If 'the establisment' don't get a grip on social media soon, they'll have to do what we want

I've blogged about the need for a reconnect between the voters-and-taxpayers and those who spend the money supposedly on our behalf in the past. Here and here

In most of these blogs I was putting forward an aspiration (or hope) that social media would help to achieve what I see as a fundamental requirement: That government and the establishment - and these are both the same thing and different as I will explain in a minute - should actually do what they were established for, which is to do what we want and need them to do on our behalf - things that we cannot do ourselves (because of scale) or cannot be arsed to do ourselves because we're getting on with living our lives. Essentially my hope was that it (social media) would enable a reconnect between what the people want and what is actually delivered by the governments we elect and to whom we give power to deliver our aspirations, meet our needs and consider our issues.

I have to admit that in the past (these blogs) have been about what should happen rather than what I thought would happen. I fervently hoped that social media would provide a voice for people but overall I felt that this would probably be a forlorn one. I was wrong. Social media is now a strong - and inexorably growing - source of power for the individual and it is achieving a significant and growing influence on how we are run. It really is starting to become a vehicle for 'power to the people' and not in a leftie way as that phrase suggests (although the left has as much opportunity to make use of it as everyone else), but in a truly empowering way.

OK just to get the 'government versus establishment' issue out of the way first if I may? Government is short-term. It tinkers with policy and makes changes on either side of quite a thin dividing line. The differences between Tory and Labour are sometimes significant but always within limits. The 'establishment' is the general direction of travel upon which we are embarked. Government comes and goes and tweaks, sometimes successfully, sometimes not; 'establishment' continues to grind along in a general direction for the country. Governments tinker they don't actually change much.

Anyway.

In my previous blogs I was hoping that social media might help to change the world - I was that ambitious for it but without actually believing that it would.

I have news: It is changing the world. It is getting our voice heard and it is reconnecting the voter - the humble voter like me and you - with the governance of our country. They cannot ignore us any more. They cannot hide shit on page 16 of the daily rag and hope we'll forget about it in a day or so.

Dave cannot hide his EU 'reforms' behind a 'we know best, trust me' mantra any more. Because we're interested, informed. Promises are remembered and revisited. No 'ifs no buts'. No bullshit.

They cannot any more 'do' government 'to' us. It has to be 'with' us. We hunt out hypocrisy. We share our knowledge. We form groups of like-minded people and we demand to be heard. We don't, any more just accept what we are told. The BBC's influence is diminishing massively. Because we have information from the whole wide world to factor in to our views.

Scrutiny and influence. We're almost getting to the point where our government and the establishment will have to do what we want - and pay - them to do for us.

It's fucking nirvana if one believes in democracy - and of course that must be the case for our politicians and the ruling classes because if they didn't believe in democracy they wouldn't have a job.

It's utterly delicious. 'Keep them in the dark and make sure they continue to pay their taxes (to 'us')' is no longer viable. We're not in the dark any longer. You may instigate laws that enable you to spy on us 24/7, but you need to be aware that you work for us and the internet and especially social media makes this a two-way street.

You can't run and you can't hide. We pay for you and, therefore, we expect and demand that you do actually work for us.

Knowledge is power and the balance of power is now becoming re-aligned in favour of ordinary people.

And this is a great thing. A wonderful thing.

We need to fight to maintain it because I have no doubt that the 'establishment' will try to fight back and regain their power. I think the genie is now out of the bottle and they will not be able to do so. But don't expect them to just roll over. Watch this 'freedom' closely. We all must.

Thanks for reading.