Do you realise that you are part of a vast revolution, which has changed, and is still changing the way we live? We are partly responsible, because we are influenced by razzmatazz, spurious advertising, and laziness on our own part.
Shopping
The corner shop has almost totally ceased to exist in the main conurbations, and is replaced by supermarkets and franchise stores . We are no longer the customer that is always right, but puppets dancing to the supermarket’s impersonal tune. When we go to a shop, we just have to select from what is on offer. We can no longer nip round the corner for something we are short of. We no longer have any control of what is on the shelves, as we did in the past, when our individual needs were considered by the shop-owner. This revolution in shopping, has first of all reduced the number of people in the retail trade, and changed the look of the High Street. It is now more like a market, where’s there are some shops empty, and are only used for high days and holidays, and a large number of the other shops are fighting a losing battle with the supermarkets. Unfortunately things have gone too far for us to be able to turn back the clock. Out-of-town shopping is here to stay, making the car an unavoidable necessity, because public transport no longer fulfils the need.
Politics
In the very old days, when I was a young man, everything was done with pen and ink, which meant that you had time to think what you were writing, and others had time to read what you were putting down, and respond in like manner. Now with the Internet, the computer, TV, not to mention the iPod, everything is instant which translates into ‘ knee-jerk’. I believe that politics today consist of a series of knee jerk responses to every eventuality, without careful thought. I am constantly complaining that the government paints with a broad brush, without careful thought and without experience, resulting in mistakes, serious misjudgement, and irredeemable reflects from bad decisions and inept legislation. The credit crunch, and the way with which it was dealt is a prime example..
There seems to be a trend that problems can be solved by sweeping changes, without scaled-down modelling to see where the traps are. This latest effort of moving the boundaries with respect to how the electorate votes, is another example where they haven’t considered the cost that this is going to involve. Any change of this type involves considerable costs because new environments often demand new controls, which in turn often involves changes in location, paperwork, and the loss of valuable records. I firmly believe that this move is another one of these knee-jerk reactions which will only benefit a very small proportion of the electorate, and it appears the percentage of those will be for people who have come to live here from other countries. There is a constant perception that the majority, in this country, is disadvantaged by the needs of the few, which are often spurious.