DutchEnery

Having just returned from a trip to Holland to see  family I was rather pleased to see the cleanliness in general of the streets, green patches of grass and the motorway edges. In Britain and Wales we are drowning in all sorts of rubbish that float around streets, parks and everywhere else. You may ask – what is different? We are all human beings? Indeed we are but it is our attitude towards the environment. We in the UK have a different attitude, sort of ‘I have rights, and I can do what I want’. People in the UK have no respect for the environment, do not want to change their behaviour and have no intention to help clean up the environment. All under the adage of – It is not my problem, it’s not my job. We can talk endlessly about who should do what but in the end it all stays talk and no action. This Swedish girl is right, it is time for action, we have possibly just 10 years to get it right. It is time to stop putting our heads into the sand like ostriches. The lion of disast...

It is absolutely amazing as to how present-day politics perform. One would have thought that a two-party system is the ideal way to govern. Because the party in power, with a decent majority, can get its policies through without too much trouble. Well, mainly true but not when the party in power is a minority government. Yet in other countries, like Holland, they work with coalitions, not just two parties but sometimes three or four forming the government. This seems to work well in the main. Taking Brexit (again) we can easily see the failings of a minority government. Especially when the party propping up the governing party is dead-set against the proposed policy. In other words – mayhem. Another thing that amazes me is the shallowness of UK politics, the way politicians use the media. It all shows an enormous amount of grandstanding. But the most amazing thing is this – in 2016 the government instigated a referendum on the question ‘Do we leave or stay in the EU’. A simple quest...

Today’s reports in some of the national newspapers have highlighted one of the most damning things of today. Council fat-cats. In other words council chiefs who are ‘earning’ well over £100,000 per annum! Most of us cave dwellers do not seem to worry. We should, because that sort of money for basically very little work or even responsibility, is an affront to society. This money comes in dribs and drabs from the backs of very hard working people who are enslaved in zero-hour contracts. I have heard all the arguments – we have to pay to get the best! Oh yeah, how deluded can you be? The best? Why then are most councils in the UK so badly organised? In my own backwater, RCT CBC (Rhondda Cynon Taf Borough Council ) by all accounts is one of the largest employers in Wales. Apparently to keep unemployment down. I suppose it is one way to deal with it. At least some of it will get back as council-tax. But in reality it is other working people who subsidise this type of social engineering...