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I like Miriam Cates and I know what she's getting at, but <a href="https://x.com/miriam_cates/status/1790389769689505958" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-mce-href="https://x.com/miriam_cates/status/1790389769689505958">Miriam Cates' speech on lawless schools</a> is the wrong approach and I doubt it's enforceable. If anything, it will weaken the authority of the state because parents will openly defy it. What's missing is proper parental supervision and a lack of discipline imposed by teachers. That points to a bigger and more difficult problem.&nbsp;Teachers, like the police, can only impose discipline if they have the backing of the state and the parents. The police are hamstrung by political correctness without political backing, and teachers live in constant fear of lawsuits and disciplinary action. Consequently, they have no authority and kids can run rings around them, just as criminals can openly mock the plod.&nbsp;The more difficult problem is the lack of parental backing of teachers, where parents view teachers as glorified babysitters. Teachers should have parental authority to impose discipline on licence, but if teachers assert their own authority, they are likely to face complaints from parents.The other problem, is that we have overly feminised teaching, and too many teachers are an absolute pushover who do not command respect in their own right, thus lack personal authority. Kids can smell a weakling a mile off. &nbsp;The ultimate issue, though, is feckless parents who take no interest in their child's development, and believe it is the responsibility of the school to instil discipline. Parents are outsourcing parenthood to schools, and a leftist run educational establishment is all too happy to assume that role, with the state acting as a surrogate. Leftists want control over your kids so they can indoctrinate them in everything from climate dogma to gender ideology. Instruments like free school meals are just one of the ways to water down parental responsibility.&nbsp;Fixing this is not easy. Fixing it requires better, more rounded teachers. It used to be the case that teaching was a respected profession and a teacher would enjoy a degree of social status. Now it's just a job. There is no competition to become a teacher, and nobody in their right mind would want to do it with so little moral support from the state or from parents, and not for the pitiful pay.I think what's needed is a formal contract between parents and schools, setting out the obligations of all parties including the child, and the school should enjoy the right to exclude. Here, I'm in danger of speaking outside my field of experience, because I know how difficult that would be to enforce, and the school isn't always right. It would probably need independent regional arbitration bodies headed up by voluntary magistrates.We have no problem setting standards, but we're useless at enforcing them because we're a soft touch and there are too many mitigating excuses. We need to demand better of parents and make them understand that their negligence/indifference/incompetence will have consequences. What we're talking about here is a renewed social contract that stops making allowances, especially on the grounds of race/faith and culture, and doesn't bend to "special snowflakism". Your child, in all probability, does not have special needs, isn't autistic, and needs to comply with the same &nbsp;basic standards as everyone else.&nbsp;The proliferation of unchecked phone use among minors is a symptom of a broader malaise, and Cates is attacking a symptom rather than an issue that has deeper philosophical causes.&nbsp;As such, her proposal is only going to end up inconveniencing responsible parents while making virtually zero impact on the causal problems, which would no doubt require much more ambitious and contentious measures, and will again have to take on the blob. This falls short of that very necessary confrontation, and we can chalk it up as another instance of the Tories fiddling around the edges, and shrinking from taking on bad faith actors and degenerate leftist ideas. This is a half measure, and it ain't gonna work.A simplistic, half-baked populist approach illustrates why populism is a poor substitute for policy.

Starting to drain the Education swamp...

Added <a data-mce-href="https://x.com/FUDdaily/status/1791908623339098381" href="https://x.com/FUDdaily/status/1791908623339098381" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Saturday May 18th 20:00</a> Tice has a curious attitude to Ukip because Ukip is closer to where the right's activist base is. He needs them. Understandably, Ukip doesn't want to dismantle its grassroots infrastructure to merge with a private limited company, and they're right not to back a party with such a flaccid immigration policy.&nbsp;The solution, therefore, is for Reform to stiffen immigration policy, and to relaunch with an elected NEC and a party constitution to give members an active role in the direction of the party. Two seats on the NEC could even be offered to the Ukip leadership as a precursor to a merger.&nbsp;I doubt this would happen, mind you, because Ukip is a bit too Ukippy for Tice. But then that begs the question, if Reform isn't prepared to be a bit Ukippy, what is the point of it?&nbsp;Right now it's presenting as a generic populist protest-vote dustbin rather than a movement. It cannot survive without a fundamental purpose, especially if its positions are only marginally to the right of whatever is salvaged from the wreckage of the Tory party. I would like for Reform to shape up and get with the programme, but at the moment, I'm struggling to see it as anything other than a distracting nuisance.Uninspired and uninspiring In recent weeks, I've criticised the Reform Party for its lack of an intellectual foundation. There are several problems with the party, but most of them stem from not having a philosophical definition. Consequently, there is no framework for its policies. It actually has no policies to speak of. It just has crowd-pleasing tropes with no detail, none of which get anywhere near fixing the problems at source.Then there's the Tice problem. Frankly, he's not up to it. He's a poor media performer, he's not especially compelling, and he's easily wrong-footed. But because Reform has few other sources of income, they're stuck with him. And that's a problem. Reform will struggle to attract major donors if it cannot demonstrate organic growth and polling momentum, and it can't manage either with ineffectual leadership, no intellectual foundation, and no grassroots organisation to speak of. It's a party on paper, but it's not a movement.The party also lacks a clear strategy. Tice believes the mission is to destroy the Tory party; but the impact of Reform is muted by the Gaza effect on Labour. Moreover, they're deceiving themselves if they think they're the automatic beneficiary of the Tory implosion. The Blackpool South by-election results are troubling for Reform. Reform is failing to inspire.&nbsp;At the beginning of this line of enquiry, I believed these problems could be fixed. But for the problem to be addressed, the leadership has to recognise that there is a problem. The leadership currently refutes the suggestion there is no intellectual foundation, and denies that its policies are populist tropes.&nbsp;Certainly there is an intellectual framework for Ben Habib's thinking, but there is no evidence of this on the Reform website. That suggests to me that the website is an afterthought, which suggests no thought has gone into communications strategy.&nbsp;If I was a voter visiting the website to give Reform a second look, I would conclude that Reform was an amateurish populist party that will say anything for popularity, and has no understanding of the scale, complexity and urgency of the problems. It is a party called Reform, but does not offer a reform prospectus. Nothing on the website points to an overhaul of governance.As such, Reform risks being left behind. There is still a gap in the market for a new movement on the right, but Reform is not entitled to those votes. They could just as easily go somewhere else. It seems that Cummings and Goodwin are lining up to launch something. That will soak up enormous political and media attention - and votes. Both figures (for reasons that escape me) are regarded as heavyweights.&nbsp;There's a lot of debate happening on the right as to what should be the intellectual underpinnings of a new movement. It's forming up on the lines of National Conservatism. It’s a fully fleshed out ideology with policies that suggest themselves. Nick Timothy has been advancing policy ideas through his Telegraph column, and debate on immigration is travelling further to the right than the current "net-zero" position outlined by Reform. Debate is now going beyond numbers and is now looking at pro-natalist tax policies, citizenship reform, and cohesion policies.Essentially, there is an emerging intellectual foundation for a new movement, and if it surfaces, it will leave Reform standing, leaving voters to wonder why it still exists.I recently wrote a short sketch called <a data-mce-href="https://www.northernvariant.co.uk/p/reforming-reform" href="https://www.northernvariant.co.uk/p/reforming-reform" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Reforming Reform</a>, outlining the basis of an intellectual foundation. The paper I wrote was not merely proposing a democratic reform programme. It was proposing a core mission for the party which sets it apart from any competitor.&nbsp;Parliament is the problemThe issue for me is illustrated quite well in a recent speech given by Dr David Starkey to the New Culture Forum. He talks about a restoration centred on the sovereignty of parliament. He argued that Brexit has failed to "take back control" because powers are now divested to quangos, treaties, devolved assemblies and courts etc. What he fails to note is that Parliament did all this to us in the first place. Parliament is the problem. There are no constraints on parliament giving away powers that are not theirs to give away.Consequently, we need something declarative in nature, that the people are sovereign, and that anything that dilutes the sovereignty of the people, or in any way compels or mutes their parliament must, at the very least, be subject to a referendum. A People's Sovereignty Act, if you like.&nbsp;In effect, what we need is something that stands above parliament and enshrines the sovereign rights of the people as the ultimate authority. That inevitably leads to the abolition of the Supreme Court, which would take on a subordinate role as a constitutional court, with its powers heavily constrained by a constitution.Every malevolent anti-democratic act of the last thirty years has been done to us without our consent, because there are no real controls on what they do between elections, and our general elections are a wholly inadequate means of holding our politicians to account. We need further democratic reforms, not least so we don't have a long succession of unelected and unwanted prime ministers. Tinkering with the voting system doesn't even begin to address the democratic deficit.Such reforms are essential because most of the key problems we have are downstream of decisions taken to bind parliament to obsolete conventions, treaties and arbitrary international targets.&nbsp;Habib, among others, is hesitant about a written constitution, and suggests such a proposal would be vulnerable to ridicule. To which I say… so what? Ukip’s policy of leaving the EU was the subject of ridicule. We didn’t care because we knew it was the right thing to do, and that the public would eventually come to our side if we kept making the arguments.That’s what a political movement is supposed to do. You set out your ideas and ambitions, and you go out and argue them. You start the debates, and you win them. You are better able to do this if you actually have fully fleshed out policies. Policies have to reflect core values, and not simply plucked from the ether because they are crowd pleasers.I take the view that Reform should be leading the debate by advancing innovative and detailed policies that demonstrate the paucity of thinking in the establishment parties. Though key messaging must be simple and policies must connect with the aspirations of voters, messaging must also be strategic, and consistent with the intellectual foundation. Policies should be instruments designed to deliver your explicitly defined vision.You can hang on to your share of the vote with populist tropes, but to grow, you need to establish credibility and competence. You have to convince opinion formers in the media (and on social media) that you have the ideas, and the knowledge to pull it off. Independent right wing media critics do not presently speak well of Reform - and that's bad news because they're speaking directly to Reform's potential activist base.&nbsp;I suspect at this point that voters have already made their minds up about Reform, and if Reform wants to survive it needs a rethink and a relaunch. It should be formulating a twenty-year plan.&nbsp;In that time, it will find itself up against a renewed conservative movement forged from the wreckage of the Tory party, and it will enjoy more insider status. It will be robustly conservative and tick many of the boxes voters are looking at. However, it will stop short of the kind of radicalism Britain needs. It may commit to quitting the ECHR and limiting immigration (along the lines of the Jenrick report), but it won't be enough. We still need something like Reform in the game to hold their feet to the fire. To that end, it needs to be more original and more radical. &nbsp;This analysis is the result of close scrutiny of Reform over a while now. I think the cracks are beginning to show. Unless Reform can regain the confidence of &nbsp;its natural supporters, it probably won’t exist in five years time. There’s a lot of work ahead if it is to survive.There is a difference between a political party and a movement. Right now Reform is a political party bidding to lead a fragmented movement. The movement is split between the Tories, the SDP, remnant Ukip, and half a dozen nativist crank parties. A political party is the delivery mechanism for the hopes and aspirations of that movement. The party that wins their loyalty is the one that can present as the best hope of realising those aspirations. It must prove it has the vision, the ideas, the competence and the credibility to deliver.I recall back in 1997 volunteering for the local branch of the Referendum Party. Nothing that was achieved could have happened without Jimmy Goldsmith, but the RP wouldn’t have got anywhere without people throughout the land pounding the pavements. I remember our branch was a close knit team. We became good friends and we enjoyed what we did together, and we were proud of what we were doing. It is that energy, conviction and dedication a party must inspire. That is how the Labour movement came to power. That is how Ukip secured a referendum.The difference is that these were movements built at the local level, backed by a competent national campaigning organisation with a core mission that its members believed in. If you don’t have that, you are nowhere.&nbsp;As such, if we do not see major changes from Reform it will become part of the problem. Yet another noisemaker that does nothing useful with the exposure afforded it. If the leadership thinks all is well, and there is no problem to address, then we should give it up as a bad job. If the response to criticism is defensiveness and denial, it will not learn from mistakes, and will keep repeating them. The rest of us can't afford to waste energy on it.

Reform - a nothing burger?

Healthy organic nutritious diet. Plenty of foods on the wooden white table.

When exploring any political policy, food is a universal factor.&nbsp; Many UK food prices have doubled over the past 5 years, and we should arm ourselves with an appreciation of bigger picture - provided here by working East Anglian farmer and WOTE founder, Peter Dawe. The years 2021 through to 2024 have seen radical problems in the food sector. While the system was not working well before 2021, it did more or less grow enough food for the world’s population.Due to Covid, the Russia-Ukraine war, other communal violence and climate issues (uncommonly poor growing weather across the globe, if you do not subscribe to climate change!) the Global Food System has been set off-balance. &nbsp;As a result, (I contend) the global food system has stopped working, and is in danger of failing to feed a significant part of the global population in 2024 onwards.Note: The Global Food System is a very complex system that interfaces with all other aspects of global society. This paper of necessity simplifies that system.&nbsp;Farmers, on every continent are protesting. While they may seem to be protesting about divergent local issues, they are all discontent because they are making significant losses on growing food. The catalyst for the problems is a consequence of the Ukraine War. This cause a number of major problems.&nbsp;• The export of cereals and food oils across the Black Sea was disrupted, cause a massive spike in the price of cereals and food oils on the global market.&nbsp;• The disruption of minerals from Russia to Europe causing a massive reduction in the production of fertiliser, and a consequent massive spike in its price and availability.While in most market economies these matters are adjusted for through the “Market”, the problem with the food production is that there is a minimum 12-month lag, due to the seasons. So we have a particular sequence of events.• The spike in cereal prices enriched those who had stock of cereals, typically the grain merchants.• Due to the spike in cereal price, The Meat, Egg and Dairy sector were immediately affected, however, the merchants, supermarkets etc. refused to change the prices they paid for their produce (supported by politicians who did not want “inflation”) This resulted in immediate major financial losses for the sector.• The spike in fertiliser prices meant that many farmers could not buy enough fertiliser, as they did not have enough working capital. Those farmers that did have enough ended up with high input costs to their next year's production.• Due to the massive world-wide increase in the cost of energy, People budgeted, by reducing the amount of meat they consumed. (Global meat consumption went down by whole percentage points).• At the same time, because meat and dairy producers were reducing their stock animals, there was a glut in meat availability, lowering the price farmers got for their meat.• For poor countries that have large imports of energy, food and fertiliser, their free hard currency was used up during the price spikes. Resulting in their inability to buy in the subsequent years.Moving on the following year and more problems!• With a massive reduction in the production of meat, eggs and dairy, the demand for feed cereals plummeted, resulting in a price crash, feed wheat is now at £160 tonne, with production cost at over £200 per tonne, i.e. A typical cereal farmer is losing £40 a tonne on their 2023 crop.• The cost of living issues are still with the people, so meat consumption has not yet fully recovered.The current consequences ... • Poor countries are still experiencing high food costs, due to local shortages, due to their hard currency shortage. (Much of Africa, parts of Asia, Central America and some Oceana countries.&nbsp;• With poor countries unable to buy food, the global market is depressed.• So farmers have not started re-stocking. (In the US, the number of calves is lower than any year in the last 100 years!).• The price of fertiliser is showing no sign of going back to pre-2021 prices, so many farmers are reducing their sowing areas and reducing inputs, with a significant lowering of global cereal production.• If and when the meat industry restocks, this will REDUCE the availability of meat.Special events in Europe• The environmental lobby has persuaded our politicians that paying for environmental services, rather than food is a good idea. So many farmers faced with loss making food production are taking the tax-payers money and have become “park keepers”.• Using land for “Energy”, be it solar farms or energy crops (Bio diesel, AD plants, wood chip…) is now a better and low risk alternative to food crops• The societal norm of anyone “getting their hands dirty” being of low status, means farmers cannot recruit workers.&nbsp;• The push-back against low-wage migrant labour has made that way of recruitment more difficult• Many farmers are near or passed retirement age, so are looking for retirement exits.Specifically in the UK • Solar Farms are a very attractive alternate use of land• “Sustainable Farm Initiative” is now also an attractive low risk alternative use of land• “Development Rights” allowing redundant farm buildings to be repurposed for non-farming use means that farming infrastructure &nbsp;is being destroyed.• Regulation on farms has become so onerous, 50% of a farmer's time is “in the office”• Regulation of food production has resulted in very restricted options for selling. Leading to a power imbalance between producers and processors, which the processors have abused.The consequences• Globally, food insecurity is now very high in many poor countries• Globally, people are losing their options for high quality food• In the UK, food production is likely to reduce by up to 20% in 2024!• Up to 10% of currently farmed land is being permanently taken out of production (Possibly 50% in Wales)• While farm owners will enjoy some return on their land. Tenants, farmworkers and those involved in food production and processing are likely to see some 20% redundancies.• UK GDP will fall by 3% due to loss of farm and farm related incomes.(Percentages are my personal informed estimates - PD) Part 2. April 25th 2024 (work in progress) The Global Food System (GFS) is failing under market forces.Governments fall if they fail to feed their population, thus every government has food security as one of their main pillars. An exception is where an oppressive despotic regime may be able to hold on to power through violence alone. For most of the world, the provision of food is now dominated by global rather than national issues. Whilst much of the needed calorific food is typically grown within a nation, there are a number of countries that are either large importers or large exporters of calories. Regardless of where production is, they are all subject to the global market in fertilisers and pesticides.&nbsp;This paper includes my observations on the current workings of the Global Food System.Fertiliser and pesticide&nbsp;Fertiliser and pesticide production is concentrated into a few hands. The three main fertiliser chemicals are water soluble compounds of Nitrogen, Potassium and Phosphate (NKP). Nitrogen is made from Hydrogen produced from natural gas in a few massive chemical plants across the world. Because Nitrogen is seen as a strategic resource, most major countries have a plant. However, Potassium and Phosphate are based on mined mineral-rich deposits which are scarce and localised, resulting in a few nations/corporations having a strategic stranglehold.&nbsp;It is increasingly the case that these important resources are being withheld from poorer countries as they are a poor credit risk. Thus lowering their productivity, driving them ever poorer. Even in the wealthier countries, ability to buy can determine where these are deployed. When farmers have suffered losses due to weather or other problems, they may be unable to finance the cash flow needed between use and harvest.Global trade in foodBefore global markets, local produce was consumed by local consumers at the local price. Global trade of food and fertiliser has been captured by multinational corporations. These corporations, with their singular goal of self-interest, are now managing the GFS to their corporate advantage. “Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), Bunge, Cargill and Louis Dreyfus, collectively known as the ABCD traders, share a significant presence in a range of agricultural basic commodities, both fertiliser and food. Controlling, for example, as much as 90 per cent of the global grain trade. These corporations move commodities around the globe.&nbsp;As a result, when farmers' crops fail, the corporations move food into the area, thus farmers never enjoy shortage premiums. However, when there is a bumper crop, the price falls and the corporations move the surplus to shortage areas. If this trade ensured that farmers enjoyed a reasonable return on the work, this system would be one that could be applauded. Unfortunately, these corporations are taking all the value in the GFS. Farming, worldwide, is loss making, with many farmers needing to get money from second jobs, diaspora remittances, or government hand-outs.The effectiveness of these corporations' extortion is such that when governments put money into farming, they arbitrage these payments away from the farmer into their coffers. (Demonstrated when the New Zealand government stopped putting money into farms, after a short adjustment period, the financial performance of farms did not change.)National Food TradeWhile high value foods can be transported using planes, trains and lorries to rich markets, there are some foods that are difficult to transport due to their short shelf-life. In many parts of the world, food distribution is controlled by another small number of processors and retailers. Here it is they who oppress the farmers and growers. Using their control of the consumer market to impose onerous contracts on the farmers.&nbsp;ConsequencesRural migrationThere is now a global shortage of agricultural workers. Even countries with high unemployment cannot provide the labour needed on farms, as the farmers cannot pay them enough, relative to the “benefits” enjoyed by people living in towns and cities. There is a massive migration from rural to urban. In the past this was just the “surplus” sons and daughters, now it is all of the children and often even the parents.Even farm managers and owners are giving up, and there are few young people entering the profession due to the poor pay, hard working conditions and the uncertainty.Land that can be farmed using high levels of mechanisation can still be viable. Interestingly this is the land which is being bought by private equity and other absentee landlords for long term investment. Land and crops that are difficult to mechanise are now being abandoned. Small rice paddy, fruit and some vegetables farms are being abandoned, as are farms where the fields are too small.With so little value being retained by the farmers, and most of the economic activity done away from the local economy with multinational corporations ( Machines, Oil, PKN, processing ) the rural economy is also in free-fall. Meaning that shops and other infrastructure are closing or being neglected, further destroying reasons to remain.Fertilisers and pesticidesFood affordability&nbsp;With all of the value being captured by a few corporations, the general population has little money to buy food. While urban areas are supported by governments, rural areas are neglected, but eventually governments are overwhelmed by the cost of feeding their population. When this happens, countries typically become ungovernable, as seen already in a number of countries, with more looking likely to succumb in the coming years.Once a country becomes ungovernable, productivity drops further, however, ironically, the economics of growing one's own food becomes viable, as the multi-nationals cannot or will not operate in such conditions.Currently the global loss of production is being covered by the exploitation of newly cleared land in S America, Africa and other tropical forests and jungle around the world, and by deploying technology to improve yields.Monopoly abuseAs we have seen in history, when there is a food shortage, the price goes up massively. As an essential, people will even sell the children for their next meal when they are starving (Afghanistan). With the Global food system, (and national food systems) under the control of a few corporations and organisations. They can extort very high profits by creating a shortage. This has repeatedly happened in the global markets when there have been “shocks” of wheat and rice shortages. It is in the interests of the GFS corporations to ensure there is never quite enough food. To this end, they have persuaded governments to use crops for energy, to mop-up any surplus that might reduce their profits. Be that Bio-ethanol, Bio Diesel or anaerobic digesters producing methane.&nbsp;Comments and debate at the X account of <a data-mce-href="https://twitter.com/WoteUk" href="https://twitter.com/WoteUk">@wote.uk</a> please...

Background to the Global Food System in 2024

Great Britain flag, known as Union Jack, painted on grunge wall background

<h2>David Starkey traces the problems to Blair's 1997 regime. He's not wrong!</h2>Comments and debate at the X account of <a data-mce-href="https://twitter.com/WoteUk" href="https://twitter.com/WoteUk" target="_blank" rel="noopener">@</a><span data-mce-style="font-family: inherit; font-size: calc(16px * var(--body-fontSize, 1)); font-style: var(--body-fontStyle, normal); background-color: rgba(249,250,251,var(--tw-bg-opacity));" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: calc(16px * var(--body-fontSize, 1)); font-style: var(--body-fontStyle, normal); background-color: rgba(249,250,251,var(--tw-bg-opacity));"><a data-mce-href="https://twitter.com/WoteUk" href="https://twitter.com/WoteUk" target="_blank" rel="noopener">wote.uk</a> please...<figure id="figure-cmq7s8m292lvu024wb" data-full-width="" class=""><iframe id="cmq7s8m292lvu024wb" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/RVa27KpH--U" class="w-full bg-gray-100 rounded-sm md:rounded-md lg:rounded-lg" style="aspect-ratio: 16/9;" allowfullscreen="" data-url="https://youtu.be/RVa27KpH--U?si=5Rsm5rKRVSJteRZ7" data-corners="small" data-fullwidth="true" data-mce-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/RVa27KpH--U" data-mce-style="aspect-ratio: 16/9;"></iframe></figure>

David Starkey traces the UK's problems to 1997

The UK is sinking under the spread of intimidation. It is no one's interest to enable those who seek to divide and rule to drive wedges into the once tolerant heart of British society.One immediate effect of political and religious intimidation is to drive good people from the idea of public office. Chasing your ideological opponents away with threats will not end well. The British people are renowned for a sense of fair play, and it will not end well for those who bully and confront; so let’s consider what is involved in containing and removing the core of the problem and take all religious confrontation off the streets.Secular simply means non-religious - but it immediately gets complicated - so let’s consider a useful definition from Phil Zuckerman: <a data-mce-href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-secular-life/201407/what-does-secular-mean" href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-secular-life/201407/what-does-secular-mean" target="_blank" rel="noopener">“What Does "Secular" Mean? | Psychology Today”</a>It should not be up to a (democratic) state which is supposed (obliged!) to mediate with an even hand for all its citizens to take positions on religious interpretation, and thus guarantee a basis for immediate visceral conflict. It should create a society in which any and all religious beliefs can be pursued - as long as they do not interfere with rights of others.Let’s also introduce what was once held up as the example of how to evolve a state with a “rich heritage” of military conquest and conflict into a tolerant democratic society after centuries of intolerance and mischief … <a data-mce-href="https://www.refworld.org/legal/legislation/natlegbod/1982/en/17317" href="https://www.refworld.org/legal/legislation/natlegbod/1982/en/17317" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Constitution of the Republic of Turkey</a>It would not have happened without the leadership of <a data-mce-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mustafa_Kemal_Atat%C3%BCrk" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mustafa_Kemal_Atat%C3%BCrk" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Kemal Atatürk</a> - but we are conspicuously short of leadership - worldwide, not just the UK…“He undertook sweeping progressive reforms, which modernized Turkey into a secular, industrializing nation.[3][4][5] Ideologically a secularist and nationalist, his policies and socio-political theories became known as Kemalism.[3] Comments and debate at the X account of <a data-mce-href="https://twitter.com/WoteUk" href="https://twitter.com/WoteUk" target="_blank" data-mce-selected="inline-boundary">@wote.uk</a> please...

Secular or bust

The elephant in the room of UK politics appears to be the obvious lack of quality of choice for leader. Every party is suffering from a stark choice of mediocrity, and we are reminded that people who actively seek leadership of political parties should generally be disqualified for even seeking high political office. An aphorism that is a close relative of the Groucho Marx principle of club membership: "I wouldn't want to be a member of any club that would have me as a member". No one who might conform to the old-fashioned notion of "quality" individual wants to lead a political movement to take on a subversive civil service, a rogue judiciary aiding and abetting "lawfare" activism, a politicised police - now armed with increasingly sinister powers of intervention, the bottomless NHS pit, an irrelevant educational industry bent on perverse social engineering - and an array of massive multinational businesses that are too big to be controlled. All topped off by infiltrated international organisations with wildly subversive agendas, with zero democratic legitimacy or accountability.&nbsp; All of which has to deliver with a global population growing by ~200k daily additional mouths to feed - mostly in countries where malign religious influence poisons rational discussion.<figure id="figure-ftpz1jszg7lvsinibj" class=""><img id="ftpz1jszg7lvsinibj" src="https://cdn.durable.co/blocks/fvxKkVVIF1p2Cs5ZPmTeC8WKHysGtpSMkxGsXjjwMlxmBMIWcjBH4Muva1S25FkF.jpg" alt="November 2020 – Le Monde (France) &amp; The New York Times (USA) – After the election report. Made with analog vintage lens, Leica APO Macro Elmarit-R 2.8 100mm (Year: 1993)" title="November 2020 – Le Monde (France) &amp; The New York Times (USA) – After the election report. Made with analog vintage lens, Leica APO Macro Elmarit-R 2.8 100mm (Year: 1993)" class="object-cover bg-gray-100 " style="aspect-ratio: 3/2; object-position: 50% 15%;" data-corners="default" data-aspect="3:2" data-caption="Real leadership does not do appeasement, and takes no prisoners. Get over it. " data-positionx="50%" data-positiony="15%" data-fullwidth="false" data-mce-src="https://cdn.durable.co/blocks/fvxKkVVIF1p2Cs5ZPmTeC8WKHysGtpSMkxGsXjjwMlxmBMIWcjBH4Muva1S25FkF.jpg" data-mce-style="aspect-ratio: 3/2; object-position: 50% 15%;"><figcaption class="body-normal text-gray-500 mt-2">Real leadership does not do appeasement, and takes no prisoners. Get over it.</figcaption></figure>Anyone with enough (?) money stashed away (gold bullion preferred) is advised to build a bunker and sit it out while the energy, food, water and population crises play out.And all this goes on &nbsp;against the background of authoritarian governments eroding and closing down freedom of speech and debate as they cannot cope with the transparency forced on them by barely managed social media that provides the bad actors with the means to disrupt and subvert.Elon Musk has taken on one helluva responsibility to maintain freedom of speech, and may just be our only hope to provide the platform and tools. But he is only going to achieve this with some fairly draconian and authoritarian rules to deal with the bad actors. Do we trust Elon more than we just governments? Do we have a choice?&nbsp;The big issue with commercial Media of all types is that it is dependent on advertising revenue. The BBC's wonderful legacy to operate without being beholden to advertisers (and their marketing agencies with social engineering agendas) has been squandered by intellectual subversion, and a culture that allowed the likes of Savile and other pervs to operate in plain sight.No-one can realistically expect to manage the exponentially increased numbers of bad actors using every trick in the book, now including AI. Governments respond slowly with massive overkill regulations that rarely do the job if self regulation cannot be made to work.All of which means we must be very suspicious of anybody that wants to take a leadership role - since they clearly do not know what they are up against. Comments and debate at the X account of <a data-mce-href="https://twitter.com/WoteUk" href="https://twitter.com/WoteUk" data-mce-selected="inline-boundary" target="_blank" rel="noopener">@wote.uk</a> please...

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Secular or bust

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