Discontented people bring about change.
A while back I was struck by this quote by the columnist Frank Tyger from the American business magazine Forbes.
"Progress is not created by content people."
This is so true, and something I have consistently said, with regards the progressing of our Agenda.
The point I have made, for some time now, is that the people in this country are generally still too comfortable and so it is quite understandable how reforming our governance is still a low priority and off their radar.
However, if history repeats itself this could all be about to change with the current ‘Cost of Living and Energy Crisis’? Interestingly it was during periods of economic hardship that the Levellers of 1642 and the Chartists of 1838 made their demands for political reform. The Levellers had four and the Chartists six demands which for both included the vote for all men over 21. It took 276 for this to be achieved in 1918 with an earlier act in 1884 giving the vote to around 60% of men leaving the poorest 40% still disenfranchised.
On top of the economic hardships ahead we have the increasing omnishambles that passes for our parliament, with more and more people realising that far too many of our MPs are lazy, self-seeking incompetents. The behaviour of MPs after the Brexit referendum, in trying every trick in the book, to reverse the ‘People’s decision, supported by the ghastly Speaker Bercow, proved to many that reform of our governance is needed. Currently this is manifesting itself in a spate of new parties which I predict will change little as they fail to break into the system as even UKIP proved.
Even my own MP elected in 2015, who came from a successful business background and who I have met at least a dozen times, looks like being no better than the rest as he is currently suspended from the party while he is investigated for allegedly taking cocaine and the sexual assault of work colleagues. I hoped he might be a new breed of MP but with his expenses paid flat in London and employing his wife as his PA on I believe around £50,000 it hasn’t taken him long to learn how to ‘milk’ the system. He is now apparently in a psych ward which is not surprising as his career is I suspect unlikely to recover from this whatever the outcome.
Every day the reform of our governance become more and more important and relevant. The good news is that our six demands exist and I believe cover all the important areas that need to be addressed if we are to achieve a system of governance that more closely reflects the desires and wishes of the majority of the electorate turning MPs into our servants instead of our masters.
The promotion and progress of our six demands lie in the people’s hands and if they continue to sit on them nothing will change. The big question is whether the approaching economic storm will be enough to wake people up to demand changes necessary to improve our governance and our democracy?