Why this cold snap may mark the beginning of the end for central government

The UK after another year of government-mandated global warming
While many are shivering in homes surrounded by uncollected rubbish and ungritted roads at the moment, a fair few of them are quietly content. This is because they suspect that history has rhymed yet again: local services breaking down, things going to pot, and police never there when you need them. Yes, it feels uncannily like 1978/79 revisited. This must, people think, spell the coup de grace for Labour.
My own view is that whatâs happening now is both a salutary lessonâ¦.and a reminder of whatâs really important.
The lesson is simple, so I wonât dwell on it: after every fey idea about multiculturalism, Ministers for Women, British identity and all the other twaddle has been put forward by government (and giggled at by most everyone else), the laughing stops when something like a cold snap happens. Because as ever, it becomes clear that on-the-ground organisation is a figment of some ministerâs imagination, preparations are sketchy at best, and there simply isnât enough money left in the Treasury to do whatâs necessary.
Instead, the Government does âwhatever it takesâ; in other words â nothing, dressed up as lots of politicos looking sympathetic and telling everyone to stick together.
This last appeal to our better selves, however, isnât really needed â and it leads me directly to reminding ourselves about what really matters at the sharp end of real life.
Contrary to the unspoken belief in Westminster, adult human beings do not need to be told what to do when the roads are impassable. They help each other with shortages, give others lifts to the shops in 4WDs; and they conserve everything; they plan how to get through; and perhaps most important of all, they improvise. (For our postman, it was a sledge to carry our letters, his Royal Mail van having failed at the first hill).
Gradually, after four days with the recycling piling up âand a call to the Council revealing that the next collection will be in a fortnight â people are taking their dry rubbish and putting it on the fire (wood and coal being largely absent). The lucky four-wheeled traction owners have begun taking bottles and cans to the main tip in town. Weâve yet to be advised by the Council what theyâll do about the smell, once the thaw ripens our anally collected food scraps
Itâs quickly starting to dawn on the inhabitants of our hamlet that we donâtneed any of these prancing twits from London, or even the little Hitlers in Exeter. Theyâre useless in a crisis anyway â whereas neighbours can, between them, sort out most of what needs doing.
I wrote âadultâ human beings earlier because of course, a large number of people aged over eighteen in Britain arenât. This is often no fault of their own: indulgent, dense, and/or rich parents, government busybodies, and misguided teachers have all given them the strong impression that a life free of responsibility is quite normal â as indeed in Cool Britannia, it often is.
Over the next decade theyâre going to have to grow up, because what weâre going through now is a portent of what happens â not including the tax increases, of course â when a rich and decidedly silly country becomes impoverished.
In a nutshell, two things have happened in our neck of the woods: a community sense has been ignited, and the resentment of all things Big has been fortified.
This doesnât just apply to government. Our nearest Co-op is two miles the wrong side of an impassable hill, and Tesco is five miles of unsalted sheet ice away. In London and other large centres this may be less of a problem, but in this age of âjust in timeâ delivery, the shelves will start to look sparse very quickly if their lorries canât get through.
Assuming they can organise picking up stock and getting deliveries, at times like these, convenience stores come into their own. This too has been noted by the locals, aware that a whopping great Tesco has just been given permission to knock down our only gym. Even before itâs built, the heralding of Tescopoly has turned a charming shopping area into a wasteland of charity shops and âTo Letâ signs. Yet more myopic cultural planning from the Centre.
This is where spin gets its final comeuppance. Itâs why all the soundbites of Blair and rhetoric of Obama are nothing more than an abuse of much-needed oxygen in the end. Talk, as they say, is cheap: but all-mouth government is damned expensive.
Brown came to power via the knife, not the ballot box. Ever since, Britain has been assailed by floods, an appalling summer, the coldest winter in forty years, and the worst fiscal crisis in our history. Who cares if its his fault or not? It is communities, trade associations, emergency services, soldiers and families who are solving the problems – not government.
Not national government â and most decidedly not Brussels. Distracted now by the toxic States their hubris insisted should join the EU, the Big Boys are also beginning to fall out. The Germans just turned the Greek bailout down â but Hungary and Latvia are in a much deeper hole. Thereâll be no help forthcoming from Belgium, of that you can be sure.
At last, people are beginning to notice that big organisations are all wee and wind when real help is required. Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow â thatâs what I say.
Copyright John Ward 2010
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1
January 12, 2010 at 08:32 -
a fine piece John
I’d be happier if it didn’t snow again, even if this thick, heavy grey brown cloud lifted I’m fed up having the lights on all day. Still, there not being any news at all about last night new labour ‘merging’ party I’ll just have to listen to government ads about the risks of a sedintary lifestyle! I’m not going anywhere near a supermarket.
Ever thought of managing Everton?
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2
January 12, 2010 at 08:43 -
Spot on.
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3
January 12, 2010 at 08:59 -
God Just Loves Libertarians
Yea on the third day the Lord doth smote his enemy, the Pharoah Brown, by sending a vast cloud of frozen rain upon the earth. The righteous found that their State of of many colurs had feet of clay. There was a grinding and gnashing of teeth, rainment was torn asunder, as the people cried out in their lament- ‘where are the gritters’.
The Pharoah admitted their was a famine of grit upon the land, as he had failed to store the grit of happiness in times of plenty. Having spend the extent of the Treasury up the prodigal sons of the Square Mile.
On the Fourth Day the Lord Adonis said with fevered brow, forget the Law on being sued for clearing the frozen rain of the Lord’s deliverence, twas a very silly Law. The People should clear the land and make it fruitful and passable again. The Hosts of Health & Safety and Compensations were told to cease their prattle. The People saw the light, that the Government of the Pharoah was largely incompetent and corrupt.
So the People with Chariots of 4×4, did attend to their own salvation and vowed to rid the land of the corrupt Pharoah at the earliest time.
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4
January 12, 2010 at 09:19 -
Nice angle. Sadly, the Conservatives don’t appear to have the balls to take on the supermarket giants.
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5
January 12, 2010 at 11:17 -
Execllent piece John. May I reproduce on my esteemed organ?
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6
January 12, 2010 at 11:41 -
John,
‘Anally collected food scraps’?
Does the local Council really have Bottom Inspectors round your neck of the woods?
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7
January 12, 2010 at 12:04 -
Wonderful work John, now lets see if any of the political parties pick up on it and sweep the election!
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8
January 12, 2010 at 12:18 -
Good one, but we might be heading historically into the worst of patterns. A government incapable of governing which believes its own lies, an administration that cannot administer, a powerless Parliament too consumed with its own wrangles, urban communites that are fractured, and individuals that are not capable of dealing with life at basic levels. This could get ugly.
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9
January 12, 2010 at 13:09 -
Excellent reflection John, I hope you are right.
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10
January 12, 2010 at 15:32 -
Sir Old Holborn sir
Reproduce to your heart’s content
YM x
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11
January 12, 2010 at 15:40 -
Blink
Everton is merely my mistress: my wife is Manyooo. It’s just that I went to Uni and lodged in Everton Valley as was….home to Priscilla White and others.
You may have spotted that the Glazers have ‘borrowed’ ten million quid from MUFC in the last year…and charged the same amount in management fees since 2007. They’re an accident waiting to happen….as are the nutters behind Liverpool.
YM x -
12
January 12, 2010 at 18:28 -
Demetrius said ‘This could get ugly’.
Well, dear hearts the Uglification has been underway for some time now but nothing has happened. It proves how right my late lamented USAF friend was when he claimed “The British are like sheep. Their governments shear them and all they can do is bleat”. -
13
January 13, 2010 at 08:06 -
What a lot of silly remarks!
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14
January 13, 2010 at 21:57 -
Sir,
A fine post. I hope you are right.
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