I have a cousin, soon to turn 30, who currently lives in a house-share with ten other people (yes, ten) in a northern city, hundreds of miles away from where he was born in London.
As ever - what you write is predominantly credible and sound. Nick Buckley I was in conversation with a few years ago - and has been through the Reform 'hokey-cokey' routine - and somewhat re-grouping after the Manchester mayoral elections. He's extremely active on social media - so watch this space.
I read an article by Nick Griffin the other day - suggesting young people do one of three things. i) Move to Northern Ireland, or ii) Move to Middlesborough, or iii) Buy a boat.
I thought to myself it's no longer economic migration - but stagnation migration!
How things have changed - and for the worst. Or is it?
If you move to Northen Ireland - they certainly used to know a thing or two about holding politicians to account. In extreme cases, it could involve an unscheduled visit and a cushion. If you move to Middlesborough - apart from the weather - at least the folks are fairly hospitable and if the North East gets the same kind of urban re-generation from boutique businesses places like Margate did with young Londoners moving out - it might not be all terrible and downward trajectories? Getting a boat would be the worst option in my opinion. In winter it's freezing cold and in summer the waterways are clogged up with bell ends. You get cabin fever and you isolate yourself in fairly narrow communities - all with almost as much maintenance as a small flat or house - but little capital appreciation in comparison. On top - in London - you can face hours-long queues to top up your water supply. Presumably the same for pumping out your cess?
What really starts to chime with me - is community self rescue. We have a network of churches all the way across the country. In Africa - churches were the major reason Covid measures were roundly ignored and communities got together and simply said "fuck off". The Church of England now seems to be a bit 'persona non grata' - with the King appearing to prefer that we all boogie on down to the local mosque? Or at least - that's how it seems from his actions?
What's stopping us re-building a hub network through those? Or at the very least leveraging them?
2029 (and even worse 2027) is a terrifying prospect for a general election with the greens and whatever 'Labour' means these days? There will be a tsunami of Stalinesque promises to all those lovely new 16 year old voters that old fossil Campbell has been working tirelessly to haul into the psyops net - none of which will materialise. We need to get to those 16 year old brains first. Show them this:
Thanks Richard, all very interesting and I've been thinking along similar lines myself. Politics has clearly failed us - we may need to try religion! It is as you say a very powerful community vehicle than can serve as robust opposition against the state if done right and not captured etc.
Rather than strictly religious doctrines - the church needs to initially open its doors to conversation as well as congregation. Conversation and activity - especially for the young.
That is an intriguing point. Alas, I suspect many church leaders share the sentiments of Prof John Lennox, one of the most prominent and respected Christian apologists, who, in a book published in 2024, wrote:
"Think of the laws brought in during the pandemic — laws about handwashing, wearing masks and social distancing. All of them good and necessary, but they could not cure Covid-19; they could not bring the dead back to life. They could only contain the disease, if followed." (link below)
The church has a major problem in that many of its leaders seem to have enormous blindspots in relation to distinguishing between good and evil. And what makes the problem much worse is that many of them seem to have little interest in engaging with people pointing out that they might have such blindspots!
I sense little interest from church leaders in relation to truth and reconciliation in the context of the covid era. Though there is this glimmer of hope:
Hi Miri, I think you mean (I am not a mind reader!) Christianity rather than religion? Christian activism is a dangerous arena IMO. Unless one has a distinct calling in a specific role, all it will do is to antagonise all and sundry. The role of the 'Church' which is beyond denominations and quasi-Christian organisations (such as what TR seems to advocate) is to preach the simple gospel and live it, i.e. the real salt and light approach. Both are necessary and one without the other will fail the ultimate test.
The 7 churches in Revelation portray the various situations experienced by those churches and are replicated today. So called Christian nationalism is anathema to the Gospel.
When you say "boat" from your description you seem to be meaning a canal boat rather than a sailing boat. I was talking to a narrow boat owner the other day and we talked about pumping out and he said he never did it! Just let it foul the canal. I was rather horrified but then I’ve seen shit floating around in marinas on the south coast too. Quite the reverse attitude of the idea of a self rescue community.
I agree with you about the churches and we went to our local church on Easter Sunday for the first time this year. I haven’t been to church on a Sunday for nearly 60 years but we rather enjoyed it. It’s only a tiny village church but we saw families with young children, obviously the oldies (I have to say I’m one of those although I don’t see myself as such) and others, some of whom I know have difficulties in their lives. We intend to go again but won’t be regular attenders.
I noticed that Marco Rubio has given the Catholic Church in Cuba some US finance to distribute rather than directly to the Cuban socialist government and I found that an interesting course of action. So the US government is leveraging via the church.
I hope boats aren’t pumping out their toilets - there were very large fines for that antisocial activity - and rivers & canals have enough trouble with environmental pollution as it is!
On the church element - cartoonist Charles M. Schultz said decades ago a church is just any piece of architecture - it’s what’s inside that matters. It’s just coaxing people back into something familiar might be easier than trying to re-invent the wheel? It wasn’t my intention to start any form of religious debate. I’m not qualified for starters!
I’m afraid I know for a fact that people are fouling canals and rivers which is unacceptable in my view. How will they be caught I wonder? Is anyone policing that situation especially when the biggest sewage polluters are the waterboards.
It doesn't matter who you vote for. None of them have any real power. Not even Farage or Lowe.
The real movers and shakers love it when 'voters' spend their energy on arguing about which political party or politician is going to save the country. Let's all go on a march to save Britain because it's immigrants that are destroying the country.
UK's fiscal position has declined for years, with £1 trillion of government debt being added over the past seven years.
The obsession over party politics and the identity of particular individual puppets is designed to distract the public from what is really happening namely the deliberate debasement of the currency and a gigantic wealth transfer to vested banking interests.
ALL Central Banks are criminal enterprises (including the Bank of England). These criminal enterprises are aided by ALL governments and ALL political parties.
The natural order of human enterprise is ‘deflation’.
With sound money and human ingenuity all products should become better and cheaper and money should over time become more valuable. The average person should become wealthier.
Instead we have ‘inflation’ which is the ‘printing’ of money from nothing in ever increasing amounts which makes all products more expensive as the wages and savings of the average person decrease in value.
Only the few at the top become richer as they get to spend and invest this money before it becomes devalued when it reaches the average person.
No Government or political party offers to change this system. They are ALL complicit. It doesn’t matter who you vote for.
I agree. As I said in the article, "To be clear, I’m not suggesting Labour are any better, or that any party that’s considered ‘electable’ is".
However, I do think the electorate is being manipulated into voting for a right-wing government, since that is required to bring in the socio-cultural changes the overlords desire. They want. a dastardly right-wing government that enables them to demonise the right and everything it is associated with (traditional values, religion, anti-immigration etc), and to be able to blame the people for voting it in.
Voters clearly can't be trusted to make the right choices. Human politicians are too manipulative and corrupt. Best to scrap the whole idea of humans governing humans and replace our governing systems with AI (note, there is already an AI MP in Albania).
That's essentially where I think they want us to go - a global communist dystopia (because the alternative is just so evil, as the dastardly right-wing government here and in the USA will dutifully prove) presided over by robots.
The elites live in a bubble. Also I think they are divided amongst themselves. They have accomplished so much historically and now they want to undo it? All gangsters are paranoid back stabbers.
Indeed - it is now. And that was just the point I was trying to make by mentioning his parents did too. They got arts degrees and it worked out very well for them. But just one generation later, the world had changed radically and so the same trajectory that had opened the doors to successful stable lives for one generation, completely failed to deliver on this for the next - and this was entirely by design.
I listened to the interview by David Starkey of Tommy Robinson and was disturbed by the latter part of the video. It amounts to a revolution, or at least a preparation for it. It also is a hi-jack of Christianity and also a perversion of same. I can understand why the government banned some overseas supporters from coming and wonder how this UTK movement of disaffected and mixed motivated people will fit into the mix of the Makerfield by-election and what flows from it. As well as paving the way for Reform it also may stir up the far right antagonists to wage some civil disorder?
Another very credible article Miri and I am inclined to agree with you. Also I think you're spot on regarding Lucy Connolly. All the dots join together
Therefore, the Prime Minister would also like Labour to lose. With his huge majority in the Commons, one MP fewer makes little difference and if a potential challenger for his job lost a safe Labour seat, the others might just have second thoughts.
As I understand it, Years and Years has General Elections in 2022 (rather than 2024), 2026 and 2027. But it's not hard to envisage more than one GE in the next few years given the current polls.
If the authorities want a Reform government though, the defection of Tories such as covid era vaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi seems to me an odd way to try and make it happen.
Thank you, Stephen. And yes, you are quite right about Years and Years General Elections!
Unfortunately, covid and vaccines are a fairly niche issue and the electorate at large do not care about them - most people in general have moved on from covid and act as if it never happened, but in particular, people who vote aren't interested in covid/vaccines. "Our side" overwhelmingly doesn't vote, and so the high-profile parties simply don't cater to them. The overlords know covid issues are not a vote winner for the majority, but focusing on immigration (and related issues like grooming gangs) are, and so if Reform promises to take a hard line on that, the electorate does not much care (and frankly, a large chunk of them do not even know) about all the ex-Tories in Reform. In fact I would bet that a large chunk of people voting Reform could not name anyone in the party past Farage.
Thanks Miri. Your point about covid and vaccines is well-made and fair (alas). And I agree about the Farage recognition factor.
According to polling averages, between mid-2024 and mid-2025 Reform support climbed steadily from 15% to 30% and peaked around 31% last October (at the time of the Lucy Connolly appearance at the party conference). There has since been a steady decline, which, if anything, seemed to accelerate slightly after the high-profile defections of Zahawi, Jenrick and Braverman in January. But it's not easy to be sure about the reason(s) behind that.
The downward trend seems to have plateaued (at around 26%), as has support for the other parties, including the Greens, whose poll rating has increased from around 10% to 15% since Reform peaked.
It will be interesting to see what happens in the coming months.
I suspect, but may be wrong, of course, that your cousin himself may have had a hand in his own prospects and current living conditions. That he has merely been blown about by socio-economic forces beyond his control is a bit of a stretch unless of course there are mitigating circumstances the reader is unaware of. That said, I do agree that it's not easy for young people today: an arts degree in 50s was a rare thing, but now, in the 2020s I'm reminded of the cartoon from the 90s? in which a toilet roll in a toilet cubicle is depicted, and on each perforated sheet is written 'Sociology Degree: Please Take One!'. That's kind of where we are now, only turbo-charged, with no proper educational opportunities for the young.
Well, everyone has had a hand in their own prospects, no? So of course it's true that he has. But someone working full-time should be able to live in their own hometown if they wish, whatever their job, and he can't. That was the primary point. And like 80% of others his age, he's not married, when most previous generations were by said age.
If we start saying this is primarily the fault of the individual, that they should have made different choices at 18, that there's "nothing stopping them" getting married etc - that it's essentially, or primarily, all their own fault, then we ignore the billions of pounds of social engineering spent over decades to ensure that millions of people are in the exact same position (or worse) as my cousin. It's not a blip. It's not an anomaly. That's how the overlords want people living - single, childless, not home owners, no stable employment. To blame young people for this reality - for making the wrong choices as teenagers (the choices they were encouraged to make by parents and schools), rather than the billionaire social engineers who openly want them in this position and made available all the useless degrees precisely for this purpose - is in my opinion wrong.
Obviously, my cousin has realised this isn't working well for him and is planning to retrain is something more vocational, Good possibility that by 35 his career and housing situation will be better. But if this one person gets his life on track, it doesn't negate from the overall themes affecting millions (and that will explode the further AI dominates the entry-level job market) I was using his story as a personalised example to address.
Years ago a friend of mine was in therapy and used the word "should" and his therapist said words to the effect of "the problem with the word should is it implies a universal value system that we all subscribe to and when using it, you are simply reminding the other person that they have deviated from the universal values. But we don't all have the same values." She recommended that, instead of saying "should" to say "I'd prefer". So yes, I'd prefer it too if people weren't priced out of an area and if we could all work 20 hour weeks rather than zero or 50 (which seems to be the trajectory), but it's what's happening and, as I see it, the only way out of this is through collaboration.
For me, what's happening with property price increases is similar to the enclosures, but with much more sophisticated associated psy-ops (although I wasn't around during the enclosure so cannot really comment on the enclosure-related psy-ops, but my guess is most peasants knew they were being shafted by their overlords and their lackeys!). You raise the values of all property via the banking system, people whose properties are going up think "oh, I am doing so well" without looking beyond themselves. Younger people are completely priced out and many parents don't see it as their role to sell their place and help their kids. I have no idea why. It's the only way many people will get grandchildren and it's certainly what I plan to do.
As I see it, keeping yourself and your kids informed of the lunacy that is going down is tricky because you don't want to frighten them into incapacitation, but, equally, you don't want them to do a degree unless they *really* want to do it and have fully evaluated its value for them. From what I can tell, a lot of people want their children to do degrees for various reasons including: they have failed to recognise a degree's lack of worth in the current market, they think it proves their children are clever/more valuable human beings and they think it shows the same for the parents themselves.
Schools push degrees *so* hard. We are currently in the UK. My son (17) had a talk at school on how the government were never going to do what they did with student loans before (i.e. raise interest rates *after* people took them out). I said to him "OK, so they are coming in, admitting they lied and did something that, if anyone other than the government did it, you could take them to court and easily win and are then saying "we won't lie again". WHY would you believe that?" He thinks I am being a bit paranoid and unreasonable. *Clearly* I am not.
He wants to study in Australia where he is eligible for domestic fees, but not a student loan. He asked me if I would give him a student loan and I said no. I will pay his fees (just under £6k a year) but he'd need to cover his living costs. He's a bright kid, but has no idea about living costs. He said he would like to stack shelves. I suggested he trained to become a Personal Trainer. He said he'd rather not do that because it would be hard work. We then slowly went through the costs of living (food, accommodation, bills, etc.) and he decided he'd be a Personal Trainer.
He also told me he didn't want to be a Personal Trainer because he wasn't good looking enough. He then explained how one of his nipples was at a different angle to the other which meant he couldn't do videos where you could see his nipples. I said "have you been spending a lot of time on Instagram?" which he admitted he had (or some other social media). I mean, does ANYONE here think ANYONE would select a PT based on their genetic beauty? or, more precisely, nipples? I am going with "no".
My son is extremely fit and muscular, on a national sports team, on track for extremely good A levels and wants to study sports science and then do medicine. He doesn't think he can be a PT right now. HOW has that happened?
As you say, Miri, there are a lot of factors that have lead to this situation and, as a parent, I was just fascinated by the point you made that people weren't considered adults until they were 21 before 1/1/1970. My son is clearly still a child and, if I wasn't paying attention, he could easily go out and get enormous loans without realising the massive life implications of that.
My daughter, who is 20 (21 in September) has, fortunately, seen through the financial nonsense, but she was precocious in this way. When she was 11 or 12 I said to her "mummy and daddy can give you the money if you want to study fashion" and she said "Or, you could give me £27,000 and I could start my own business". She's now doing an accounting apprenticeship and will do a masters in fashion if and when she feels there would be any value. So yes, no financial naivety there.
People mature at different times and, as a parent, I really think you've got to help your kids in this one. I agree that it's not all his fault and it's not all his parent's fault, however, it's only him and them who are likely seriously invested in getting him out of this situation. My sister was in a similar situation at 29 and concluded she'd done her 20's being poor and didn't want to do that in her 30's. She went back and lived with my parents and, partially at their suggestion, trained as a lawyer and can now afford (albeit with mortgages and renting one out) two properties in London.
I hope your cousin has a similarly fortunate outcome. To me, however, I think the powers that be have so concentrated wealth and take SO much money of business people in tax that the only way we are going to do this is by coming together in small, connected and trusting communities, likely many of us deregistering our legal personae and supporting one another outside of contracts, but through community.
I am not sure I'll see that in my lifetime but, as I see it, it's the only way out and, goodness me, I think it will be a lot more fun than our current social structure!
Thanks Rosie, very interesting as ever! I'm very pleased to hear you and your family are so awake to these realities, although it's sad to hear your son has been so influenced by Instagram that he doesn't believe in himself enough to pursue what sounds like an ideal career. Hopefully that will change as he gets a little older.
I would quibble with you however on the use of the word 'should'. To replace it with "I'd prefer that" makes the point sound far more tepid and doesn't really land in the way the speaker / I was intending it. I will stick with my statement that those working full-time "should" be able to live in their own hometowns, because if they cannot, then how can we foster the strong family and community bonds you rightly say are so necessary for success?
I do think it "should" indeed be a universal value that people have the right to live in their hometowns should they wish to, and are working for it (including obviously those who can't work due to disability, sickness etc). It's the fundamental foundation for a sane society that everything else flows from. It was the mass exodus from hometowns to the cities in the Industrial Revolution that caused the decimation of the extended family, and that led to the isolated, atomised mess we have now. Of course I could write a whole article on these subjects alone and perhaps should do..!
My son will be a PT because he wants to move out of home and eat steak which, currently, requires more money than he'd earn in a shop! Also, whenever I say "have you been spending too much time on Instagram?" it so enrages him that (heaven forbid) his mother has a point, that he drops it for quite a while and thus loses the self-critical madness it induces.
Re us being in an atomised mess now, I'd agree. And, re wanting the future to be more humane in a myriad ways, I am sure we are 100% aligned. However, I think we all have different ways out of this and I am not sure there's a social or economic structure that will enable us to get out of it. I think it's more about personal transformation and, those who are truly open to a new, healthier way of living and being will create it.
Perhaps your cousin being forced to live with 10 others far from his hometown and do some crappy job was exactly what he needed? Perhaps our son going to the other side of the world (which is going to cause the rest of us - i.e. my husband, daughter and me to go too) is exactly what we need? (although I am REALLY worried about him because he is NOT streetwise AT ALL) but perhaps he needs a period of not having our support and actually suffering because of our absence so he understands how much he needs it? Or perhaps (this is my hope) he realises how privileged he was and decides to behave better and be more grateful? Who knows?
I agree that the overlords have decimated much of our society, but I think it's happened to a huge degree because we have failed to adequately oppose it. What if, when the enclosures happened, the lackeys hadn't facilitated it? It wouldn't have happened. The same is true for many things (certainly the witch hunts - now that could have been SO different).
For me, opposition isn't as simple as a rally or a march or petition. It's about creating real, viable alternatives. I was not "awake" until 2020. I knew that pharmaceuticals were to be avoided and war was disgusting, but I thought it was the emergent behaviour of a variety of human failings. Now I see it both very differently (there are clearly decisions made at a world-wide level and world-wide coordination of many things) and also still a bit like that (it's humanity's response or lack of it to this BS that means it perpetuates).
There is something that is driving the decimation of humane human society and that's something that is in us all. We all have decisions we can make re how we deal with the aspect that is in us. We are all going to be faced with different challenges and have to go to places within ourselves that we might rather avoid, but going there and purifying those parts of ourselves is, I believe, what will save us.
I don't feel anything like the same ties and attachment to people in my family or old friends than I did pre 2020 and, personally, I think it's healthy. I can't see exactly what a newly humane new world will look like, but I don't think it will necessarily require us all to be able to stay and live where we grew-up. For me, it's far more important that we all experience the light of our hearts and drop anything that we know is harming ourselves or others.
(but I am totally cool with your seeing this differently!)
All very interesting and I broadly agree - however I think the urgency of the situation has got us to a point where we can't look at a generation of 30-year olds, unmarried (and many with no current prospects of marriage), no stable work, no stable housing, and shrug it off as "character building". I'm not saying you're doing that but that there is a social tendency to do that, probably because facing the true catastrophe of the situation is simply too difficult and overwhelming.
The issue is that there is no historical precedent where we have had millions of 30-year-olds living in such precarious situations where they have subsequently turned it around and created a flourishing, successful society.
All successful societies to date have been based on the vast majority of people being married by 30 (many by 25) and with strong, stable family and community networks, which enable them to withstand economic downturns. All that has gone.
The white birth rate is currently 1.4 and falling. Once it hits 1.3, this is known demographically as "critically lowest low" - a fertility rate so low, that no society has ever turned it around and has thus evaporated. We are right on the precipice of that now and to turn it around, we have to look at the factors that caused it - which are the same factors causing 30-year-olds to house-share with strangers in random cities doing crappy work. It's all connected - and designed that way.
I am definitely _not_ saying that this is all character building stuff. I certainly think it's worth being aware there is abuse taking place and people are suffering from that abuse. As they say "Before you diagnose yourself with anxiety or depression, first check you aren't surrounded by arseholes". So yes, there are definitely arseholes and they are definitely orchestrating a shitty experience for many people.
Even if we forget about community and just equally divide assets among everyone, I think a lot of these problems go away.
I think, potentially, because of our different social experiences, I am less enamoured with communities.
I have lived in some very tight-knit communities and some where people are totally disconnected. Our current village is very friendly and sweet, but there's not much "community" compared with some places I have lived. People say hello in the street and at the park where people walk their dogs. The church is very welcoming as is the pub. And, after my experiences over the last 6 years, it's about what I can handle at the moment.
We used to live in a matriarchal beach town of about 1700 people in New Zealand which, to us, had initially seemed idyllic. Everyone was so friendly, there were lots of parties, fundraisers and functions which were attended by young and old alike. People were well educated (many worked for the government in Wellington, the nation's capital) and extremely well-read and intelligent. You could stop and have a chat with someone on the beach and it be really interesting and mind-expanding. People not only fed your kids (which, let me tell you, is something many people seemed to want a medal for in the village in Surrey, UK that we had just moved from), but they also noticed who they were as people and would compliment both you and your children to you quite frequently. It seemed fantastic.
And then we found out about some child on child sexual abuse.
To cut a very long story short, we brought this subject to light when our daughter (who knew about it) couldn't really cope (nothing terrible, but she needed us to step in). When we stepped in (by telling Nicola, a friend of one of the parents of the abuser to tell her what was going on) Nicola said a couple of things that disturbed me. The first was congratulating us by bringing it to light because, in her words "most people wouldn't do that". Bit concerning. She also said "well, say this had happened to xxx child, I know her mother would want to know". And, of course, xxx was the child, which made it extremely clear that *everyone* in the town knew what was going on. What we did was mean people couldn't ignore it.
My husband found the situation extremely disturbing and, under pressure told xxx's mother. She then started texting him to try and get more information out of him because her child wouldn't talk to her. He was so anxious and upset about it, but xxx's mother kept persisting because she wanted information to prize her daughter open. As I pointed out to my husband, if her daughter didn't want to tell her what was happening, that was nothing to do with us - she needed to build the relationship with her daughter.
Eventually, after a lot of pressure from xxx's mother, I went to another mother's house whose daughter I knew had also been told. I asked her if she would speak to her daughter. She then told me a long story about how someone had told her about how her father was sexually abusing her when she was a child and how her friend had asked her to tell no one (I think she was about 7 or 8 at the time). This man went on to abuse other children one of whom killed themselves. I then asked her if she would talk to her daughter and she said "I don't want to involve the children". This was such an incredibly odd statement because I didn't know what she was saying. The children were already involved and her child was carrying this secret along with various other children. Who were the children she didn't want to involve? What did that mean? I took it as a firm "no, I won't be an adult" and left her house.
I then took a list of names of other children xxx had told in my daughter's presence and said to xxx's mother "if you have a strong relationship with any of these women and they have strong relationships with their daughters, I think this would be a better approach than asking for more information from our daughter". Clearly that's not what she wanted. She was happy to damage my daughter's social situation, but didn't want any harm to come to her friendship circle (which included the other child's parents).
Instead, she went around to the parents of the child who had abused her daughter for a cup of tea because, as she put it "the important thing is we all remain friends". Er no. That is not the important thing. The important thing (in my book) is you protect your child and show her that her sexual safety and sexual boundaries are more important than your social club.
The friendship group completely closed ranks and vilified me to their children who spoke badly of me to my daughter for years. My daughter never said anything about their mothers to them and just said nothing.
We left the town shortly afterward (telling people it was because of skatepark, but it was not - I was seriously thinking I was going to lose my composure at some point!). The mother of the abusing child then waited until my daughter was back visiting friends (when my husband and I were in the UK) to tell her what a horrible person she was because she had ruined her child's life. Sure enough, the other mothers stood around her and one messaged my daughter saying "she's just coming from a place of hurt and love for her child. She's a good person".
Fortunately, we could leave that town. My daughter can see what a bunch of irresponsible, abuse-enabling women many of her friends' mothers are. Not everyone is so lucky. There are a lot of people stuck in communities they can't leave and there are a lot of problematic outcomes because of that (e.g. murder and abuse) - I think the film "The Dressmaker" is about this, although I suspect the book is a lot better than the film as really it should have been a mini-series, but I haven't read the book, so can't confirm.
I have seen *so* much abuse of power within tight-knit communities. That is probably the worst story I have, but it's by no means the only one. Perhaps one of the reasons we are so atomised is because we need to grow-up within ourselves before we can build healthy societies. I really don't know. What I do know is it's not just the oligarchs who abuse people and power and I think what will save us is embodying what MLK said:
"We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools."
One of the curious things we observe as human beings is that somehow, somewhere inside us, we sometimes find Something pressing upon us.
For example, if I see an apparently innocent person being attacked in the street, I find, among various things, two opposite impulses: an impulse to stay and help, and an impulse to get away. In itself this is not so remarkable. What is more remarkable is that I find something else beyond these two impulses. I find Something – or perhaps even Someone – telling me that I “ought” to follow one of these impulses, and do what is “right”.
Moreover, this sense of ought is often telling me to do the very thing that I do not want to do. Sometimes the impulse to get away is stronger, at least in some ways, than the impulse to stay and help. And yet Something – or Someone – tells me that I ought to follow the weaker rather than the stronger impulse, despite the danger.
Whatever this Something is, and however I seek to explain it, it transcends the impulses themselves. I did not in any way ask for or contrive this Something myself, and yet it impinges on me. I cannot escape this mysterious sense of ought. Whether or not I try to suppress it or explain it away or just ignore it, there it remains. It is not clear exactly what it is, or why it is there, or where it comes from. But this universal human trait seems to be telling us something very important.
I don't think I was blaming those who find themselves in difficult situations, I certainly never said it was all their own fault. This feels like a bit of a slap down! I was merely pointing out the obvious, (I do that a lot) that for many people, whatever the overlords are up to, we prioritise sometimes and we drift at other times, and you and I (me?) and your cousin sometimes lose sight of what's important or make the wrong moves (yes, under great pressures to do so). I do it all the time.
So, if I really, really wanted to live in a poor borough of London, one that I might be able to afford, even at this late stage in my life, to be close to relatives, say, I could probably put in a decent effort to achieve that. If the pull of wanting to live back in Surrey Quays or Poplar at whatever age was such that it overrode all other considerations then I'd work hard to make that happen. That's all. We are lucky compared to billions in the world that we still have some sort of capacity to work towards aims and goals, and often achieve them, despite the best of efforts of tyrants to derail us.
I wouldn't frame it as a "slap down", and I'm sorry if it felt that way. I simply was reframing the conversation to focus on the issues I'm trying to address, which are not "did my cousin make a few wrong decisions in life" (almost certainly, haven't we all?), but on wider patterns affecting millions of people and that have been designed to affect millions of people - and why that climate leads to support for parties like 'Reform' and particularly 'Restore'. I feel you may be missing the actual points I'm trying to address. I can see how you perceive us as "lucky compared to billions in the world", but the reality is many don't see things that way. People are frustrated, fed up, and up for a fight. They feel stymied and stuck, that they work hard all week and are left with nothing to show for it, can't advance, can't achieve normal milestones that previous generations did.
You may well feel they are wrong to feel that way, I'm sure a lot of people do, but the fact is that they do feel like that and it is defining the political climate and informing cultural clashes and tensions. You're under no obligation to agree with these people's feelings at all, but we ignore them at our peril. Restore and Reform certainly aren't ignoring them, and that's what makes them such a sinister and powerful threat.
Please don't take my comments as a personal affront, I am simply clarifying the issues I wrote this article to address. All the best to you too.
I do feel for the younger generations, and I try not to ignore them: where did you get that from? At this point, though, given that the multifarious parties standing at Makerfield are simply a manifestation of the overarching Uniparty, voting preferences and discussions about which party is more nefarious might be considered either delusional or playing the game. Individual efforts to resolve individual problems like that of your cousin are actually much more likely to yield worthwhile results, unless you're building to a solution or voting suggestion?
I did not say "you" are ignoring them. Once again, I am making a broader point and underlining how millions of people feel, and commenting that "we" should not ignore them. I responded to your statement that people in this country are luckier than billions other around the world, and pointed out that, while you may feel that way, a lot of people see things differently - and we should not ignore that fact and the implications of it.
I responded to your initial comment to clarify why I wrote my article, and your latest comment seems to be asking me to rehash why I wrote the article. I think that's made entirely clear in what I wrote. I have spoken in many other articles about non-political solutions, but in this article I am addressing the political climate and why it does matter.
I'm always grateful to you, Miri, for presenting subjects in a way that causes me to think again about situations you describe and this piece is no exception.
We seem to have a socially engineered position where anything must be good simply because it is not Labour or Conservative.
On the subject of the Ref-store clown show, i have noticed you mention the profile of Andrew Bridgen and its unusual numbers. I noticed him back in April in the audience of the Amsterdam bioweapons hearing. I can't help thinking of him in terms of RFK in the US and wonder whether we will be amazed to see him in the cabinet of a Reform government.
I notice you didn't mention the Green Party at all - why not? They won the recent Gorton & Denton byelection from Labour with a thumping majority, and stand poised to take a good chunk of Labour's vote in Makerfield, more than offsetting Restore's abstraction from Reform.
I simply don't think the Greens have a chance there. Makerfield has very different demographics to Gorton and Denton. Whereas Gorton and Denton has a high Muslim population (around 30%), Makerfield's is virtually non-existent (less than 1%), plus its populace is significantly older than G&Ds. A Green candidate is primarily appealing to a Muslim and younger, more socially liberal voter base, and such voters are thin on the ground in Makerfield. The Green Party got just 4.4% of the vote there at the last GE - didn't even get their deposit back.
You may well be right, but I think a lot of "traditional" (older, more socially conservative) Labour voters will still see the Greens as a less-worse alternative. Whether they actually are is of course a completely different question.
The Green Party, led by made-up Zack-Dave, is doing a 'Reform UK' job for the the clapped-out Laybour Party. It has few real policies apart from those promoted by the Bro'hood, and so is really another party in camouflage awaiting the moment to shed it's disguise.
The reaction in some quarters might push some voters back to Laybour.
As ever - what you write is predominantly credible and sound. Nick Buckley I was in conversation with a few years ago - and has been through the Reform 'hokey-cokey' routine - and somewhat re-grouping after the Manchester mayoral elections. He's extremely active on social media - so watch this space.
I read an article by Nick Griffin the other day - suggesting young people do one of three things. i) Move to Northern Ireland, or ii) Move to Middlesborough, or iii) Buy a boat.
I thought to myself it's no longer economic migration - but stagnation migration!
How things have changed - and for the worst. Or is it?
If you move to Northen Ireland - they certainly used to know a thing or two about holding politicians to account. In extreme cases, it could involve an unscheduled visit and a cushion. If you move to Middlesborough - apart from the weather - at least the folks are fairly hospitable and if the North East gets the same kind of urban re-generation from boutique businesses places like Margate did with young Londoners moving out - it might not be all terrible and downward trajectories? Getting a boat would be the worst option in my opinion. In winter it's freezing cold and in summer the waterways are clogged up with bell ends. You get cabin fever and you isolate yourself in fairly narrow communities - all with almost as much maintenance as a small flat or house - but little capital appreciation in comparison. On top - in London - you can face hours-long queues to top up your water supply. Presumably the same for pumping out your cess?
What really starts to chime with me - is community self rescue. We have a network of churches all the way across the country. In Africa - churches were the major reason Covid measures were roundly ignored and communities got together and simply said "fuck off". The Church of England now seems to be a bit 'persona non grata' - with the King appearing to prefer that we all boogie on down to the local mosque? Or at least - that's how it seems from his actions?
What's stopping us re-building a hub network through those? Or at the very least leveraging them?
2029 (and even worse 2027) is a terrifying prospect for a general election with the greens and whatever 'Labour' means these days? There will be a tsunami of Stalinesque promises to all those lovely new 16 year old voters that old fossil Campbell has been working tirelessly to haul into the psyops net - none of which will materialise. We need to get to those 16 year old brains first. Show them this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5o1F6iHXNQw&list=PLNQmW1J8R-nM6BFFwaftnoM-pGhGlaScm&index=4
We're looking at a history repeat perhaps?
Thanks Richard, all very interesting and I've been thinking along similar lines myself. Politics has clearly failed us - we may need to try religion! It is as you say a very powerful community vehicle than can serve as robust opposition against the state if done right and not captured etc.
Rather than strictly religious doctrines - the church needs to initially open its doors to conversation as well as congregation. Conversation and activity - especially for the young.
That is an intriguing point. Alas, I suspect many church leaders share the sentiments of Prof John Lennox, one of the most prominent and respected Christian apologists, who, in a book published in 2024, wrote:
"Think of the laws brought in during the pandemic — laws about handwashing, wearing masks and social distancing. All of them good and necessary, but they could not cure Covid-19; they could not bring the dead back to life. They could only contain the disease, if followed." (link below)
The church has a major problem in that many of its leaders seem to have enormous blindspots in relation to distinguishing between good and evil. And what makes the problem much worse is that many of them seem to have little interest in engaging with people pointing out that they might have such blindspots!
I sense little interest from church leaders in relation to truth and reconciliation in the context of the covid era. Though there is this glimmer of hope:
https://dailydeclaration.org.au/2026/04/17/sydney-anglicans-confront-covid-failures/
Lennox link: https://unexpectedturns.substack.com/p/reflections-on-prof-john-lennox-statement-think-of-the-laws-brought-in-during-the-pandemic-laws-about-handwashing-wearing-masks-and-social-distancing-all-of-them-good-and-necessary
Hi Miri, I think you mean (I am not a mind reader!) Christianity rather than religion? Christian activism is a dangerous arena IMO. Unless one has a distinct calling in a specific role, all it will do is to antagonise all and sundry. The role of the 'Church' which is beyond denominations and quasi-Christian organisations (such as what TR seems to advocate) is to preach the simple gospel and live it, i.e. the real salt and light approach. Both are necessary and one without the other will fail the ultimate test.
The 7 churches in Revelation portray the various situations experienced by those churches and are replicated today. So called Christian nationalism is anathema to the Gospel.
When you say "boat" from your description you seem to be meaning a canal boat rather than a sailing boat. I was talking to a narrow boat owner the other day and we talked about pumping out and he said he never did it! Just let it foul the canal. I was rather horrified but then I’ve seen shit floating around in marinas on the south coast too. Quite the reverse attitude of the idea of a self rescue community.
I agree with you about the churches and we went to our local church on Easter Sunday for the first time this year. I haven’t been to church on a Sunday for nearly 60 years but we rather enjoyed it. It’s only a tiny village church but we saw families with young children, obviously the oldies (I have to say I’m one of those although I don’t see myself as such) and others, some of whom I know have difficulties in their lives. We intend to go again but won’t be regular attenders.
I noticed that Marco Rubio has given the Catholic Church in Cuba some US finance to distribute rather than directly to the Cuban socialist government and I found that an interesting course of action. So the US government is leveraging via the church.
I hope boats aren’t pumping out their toilets - there were very large fines for that antisocial activity - and rivers & canals have enough trouble with environmental pollution as it is!
On the church element - cartoonist Charles M. Schultz said decades ago a church is just any piece of architecture - it’s what’s inside that matters. It’s just coaxing people back into something familiar might be easier than trying to re-invent the wheel? It wasn’t my intention to start any form of religious debate. I’m not qualified for starters!
I’m afraid I know for a fact that people are fouling canals and rivers which is unacceptable in my view. How will they be caught I wonder? Is anyone policing that situation especially when the biggest sewage polluters are the waterboards.
"Selected, not elected" could not be more true.
It doesn't matter who you vote for. None of them have any real power. Not even Farage or Lowe.
The real movers and shakers love it when 'voters' spend their energy on arguing about which political party or politician is going to save the country. Let's all go on a march to save Britain because it's immigrants that are destroying the country.
UK's fiscal position has declined for years, with £1 trillion of government debt being added over the past seven years.
The obsession over party politics and the identity of particular individual puppets is designed to distract the public from what is really happening namely the deliberate debasement of the currency and a gigantic wealth transfer to vested banking interests.
ALL Central Banks are criminal enterprises (including the Bank of England). These criminal enterprises are aided by ALL governments and ALL political parties.
The natural order of human enterprise is ‘deflation’.
With sound money and human ingenuity all products should become better and cheaper and money should over time become more valuable. The average person should become wealthier.
Instead we have ‘inflation’ which is the ‘printing’ of money from nothing in ever increasing amounts which makes all products more expensive as the wages and savings of the average person decrease in value.
Only the few at the top become richer as they get to spend and invest this money before it becomes devalued when it reaches the average person.
No Government or political party offers to change this system. They are ALL complicit. It doesn’t matter who you vote for.
I agree. As I said in the article, "To be clear, I’m not suggesting Labour are any better, or that any party that’s considered ‘electable’ is".
However, I do think the electorate is being manipulated into voting for a right-wing government, since that is required to bring in the socio-cultural changes the overlords desire. They want. a dastardly right-wing government that enables them to demonise the right and everything it is associated with (traditional values, religion, anti-immigration etc), and to be able to blame the people for voting it in.
Voters clearly can't be trusted to make the right choices. Human politicians are too manipulative and corrupt. Best to scrap the whole idea of humans governing humans and replace our governing systems with AI (note, there is already an AI MP in Albania).
That's essentially where I think they want us to go - a global communist dystopia (because the alternative is just so evil, as the dastardly right-wing government here and in the USA will dutifully prove) presided over by robots.
The elites live in a bubble. Also I think they are divided amongst themselves. They have accomplished so much historically and now they want to undo it? All gangsters are paranoid back stabbers.
It's like a soap opera isn't it! All this fake drama to manipulate the public and get them to vote the correct way. Green, blue, red.
" He graduated from university with a degree in the arts" one problem right there.
Indeed - it is now. And that was just the point I was trying to make by mentioning his parents did too. They got arts degrees and it worked out very well for them. But just one generation later, the world had changed radically and so the same trajectory that had opened the doors to successful stable lives for one generation, completely failed to deliver on this for the next - and this was entirely by design.
I listened to the interview by David Starkey of Tommy Robinson and was disturbed by the latter part of the video. It amounts to a revolution, or at least a preparation for it. It also is a hi-jack of Christianity and also a perversion of same. I can understand why the government banned some overseas supporters from coming and wonder how this UTK movement of disaffected and mixed motivated people will fit into the mix of the Makerfield by-election and what flows from it. As well as paving the way for Reform it also may stir up the far right antagonists to wage some civil disorder?
There's no doubt that "Tommy" has a lot of very nefarious motivations, and certainly none of them Christian!
Our "Tommy" is an unusually rich violent thug.
I just do not understand why people give him the time of day.
He is about as genuine as Lucy Connelly. Ditto "what £5 million?" Farage.
Excellent, brilliantly argued, reasoned and explained. 🙏🏻
Many thanks, Ibbs!
Another very credible article Miri and I am inclined to agree with you. Also I think you're spot on regarding Lucy Connolly. All the dots join together
Thank you, Peter!
Therefore, the Prime Minister would also like Labour to lose. With his huge majority in the Commons, one MP fewer makes little difference and if a potential challenger for his job lost a safe Labour seat, the others might just have second thoughts.
A thought-provoking article. Thank you.
As I understand it, Years and Years has General Elections in 2022 (rather than 2024), 2026 and 2027. But it's not hard to envisage more than one GE in the next few years given the current polls.
If the authorities want a Reform government though, the defection of Tories such as covid era vaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi seems to me an odd way to try and make it happen.
Thank you, Stephen. And yes, you are quite right about Years and Years General Elections!
Unfortunately, covid and vaccines are a fairly niche issue and the electorate at large do not care about them - most people in general have moved on from covid and act as if it never happened, but in particular, people who vote aren't interested in covid/vaccines. "Our side" overwhelmingly doesn't vote, and so the high-profile parties simply don't cater to them. The overlords know covid issues are not a vote winner for the majority, but focusing on immigration (and related issues like grooming gangs) are, and so if Reform promises to take a hard line on that, the electorate does not much care (and frankly, a large chunk of them do not even know) about all the ex-Tories in Reform. In fact I would bet that a large chunk of people voting Reform could not name anyone in the party past Farage.
Thanks Miri. Your point about covid and vaccines is well-made and fair (alas). And I agree about the Farage recognition factor.
According to polling averages, between mid-2024 and mid-2025 Reform support climbed steadily from 15% to 30% and peaked around 31% last October (at the time of the Lucy Connolly appearance at the party conference). There has since been a steady decline, which, if anything, seemed to accelerate slightly after the high-profile defections of Zahawi, Jenrick and Braverman in January. But it's not easy to be sure about the reason(s) behind that.
The downward trend seems to have plateaued (at around 26%), as has support for the other parties, including the Greens, whose poll rating has increased from around 10% to 15% since Reform peaked.
It will be interesting to see what happens in the coming months.
I suspect the "grooming gangs" narrative is official conspiracy theory and most of it is simply fiction.
I suspect, but may be wrong, of course, that your cousin himself may have had a hand in his own prospects and current living conditions. That he has merely been blown about by socio-economic forces beyond his control is a bit of a stretch unless of course there are mitigating circumstances the reader is unaware of. That said, I do agree that it's not easy for young people today: an arts degree in 50s was a rare thing, but now, in the 2020s I'm reminded of the cartoon from the 90s? in which a toilet roll in a toilet cubicle is depicted, and on each perforated sheet is written 'Sociology Degree: Please Take One!'. That's kind of where we are now, only turbo-charged, with no proper educational opportunities for the young.
Well, everyone has had a hand in their own prospects, no? So of course it's true that he has. But someone working full-time should be able to live in their own hometown if they wish, whatever their job, and he can't. That was the primary point. And like 80% of others his age, he's not married, when most previous generations were by said age.
If we start saying this is primarily the fault of the individual, that they should have made different choices at 18, that there's "nothing stopping them" getting married etc - that it's essentially, or primarily, all their own fault, then we ignore the billions of pounds of social engineering spent over decades to ensure that millions of people are in the exact same position (or worse) as my cousin. It's not a blip. It's not an anomaly. That's how the overlords want people living - single, childless, not home owners, no stable employment. To blame young people for this reality - for making the wrong choices as teenagers (the choices they were encouraged to make by parents and schools), rather than the billionaire social engineers who openly want them in this position and made available all the useless degrees precisely for this purpose - is in my opinion wrong.
Obviously, my cousin has realised this isn't working well for him and is planning to retrain is something more vocational, Good possibility that by 35 his career and housing situation will be better. But if this one person gets his life on track, it doesn't negate from the overall themes affecting millions (and that will explode the further AI dominates the entry-level job market) I was using his story as a personalised example to address.
Years ago a friend of mine was in therapy and used the word "should" and his therapist said words to the effect of "the problem with the word should is it implies a universal value system that we all subscribe to and when using it, you are simply reminding the other person that they have deviated from the universal values. But we don't all have the same values." She recommended that, instead of saying "should" to say "I'd prefer". So yes, I'd prefer it too if people weren't priced out of an area and if we could all work 20 hour weeks rather than zero or 50 (which seems to be the trajectory), but it's what's happening and, as I see it, the only way out of this is through collaboration.
For me, what's happening with property price increases is similar to the enclosures, but with much more sophisticated associated psy-ops (although I wasn't around during the enclosure so cannot really comment on the enclosure-related psy-ops, but my guess is most peasants knew they were being shafted by their overlords and their lackeys!). You raise the values of all property via the banking system, people whose properties are going up think "oh, I am doing so well" without looking beyond themselves. Younger people are completely priced out and many parents don't see it as their role to sell their place and help their kids. I have no idea why. It's the only way many people will get grandchildren and it's certainly what I plan to do.
As I see it, keeping yourself and your kids informed of the lunacy that is going down is tricky because you don't want to frighten them into incapacitation, but, equally, you don't want them to do a degree unless they *really* want to do it and have fully evaluated its value for them. From what I can tell, a lot of people want their children to do degrees for various reasons including: they have failed to recognise a degree's lack of worth in the current market, they think it proves their children are clever/more valuable human beings and they think it shows the same for the parents themselves.
Schools push degrees *so* hard. We are currently in the UK. My son (17) had a talk at school on how the government were never going to do what they did with student loans before (i.e. raise interest rates *after* people took them out). I said to him "OK, so they are coming in, admitting they lied and did something that, if anyone other than the government did it, you could take them to court and easily win and are then saying "we won't lie again". WHY would you believe that?" He thinks I am being a bit paranoid and unreasonable. *Clearly* I am not.
He wants to study in Australia where he is eligible for domestic fees, but not a student loan. He asked me if I would give him a student loan and I said no. I will pay his fees (just under £6k a year) but he'd need to cover his living costs. He's a bright kid, but has no idea about living costs. He said he would like to stack shelves. I suggested he trained to become a Personal Trainer. He said he'd rather not do that because it would be hard work. We then slowly went through the costs of living (food, accommodation, bills, etc.) and he decided he'd be a Personal Trainer.
He also told me he didn't want to be a Personal Trainer because he wasn't good looking enough. He then explained how one of his nipples was at a different angle to the other which meant he couldn't do videos where you could see his nipples. I said "have you been spending a lot of time on Instagram?" which he admitted he had (or some other social media). I mean, does ANYONE here think ANYONE would select a PT based on their genetic beauty? or, more precisely, nipples? I am going with "no".
My son is extremely fit and muscular, on a national sports team, on track for extremely good A levels and wants to study sports science and then do medicine. He doesn't think he can be a PT right now. HOW has that happened?
As you say, Miri, there are a lot of factors that have lead to this situation and, as a parent, I was just fascinated by the point you made that people weren't considered adults until they were 21 before 1/1/1970. My son is clearly still a child and, if I wasn't paying attention, he could easily go out and get enormous loans without realising the massive life implications of that.
My daughter, who is 20 (21 in September) has, fortunately, seen through the financial nonsense, but she was precocious in this way. When she was 11 or 12 I said to her "mummy and daddy can give you the money if you want to study fashion" and she said "Or, you could give me £27,000 and I could start my own business". She's now doing an accounting apprenticeship and will do a masters in fashion if and when she feels there would be any value. So yes, no financial naivety there.
People mature at different times and, as a parent, I really think you've got to help your kids in this one. I agree that it's not all his fault and it's not all his parent's fault, however, it's only him and them who are likely seriously invested in getting him out of this situation. My sister was in a similar situation at 29 and concluded she'd done her 20's being poor and didn't want to do that in her 30's. She went back and lived with my parents and, partially at their suggestion, trained as a lawyer and can now afford (albeit with mortgages and renting one out) two properties in London.
I hope your cousin has a similarly fortunate outcome. To me, however, I think the powers that be have so concentrated wealth and take SO much money of business people in tax that the only way we are going to do this is by coming together in small, connected and trusting communities, likely many of us deregistering our legal personae and supporting one another outside of contracts, but through community.
I am not sure I'll see that in my lifetime but, as I see it, it's the only way out and, goodness me, I think it will be a lot more fun than our current social structure!
Thanks Rosie, very interesting as ever! I'm very pleased to hear you and your family are so awake to these realities, although it's sad to hear your son has been so influenced by Instagram that he doesn't believe in himself enough to pursue what sounds like an ideal career. Hopefully that will change as he gets a little older.
I would quibble with you however on the use of the word 'should'. To replace it with "I'd prefer that" makes the point sound far more tepid and doesn't really land in the way the speaker / I was intending it. I will stick with my statement that those working full-time "should" be able to live in their own hometowns, because if they cannot, then how can we foster the strong family and community bonds you rightly say are so necessary for success?
I do think it "should" indeed be a universal value that people have the right to live in their hometowns should they wish to, and are working for it (including obviously those who can't work due to disability, sickness etc). It's the fundamental foundation for a sane society that everything else flows from. It was the mass exodus from hometowns to the cities in the Industrial Revolution that caused the decimation of the extended family, and that led to the isolated, atomised mess we have now. Of course I could write a whole article on these subjects alone and perhaps should do..!
My son will be a PT because he wants to move out of home and eat steak which, currently, requires more money than he'd earn in a shop! Also, whenever I say "have you been spending too much time on Instagram?" it so enrages him that (heaven forbid) his mother has a point, that he drops it for quite a while and thus loses the self-critical madness it induces.
Re us being in an atomised mess now, I'd agree. And, re wanting the future to be more humane in a myriad ways, I am sure we are 100% aligned. However, I think we all have different ways out of this and I am not sure there's a social or economic structure that will enable us to get out of it. I think it's more about personal transformation and, those who are truly open to a new, healthier way of living and being will create it.
Perhaps your cousin being forced to live with 10 others far from his hometown and do some crappy job was exactly what he needed? Perhaps our son going to the other side of the world (which is going to cause the rest of us - i.e. my husband, daughter and me to go too) is exactly what we need? (although I am REALLY worried about him because he is NOT streetwise AT ALL) but perhaps he needs a period of not having our support and actually suffering because of our absence so he understands how much he needs it? Or perhaps (this is my hope) he realises how privileged he was and decides to behave better and be more grateful? Who knows?
I agree that the overlords have decimated much of our society, but I think it's happened to a huge degree because we have failed to adequately oppose it. What if, when the enclosures happened, the lackeys hadn't facilitated it? It wouldn't have happened. The same is true for many things (certainly the witch hunts - now that could have been SO different).
For me, opposition isn't as simple as a rally or a march or petition. It's about creating real, viable alternatives. I was not "awake" until 2020. I knew that pharmaceuticals were to be avoided and war was disgusting, but I thought it was the emergent behaviour of a variety of human failings. Now I see it both very differently (there are clearly decisions made at a world-wide level and world-wide coordination of many things) and also still a bit like that (it's humanity's response or lack of it to this BS that means it perpetuates).
There is something that is driving the decimation of humane human society and that's something that is in us all. We all have decisions we can make re how we deal with the aspect that is in us. We are all going to be faced with different challenges and have to go to places within ourselves that we might rather avoid, but going there and purifying those parts of ourselves is, I believe, what will save us.
I don't feel anything like the same ties and attachment to people in my family or old friends than I did pre 2020 and, personally, I think it's healthy. I can't see exactly what a newly humane new world will look like, but I don't think it will necessarily require us all to be able to stay and live where we grew-up. For me, it's far more important that we all experience the light of our hearts and drop anything that we know is harming ourselves or others.
(but I am totally cool with your seeing this differently!)
All very interesting and I broadly agree - however I think the urgency of the situation has got us to a point where we can't look at a generation of 30-year olds, unmarried (and many with no current prospects of marriage), no stable work, no stable housing, and shrug it off as "character building". I'm not saying you're doing that but that there is a social tendency to do that, probably because facing the true catastrophe of the situation is simply too difficult and overwhelming.
The issue is that there is no historical precedent where we have had millions of 30-year-olds living in such precarious situations where they have subsequently turned it around and created a flourishing, successful society.
All successful societies to date have been based on the vast majority of people being married by 30 (many by 25) and with strong, stable family and community networks, which enable them to withstand economic downturns. All that has gone.
The white birth rate is currently 1.4 and falling. Once it hits 1.3, this is known demographically as "critically lowest low" - a fertility rate so low, that no society has ever turned it around and has thus evaporated. We are right on the precipice of that now and to turn it around, we have to look at the factors that caused it - which are the same factors causing 30-year-olds to house-share with strangers in random cities doing crappy work. It's all connected - and designed that way.
I am definitely _not_ saying that this is all character building stuff. I certainly think it's worth being aware there is abuse taking place and people are suffering from that abuse. As they say "Before you diagnose yourself with anxiety or depression, first check you aren't surrounded by arseholes". So yes, there are definitely arseholes and they are definitely orchestrating a shitty experience for many people.
Even if we forget about community and just equally divide assets among everyone, I think a lot of these problems go away.
I think, potentially, because of our different social experiences, I am less enamoured with communities.
I have lived in some very tight-knit communities and some where people are totally disconnected. Our current village is very friendly and sweet, but there's not much "community" compared with some places I have lived. People say hello in the street and at the park where people walk their dogs. The church is very welcoming as is the pub. And, after my experiences over the last 6 years, it's about what I can handle at the moment.
We used to live in a matriarchal beach town of about 1700 people in New Zealand which, to us, had initially seemed idyllic. Everyone was so friendly, there were lots of parties, fundraisers and functions which were attended by young and old alike. People were well educated (many worked for the government in Wellington, the nation's capital) and extremely well-read and intelligent. You could stop and have a chat with someone on the beach and it be really interesting and mind-expanding. People not only fed your kids (which, let me tell you, is something many people seemed to want a medal for in the village in Surrey, UK that we had just moved from), but they also noticed who they were as people and would compliment both you and your children to you quite frequently. It seemed fantastic.
And then we found out about some child on child sexual abuse.
To cut a very long story short, we brought this subject to light when our daughter (who knew about it) couldn't really cope (nothing terrible, but she needed us to step in). When we stepped in (by telling Nicola, a friend of one of the parents of the abuser to tell her what was going on) Nicola said a couple of things that disturbed me. The first was congratulating us by bringing it to light because, in her words "most people wouldn't do that". Bit concerning. She also said "well, say this had happened to xxx child, I know her mother would want to know". And, of course, xxx was the child, which made it extremely clear that *everyone* in the town knew what was going on. What we did was mean people couldn't ignore it.
My husband found the situation extremely disturbing and, under pressure told xxx's mother. She then started texting him to try and get more information out of him because her child wouldn't talk to her. He was so anxious and upset about it, but xxx's mother kept persisting because she wanted information to prize her daughter open. As I pointed out to my husband, if her daughter didn't want to tell her what was happening, that was nothing to do with us - she needed to build the relationship with her daughter.
Eventually, after a lot of pressure from xxx's mother, I went to another mother's house whose daughter I knew had also been told. I asked her if she would speak to her daughter. She then told me a long story about how someone had told her about how her father was sexually abusing her when she was a child and how her friend had asked her to tell no one (I think she was about 7 or 8 at the time). This man went on to abuse other children one of whom killed themselves. I then asked her if she would talk to her daughter and she said "I don't want to involve the children". This was such an incredibly odd statement because I didn't know what she was saying. The children were already involved and her child was carrying this secret along with various other children. Who were the children she didn't want to involve? What did that mean? I took it as a firm "no, I won't be an adult" and left her house.
I then took a list of names of other children xxx had told in my daughter's presence and said to xxx's mother "if you have a strong relationship with any of these women and they have strong relationships with their daughters, I think this would be a better approach than asking for more information from our daughter". Clearly that's not what she wanted. She was happy to damage my daughter's social situation, but didn't want any harm to come to her friendship circle (which included the other child's parents).
Instead, she went around to the parents of the child who had abused her daughter for a cup of tea because, as she put it "the important thing is we all remain friends". Er no. That is not the important thing. The important thing (in my book) is you protect your child and show her that her sexual safety and sexual boundaries are more important than your social club.
The friendship group completely closed ranks and vilified me to their children who spoke badly of me to my daughter for years. My daughter never said anything about their mothers to them and just said nothing.
We left the town shortly afterward (telling people it was because of skatepark, but it was not - I was seriously thinking I was going to lose my composure at some point!). The mother of the abusing child then waited until my daughter was back visiting friends (when my husband and I were in the UK) to tell her what a horrible person she was because she had ruined her child's life. Sure enough, the other mothers stood around her and one messaged my daughter saying "she's just coming from a place of hurt and love for her child. She's a good person".
Fortunately, we could leave that town. My daughter can see what a bunch of irresponsible, abuse-enabling women many of her friends' mothers are. Not everyone is so lucky. There are a lot of people stuck in communities they can't leave and there are a lot of problematic outcomes because of that (e.g. murder and abuse) - I think the film "The Dressmaker" is about this, although I suspect the book is a lot better than the film as really it should have been a mini-series, but I haven't read the book, so can't confirm.
I have seen *so* much abuse of power within tight-knit communities. That is probably the worst story I have, but it's by no means the only one. Perhaps one of the reasons we are so atomised is because we need to grow-up within ourselves before we can build healthy societies. I really don't know. What I do know is it's not just the oligarchs who abuse people and power and I think what will save us is embodying what MLK said:
"We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools."
Re "should", I am reminded of this...
One of the curious things we observe as human beings is that somehow, somewhere inside us, we sometimes find Something pressing upon us.
For example, if I see an apparently innocent person being attacked in the street, I find, among various things, two opposite impulses: an impulse to stay and help, and an impulse to get away. In itself this is not so remarkable. What is more remarkable is that I find something else beyond these two impulses. I find Something – or perhaps even Someone – telling me that I “ought” to follow one of these impulses, and do what is “right”.
Moreover, this sense of ought is often telling me to do the very thing that I do not want to do. Sometimes the impulse to get away is stronger, at least in some ways, than the impulse to stay and help. And yet Something – or Someone – tells me that I ought to follow the weaker rather than the stronger impulse, despite the danger.
Whatever this Something is, and however I seek to explain it, it transcends the impulses themselves. I did not in any way ask for or contrive this Something myself, and yet it impinges on me. I cannot escape this mysterious sense of ought. Whether or not I try to suppress it or explain it away or just ignore it, there it remains. It is not clear exactly what it is, or why it is there, or where it comes from. But this universal human trait seems to be telling us something very important.
I don't think I was blaming those who find themselves in difficult situations, I certainly never said it was all their own fault. This feels like a bit of a slap down! I was merely pointing out the obvious, (I do that a lot) that for many people, whatever the overlords are up to, we prioritise sometimes and we drift at other times, and you and I (me?) and your cousin sometimes lose sight of what's important or make the wrong moves (yes, under great pressures to do so). I do it all the time.
So, if I really, really wanted to live in a poor borough of London, one that I might be able to afford, even at this late stage in my life, to be close to relatives, say, I could probably put in a decent effort to achieve that. If the pull of wanting to live back in Surrey Quays or Poplar at whatever age was such that it overrode all other considerations then I'd work hard to make that happen. That's all. We are lucky compared to billions in the world that we still have some sort of capacity to work towards aims and goals, and often achieve them, despite the best of efforts of tyrants to derail us.
All the best.
I wouldn't frame it as a "slap down", and I'm sorry if it felt that way. I simply was reframing the conversation to focus on the issues I'm trying to address, which are not "did my cousin make a few wrong decisions in life" (almost certainly, haven't we all?), but on wider patterns affecting millions of people and that have been designed to affect millions of people - and why that climate leads to support for parties like 'Reform' and particularly 'Restore'. I feel you may be missing the actual points I'm trying to address. I can see how you perceive us as "lucky compared to billions in the world", but the reality is many don't see things that way. People are frustrated, fed up, and up for a fight. They feel stymied and stuck, that they work hard all week and are left with nothing to show for it, can't advance, can't achieve normal milestones that previous generations did.
You may well feel they are wrong to feel that way, I'm sure a lot of people do, but the fact is that they do feel like that and it is defining the political climate and informing cultural clashes and tensions. You're under no obligation to agree with these people's feelings at all, but we ignore them at our peril. Restore and Reform certainly aren't ignoring them, and that's what makes them such a sinister and powerful threat.
Please don't take my comments as a personal affront, I am simply clarifying the issues I wrote this article to address. All the best to you too.
I do feel for the younger generations, and I try not to ignore them: where did you get that from? At this point, though, given that the multifarious parties standing at Makerfield are simply a manifestation of the overarching Uniparty, voting preferences and discussions about which party is more nefarious might be considered either delusional or playing the game. Individual efforts to resolve individual problems like that of your cousin are actually much more likely to yield worthwhile results, unless you're building to a solution or voting suggestion?
I did not say "you" are ignoring them. Once again, I am making a broader point and underlining how millions of people feel, and commenting that "we" should not ignore them. I responded to your statement that people in this country are luckier than billions other around the world, and pointed out that, while you may feel that way, a lot of people see things differently - and we should not ignore that fact and the implications of it.
I responded to your initial comment to clarify why I wrote my article, and your latest comment seems to be asking me to rehash why I wrote the article. I think that's made entirely clear in what I wrote. I have spoken in many other articles about non-political solutions, but in this article I am addressing the political climate and why it does matter.
I'm always grateful to you, Miri, for presenting subjects in a way that causes me to think again about situations you describe and this piece is no exception.
We seem to have a socially engineered position where anything must be good simply because it is not Labour or Conservative.
On the subject of the Ref-store clown show, i have noticed you mention the profile of Andrew Bridgen and its unusual numbers. I noticed him back in April in the audience of the Amsterdam bioweapons hearing. I can't help thinking of him in terms of RFK in the US and wonder whether we will be amazed to see him in the cabinet of a Reform government.
I notice you didn't mention the Green Party at all - why not? They won the recent Gorton & Denton byelection from Labour with a thumping majority, and stand poised to take a good chunk of Labour's vote in Makerfield, more than offsetting Restore's abstraction from Reform.
I simply don't think the Greens have a chance there. Makerfield has very different demographics to Gorton and Denton. Whereas Gorton and Denton has a high Muslim population (around 30%), Makerfield's is virtually non-existent (less than 1%), plus its populace is significantly older than G&Ds. A Green candidate is primarily appealing to a Muslim and younger, more socially liberal voter base, and such voters are thin on the ground in Makerfield. The Green Party got just 4.4% of the vote there at the last GE - didn't even get their deposit back.
You may well be right, but I think a lot of "traditional" (older, more socially conservative) Labour voters will still see the Greens as a less-worse alternative. Whether they actually are is of course a completely different question.
The Green Party, led by made-up Zack-Dave, is doing a 'Reform UK' job for the the clapped-out Laybour Party. It has few real policies apart from those promoted by the Bro'hood, and so is really another party in camouflage awaiting the moment to shed it's disguise.
The reaction in some quarters might push some voters back to Laybour.