I’m told people have stopped listening/watching the news in Britain because it is too depressing. Well, there’s no question about the gloomy nature of the World today so, I suppose, we can’t blame people for wanting to look away from so many serious issues. The problem is, dare I say, that people not just here in Britain, are not watching the news because they are frightened of the truth and are looking for solutions from populist politicians who are saying everything is easy – trust me, I’m an ordinary guy just like you. The trouble is, in our democracies, these ordinary guys might just get elected with their easily digested and simplistic answers to complex questions. In Britain this might happen next May just at a time when the country and the world needs politicians who can see beyond easy answers and who refuse to pander to the emotions of an anxious electorate looking for solutions in  single issue politics.

Here in Britain, we have the phenomenon that is Nigel Farage, the leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party.  His simple political solution to the world’s problems is for this small island to leave the European Union and to close the borders. It is simple, no question, but it is also balefully wrong and, let’s face it, it won’t work.

The trouble is that he is very persuasive and is seen as an attractive alternative to Britain’s ‘main’ political leaders. It is easy to hate our politicians and all of us can come up with easy reasons why ‘the economy isn’t working’, ‘foreign immigrants are taking all our jobs,’ ‘Europe is the cause of all our problems,’ etc. etc. etc. We can all come up with other catch phrases over a pint of beer with the friendly Mr. Farage. He is so persuasive that he has Britain’s political leaders on the back foot.

Prime Minister, David Cameron, is tearing up his old ‘liberal’ speeches and looking for ways of sounding electable and acceptable to an electorate looking for scape goats.  Every day we are being fed new ‘back of an envelope’ policies from his ‘think tank’ and, increasingly, he is being pushed to the right and now he is alienating Britain’s European partners and worrying the United States. He knows, but daren’t admit it, that Farageing the Conservative party is a road to disaster.

Poor much got-at Ed Milliband, the leader of the Labour party, is on the run too. He is only just holding on to a slender lead in the polls and is egg-splatteringly unpopular in the country. He is having to react to the Farage phenomenon too. Miracle-seeking Labour voters too are looking for happy endings in Mr Farage’s saloon bar politics.  Mr Cameron and Mr Milliband are not fools even if they are unloved – their sin will be ignoring what their intelligence tells them about British and international affairs and ducking their responsibility to inform the British electorate that next May’s general election is grown up time.

This is serious folks – like it or not. By ignoring the news, we ignore the developing problems in Europe and beyond – problems that Britain should be helping to resolve for all our sakes. All of us folk lucky enough to have a vote need to open our eyes and look.

President Hollande of France isn’t laughing , he’s made mistakes for sure and he too is deeply unpopular in his own land, but France should be our friend when we have enemies watching us with hatred in their eyes.

The German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, is the great survivor but even she is beginning to look rattled by the future  and not just by the economics. She is much more Britain’s friend then Britain realises and she is depressed by Britain’s growing isolationism.

President Obama too is having a bumpy time. He is facing the Mid-Term elections in a country where the people there too have stopped watching the news because it is depressing. Ebola, a potential catastrophe for some African countries, has turned into an American nightmare, a symbol of fear and a stick with which to hit their politicians, both Democrats and Republicans alike. Everywhere in the Western democracies, people are looking for simple solutions to complex problems and distrusting their politicians.

They are looking for simple solutions in some of the most troubled parts of the Middle East too. When the news is bad at home in Saudi Arabia, Tunisia or Yemen, their young men look to ISIS for their own naively imagined happy ending and flock, along with European and American ‘Jihadists’, to Syria and Iraq. The result doesn’t need repeating – even if we don’t watch the news, we all know about the horrors that the world has ignored for too long.

So, ignore the news if you want but, please, don’t think the solution to these many crises will be solved over a pint with the dangerous Mr Farage. I say it again, wake up Britain, it’s Grown Up Time.

The post It’s Grown Up Time: We won’t save the World by turning off the News and looking for salvation in Nigel Farage. appeared first on Wolfie Wolfgang.

I may be a bit tired after hanging around during the night wondering about the Scottish Independence Referendum results but I feel good today – all of me except the tired bits – all my Scottish, Northern Irish and English DNA (my British-European DNA) is dancing around inside of me. Phew!

If you missed the results, Scotland has decided – 55% of the population said No Thank You and 45% said Yes Please. The turnout was an extraordinary 84.6%.

I’m the son of a Scot who lives in England and who had no vote but opinions enough to be delighted that the No’s have it.

My common sense feels happy too. Well, common sense is that bit of you that just feels what is right so I am delighted that the tiny land mass known as the United Kingdom, the united countries that raised me and my ancestors, has been allowed to stay, yes, united.

I feel good too after hearing that splendid speech by the much missed and much misunderstood former British prime minister, Gordon Brown. I couldn’t help thinking that if, in 2010, more of the British electorate had kept the faith with him, we might not have been  struggling from one constitutional bungle to another as has been the case since Mr David, d’oh, Cameron became Gordon Brown’s successor and, annoyingly, since Ed, where’s-he-when-you-need-him,  Milliband became Leader of the Opposition. It’s a sobering thought that those 84.6% of Scottish voters could turn out to get a solution and yet the whole of the UK couldn’t find a political party that it wanted to elect. In case you’d forgotten, Cameron didn’t get a majority and the Conservatives haven’t had a majority for over twenty years.

If I’m worried about the calibre of our politicians, I’m happy about the inevitable and much needed changes that have now be forced upon them. I, here in Lewes, Sussex, England, UK, would like to be independent of Westminster as much as any Northern Scot, Welshman, Devonshire maid or Yorkshire cricketer. What the Yeses and Nos have achieved for all of us Brits, is the chance to have more say in our own affairs and to be less patronised by that gang of career politicians who still too often think they know what is best for us. There’s now a chance that we might actually feel more represented in what is still a democracy worth defending but also worth improving. We’d get  better local politicians too if the jobs are seen to be worth doing. It’s difficult to get enthusiastic about many of the men and women  elected to councils and devolved parliaments over recent years. Maybe giving the regions more power, would give us a few more brain cells in our representatives.

I’m talking about being happy so, carrying on, I’m also happy to get an itchy feeling in my heart, or wherever these things are felt, telling me that, just maybe, one day, we might really be respected enough by our elected representatives, to look after our own patch but also to feel that we are all, sorry to repeat this, Citizens Of The World.

So thanks for saying No you guys – it’s much appreciated. Thanks too to the Yes voters – your enthusiasm and idealism could be a new electoral lesson for the whole UK.

Just a couple of things:

Please Mr Cameron, if you’re going to inflict another referendum on us can it be less simplistic in future? No more Yes/No or In/Out, OK. We not only want to have more of a say about life as it is where we live but we’d like to be treated with the respect that allows that we can also see the subtleties – there is more to a united country and, for that matter, a united Europe, than you allow in your two simple questions.

The other thing? Oh yes. It’s already bad enough that we as a nation still witness anti-Semitism, racism, Islamaphobia and anti-European zenophobia, let’s not start (or continue) all this anti-Scottish, anti-English aggression. The United Kingdom, for all its faults, is a wonderful mix of nationalities, cultures and skills. Let’s put this debate behind us, learning from it that we, as a united community, have much to share and, I’m dreaming again,  we could even be at the beginning of a brave new era: a country looking for the common cause, learning from our fellow citizens and respecting our differences, looking after our own turf without greedily or suspiciously eyeing up our neighbours, in fact, learning to be grown-up democrats. Other nations could learn from us if we get it right – now that’s a dream worth dreaming.

I feel like listening to some bagpipes to celebrate:

The post Phew! Thank you Scottish No’s. appeared first on Wolfie Wolfgang.

So, OK, Ed went to a comprehensive school, Nick is sorry and Dave’s just a regular guy. It is all true I”m sure but I think we have heard all this before. They are perfectly decent blokes I suspect, our political party leaders here in the UK, Dave Cameron, Nick Clegg and Ed Milliband. I wouldn’t suggest sending any of them to Madame Guillotine or even to a Siberian salt mine but…..

…… it’s political conference time here in Britain We’ve had Labour and the Lib Dems and this week it is the Conservatives’ turn.

Now I’ve always been interested in politics. I acknowledge that we all have a responsibility to take it seriously – it is what democracy is all about. We need to decide who we support and vote for them but…..

…but what is it about these men, these nice blokes? Why am I so bored by them? Bored by what they have to say and bored by the fact that they are just saying what they think will trick me into voting for them.

I’m bored with being manipulated, by being talked at, marketed, seduced and tricked by these smooth tongued men and their army of PR advisers.

Maybe it is time to switch off the news and close the newspapers until these men wind up their PR events.

I know I am wrong to think this but, Ed, Nick and Dave, you bore the pants off me.

STEPHEN DEARSLEY’S SUMMER OF LOVE BY COLIN BELL

My novel, Stephen Dearsley’s Summer Of Love, was published  on 31 October 2013. It is the story of a young fogey living in Brighton in 1967 who has a lot to learn when the flowering hippie counter culture changes him and the world around him.

It is now available as a paperback or on Kindle (go to your region’s Amazon site for Kindle orders)

You can order the book from the publishers, Ward Wood Publishing:

http://wardwoodpublishing.co.uk/titles-fiction-colin-bell-stephen-dearsleys-summer-of-love.htm 

…or from Book Depository:

http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/Stephen-Dearsleys-Summer-Love-Colin-Bell/9781908742070

…or from Amazon:

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