'The battle lines are drawn between the expanders and restrainers; those who believe that there should be no impediments and those who believe that we must live within limits’
Hammy's tales of the riverbank #1
Hammy #2
BettaKultcha.
Countdown is progressing . . .
Monday, November 01, 2010
Friday, October 08, 2010
Letter to Wakefield Express re ongoing LDF discussion.
(Not published in Wakefield Express).
Whilst it should be welcomed that Wakefield district is to get thousands more households - there is a pressing need for more housing - it really needs serious questioning as to where they are built, the scale, quality, infrastructure and services but, most importantly, the ideology behind the proposals in the Local Development Framework, ie, environmentalism.
'Where they are built' is a case in point with Councillor Jeffries proving there is no depth too low for her to prostitute herself; namely her recommendation that we pooh-pooh any Health and Safety objections we may have when it comes to putting mass housing on a former chemicals plant. This is rich coming from her as her party did so much to enshrine Health and Safety legislation in the first place. One wonders whether she is as outspoken when it comes to the many public events and even day to day activities that are hamstrung by such legislation.
Current policy has very little to do with facilitating better quality living standards to the public and is much more about containing them or, at best, placing them within a binding framework. Even worse, should we mere ordinary folk be free minded enough to determine our own lifestyles and activities we are highly likely to fall foul of any number of Anti-Social Behavioural Orders.
The council may lay claim to having put their proposals to we public but as has been pointed out this has been consultation in name only; the council gets to tick the box marked 'public involvement' and they then carry on regardless. Truly, they put the con in consultation.
There was never any intention to reshape current thinking as it is cemented in place by the great and the good of the UN, EU, national and local Government as well as promoted by an array of well- and taxpayer funded quangoes. This pretty much gives the lie to Lead Councillor Box's jibe at a previous letter writer concerning democracy. Little wonder he's been given a lackey's badge by those he truly serves.
Lessons haven't been learned from the recent financial turmoil and soon to hit recession. Although it's popular to blame the situation on 'greedy bankers' the underlying message is that we all want too much out of life, that we've gone too far. Many of us my have genuine grievances against our financial institutions but when it comes to raised aspirations maybe we should all call ourselves bankers.
Equally to blame in this scenario are those excessive Americans. Yet they too mostly suffer from land use restrictions and the scrabble for scant packages of land pushes the price of housing up to levels that people just cannot afford. Hence the sub-prime mortgage fiasco - people are paying over the odds for compromised living standards.
The council may claim this part of the LDF to be closed, a done deal, but this is far from the case. These things are written by flesh and blood human beings and supposedly agreed upon by the demos - us - but, as witnessed, this is far from the case. We need a genuine public discussion as to how and where we wish to live, not some compromised version passed down to us.
It's high time our elected, so-called representatives and dubious authority were told to 'patronise off!' and we reclaim the idea of modernity; humanity unbound, free and progressive.
Whilst it should be welcomed that Wakefield district is to get thousands more households - there is a pressing need for more housing - it really needs serious questioning as to where they are built, the scale, quality, infrastructure and services but, most importantly, the ideology behind the proposals in the Local Development Framework, ie, environmentalism.
'Where they are built' is a case in point with Councillor Jeffries proving there is no depth too low for her to prostitute herself; namely her recommendation that we pooh-pooh any Health and Safety objections we may have when it comes to putting mass housing on a former chemicals plant. This is rich coming from her as her party did so much to enshrine Health and Safety legislation in the first place. One wonders whether she is as outspoken when it comes to the many public events and even day to day activities that are hamstrung by such legislation.
Current policy has very little to do with facilitating better quality living standards to the public and is much more about containing them or, at best, placing them within a binding framework. Even worse, should we mere ordinary folk be free minded enough to determine our own lifestyles and activities we are highly likely to fall foul of any number of Anti-Social Behavioural Orders.
The council may lay claim to having put their proposals to we public but as has been pointed out this has been consultation in name only; the council gets to tick the box marked 'public involvement' and they then carry on regardless. Truly, they put the con in consultation.
There was never any intention to reshape current thinking as it is cemented in place by the great and the good of the UN, EU, national and local Government as well as promoted by an array of well- and taxpayer funded quangoes. This pretty much gives the lie to Lead Councillor Box's jibe at a previous letter writer concerning democracy. Little wonder he's been given a lackey's badge by those he truly serves.
Lessons haven't been learned from the recent financial turmoil and soon to hit recession. Although it's popular to blame the situation on 'greedy bankers' the underlying message is that we all want too much out of life, that we've gone too far. Many of us my have genuine grievances against our financial institutions but when it comes to raised aspirations maybe we should all call ourselves bankers.
Equally to blame in this scenario are those excessive Americans. Yet they too mostly suffer from land use restrictions and the scrabble for scant packages of land pushes the price of housing up to levels that people just cannot afford. Hence the sub-prime mortgage fiasco - people are paying over the odds for compromised living standards.
The council may claim this part of the LDF to be closed, a done deal, but this is far from the case. These things are written by flesh and blood human beings and supposedly agreed upon by the demos - us - but, as witnessed, this is far from the case. We need a genuine public discussion as to how and where we wish to live, not some compromised version passed down to us.
It's high time our elected, so-called representatives and dubious authority were told to 'patronise off!' and we reclaim the idea of modernity; humanity unbound, free and progressive.
Wednesday, May 05, 2010
Ev'ry thing's broken?
Wakefield general election address. Mark Harrop,
Broken Britain? Independent candidate.
Despite the protest of Govt it's undeniable that the UK is in a mess, although, however much is 'broken' it generally means that people no longer care and need repair rather than roads, drains and misguided Regeneration schemes. Much noise is made about returning pride and a sense of purpose as in 'The Good Old Days' but this turns things on their head. The days of Britain being Great were not just through superior arms but in more progressive ways: the industrial revolution starting here, bringing advanced production methods to the world and changing an impoverished, illiterate peasantry into a better educated and aspirational working class.
Today, humanity's place on the planet is called into question. Apparently we've gone too far, become wasteful and destructive; knowledge no longer power but leading to unsustainable desires - for the masses, that is. When once the future was considered to be about jet-packs, colonising distant planets, unbound knowledge and a capacity to deal with any eventuality, these things now seem ridiculous. Today we are led to revere nature above all, limit our footprint and know our place. Babies are considered not so much bundles of joy but bundles of carbon emissions, the elderly as burdensome and all others in need of restraint.
Never before has humanity been viewed in such loathsome terms.
If we're broken and need fixing then who better to do that than Govt and their advisers? Yet, they don't make anything and rely on the productivity and compliance of the rest of society to keep them in their place. If people are wasteful in their ways then it's fairgame to enforce behavioural change - smoking bans, five-a-day, recycling, don't use lifts, leave the car at home, speed bumps and not repairing roads, get off the bus a stop early, voluntary work, ad infinitum.
It is in these areas that Wakefield local government's rating improves from poor to fair with no end of agencies and govt departments urging the self-same advice. Irony being, the only growth area is one that wrestles with 'no growth' and no wonder the country grinds close to a halt.
This Govt remains immune to its faults and even after apologising manages to re-assert itself before claiming how bad things would be under anyone else.
Calls for transparency in politics seem unnecessary under such circumstances.
Britain is patched up and creaking rather than broken.
Maybe because it's Spring or an election but there has been some recent strategic public works. 'Strategic' as they are prominently placed: kerbs and drives being relaid close to main roads, some rural areas have new signs and street cleaners working on Sundays - someone needs seeing to be 'working hard for you'. These may be prominent works but are very much cheap and cynical window-dressing.
Most roads in the district are in an appalling state which is bad enough for cars and begs the question whether the great and good practice what they preach - 'leave the car at home' - and ever travel by bike. New Labour may now promise a considerable cash injection but why aren't these matters done automatically and without fanfare?
With the economy near collapsing and public services all calling for a bail out just where is the money to come from? Unwarranted and overstretched military campaigns, an Olympics on the way and New Labour's hardcore of embedded professional counsellors suggests a messy period ahead for anyone attempting to maintain this tired and tiresome approach.
Gordon Brown may talk of protecting 'frontline' services but given his Govt's whole approach is based on hectoring people to conform he may have a different idea of what public service means. It is not so much the people at fault but the intolerable circumstances lived under - if anything is broken it is current Govt thinking and policy. It's inconceivable that matters can be stabilised - let alone progress - without a complete abandoning of such a programme. The only thing in need of repair is the pioneering spirit and man's further grasp over nature and natural events.
For a life worth living there can be no other way.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Tues 4th. May.)
Broken Britain? Independent candidate.
Despite the protest of Govt it's undeniable that the UK is in a mess, although, however much is 'broken' it generally means that people no longer care and need repair rather than roads, drains and misguided Regeneration schemes. Much noise is made about returning pride and a sense of purpose as in 'The Good Old Days' but this turns things on their head. The days of Britain being Great were not just through superior arms but in more progressive ways: the industrial revolution starting here, bringing advanced production methods to the world and changing an impoverished, illiterate peasantry into a better educated and aspirational working class.
Today, humanity's place on the planet is called into question. Apparently we've gone too far, become wasteful and destructive; knowledge no longer power but leading to unsustainable desires - for the masses, that is. When once the future was considered to be about jet-packs, colonising distant planets, unbound knowledge and a capacity to deal with any eventuality, these things now seem ridiculous. Today we are led to revere nature above all, limit our footprint and know our place. Babies are considered not so much bundles of joy but bundles of carbon emissions, the elderly as burdensome and all others in need of restraint.
Never before has humanity been viewed in such loathsome terms.
If we're broken and need fixing then who better to do that than Govt and their advisers? Yet, they don't make anything and rely on the productivity and compliance of the rest of society to keep them in their place. If people are wasteful in their ways then it's fairgame to enforce behavioural change - smoking bans, five-a-day, recycling, don't use lifts, leave the car at home, speed bumps and not repairing roads, get off the bus a stop early, voluntary work, ad infinitum.
It is in these areas that Wakefield local government's rating improves from poor to fair with no end of agencies and govt departments urging the self-same advice. Irony being, the only growth area is one that wrestles with 'no growth' and no wonder the country grinds close to a halt.
This Govt remains immune to its faults and even after apologising manages to re-assert itself before claiming how bad things would be under anyone else.
Calls for transparency in politics seem unnecessary under such circumstances.
Britain is patched up and creaking rather than broken.
Maybe because it's Spring or an election but there has been some recent strategic public works. 'Strategic' as they are prominently placed: kerbs and drives being relaid close to main roads, some rural areas have new signs and street cleaners working on Sundays - someone needs seeing to be 'working hard for you'. These may be prominent works but are very much cheap and cynical window-dressing.
Most roads in the district are in an appalling state which is bad enough for cars and begs the question whether the great and good practice what they preach - 'leave the car at home' - and ever travel by bike. New Labour may now promise a considerable cash injection but why aren't these matters done automatically and without fanfare?
With the economy near collapsing and public services all calling for a bail out just where is the money to come from? Unwarranted and overstretched military campaigns, an Olympics on the way and New Labour's hardcore of embedded professional counsellors suggests a messy period ahead for anyone attempting to maintain this tired and tiresome approach.
Gordon Brown may talk of protecting 'frontline' services but given his Govt's whole approach is based on hectoring people to conform he may have a different idea of what public service means. It is not so much the people at fault but the intolerable circumstances lived under - if anything is broken it is current Govt thinking and policy. It's inconceivable that matters can be stabilised - let alone progress - without a complete abandoning of such a programme. The only thing in need of repair is the pioneering spirit and man's further grasp over nature and natural events.
For a life worth living there can be no other way.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Tues 4th. May.)
Monday, May 03, 2010
Not the smoking ban, again?
The smoking ban is actually little to do with smoking. Neither is having a right to smoke the biggest issue facing us. Even so, not too many arguments for the ban stand up and, otherwise, simple arrangements can be made for those wishing to indulge the habit at their own risk. The ban is, however, indicative of wider trends in society. For the most part, smoking is obviously unhealthy, it's expensive, smells, is disliked by many and others are glad for the ban. Some smokers even state that there has never been so much camaraderie amongst themselves. For now, outside, in shelters good, bad and ugly.
Why fuss over the ban?
Frail and elderly smoking customers hardly get out come the cold weather as smoking in a shed regulated to have less cover than a pigsty is no comfort. Govt legislation is creating more problems as people become less tolerant of others - the noisier beer gardens when neighbours want some peace and quiet or the gauntlet of smokers in pub doorways, for instance. There may not be an 'app' for that but there's certainly a law . . and a fine.
It's well known that many pubs are going to the wall. Publicans suffer variously from ill health, mountains of debt, over-regulation, excessive licensing and being tied to and having punitive get-out clauses with Pub companies, and they taking full advantage of the cull by squeezing as much money as they can from sitting-duck licensees.
Many pubs are barely hanging on under these conditions and it's fair to say that a significant part of public life is set to change, too. Stopping people smoking is among the many intrusions into behaviour: everything from alcohol, food, calling the barmaid 'love', telling jokes; everything. Even train-spotters are suspect terrorists and young boys playing war are labeled as racist.
The smoking ban expresses much that is wrong with the UK. Everything is subject to a risk assessment for the remotest thing that could go wrong or we can be bullied or hurt by a word or activity of another. Supposedly, we need guidance as we're deemed not adult enough to negotiate life without the many helping hands of govt, council officials, professional advisers or charities to regulate, fine or harass us into making the 'right' decisions.
Politics has become less about the best way forward and nearly all about manipulating the character of the public.
A reversal of politics.
For politics, the rise of character and personality is a dead end but reflects what happens to individuals at ground level. If policy is based on character assassination then politicians can't expect to avoid being judged by the conditions they helped create. Hence, MPs are caught short with the so-called expenses scandal, Gordon Brown caught muttering what he really thinks of the electorate and vacuous leadership debates on TV.
There is no longer a progressive character to politics and things today are about how flawed we are, not the way society functions or could be made better.
A reasonable economy?
If this is bad enough for our personal and social lives then it has proved disastrous for the economy, now collapsing under the twin burdens of such over-regulation and notions of sustainability. In essence and practice both deny human capacity to negotiate daily life or larger problems. Yet, our future is being mortgaged to maintain the same problem so won't mean greater freedoms as we do our bit to rescue a situation not of our making.
The market system - capitalism - is far from perfect and to have it replaced with a freer, more productive and beneficial economy wouldn't be a bad thing but, even so, its dynamic character and our livelihoods are thwarted by the actions of a political class hell-bent on restraint.
A public vote?
On current track we can only expect more of the same as main electoral contenders are more like different brands of cheap soap powder. Whether we have a hung parliament or not there's going to be a mess. Unless we use the current election period to sort out some genuine democracy.
Now, while there's an election on is the ideal time to send a message to those who wish to represent us and have them pay attention to our concerns rather than take us for granted. Seeing as how the smoking ban is symbolic of further controls and the aim of politics should be a society where people are free to indulge their pleasures then we ought take a public vote as to whether pubs, clubs, cafes, etc can reasonably offer 'smoking or non-smoking' - part, throughout, occasionally, ventilated or not at all. Even those of us who hate smoking ought allow others to indulge their lifestyle choices as who knows what's next?
Allowing them to carry on unchallenged is dangerous for personal choices, wider society and the economy, too.
The smoking ban, then, is not just about smoking but us as individuals having the right to choose our activities and the company we keep. Politicians should butt out of private affairs and get on with their proper job - getting to grips with a progressive economy and getting the country working properly.
Mark Harrop. Independent candidate
Wakefield, general election.
Friday, April 16, 2010
2010 Election proposals.
For the most part my candidacy will promote the Institute of Ideas' 21 pledges for progress as outlined below, to which I add -
- Full, meaningful and rewarding employment.
- An end to Carbon trading schemes and offsetting, promoting rather than curtailing development in underdeveloped countries and breaking out of constricting environmentalist schema in the UK and beyond.
- Decriminalising recreational drug use and ending all intrusive meddling in private affairs and lifestyle choices.
- Recognising that recent and ongoing warfaring by western leaders is much more about propping up their dubious authority, right to rule over us and to cement their position at the top table of global affairs. On their own terms it has proven largely counterproductive and for those on the ground a disaster with no end in sight.
21 PLEDGES FOR PROGRESS 2010
Policy ideas that would make candidates worth voting for; positions that voters should argue and campaign for.- Repeal hate speech legislation, in the interests of free speech, with no ifs, no buts.
- Repeal the UK's libel laws, in the interests of free speech, no ifs, no buts.
- Stop bureaucratic CRB checks and vetting of adults who come into contact with children and vulnerable adults, in the interests of free association between generations and countering the climate of mistrust.
- Repeal any equality legislation that interferes with the freedom of private organisations like churches and political parties to act on their beliefs, in the interests of free association.
- Revoke unnecessary and nonsensical health and safety rules and guidelines in the interests of countering today's risk-averse, safety-first climate of fear.
- Allow pubs and clubs the option of permitting smoking, and get rid of the new 'no drinking zones', in the interests of countering the over-regulation of public spaces.
- Scrap the 'database state', including the ContactPoint database which holds information about every child in the country and the DNA database which includes details of criminal suspects without convictions, in the interests of civil liberties, the privacy of families and the principle that we are innocent until proven guilty.
- Limit the police's power to detain people without charge to 24 hours rather than 28 days, in the interests of civil liberties and due process.
- Declare an amnesty for all illegal immigrants presently in the UK, whether asylum seekers or economic migrants, in the interests of recognising the positive aspirations of those who seek to improve their lives by moving countries.
- Open the borders, revoking all immigration controls, in the interests of the free movement of citizens.
- Get rid of police Tsars and unelected 'experts' from government decision-making in the interests of parliamentary sovereignty and democratic accountability.
- Abolish the monarchy and the House of Lords in the interests of a fully elected legislature and executive.
- Hold a referendum on the EU constitution and any subsequent treaties, in the interests of a national democratic mandate.
- Direct state expenditure into infrastructural projects such as power grids and telecommunications, increased facilities for road, rail and air travel, in the interests of productive economic growth.
- Build new nuclear power stations across the country in the interests of ensuring we have more than sufficient energy to power a new round of economic growth.
- Reduce the onerous regulation of new scientific and technological developments such as GM technology and biomedicine in the interests of increasing R&D and encouraging innovation.
- Stop excessive centralisation and bureaucratic control of public services, enabling professionals to make judgements in the interests of those using the services rather than artificial targets.
- Scrap the 'impact statement' demands on university research in the interests of valuing knowledge for its own sake and academic freedom from policy outcomes.
- Support the arts financially, for their own sake, in the interests of liberating them from ever more prescriptive and politicised instrumental demands.
- Direct state funding of health to biomedical research into cures, the latest drugs and equipment, rather than punitive campaigns to change individual behaviour, in the interests of public health and good cheer.
- Direct state funding of schools into providing universal access to the highest standard of education in academic subjects, rather than politicised cross curricular themes like sustainability or citizenship, in the interests of passing on real knowledge to our children.
Re FREEDOM
Re CONSTITUTION
Re ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
Re PUBLIC SERVICES
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