How many times have we heard victims of injustice or incident call for an inquiry to ensure that it “never happens again”?
However, in almost all cases the inquiry, review, commission will lead to recommendations that do not address the root of the problem or they address a problem that doesn’t exist and can actually end up having very negative consequences.
Examples of the former are the various defence reviews that we have had over that last fifteen years all of which we have been told have been carried out to make sure that our armed services are best placed to deal with present and future challenges. However, in virtually every case they have instead been used to see what more can be sliced from the budget to spend on voter bribes. An example of the latter is the Maxwell pension review which made sweeping recommendations that have lead to the closure of most final salary pension schemes. It has also lead to a drastic reduction in the percentage of pension funds invested in equities which has had a very detrimental on the fortunes of the UK stockmarket.
In virtually all cases and most recently in the Horizon debacle, the root cause is a dishonest political expediency in decision making. One of the most shocking aspects of Horizon is that despite a group of dedicated Parliamentarians banging on about this for nearly twenty years it has taken a TV drama to actually galvanise the Government to address the issue and sort it out. However, one can see the seeds of the next problem in that the hunt is now on for scapegoats and almost certainly there will be further injustices as a result.
We have seen the same sort of dishonesty with the Windrush, Hillsborough, Grenfell, Bloody Sunday and Manchester Arena events. In every situation we see the Establishment actors diving for cover and excusing themselves and then as time passes information comes out that implicates them in one way or the other.
I would suggest that there are some pretty rich pickings as to where the next examples are going to come to light. Post pandemic excess deaths is definitely one, the Government resolutely refuses to acknowledge the problem. A connected issue is the rate of post vaccination hospitalisations and indeed not only have the Government put their fingers in their ears whenever this is brought up but have expelled from the party the MP; Andrew Bridgen, who has been trying to get this looked into
Another area is the defence of the realm which despite the warm words from the secretary of state is in a very parlous state. As an island nation we are dependent for 80% of our imports coming by sea and in the event of any sort of war it will become vital to our survival that this trade is protected from attack above and below the sea as well as from the air and mines. With barely a dozen frigates and destroyers available this is just not possible. The Royal Navy was a leader in mine hunting and clearance, however, this service has been allowed to wither away and there are no longer enough minesweepers available to cover the approaches to each of our main ports. Here the present dysfunction in the Royal Navy began with a refusal by Gordon Brown to fund Mr Blair’s wars from the ‘Contingency Reserve’ so six of the twelve Type 45 destroyers that were going to be built were cancelled and the Type 26 program was reduced and delayed. This was then compounded by the ‘Strategic Defence Review’ of 2010 that cut the Royal Navy fleet to 19 frigates and Destroyers which has quietly been further pared down by a further four in part because of recruitment problems. These have largely been brought on by the idiotic cost cutting measure of outsourcing recruitment to a contractor. In addition to the cuts of the 2010 SDR, George Osborne transferred Service Pensions and the cost of the Strategic Deterrent from the Treasury to the MOD budget, so that Britain could be seen to be hitting the NATO 2% of GDP minimum without actually in reality doing so.
Is it surprising that those of us who follow politics become very cynical. We are being peddled half truths, lies and ill thought out policy that appears to be driven more by well funded pressure groups than the wishes of voters.
The whole climate change, renewable energy, net zero debate is so riddled with inconsistencies and economies of truth that one doesn’t know where to start. However, in this case if one even dares to question it the mob goes into action to shut you down without even addressing your question.
In some ways one can say that the situation has been forever thus, but I don’t think I am the only one to feel that it has got much worse. It makes it even more important that we defend the freedom of the press from all those who seek to put limits on it. It would appear to be the only effective way of holding our mendacious politicians to account as the MPs we elect to do this are failing in this, their fundamental duty.
Alastair MacMillan runs White House Products Ltd, a manufacturer, distributor and exporter of hydraulic components to over 100 countries. He is a supporter of the Jobs Foundation.
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It makes it even more important that we defend the freedom of the press…
Is that the same ‘Independent Press’ that is bought and sold by Gates, Soros, Schwab and the WEF? The same ‘independent press’ that prints whatever they are told to in order to maintain unelected narratives?
All inquires are a facade and a complete waste of time and money as they are commissioned by the very people whose actions have necessitated them and are thus 99.9% unlikely to have a meaningful outcome (except for the inevitable platitudinous ‘lessons have been learned’). More and more I tend to think that independent ‘committees’ of citizens, co-opted like Juries, ought to be the way forward – but then I come back to reality and realise the rank stupidity of most people, the fact that genuine UK citizens are marginalised to accommodate DEI, and that anyone who consumes MSM is compromised and thus ineligible for anything requiring independent open minded thinking.
Spot on Mr MacMillan, climate change, Covid, Trans, education etc etc are all in the same boat, only those carefully selected are allowed any discussion on the BBC, MSM and that is because they support the “accepted wisdom”. The MSM is dead, totally captured, both main parties are signed up to the same agenda and so the public in my opinion have only one place to go politically – Reform or similar and for information they need to subscribe to alternative news and comment providers such as this one, Daily Sceptic, Substack, The Free Press and many others. This won’t be easy as we are already seeing the establishment (WEF, WHO et al) ramping up the “Disinformation” meme with a view to controlling internet users and take down dissenters from the “party line”. It’s going to have to get a lot more painful before enough of the general public are motivated to get off their backsides to make a difference, so we’re in for a rough ride over the next 10 years or so.
The so called reforms by Brown and his Treasury chums were in part to reduce the surpluses that DB schemes had built up, hated by the Treasury ( whose employees never had to face this issue, their scheme being extremely generous…) by a combination of long term equity investments, redundancies in employee work forces, and force upon Trustees a regime of so called liability funding – match assets to pension liabilities present and future. Never mind that DB schemes had been affording pensions through the high inflation of the 70’s/80’s – one of the many impacts was DB schemes invested far more heavily in Gilts than before thus providing Brown (as Chancellor) with a ready source of funding for expanding UK public debt. Gilts – both ILG and conventional – generally do not cope well with inflation long term. Lower values helped to reduce DB schemes assets, putting the covenant with the Employer under intolerable stress ergo DB schemes closed to new member and new accrual. This is a simplistic summary of a highly complex issue; there was another way forward but it was never considered as I recall.
Another superbly argued and evidenced, highly perceptive article.
“… the inquiry, review, commission will lead to recommendations that do not address the root of the problem, or they address a problem that doesn’t exist and can actually end up having very negative consequences.”
“A dishonest political expediency in decision-making,”
“Establishment actors diving for cover and excusing themselves.”
How very true!