Month: January 2026

Understanding Politics

Understanding Politics is a fruitless task. The people who can make decisions that really count and make a big difference aren’t politicians.

For example: the real power behind the throne is money! Money and Power go hand in glove, it is rare to experience one without the other. For those without either it is never to their advantage.

History

Quakers were different, they had the money and access to power but decided to lift everyone with the new found wealth.

Focused on housing, education, health and rewarding work. They changed the UK and Europe.

However, along came the wars, one thing they wouldn’t engage in and their influence and power was lost. Replaced by Mutual Societies and Unions. Again some benefit to ordinary lives.

All short lived and doomed to failure. This is simply because No Good Idea goes unexploited. Government is designed to exploit the people based on a contract of safety and security. Rarely present in any culture.

Business and Trade

Money has always controlled how governments behave from the “robber barons” to the modern global organisations. They want the ordinary people to remain poor and fund the infrastructure they exploit.

So what works? The answer is focus on the three things you control:

  • Investment
  • Spending
  • Time

If we fail to invest in business we fail to invest the future, because it drives innovation and rewards imagination.

Spend recklessly and the big businesses get richer and the local high street closes. People lose their homes because small businesses fail and the government gets bigger.

From the software we use to the food we eat there is real choice but it all depends on how we use our time! 168 hours in every week and the media controls on average 3 to 5 hours a day. Filling minds with despair and depression – just look at the soaps.

The world created can be changed and it will be when people come before profit, honesty and integrity come before income, when food and good housing are truly a “Human Right”.

Open your eyes

50 years of trying to make sense of senselessness is going to make you old, depressed and discontent.

We can’t change the political world or commerce globally but we can invest in a real future by setting accountable targets and personal goals that ask hard questions of others.

Stop following and start searching, Business can make a big difference when there is a commitment to value, to fairness and a balance based on real need. Feed the poor, house the homeless and ensure work is available. We do that not through Politics but through controlling our investment, spending and time.

Free style writing is a relief and after more than 30 years it is good to finally say, “the big con is on and the majority have been sucked in” the sad thing is the pay-off is going to result in more than the effects of global warming and climate change.

So back to my business, I will be available to write documents and sell product, but why not set me a real challenge – ask me for the best social value strategy for business and become the difference in just a few lives. Everyone does it we change the world. No one does it then my favourite Dad’s Army quote rings true “We’re Doooom!!”

1976 to 2026

In 1976 part time early morning cleaning jobs were my way of contributing to family funds. Still in School and although a real strain it set the “Protestant Work Ethic” at the heart of employment.

Wanting to write I also did some work experience in Journalism, that came as a shock, what you write as a journalist isn’t always what is published once the editors had worked their magic. No it wasn’t for me.

First business

After leaving education it became a case of wandering from job to job, nothing really suited. So with my older Brother we decided to work self-employed as window cleaners and contract cleaners.

That was great fun but dangerous for anyone who worked with me as I was reckless. Favourite pass time – step back and admire the work, not such a good idea when you are at the top of a ladder.

Bad weather and a tragic accident meant I changed occupations and headed in doors, but hadn’t stopped writing.

Warehouse and Retail

Looking back it was another occupation I wasn’t cut out for, couldn’t stand some halfwit telling me how to stack boxes or move trolleys. However, I did enjoy the computer work and the health and safety, a chance to train others.

This created the basic understanding I did have communication skills, speaking, listening, writing and presentation. I discovered my transferrable skills.

Sales

What a rubbish sales person I started out as, I learnt all the so-called successful techniques but couldn’t bring myself to use them.

Somehow I hit my targets so only sacked twice but I suddenly realised to sell effectively I needed to let the person buy. Talk less, point out more reasons to take sometime, then they bought! If we didn’t sell the product but it could lead to repeat business, I found them the product and a safe supplier.

It was all about relationships and building trust.

Writing and employment

Following a prolonged period of illness I moved into a period of employment training with a local authority, they needed a researcher for economic projects and my writing began.

Fill the page with facts, directions and clear reasoning that led to conclusive outcomes.

The career jumped about from there but involved writing everyday in my unique style. Self educated and driven by a desire to make a difference bid and tender writing filled 20% of my time.

Winning large project funding from EU and UK sources, raising money for the voluntary and community sectors.

Finding the means to deliver in so many fields, the niche of writing National Occupational Standards, foundation qualifications and management tools.

Dilemma

In 1994 the fundraising and competitive tendering market place began to attract so called “professionals”, by 2000 these individuals out numbered the core volunteer writers who had been successful for years and marginalised them.

My dilemma, I crossed both sides, writing as a volunteer and being paid by local authorities and national charities to write for them. It was clear by 2004 I had to make a decision.

Dropping into freelance and self employment I slid away from the issues. But now after 22 years of freelance work it’s time to ask the hard questions.

Did I do the right thing by avoiding the confrontation? In hindsight? No.

The marketplace needs fresh ideas, maverick contributors, not people like me who hide as authors of blogs, and content. We need the market disruptors.

So if you are reading this and thinking I have something to say or write, don’t wait find the right audience and communicate.

We change things when the majority stop being silent. Minorities run the world because they are permitted, they dump unfounded guilt on the developed world.

Reparations – example

If you go back 300 years and look at the average life of anyone who wasn’t rich they understood graft, poverty, exploitation, a singular sense of futility.

They didn’t enslave anyone, they didn’t exploit or sell people to get rich, that was a minority across all cultures.

These groups benefited from the social reforms, better housing and the beginning of education. Society changed because a religious few addressed the unfairness of the world.

Whilst reforming at home, they challenged slavery, moved to get it abolished and paid individual ship owners to intercept cargo to release those being transported.

Now those who were benefiting from the reforms in Europe are now managing the communities they live in. Many starting without the advantages of benefactors who gave them much. These ones are being asked for reparations, the rich who maintained their riches remain untouched, the royals keep their special status but the people are asked to pay.

In 50 years I have learnt there will always be injustice so focus on what is right today. Write or speak from your heart and never let others shut you down because you are speaking truth.

Truth is based on unassailable facts the rest is fake, used to scare and control. A few more years to go but I have come to agree with the writer who said – everything is futility!