Will leaving the EU cost British jobs?

No.

Thanks for reading.

Just kidding, although in essence that single word answer is correct.

The UK had a balance of payments deficit with the Eurozone in 2011 of £46 billion pounds (it's likely to be considerably higher this year). That means we spend £46 billion more on goods produced in Europe than we make on the goods and services we supply to them.

In effect we create more jobs in Europe, to the tune of £46 billion, than we create here at home from being a member of the EU.

I addition, the UK pays £53 million a day to the EU as part of our membership, and receives £28 million back in the form of EU subsidies - so we effectively pay £25 million a day to be a member of this 'club', money which is spent on a variety of things, not all of which are as stupid as has been portrayed in the Daily Mail, but some are of course. £120 million a year is spent moving the whole circus between Strasbourg and Brussels every 6 months in order not to upset the French, for example. Bringing no benefit, whatsoever to the people of the member states who actually pay for this charade.

Some 47% of the EU budget goes on the CAP (Common Agricultural Policy) - effectively a fund to keep Europe's inefficient farmers afloat, preserving an agricultural lifestyle in rural France for example, that would otherwise be a major headache for the French Government but which they could not possibly hope to fund on their own.This is one of the main planks of the original EU agreement and why France is so committed to the EU - it has no choice.

Keeping subsistence farming afloat also tends to mean that efficient farmers or more accurately Agri-Businesses make a killing out of the CAP - making massively more from what they produce, even though they would be profitable without it. The CAP also makes it almost impossible for food producers outside the EU to sell their goods in Europe even if their produce is much cheaper to produce. This is essentially why Africa is fucked: technical term for mired in corruption, needing hand-outs and food aid every few years and being raped of its rich mineral resources in return for bribes that go mainly to the corrupt ruling elite. 'Elite' is obviously a misnomer for 'biggest thugs'. 

Without access to free markets there's no way for food producers in Africa to have a sustainable business model and, therefore, no incentive to build businesses, invest in their future, employ people and develop their communities, regions and countries. They are forced to go on living from hand to mouth and is it therefore any wonder, using religion or tribal bullshit, that its people will do anything to get their hands on the levers of (corrupt) power in those countries when there is no legitimate way of bettering themselves? The goal is almost unlimited wealth and power as opposed to abject poverty. The result is unending conflict often with religion harnessed as some kind of excuse for the usually violent atrocities that are perpetrated in the effort to better themselves when 'the West' denies them any other possible route to prosperity.

But I digress (sorry). This £46 billion deficit: I'm not suggesting that we stop trading with Europe in a protectionist way. That is simply not possible in the modern world and actually hasn't really been possible or desirable since Roman times. Trade is good, it enriches our lives, breaks down barriers, prospers from and therefore promotes, peace. Much more than some specious and contrived 'Union' could ever hope to achieve.

We're told that 50% of our business is with Europe and that, therefore, we cannot afford to leave the EU because of the jobs that would be lost in the UK if we did.

But ask yourself this: Do you really think that Europe would stop doing business with the UK - given that they'd lose a £46 billion trading advantage if they did - just because we left this ridiculous 'club'? It's an argument put forward by Ken Clarke and Peter Mandelson that is so stupid as to be off the map in terms of reality and yet is put forward as credible by many media outlets including, in particular the BBC.

Much of Europe is on its knees economically, largely because of the EU: Germany is not of course because its association with the weaker states means that it gets at least a 30% exchange rate advantage compared to what it would have with the Deutschmark if it were outside the EU. So Germany is booming while the weaker nations are tied in and cannot devalue to rebalance their economies in order to become more competitive and kick start their own economies. Forty percent of young people in southern Europe are unemployed and have no prospect of a prosperous future. Because of the EU.  

So there are clearly 46 billion reasons why Europe will continue to (need to) trade with the UK whether we're in or out of the EU. If the UK left the EU and instead joined EFTA (European Free Trade Association) it would remain a member of the European trading bloc but would also (in EFTA but not as an EU member) be free to establish free trade agreements on its own behalf, with any other countries around the world, not on the basis of a collective EU deal, but as the UK in its own right.

And as members of EFTA alonngside Liechtenstein, Iceland, Norway and Switzerland, we would continue to enjoy exactly the same trade agreement with Europe outside the EU as we do within it. And that's a relief.

To Europe, much more than it is to us.

EFTA rather than EU membership would also mean taking back control of our borders, home affairs and justice as well as our agricultural and fishing policy. It would - obviously there is a 'downside' to leaving the EU - mean that we would not be able to influence EU policy from our position at the top table. Oh woe is me. As if we have any fucking influence at the moment and are not just shouted and voted down by the Germans, French and Belgians at every opportunity. 

And on the £25 million a day (net) contribution we make to the EU - we are the second biggest contributor after Germany - what are we paying for? We're providing aid and subsidy to poorer European nations, which is arguably a good thing, although it seems a pretty expensive way of keeping Greece or Croatia 'onside' when we have major financial difficulties here at home - and this is all taxpayer money of course, paid by you and me. And in return we are sneered at by Eurocrats. They sneer at the UK when we are the second biggest contributor to their contrived nonsense. One leading commentator estimated that the UK would be better off to the tune of £50billion a year outside the EU but that this benefit would in fact be dwarfed by the benefits to be gained from having our own free trade agreements rather than going through the cumbersome, unresponsive and inflexible EU trade machinery.  More here.

We're also, currently, paying for the cushy lifestyles of Eurocrats who seem to me not to care about their own countries but about lifestyles and benefits that would make Solomon blush. We're also paying for the 'state' to exert more control, more surveillance, more petty laws upon we who are paying for it. Laws made, incidentally, by people, mainly of a socialist persuasion, who have no connection with where we live, our beliefs and values or our history and the issues we daily face.

Take a look at Detroit if you think this is a good thing.

I think we need to take back control of our lives, our borders, our laws and our finances. We have, because of our past, stronger connections with other markets in the Commonwealth, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India, China, Canada, The US, Africa, than anyone else in the EU. And Europe cannot afford not to trade with us.

It's time the sneering stopped and we told these fuckwits in the EU - not our valued friends in Europe with whom we trade and enjoy good relations - to f*ck off. I think that many if not most other countries in Europe - especially those in the south, would share these sentiments and would, themselves, be much better off in the long run outside the EU than within its suffocating, state-heavy, controlling and micro-managing nonsense.

Thanks for reading. 'No' was more succinct. ;)

Labour's Legacy and Dave's opportunity?

Labour: Don't fix it, spin it: NHS, Education, MoD, Boom & Bust, Policing, Immigration, WMDs. Welfare, House-building, the economy, the future. 

Just as "New Labour' was purely a marketing and communications trick to get them into power, everything they did was about presentation over substance. Spin over reality, looking good rather than doing good. After the state in which they left the economy, coupled with the fact that they don't seem to give a shit about working people, I am constantly amazed that they have any support at all, let alone leading in the polls - albeit not by as much as they should be at this stage in the cycle. 

Makes you wonder, sometimes about the intellect, thought-processes and blind loyalty of your fellow man and woman. I'm not saying the Tories are perfect in any way - they have many failings too, particularly in relation to surveillance and a mindless accedence to the EU (IMO), but they are tackling many of the failings of Labour, more slowly than I'd hoped, but progress does now seem to be being made. 

They should, in my opinion, be starting to move back towards smaller government, lower taxes and less of a nanny state but that is not really happening yet. Dave also has a big problem with vision and leadership, sticking to vision stuff like 'localsm', 'Aspiration nation' (more here), but he's slowly getting there with help from people like Gove and IDS. Positive signs on the economy (green shoots? nah) together with Ed's lack of any cohesive or coherent ideas and the looming communist threat of the dinosaur unions, do, I think, give Dave an opportunity to win at the next election. He'll probably figure out a way of blowing it, but I hope not.

The following are tweet-sized evaluations of Labour's legacy - I decided to put them in a blog rather than inflict them on my followers one by one. Tell me I'm wrong.

Labour legacy #NHS - spend more but don't check it's working. Ignore complaints & indicators of failure. Leave it for someone else to mend.

Labour legacy #Education - Don't improve standards just lower the bar. Get thousands of kids unsuitable for academia into University. And suffocating debt.

Labour legacy #MoD - Waste £billions on projects that don't work but send our troops into harm's way with 30 year old kit on a false promise to George W Bush.

Labour legacy #WMDs - Agree to go to war then retrofit the 'facts'. Sex-up the dossiers, shut up the media & dissenters. One way or another.

Labour legacy #Policing - have more people filling in forms (so we can spin the statistics), than solving crime or keeping the streets safe.

Labour legacy #Immigration - let anyone in - in fact encourage as many as possible but don't keep track of them: there's Labour votes in it.

Labour legacy #integration -let anyone in; to set up their own schools, communities, religious & ethnic groups. Call anyone who demurs 'racist'

Labour legacy #Housebuilding - Need to build more houses than ever & refresh the social housing stock. Put John Prescott in charge. Build nothing.

Labour legacy #economy - 'we've ended boom and bust'. Deregulate the banks; put all our eggs in the financial services basket. What could possibly go wrong?

Labour legacy #Welfare - create a client state where almost everyone is reliant on hand-outs even if they're working & the UK can't afford it.

Labour legacy #Welfare2 - Get Frank Field to come up with a major plan of much-needed reforms then ditch it because it'd be unpopular. Hide it  in the 'too difficult' drawer. Leave it for someone else to fix.

Labour legacy #trust - of course we trust the people, it's why we now have a CCTV camera for every 11 people in the country & gagging orders on whistle-blowers.

Labout legacy #Future - Sell most UK gold reserves at the bottom of the market; raid pension funds so this generation will be poorer than their parents.

Of course if more of this is what you want for our country in the future you know where to put your cross at the next election. Assuming you can find your way out of a room and where the polling station is.

Thanks for reading.

You know, these people who work for us...

You know, obviously, that our MPs and civil servants, local councilors, public sector workers, teachers, doctors etc., are there to make our lives better. We pay for them through our taxes to do what we need and want them to do. They owe their livelihoods to us and our desire for them to do the stuff that we're too busy to do ourselves. It's a system that, in theory, works well.

Laws and healthcare, governance, protecting our shores, keeping the place tidy, sorting out planning issues, that's all good work that these people who work for us do.

And they're paid, often quite generously, by us, to do this invaluable work.

That's all good then.

The trouble is that when these people have their own agenda, when they move from being our 'servants' - doing what we want and need to be done - to being the ones in control of what we do, setting the agenda, making laws that we didn't want, enforcing them through surveillance, then, it seems to me, we have a problem.

And that is where we are now. We have the lunatics running the asylum. And it seems that we have no easy way of clawing back our control or influence.

When these people are not 'working for you' but instead working for themselves, making laws that are in their interests rather than in ours, feathering their own nests instead of looking after the greater good of the country...

When they actively pursue the disconnect between Government and voter's opinions, concerns, views and beliefs on issues such as immigration, free speech, foreign policy, the EU, energy and planning policy; the way the banks operate and are regulated/supported...

When their policies, proposals and actions are clearly about party popularity and personal standing with the good of the country coming a distant third in their priorities, whether their motivation is from the unions or big business... 

It seems to me that they have gone way beyond their original brief.

It is clear that donations to political parties have an influence on policy-making - whether it's Unite or the tobacco lobby, green energy companies or the oil industry. Otherwise why would these organisations make the payments? But how can the ordinary voter have his or her voice heard?

Then there's the civil service: unelected bureaucrats who seem to do far more than acting out the wishes of our Government but instead seem to rumble on with their own agenda regardless of Ministers' or voters' wishes in pursuit of some mindless, disconnected and distant edict almost certainly from the equally unelected and unaccountable European Union. How do policies decided in Brussels or Strasbourg actually connect with the local needs and requirements of us in towns, cities and villages in the UK? Or indeed in Greece, Spain, Italy or Ireland?

It seems to me that this 'they work for you' bollocks is just a complete sham. They do work for us in that we are the ones who pay them, but they are working for themselves and have absolute contempt for ordinary people. If we are paying, we are essentially the client in this relationship: And in the world of business, the client calls the shots. The client tells the supplier (the public sector) what it wants and the supplier then does everything it can to meet the clients' requirements.

This is simply not happening in the world any more. What the people want is simply being ignored. It's why we have embarked upon stupid unwinnable wars; why we have allowed completely unchecked immigration and almost no requirement for newcomers to integrate with our society and live within our laws and belief systems; why we are all being royally ripped off by energy suppliers and Governmental 'green taxation', why our strategically important utilities are foreign owned and why bankers can effectively stick two fingers up to the rest of us however disastrously they perform and behave.

I've seen, on twitter, the phrase: '650 of them 65 million of us'. But actually the 65 million seem to be completely impotent terms of having any real influence on how we're governed and what decisions are taken about how we live. 

The level of surveillance we are currently subjected to is completely anachronistic to what is needed for our security. It seems to be much more about he authorities' fear of the people for whom they (proport to) work; much more about control than keeping safe. We are close to having a modern police state akin to East Germany in the post war period - and when the police have been clearly shown to be corrupt this is a terrifying prospect.

It's time for us to take back some control. So that those of us who have the welfare of the country at heart, who take a longer term view of life, who are concerned about what sort of life their kids will lead in 20 year's time (or tomorrow), will have a say. As opposed to the 5-year run of parliament and the 'me me me', 'make it while you can' attitude that currently prevails.

We're being fucked over at the moment. Ripped off and told what to do, by people who are supposed to be working for us. Mr Cameron used a phrase during the last General Election: 'We can't go on like this'. He meant in the way that Labour was mis-managing the country and in particular its finances, but I think the phrase still holds true three years into the coalition administration. We can't go on like this. Can't go on taxing 'ordinary' people to the hilt while allowing corporations to 'do a deal' with HMRC behind closed doors. We can't go on being ruled remotely by Brussels. We can't go on having policy-makers and administrators showing complete contempt for the people they supposedly serve.

I don't know what the answer is. But change is coming. I hope it's not violent but I think it might well be, simply because the system is now so tight, so controlling, so all-seeing, and so weighted in favour of these 'out of control' servants of ours, that using the existing system to deliver change is almost impossible. Social media will help massively as an engine for change but one thing is for sure, in my opinion, we need to change our governance, need to take back some control and need to re-create the original contract between client and supplier, between the people and those who serve us.  

In short, it's time we kicked these self-interested fuckwits out, rebooted our system and our country and got back to what we, the voters, in whose interest these people should be working, wanted in the first place.

It is Bastille Day after all. ;) 

Thanks for reading.

 

Is it time for us to take back some control?

Here's the thing. We, as a nation, elect people to high office to represent us. To do what we want them to do. We understand that we're a bit busy with our lives, with work, bringing up our kids, the garden, etc. and so we're willing to pay people to do the work of governing which we haven't the time or, frankly, the will to do. We can't really be arsed to sort out the litter collection or the roads or the health service or the protection of our shores, or the legal arbitration of our wrongdoings. We know that we need these things to be sorted out in order for us to have a fair, just and equitable society in which to live, but we're not able to devote the necessary time to make it work.

We have other things to do. Lives to lead.

But we do realise that this is important stuff. It needs to happen if we are to provide for people who are vulnerable or needy. People who are sick or in need of care. People who need to eat but can't work to earn their 'daily bread'. That could easily be us but for the grace of God (whoever He is). So we're happy to pay an amount of our income in order to absolve ourselves of having to do this mundane shit. And by that I mean 'mundane shit' to us, but really important stuff to others, I'm not belittling it.

And joyfully there are people who are willing to do this stuff for us. Of course we have to pay them for their time - and that's only right - but these people will take care of all this shit that we don't have time for and do a good job and will, themselves earn a decent living out of that task.

They're not wealth creators. They don't grow food to feed us or make things that make our lives better, but they are, nonetheless, valuable members of our society. They are, in many ways, the people whose work allows us to get on with the job of creating wealth, feeding ourselves. Perhaps enjoying our lives a little, after we have provided for our families. We might enjoy other, slightly more trivial  human endeavours like sport or the arts. Some of the things that make life worth living; that provide some joy and entertainment as a bonus and a fullfillment of our lives.

Something that takes us out of our drudgery and allows us some respite from the constant battle for survival.

This does not happen because of the people we employ to do this shit we haven't the time for, but they are part of the system that makes this possible. And we should, therefore, be grateful to them.

And we call them 'public servants' and that includes our elected representatives as well as 'professional' civil servants who actually do the work we want them to do for us.

So far so good?

The thing is, that when these people - who we have employed to take care of the shit that we can't be arsed to do - start to tell us how to live our lives. Start to be the ones making the decisions about how we are governed, start to pass laws that we're not involved in creating; start to dictate what we do and how we live, have the power to do things that we might not agree with. Spy on what we're doing: Then we seem to have created a bit of a monster. We have the tail wagging the dog.

We have the 'servants' we were willing to pay to do our messy shit, actually starting to run our lives. And whilst they continue to tell us that we are in control, that they are doing our bidding and they are working in our interests. Are they really?

Or have we actually acceded power to these people who were not good enough to be wealth ceators but are now running our lives?

Do we really want number crunchers, administrators, second-rate fuckwits running the thing?

I think it's time we took control back.  That we, who employ these people to do stuff for us, actually have a say in what they do. It all seems a bit arse about face at the moment.

You may have other ideas of course.

It's a free country. Maybe.

Thanks for reading.  

Where did God go wrong?

You'd have to say, if God had created us as some sort of experiment concerning free choice and how people of the same species might work together to solve problems, feed themselves, create freedom and equality, work out how to live together in a way which serves the common good, that the experiment has been something of a failure. Who knows, he may even now be reaching for the etch-a-sketch button and giving us all a shake to go back to a blank screen.

'I added a bit too much greed. A bit too much selfishness. A tad too much aggression. And nowhere near enough generosity.

'Even though I preached it from the highest hills, my message about 'love thy neighbour'; 'do unto others' etc., there was just too much greed and selfishness for it ever to succeed.

'I thought I'd put in enough generosity. There was loads of it in the mixture. Children are born with it ingrained in them. Mass-murdering fuck-heads can be reduced to tears by the death of a loyal dog but not by the deaths of their fellow humans.

'And allowing them to use Me as an excuse to go to war? To kill their fellow humans? That was never part of the plan.  I'm baffled about how my mortal creations can do evil to others - people who are exactly the same as them - in My name.

'Of course it's all about power and control. Of course some people have different qualities - I thought that would be a good thing. Leaders would lead others but they would (in my plan) do so in a way which benefited everyone, looked after the stragglers, made the most of the different talents that everyone has. And those leaders might enjoy a higher standing in society; they might even be better rewarded than some others, but not to the extent that now seems to be the case.

'Certainly not to the extent that they try to dominate and control everyone else for their own benefit rather than the benefit of all.

'It's all a bit of a mess. Actually a total mess. And I can see no evidence to suggest that there's any real hope for the future. It's all conflict, exploitation and war. Not for principled good, but for political and economic reasons. The supression of minorities and especially women. How can 50% of my creation be treated as second class?

'Jesus? Pass me the etch-a-sketch button before they do it themselves.'

where does the buck stop?

So, you're in public office, you owe your livelihood to the Government but you see things that, to your sense of public spirit, fairness and justice don't seem to add up. Why is this person taking payments from that person who stands to gain from a particular decision? Surely, you think, the decision, from a pubic official, should be bound by the laws of the land and the will of the people that you all serve.

Something fishy going on, but can you say anything? Your home, family, kids depend upon your income. Toe the line, accept this corruption, hold your nose and allow it to happen? It's very tempting. Too tempting or too easy perhaps?

But you're not happy about it. But the bills pile up. Life's commitments arrive as sure as eggs are eggs. You work hard and gain promotion and then it's you making the decisions. You who is targeted with financial reward for ticking a box when you know it's not right, but hell you said nothing. What difference will it make?

And then because you said nothing, because you're 'one of us', your star shines brightly and you get promoted way above your level of ability. You become chief executive of whatever it is. It doesn't really matter what it is. The NHS? The MoD? It doesn't really matter because what you do, other than fronting up the thing, is irrelevant to the operational activity of the thing - that's run by civil servants who didn't quite shine so brightly (but had exactly the same background).

And then, as you knew it would, it all fucks up. Because there was no leadership or backbone or commitment to improving services. Because you didn't have a hand on the tiller. Not that your hand on the tiller would have been any good because you don't really know what you're doing.

Anyway. You had a good run. You'll have to resign of course. Quietly if possible. But they'll pay you a few million to do so and your £150k a year pension is inflation protected.

Did you make a difference? Did you improve the service? Did you provide value for money?

Who cares? You're OK.

  

People are fundamentally 'good'. It's God and Governments that turn us into killers and exploiters

Let's not tread too gently around the issues here (for a change). If you're easily offended by a distinctly cynical view of religion or the odd swear word it might be time to look elsewhere (you have been warned).

I have a fundamental belief that the vast majority of people are good. Or at least have goodness and generosity hard-wired into them. Our first response (I'm certain that this is not just me), on finding someone in difficulty or danger or need, is to try to help. That may not extend to 'real' help, financial or materiel, but our first reaction when faced with someone who's depressed or down on their luck is to try to offer help in any way we can.

I conducted an experiment in which I said that I needed cheering up, in a serious way. On twitter. I was amazed by the result of that plea - and have since appologised for 'crying wolf' but it was necessary to prove my point. That people are inherently generous and 'good'.

I think this is an important starting point: It's not about religion, upbringing or what we're taught, in my opinion. Nor is it about politics or nationality. It's about basic human feelings and instinct. What and who we are as a species. I am not arguing here that God doesn't exist by the way, but I am seeking to explain how, if He does, He's being used in a way that could not ever have been His intention. On balance I am skeptical; I think the goodness is within everyone and is something akin to the 'keep carrying the fire' sentiment expressed in Cormac McCarthy's brilliat book The Road (which is essentially about maintaining human decency and kindness). 

My 'experiment' was not funded by science or any product-seller or Government, but was inspired by my own curiosity and my fundamental belief. It might not stand up to the rigours of the statisticians or the terminally cynical. It was not embarked upon for any ulterior motive, financial gain or anything other than to prove my premise that, in essence, people are good.

Wherever they come from. Whatever they believe in. Whoever is their 'God'. However they vote.

So having - I think - proved (at least to myself) that truism; why are we perpetually at war with each other? Why are 'ordinary' people fighting and dying every single day for centuries, when they are inherently 'good' and 'generous' and concerned about the welfare of their fellow humans? Would individuals in their heart of hearts, actively pursue conflict and war as opposed to partnership, trying to help each other if left to their own devices? I don't think so.

So what is the cause of global conflict? Idealism? Religion? Politics? Poverty? Money?

I'm not a what is often derided as a 'lefty': I believe in effort, contribution, freedom, responsibility. Most of all I believe in generosity of action and spirit. Not in a religious way - I don't need to be told what to think, by anyone - but in a fundamental way (and in the true sense of that word).

I tend to reduce my thinking on many difficult issues to that of a small village: I find that this really helps when one is considering complex issues. You may not of course! But in my small, simple village; We're happy with our lives, doing OK and if a stranger walks in he or she is welcome. Accommodated, befriended. We'll show him or her the best bits. The things that we're proud of. The things we've worked to achieve. If they want to stay they will have to, eventually, contribute to the life of the village. They will have to change, if they want to stay permanently, from 'visitor' to 'member'.

They'll have to fit in, to respect and conform to 'our' laws and belief system, to our way of life, but if they do they will be accepted and become part of the community and be protected by our community. They can share our good times and our bad times; Become 'one of us'. That's not to say that their experience from 'out there' is not valuable nor that we cannot learn from it or for it to have an influence on our thinking: we are not opposed to new ideas but we do have ideas, values and traditions of our own.

We (in my 'village') respect older people, have a belief in rightness and fairness - it's how we have functioned successfully in our past. and hopefully how we will continue to function successfully in our future. We reward effort. Acknowledge achievement both personal and collective. We're proud of our number who go on to achieve great things. (This is not necessarily an English village you understand?) ;)

Do you fundamentally disagree with any of the above?

Most people are good and generous fundamentally. We all are. Yes we strive to protect and promote, perhaps prioritise our 'nearest and dearest' but we understand that our wider 'family' is also important to us. It's why we enjoy it when our national sportsmen and women do well for example. We have a kindred spirit. We enjoy winning against our next village at Cricket perhaps, but we will enjoy a drink with their players after the game and take the jibes in good faith if we've lost.

We won't, generally speaking, start a war with them. Firebomb their houses. Attack them. That would be ridiculous wouldn't it? Because they respect us and our views, achievements and lives, just as we respect them and theirs.

So what then introduces the poison that makes us a warring species? Vested interests? The need to sell arms? The need for control over others and our own people? The need to motivate (or force) people either to do the right thing or, conversely, to do the wrong thing for the greater good or, a more sinister reason, to help 'us' (or someone anyway) to achieve some unfair advantage over others?

It's all about money, power and control in the end. And that is where the poison enters in, in my opinion.

Worshiping a 'Sun God' (when did 'worshipping' lose a 'p'?) was effectively about control: Making people subservient to a greater power could, if you wielded or harnessed that power, give you a massive level of control over your fellow citizens. 'If you don't do this, the harvest will fail and your children will starve'. That's a pretty powerful level of motivation and, therefore, control. 'If you do do this - whether it be paying a tithe or fighting for your 'tribe' against others - life will be good, and not only that but you'll have a peaceful, pleasurable, leisurely and plentiful afterlife.' Wow, where do I sign?

Of course we're much more knowledgeable and sophisticated now. We're wise to all that nonsense these days aren't we?

Are we?

As a way of generating funds from people who do not live in your country - a kind of remote taxation if you will - religion (belief in the Sun God) is still going very strongly indeed. Why was Vatican city the most powerful place on earth in the Middle Ages? It wasn't its army or military power (it didn't really have any of its own forces), but the fact that it could fund the crusades; could pay English Kings (and Spanish and French) to go and fight its competitors who worshipped (ah, there it is) other 'Sun Gods', other religions in the Middle East as it happens, so as to expand its money-generating empire in support of the great God 'Cathol'. And how could it do that? Because it could generate massive income, from mainly poor people around the globe who believed in its particular 'Sun God'. It still does.

Out of the global population of 6.7 billion, 2.2 billion are Christian, of which 1.1 billion are Catholic, 940 million are Muslims, 580 million are Hindus.

Consider the grandeur of churches just in the UK for example. These grand edifices were built when people were starving. Based on a belief in a higher being that they'd swallowed hook line and sinker. Almost every village in the UK has one - a building that would be impossible to fund - and probably to build - these days. All that wealth and land and subservience. It's fucking brilliant really. Getting poor people to give you what they cannot afford, and then to go and fight for you at your whim, on the promise that they will get a better time of it in the 'afterlife'.

The example holds true around the world for all of the major religions: palaces and places of worship that would make Solomon blush, built on the backs of people whose own domestic arrangements were considerably more modest. The Catholic Church is the third biggest landowner on the planet. Fourth is the King of Morocco, second is King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. Not bad for a tiny principality near Rome huh?

The answer to that question which has recently formed in your mind, is our own dear Queen, head of the Anglican Church. Power, control, money remember?

So, control then, and most importantly, money; a source of income beyond your wildest dreams for flogging a belief with a stick and a carrot - if you don't do this you'll burn in hell, if you do you'll have endless joy and peace. Compelling.

The thing is, this is still happening. In our cynical, sophisticated, knowledgeable world. Wars are being fought in the name of 'religion' (which equals power, control and above all, income) all over the world. Ever day. A British soldier has been killed in combat in every year for more than 100 years.

Islamic 'extremists' are fighting, world-wide to get you to join their gang. But so is the Catholic church if a tad more subtly. And they all claim 'peace and goodwill to your fellow man' as their mantra, but also that you'll suffer if you don't believe in 'our God'. The more subtle religions tend to suggest that this suffering will be in the afterlife, the more aggressive seem to be intent on meting out that suffering in the here and now as we have been seeing endlessly in the Middle East.

And why a 'God' rather than a leader in human form? Well lots of reasons really to do with authority and the inability to question some one or some 'being' who couldn't be directly contacted or questioned. The ultimate 'because I say so'. But also, and crucially, because an all-seeing God, who knew what you were doing and thinking at every hour of the day, in a world without PRISM, GCHQ and CCTV, is the cheapest and most effective 'police force' ever devised.

What's happening now is that Western Governments, armed with 'real' police forces and surveillance technology coupled with the still strong force of religion, have at their disposal an even more effective means of control. We may be increasingly a 'secular society' but our values and our beliefs, with laws grounded in religion, are fundamental to our way of life. Work hard, look after your family, pay your taxes and all will be well. The controlling elite now have even more tools at their disposal in order to deliver them their control, power, income and cushy lifestyles and it seems to me that we have come to accept this in return for our 'security' and don't really notice that we're actually being fleeced along the way.

In less sophisticated/developed countries control is still being exerted via the 'old' forces of religion but in a considerably more aggressive, totalitarian and extreme way. They realise that many of the so-called freedoms that we enjoy in the west (see above, it's all relative) would be attractive to many people whose lives are much less free and so they have redoubled their efforts to enshrine religious control and beliefs within those populations. But again, I would argue that the motives remain those of power, control, money/wealth and expanding their sphere of influence in order to expand their power-base and financial contributions.

Their objectives and many of their methods are entirely similar to our own in the West. We may not - and of course we're encouraged in this regard - see it that way. We're 'free' and they're not. Bullshit.  

At its more extreme the religious troubles in the Middle East and the threat of terrorism means that we need to be monitored more closely in our own countries, to make sure that we comply with the rules set for us by others. I have a really troubling concern that our Governments actually like terrorist attacks because they enable them to use the threat to keep us in line.

Keeping the threat 'real' means that we will tend not to think too much about what is really going on, that we're being subjugated into living our lives to make those who are more equal than others (I'm not advocating communism as a solution by the way) more comfortable.

And in many ways this is how the 'system' works. We go to work in a factory making a spring that fits into another machine that makes a toaster and we earn enough to buy that toaster so everyone's happy. We earn enough to buy a house and educate our kids and the cycle repeats. And we pay a government to keep us safe and uphold our laws. What's not to like?  

And I have to admit that I don't necessarily have a better solution to the problem of keeping people gainfully occupied while the real business of the world goes on. But it's iniquitous and opaque, sinister and secretive. We're led to believe that if we don't like something we can 'vote them out'. And that 'they work for you'. But do you really believe that? The recent quantitative easing and bank bail-outs could have made every family in the UK multi-millionaires instead of bailing out massive failures by people who were already millionaires. Think about that for a moment. But who then would clean the streets or go to work on a Monday morning?

The thing is that our leaders seem to me to be becoming just as corrupt, money-grabbing and frankly piss-taking as the worst offenders in the Middle East and elsewhere. Expenses scandals, bribery and corruption, cash for questions, aggressive lobbying techniques abound; the very police force that we trust to keep us safe seems to have pretty shoddy standards of honesty. Public office seems to be more 'jobs for the boys' than something to be undertaken based on merit or capability, or providing value for money for the people who pay for it. Cover-ups at the NHS and the BBC; HMRC using surveillance technology to try to prosecute a whistle-blower (when they say that this technology will only be used for anti-terrorist work). Private-sector Banks getting bailed out with taxpayer money; actually private deposits being stolen, quite openly by the EU from banks in Cyprus.

It seems to me that quite a lot of what we work for, in my hypothetical little village, where we're happy, is being taken from us by force, threat and 'belief' for no other reason than to allow some people to fund wars; to kill people who are fundamentally 'good' as individuals and to fund the seemingly endemic and worsening corruption in our ruling classes. It feels like Rome before the fall to me. The worst excesses and often, utter contempt for the people they're supposed to work for and to serve.

I realise of course that I'm probably pissing in the wind here. But I think that those of us who are 'ordinary' people, fundamentally kind, generous and 'good' deserve a whole lot better and to live in a safer, fairer and more honest world. I don't know how we get to that situation, but I don't think our current 'ruling classes' have anything like a similar motivation.

Maybe there'll be a British, or a Western 'Spring', now that the internet and in particular, social media enables groups to form, promises to be monitored and remembered, campaigns to be mounted? No wonder our Governments are scrambling to increase surveillance. 'If you're not doing anything wrong you have nothing to fear', they tell us. Trouble is, it seems the wrongdoers are the ones dong the monitoring of us ordinary citizens. With impunity.

I for one hope that they themselves will soon have something to fear.

Thanks for reading.