Tuesday, 7 June 2011

Heart burn



 
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland refers to the territory which makes up the countries of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and many smaller surrounding inhabited islands.

This is a body of land which needs more than one heart to drive it forward.

The decentralisation of major power in these islands is critical.  Extremely diverse cultures, languages and beliefs can not be effectively governed from a single city in England.  

The largely English driven obsession to expand the British empire through conquering foreign lands has long been a thing of the distant past and is no longer recognised in the aspirations of a majority of the populations which make up what is legislatively known as the United Kingdom.

Britain's veins of power have become brittle and broken as she leaks blood in political discontent.

Having put historical events and aspirations well and truly behind us in terms of colonisation, it is surely time to review the system of government in these home territories.

The devolution of power is slowly but surely gathering speed in the respective countries and as long as the correct democratic procedures are in place this can only be good thing.  The concept of governing a land shaped by a wealth of such differing cultures, languagages, beliefs and aspitarations from a single location chosen centuries ago as a ruling point now seems absurd.

The population which makes up the United Kingdom is so far apart from the predominantly English aristocrats who made important choices centuries ago.

Acts of union and the constant strives of powerful figures in London to wipe out any cultures languages and beliefs different to their own are choices which were made so long ago it may seem barely worth thinking about, but the consequences continue to echo.

Where are the arteries of change to distribute power locked in an ancient westminster time warp?

This is not a case of finding figures to blame for the cultural genoside which these islands have suffered over time, but an opportunity to consider what kind of nations we want to live in, and how we may achieve these aspirations.

One which is not openly but certainly governed by various groups of elite politicians, usually born into great wealth and apparently the privilege of power? 

Or one which identifies its own champions and is free to govern with fully devolved powers for the people of a given nation to rule their own affairs.

It is an insult to think that the respective populations of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland can not elect their own people to govern affairs which will never be understood by those who have no ties whatsoever with them.

Perhaps enough people in England then will realise that their own political aristocracy is corrupt, outdated and therefore ineffective in governing a people which like any other country has many great aspirations.

Constant heart burn, pass me a rennie.