Pragmocracy is the only way.

Rhiann Marie - Round the World
Stewart Graham
Thu 15 Sep 2011 06:46
Thursday 15th September 0433 UTC 0533 BST   
 
25:24.574S 007:006.32E
 
Wind Speed 19 Knots SSE, COG 306 Deg True, SOG 8.5 Knots       
 
For sure I am working Rhiann Marie relentlessly down the track to St Helena (if I stop there). It has been slow at times painfully slow but I believe we have squeezed the best course and speed to our waypoint that we could. Where we have had free wind we have sailed the rhumb line and trimmed the sails to give best VMG (velocity made good), where we have been as deep down the wind as we can go we sometimes sail to the wind especially if sleep is required. The same is true if we are hard on the wind.
 
The amazing thing has been the sailing performance of Rhiann Marie. Between close reaching and broad reaching in winds say up to 10knots, boat speed is rarely more than two knots less than wind speed ....... but in between on a beam reach boat speed is often matching wind speed. With true wind just behind the beam I have had 10 knot boat speed from 10 knots of wind and just yesterday I had 6 knots from 6 knots! Of course you must realise this is all about the skippers qualities not the boat .....
 
As you can see it is the middle of the night and I have spent some considerable time on the foredeck rigging the pole out to windward. It seems however I have magical powers of control over the weather. If you ever want the weather or the wind more precisely to change just ask me to work out on the foredeck of Rhiann Marie for half an hour! Yep, after rigging the pole to windward the wind strengthened and veered just a little so no need for the pole by the time I was finished. So back down below and of course after stripping off safety gear and oilies - whaddaya know - back to slatting away in the leeward side so back up again to the foredeck to rig the genoa to the windward pole. And there we have it rolling along nicely now doing 8.5 knots - 9.0 now,,,,
 
So being in a little bit of a grumpy disposition maybe this is  good time to talk about politics? This may surprise you but I don't have "politics". Certainly not of the party political type anyway. Definitely not the ideological kind. However quite a number of you over the last two years have written to me - nobody has been more surprised than me - suggesting that I stand for various political offices! One person however has written saying my "politics" are apalling! That would appear to be because my onslaught against big government clash with his political ideology.
 
Out of frustration for the way our country and economy is mismanaged, at one time I may have considered it. However I have come to the conclusion that much more good can be acheived for society and country by acheiving business success and staying outside politics. Aspiration to political office is not for me. However there is still a very real "political" job to be done from outside politics. Outside councils and parliaments. I was most impressed back in St Vincent almost two years ago by a taxi driver Colin MacKenzie who was complaining bitterly about how the government officials and politicians were treated so preferentially with all kinds of preferential benefits funded off the back of people like Colin who had to work long hours for little pay and ultimately had to bear all the costs of those oaf-icials. "Why don't you stand for parliament?" I asked Colin. "No way! All these jokers do in there..." he said gesticulating towards the parliament building "is jaw,jaw,jaw". "Anyway" he went on "there is a very real job to be done on the outside looking in trying to keep these crooks in line, you can't do that if you become one of them" 
 
Having talked with many people in country after country, having met politicians, government ministers and government workers, successful business people, old money, new money but mostly ordinary hard working people from all cultures, I have been able to form a clear view of what is so wrong, and of course what is so right about our society. On my travels around the world I have met the same story everywhere. Government doing more for itself than for its people. Big government paying themselves and all those in on the scam unfairly off the backs of the working citizenship. Two terms in Parliament, perhaps as little as six years, and salary and benefits for the rest of your life? How can that be fair? That's after being paid (not earning), being paid a ridiculous salary while in parliament and as we have seen all over the world not least the UK a scandalous abuse of "expenses". All the time this excess has to be funded by the ordinary hard working man and woman. This is grossly unjust and those ideological career politicians pretending in their own self importance that this is in the name of socialism should be seen for what they are. Power hungry and self serving.
 
The catastrophic Blair and Brown years in the UK exemplified this point perfectly. Not only because of their murderous misadventure following the US into Iraq, not only because their mismanagement of their "no more boom and bust" economy, nor even their increase in public expenditure by a factor of more than three. No because they brought up a whole generation to believe that everything from Health and Safety to your diet is the responsibility of the state. A whole generation has breen brought up with the state encroaching on every aspect of their lives denuding individuals responsibility for themselves. Its like giving a mass labotomy to the population! This is ideology and political dogma for you and its self serving big government has left us and most of Europe bust.
 
You may deduce from all this that I am some free market capitalist with no care for the social well being of my fellow citizens. Far from it. In the United States we see the effects of an economy and society which for years has been driven, by the right wing free market ideologically to bankruptcy too. All over the world we see senior management of publicly quoted companies pay themselves enormous, scandalous, immoral salaries. They are robbing the shareholders. Who are these shareholders? You and I, through any pensions we may have. Pension funds are major shareholders in publicly listed companies. So abuse of remuneration systems by senior bankers or managers does affect you. Even more so if our funds (well borrowings actually - all the funds were squandered ) are then used to bail out the mismanaged companies. 
 
Neither of the two systems noted above have left enough resource for countries to truly care for their citizens who cannot care for themselves and that is a disgrace.   
 
Whose fault is all this? Mine and yours. Because we have allowed it to happen right under our noses. When have I or you stood up publicly and protested about excesses of our governments or when have we as shareholders or pension contributors actually stood up and said No! this salary and bonus settlement is scandalous (obviously if you're in on either of these scams I don't expect you to protest and unfortunately for "democracy" that amounts to about 1/3rd of the voting population)   
 
No I am not "political", and not an ideologist but a realist. Good old fashioned common sense and a pragmatic approach, free from dogma and ideology is what it takes to run a country and to obtain the fairest results for the people. There should be a presumption against the government doing things, in any event they are inherently useless at running anything, and a pragmatic view of what is best for the good of the whole country. Not for those with capital, or in business, or in government or public service. (Yes, that was Public Service I said. I don't know when "service" was changed to "sector" but probably around the same time that we stopped getting good public service funnily enough.) Good for the whole country - for the long term. Frugal government. All government should be frugal and only do what needs to be done by government, perhaps then by doing less they could concentrate on doing it better?
 
So here is my view ( bloody hell its bright outside now - I do go on a bit eh!) Small government is beautiful and there should be a presumtion that the government shouldn't do it, when the government do do it it should be done as efficiently as the private sector could do it, neither left nor right is best, ideology and dogma must be binned and replaced with a pragmatic common sense approach to policy. And. And, most importantly we, all of us need to find a way to stand up and be counted and protest against what we know to be unjust. A la Arab spring .... Facebook, Twitter, BBM ? Perhaps this needs studying and if made very easy for people to vote electronically with one click then our voices could be heard on more subjects that require public scrutiny?