicians have also promised us ‘Levelling Up’, 40 new NHS hospitals (a medium-sized one costs in excess £500m*), many more GPs, nurses and dentists than you can shake a stick at (and all desperately required) so where will the money come from if another era of austerity/small state is the real agenda? None of this makes any sense. What we really need is a debate about how we can get the UK back on the rails not simplistic politician’s pledges which effectively tell us we can have everything for nothing yet again.

And back to Cadwalladr’s investigations, as without the likes of her, we’d know nothing of what our leaders get up to. The trouble is much of our press sees its job as backing a political party rather than holding all our leaders, no matter what their political colour, to account. My view of politics is never to trust anyone with power no matter who they are, just look what has become of us all because the electorate thought Johnson would be a bit of a laugh!

* Government has committed £3.7bn to the New Hospital Building Programme – £16.3bn short of what would be required to build 40 new hospitals – Source Dr Phil Hammond in Private Eye No.1577