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A Rant from a grumpy old octogenarian OR a Fart after a Good Meal?  You judge.

Not our creaky old Parliament where tradition and the Whips demand that MPs queue for hours to vote instead of pressing a button. Our democracy where a minority interest can pose as a majority. Where popular democracy can degenerate into anarchy and representative democracy into the corporatism of a mutual self-protection society.

 Not our bewigged self-deluded legal system where unequal Justice before the Law rules in the courts, in its Tribunals if at all.

Not our top down, beleaguered NHS monolith that never has enough money and does not want to know about caring for the elderly because in 1948 there were no elderly as we now know them; today a terrible price leaving them in the care of local authorities. 70 year old design faults ignored. Vision impairment compounded by chronic, self-congratulatory, institutionalised inertia. Serious reform outside the political parties’ and bureaucracy’s comfort zone. Thus our NHS does not encourage people to own some responsibility for their own health, and does not look how other countries fund hospitals and care homes. A sacred cow with one leg missing.

Not our civil service where their knowhow is not matched by know-what. Clever, possibly, street wise questionably, accountable not if they can help it. Technology not its strong point.

Not our Ombudsmen system that does not require Ombudsmen to sign off the decisions of apparatchiks written in their name when they are challenged. Ombudsnotmen a better name for them. Make them earn their cake. Wrong decisions mean that red and amber warning lights are set to green.

Not our armed forces thatever since the Crimean War have never seemed to have had equipment right on the day.

Not our ill-disciplined education system – I read Times Ed. It provides an equal opportunity to go to Uni to half a school cohort that wants something entirely different, simply an opportunity in life, any opportunity, not necessarily an equal one, and force-feeds them the wrong curriculum. Labelling them failures when they do not get there. Denying them self-esteem in the ludicrous quest for parity of esteem. Charlie Darwin’s selection politically unacceptable.

Not our Universities when they apply 19th Century nostrums to 21st Century’s problems.

Not our student loans with State Scholarships to reward ambition and much needed talent around in my school days abolished to satisfy the egalitarians, debt slavery making a nonsense of social mobility. Writing off their unpayable debt would be of some comfort to the present generation blighted by covid-19.

Not our planners who never think to factor human fallibility into their planning, especially their own, or just never think. I have a thing about DfT and their amateur planners, Sustrans.

Not our Media. They would all have made a better job of governing; leastways they think they would. Sometimes, they make even God feel threatened. 2008 an illustration of their black/white television view of the world, putting all the blame on the bankers to the total exclusion of politicians who believed that the disadvantaged had an equal right to own their own homes, put them up to it, and shut their eyes to it, promising no return to “the shifting sands of boom and bust.” A shame printers serving IBM supercomputers didn’t print in red as well as black.

Not our political parties, the Tories born to rile, Labour so concerned about equal human rights of those they categorise as disadvantaged – not all of them in their net by a long chalk – that they regularly ignore the rights of everyone else, recently, with scant regard for covid-19. LibDems, nomads in the desert without an oasis. The Greens, Luddites reborn especially when they ride bikes and hate the idea of electric anything, other than bikes and scooters; demonstrating a way of life.

And certainly not the City and the banking and hedge fund fraternity putting its obscene bonus culture before a Transaction Tax. IBM supercomputers work at 200 quadrillion calculations per second. At 0.1% suggested by Michael Bloomberg and Bernie Sanders, a mix more potent than Viagra, I would call it a Teabag tax. Best argument for it an ad for Bitcoin Trader! A good deal better than a hike in Income Tax. It would help countries balance their books and pay their way in the world, I trust not entirely outdated ideas for economists; and put people first for a change.

And please, please, please not another £multi-million Enquiry. Everyone knows too much already. Leave to others the dead hand of the past.

Boris, don’t postpone your new Resolution until 1st January 2021. Good news now. Boost new jobs manufacturing electric vehicles and batteries, bring new hope to the country’s High Streets with tens of thousands of fast chargers located there, opportunities for the young for instance Bring it on 2020, not tax and debt. Care for the elderly within the NHS not outside it. Post Brexit people want a bright future as well as a safe one. Spell it out.

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