Public Ear

For some considerable time there have been discussions about the idea of investment priorities. Investment as a word, in its purest form, means ‘the act of putting money, effort, time, etc. into something to make a profit or get an advantage.’ Over the decades successive governments, both national and local, have adhered rigidly to the idea of investment being purely to make a profit believing that ‘wealth is strength’ and a strong economy automatically guarantees the betterment of society. However in an ideal world this might be true but by not giving nearly as much thought as they should have to the idea of investment as a means to a better quality of life, they have deviated from the central democratic idea that the true path of wealth does not just lie in fiscal considerations but in the way that the generation of wealth is better used to benefit the entire population in a more holistic way.

In May 2019, New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern put out a national budget where she stated (quote) “spending is dictated by what best encourages the “well-being” of citizens, rather than focussing on traditional bottom-line measures like productivity and economic growth.” (unqoute)

The Office for National Statistics published a paper in 2018 called ‘Measuring National well-being: Quality of life in the UK.’ However, how any organisation can measure well-being without physically asking everyone, to get a truly representative picture, is beyond me and I would venture to guess, most people. To give you an insight into how the UK government assesses the well-being of our nation, the following is taken verbatim from the ONS website.

Main points

“The latest update of the Measuring of National Well-being programme provides a broadly positive picture of life in the UK, with most indicators either improving or staying the same over the short-term (one year) and long-term (five years).

Younger people (mainly aged 16 to 24) were more likely to report higher ratings of satisfaction with their health and engage in physical activities.

The main challenges for younger people include unemployment, loneliness, having someone to rely on and a lack of sense of belonging to their neighbourhood.

People in their early and middle years (mainly aged 25 to 54) were generally more likely to be in employment, but less likely to be satisfied with their leisure time.

Older people (mainly aged 75 and over) were more likely to be satisfied with their income, leisure time, feel they can cope financially and belong to their neighbourhood.

The main challenges for older people are lower satisfaction with their health and lower engagement with an art or cultural activity.”

Statistician’s comment

“There is a growing recognition that how we are doing as a nation is at least as much about people’s well-being as it is about the country’s economic health. Today’s analysis shows the strengths and challenges of different age groups in society. These insights can help target services where they are most needed and can have the best impact”.

Publicear Summary

The way that this government agency assesses the overall well-being of the nation is therefore based, as they say, ‘on using accepted and trusted statistical measures, reporting twice a year and giving a progress report based on a set of headline indicators covering areas of our lives including our health, natural environment, personal finances and crime.

We contend that the current general population in the UK are split into defined social groups with differing financial and social needs and therefore any general analysis concerning areas of our life must be flawed because of this.

The statistician’s posit that their findings are based on ‘objective data (eg: unemployment rate) and subjective data (eg: satisfaction with job). It must be stressed that the data in these reports are gathered from household surveys and people living in care or the homeless are not represented.

We understand that realistically with a large population we need to have a yard-stick to go by and statistics are the accepted measure of most things, things like fiscal policies, things that can be quantified and measured but with well-being can we accurately measure this with statistics?

We believe not! We think that there needs to be a completely new rationale with regard to a much wider and complete interpretation of national collective eudaimonia.

The Guardian newspaper in 2011 wrote that Britain at that time had the ‘Worst quality of life in Europe’ even behind countries with damaged economies such as Ireland and Italy. Some of the reasons behind this damning indictment were, among many others, ‘second lowest hours of sunshine per year, fourth highest retirement age and third lowest spend on national health as a percentage of GDP. Other factors contributing to this social welfare non-achievement are, despite having the fourth highest household income in Europe, we had 5.5 days fewer holidays than the European average and we have to endure a below average government spend on education.

During this period according to these ‘unquestionably accurate’ statistics, more than 1 in 10 Britons (12%) was considering emigration, (59%) of those questioned considered our society to be ‘broken’, 49% had concerns about the ‘cost of living’, 47% worried about ‘crime and violence’ and tellingly just 5% of those questioned were happy in the UK. Remember this questionnaire was completed during full membership of the EU not during any of the Brexit years. It is also important to note that here in the UK we pay a higher than European average cost for fuel, alcohol and tobacco.

In March 2016, a referendum was initiated to determine whether the country wished to remain as a member of the European Union, the result being that 52% of the electorate expressed a desire to leave. After 3 years of Parliamentary procrastination, in October of 2019, the UK finally left but without a ratified trade deal and to this point there is still no tangible trade deal document. During the 3 years of protracted discussion in Parliament, it became obvious that any outcome of the referendum would not be in the best interest of the British people but in the best interest of the economy, nation but above all Parliament. It has become manifestly obvious that apart from Parliamentary procedure, for the ordinary person in the street, there is no simplified mechanism by which to challenge Parliament unless through the appropriate MP. Members can be lobbied but given the extraordinary circumstances of the lengthy Brexit debate, it is felt by many political commentators that using the accepted conventional Parliamentary procedures, the chances of any individual achieving anything other than a token political gesture, is unlikely. If this is the case, then as far as democracy is concerned it is quite within the rights of every person to question, whether Parliament is truly serving the people in the manner it was meant to.

As a non partisan organisation, we would invite any members of the main parties or independent candidates standing for the forthcoming elections, to take this opportunity in voicing what you would do differently than your political opponents. You might also want to write posts giving an indication, if you are elected, what you would hope to do in council chambers that would have a significant influence in making changes to, what many think, to be a rigid, non progressive and stagnant system. For the main party candidates, please don’t just quote from your manifesto, as we get enough of that through our letter boxes and on very rare occasions, our front door steps. It would be refreshing to get some new and original insights and opinions from prospective candidates, who just might show evidence of that spark, that progressive thinking, which we believe is sadly lacking in local government institutions. Please post anything that would make readers of this blog stop, think and remark ‘ you know that’s new, that’s original, this person appears to have the ability to imagine a better way of doing things and just might get my vote’. The very best of luck!