What should we and our governments actually learn from 2020? Seven things, and clapping is not one of them.
Key workers kept whole countries going and they need more than a clap on a Thursday. You cannot be ambiguous with rules, because a rule that says do not use public transport unless you need to use public transport is not a rule. Journalism went commercial, and soft questions buy access. The stock market is not the country. And collectively, handed months of time we had never had, most of us wasted it. Including me.
One thing to try: Pick the one on this list that is actually about you, not about them. Start there.
In this episode
(3:06) Key workers, and what a country owes them
(5:14) Clapping does not pay anybody's rent
(9:14) The strangeness of standing close to people again
(10:36) You cannot be ambiguous with rules
(11:16) Do not use public transport unless you use public transport
(14:06) Journalism has become commercialised
(16:20) Ask a hard question, never get the interview again
(17:50) The stock market is not the country
(20:29) Handed months of time, and we wasted it
Support the podcast and join the Weekly Calm: stevenwebb.uk
Thank you for listening.
Steven
The question this answers
What should we, and our governments, actually learn from 2020?
Recorded in July of that year, part way through it, which is worth knowing. These are my views at the time and I am a local councillor, so I have a side and I say so.
The heart of it
Key workers kept whole countries running, and clapping on a Thursday does not pay a bill.
You cannot be ambiguous with rules. An ambiguous rule is not a rule.
Handed months of time we had never had, most of us wasted it. Me included.
The economy runs on ordinary people spending money. Big business still has money in the bank. It only becomes an economy when the rest of us go and spend it, which is why giving money to people who have none is the fastest way to move anything.
Key workers is the one I feel strongest about. The people distributing food, on the farms, in the hospitals, in the supermarkets, on the bins. They were at risk and most of them are near the bottom of the pay scale. Recognising that is welcome. It is not the same as paying them.
Nobody predicted this. Seventy seven million blogs are published every month and not one described what actually happened.
Human contact turned out to matter more than nearly anything. Some of it improved: I sat in on seminars I could never have flown to, for thirty dollars. And I am a cuddler and I had not had one in months, and that absence was strange in a way I did not expect.
Then the ambiguity, which is the one that made me despair. Do not use public transport unless you need to use public transport. Travel to exercise, but only if you cannot exercise where you are, and only if the exercise takes longer than the journey. That is not guidance. That is a government trying to please two audiences at once, and you cannot get lives back afterwards.
Journalism has gone commercial. Ask the hard question and you do not get invited back, and the interview is worth money. So the questions get soft. I would rather be asked the difficult ones, because that is how anybody knows whether I am doing my job.
And the stock market is not the country. It has become a game where money is made whether it climbs or falls, and pointing at a record high tells you very little about anybody's life.
One small thing to try
Do the second half of the exercise, which almost nobody does.
Listing where the government failed is easy. Ask where you failed.
Mine is plain. Four months ago I thought I had plenty of time, and I have done about half of what I said I would. If somebody handed me a pill for another hundred years I would waste ninety of them, because I would think there was no rush.
Questions people ask
Why politics on a podcast about inner peace?
Because the journey is not about walking away from the world. Understanding how things actually work is part of it, and disconnecting from it is not wisdom, it is avoidance.
Are these predictions?
No. It is a list of lessons from partway through the year, recorded in July 2020, and it should be read as a snapshot rather than a verdict.
What is the hopeful part?
That we learn. If the next one costs fewer lives because of what was worked out this time, then some of it counted. And two of the treatments came out of the UK, which is a strange thing to sit alongside the rest of our record.
Read along
The transcript
It follows the audio. Press any line to jump there.
In this episode
covid · politics · change
Read the transcript
Hey, welcome to this week's podcast. I'm Steven Webb, and this week I'm talking about the seven things we and
the government should learn from 2020.
What a year 2020s could be. No one would have predicted this. Even Nostradamus that wrote down
hundreds and hundreds of predictions would never have predicted 2020.
So I've put together seven things that we in government should learn from 2020. But just before we start on
that, I want to say thank you to you for coming back, listening to this podcast, and taking some time
out from your day to listen to what I have to say. That really fills me humbly, and I really
appreciate that. And, you know, we all like to think we've got something to say. And when people come back
and they share my podcast and they leave reviews and they contact me and say how much
they enjoy the podcast, things like that, it really does fill me with a deep, deep gratitude for you guys.
So thank you um and thank you to my patrons and my supporters on Facebook um
Just for a little fee every month, you can decide on the topics of my podcast. You can get other
videos and you can get other stuff that I don't normally talk about in public.
You get some of the uncut and some of the videos that go along with these podcasts.
So you can head over to my website and click on support, and you can become a patron or support
me on Facebook. But anyway, let's go Back to the seven things we in government should learn from 2020. The
first one I wrote down is the economy relies on everyday people spending money. Boy, isn't this a true
one? You know, it's the big businesses still have the money in the bank. They still have their government
handouts and things like that. But unless we go and spend money in the shops and buy the stuff and
go to the restaurants and buy the fuel and things like that, they can't run without us. You know, it
might be most of the money is in the two percent but it's the 98 percent that when we're given
money, we spend it and give it back to them. So really is what one of those things now with
governments putting people on furlough and helping out um people at home with like, in America, they give
twelve hundred dollars to everybody, I believe, okay they think in the private business is about 36 000 equivalent
to each one of the Ceos individually themselves. I believe some kind of crazy statistic like that. But
they do know the importance of giving to individuals. You know, if you want an economy to Grow, give money
to the people that haven't got money because guess what they do with it They spend it. And I think
the governments know this. It just doesn't happen in normal times. And this is not normal times. And
my second one is about key workers. You know, they're the most important people who kept the countries going. You
know, the people that they distributed the food that works on the farms they kept the hospitals going, that
kept the child care going enabled these people to go to work to transport people and you know
okay the supermarkets were open for their money and, oh, don't get me wrong, but the people working in the
supermarkets to keep these things going, the people that distributed to the supermarkets
and the people that helped out each other by delivering the food, by phoning their neighbours and saying, is there
anything you need? You know, these key workers, these people that were out risking their lives and
yes, they were risking their lives um helping out the communities and helping out other people. So a
country really needs these key workers, these people that are on minimum wage, you know, these nurses, the the
um frontline people, the dustmen, the
people work in the public sector, the police, all of these people that very often get
overlooked in society. They very often get the brunt end of everything. And they really
it really is humbling to see governments actually recognise that they're the people that need it. And I hope that
continues, I hope that really continues not only with the public, but with the government that we really recognise the
importance of key workers, carers and people like that. The people that really are on the breadline of the money.
You know, in the UK, every Thursday we were clapping for carers in the NHS. You know,
I just hope they up the money. I hope they start to really appreciate what they did and they're not
forgotten after this. And so they shouldn't be forgotten. They should be remembered and they should be looked after. And
clapping for them just doesn't cut it. They literally need to have that increase wages They need to have a
wage that gives them the
ability to pay their bills and have some kind of freedom in their lives.
Number three, anything can happen. We've learned really that there's no way you can predict what's going
to happen next year. And you know, no one would have predicted this if anybody had wrote a blog last
year. And bear in mind, there's 77.8 million blogs every month published. Not one person.
And I know a couple of people said there'd be a virus at some point and things like that, but
nobody expected a virus. And then the Whole world shutting down. Nobody predicted this whole thing in the
way it planned out. If anybody did publish something or looked up and said the beginning of December, oh, the
whole world's going to close down with the economy, all countries are going to be working together and it's going
to be like. It's going to be like turning the lights out around the world as the world goes around,
just slightly slower than as the days go. It's just going to be. Take a few weeks to happen. Even
if anybody had read the blog let alone shared it or. But then if you ask most people, what would
you really like, they go, time out. Just like three months out. Please let the world stop while I get
off, recoup, like rejuvenate my life. Let me sort my life out and then I get back on,
you know, that would that would have been ideal. I think many people would have liked to have that happen
and Number four, there are very few things more important than human contact and human connection
and this On one hand, we've had a deeper and bigger connection around the world. I've been to seminars that
would normally require flying to the United States, and I've been. I've able to pay a very small minimal fee
of like 30 dollars and join in on seminars that I would never have had the opportunity to before. And
I sit here and I get jealous. I get jealous when I see these live events from these floors of
these big arenas and they're going around, they're talking to a fellow live people and I'm like, I go live
all the time. I have a podcast, but I don't get to meet these people because I cannot fly to
the States. I don't have the money to go these places well suddenly I was included. So that's one aspect
of it which is pretty amazing and brilliant and excellent the other aspect of it, cuddles. Just
to be able to have a conversation and see someone and look into their eyes properly,
that's really difficult. You know, I so took that for granted I'm a cuddler. I like physical
contact and suddenly I haven't had a cuddle for how long, and it's weird,
it doesn't feel right. And then when I started to go out again, and I don't go out a lot,
I've only been. I could probably count on one hand how many times I've been out the house properly in
the past five months. And
when I do go out and I see people, it feels strange. And because I'm in a wheelchair and because
People are often very caring and they understand that I would be vulnerable. It's obvious I'm vulnerable because I don't
have a hidden disability.
They treat me like they're walking past a horse, like cars, you know, and they slow right down and they
take a wide berth and they go, Well, people do that to me. And I'm like, thank you. I really
appreciate that. But it's weird, it's strange
and And when people haven't got masks on, things like that, when you're pretty close to them and they're talking
over you and things like that, it's like, oh, this is weird. Please don't do that. Just
strange times. So
human contact is so, so, so important. And I can't wait to get back to some kind of normality for
that human contact. I don't want to get back to the normality of the other stuff don't get me wrong
I don't want to go back to the traffic jams and the commuting and the hustling and brat race of
the busy life. I don't want that. I think we've recognised that we can work from home. We can be
productive. I think Twitter I've said all their staff can work from home indefinitely. Businesses have realised
they don't have to commute all over the world to do these conferences. They can do it on a virtual
thing.
People the businesses that said it'd be a security risk to work from home are now working from home.
These offices that are so full of all these staff that leave home, get in a car, park up, go
into an office are
now realising they didn't need to go into the office at all. So lots of lots of changes and I
welcome a lot of those changes.
Number five, you cannot be ambiguous with rules. This is more for a government and
businesses and Well everything really. You need to be firm with the rules. These are the rules and we're going
to stick to it. No, no questions asked um Whereas our government in the Uk is
like, well, you can go out if you really need to, but if you don't need to, don't go out
um go to work unless you can work from home, then don't go to work unless you need to go
to work, then go to work. Don't use public transport unless you need to use public transport, then use public
transport, but don't use public transport unless you really. It's like, what? It's been a joke in the
uk just, just when they locked down, they said we could do some exercise. Well, then they said, can
we travel to do exercise? Well, yes, but no. Okay, what does that mean, well,
if you cannot exercise outside of your house, you can travel to somewhere to do some exercise. Okay, so everybody
flocked to the beaches and the walks in the countryside. They said, well, you can, but you shouldn't unless you
can do it locally. Right, okay. If I cannot do it locally, I can drive to the beach to exercise.
Well, yes, but the distance you have to exercise for more than the time it takes for you to get
to the place. It's like, what.
I don't know what to say to that I You know, it's just. It's just barmy In the uk,
of course, we got a government that doesn't. That wants to appease both sides. They want to be seen to
locking down, saving lives that Let's protect the country. That's very much on the left. On the right, of course
they want to protect the country, but they don't want to have their civil liberties taken away. You cannot tell
me what to do. If I want to go out and go for a walk, I will go out and
go for a walk, you know. And so they try to appease both, and you cannot do it. You have
to take a stance and say, no, this is what we are going to do. You know, both sides will
get over it at some point, but you cannot get lives back. This is what us in America are gonna
badly learn. We're gonna. We're losing so many people over this because of ambiguous rules and trying to.
Trying to please both sides. I don't know if the word ambiguous is the right one, but basically, I mean,
you cannot be flimsy with rules You have to be strict with them. You have to be to the point,
you know, really black and white people don't understand, you
know, like the murder rule, you cannot kill someone. Well, can I do it in this instance? No, you just
cannot do it. Okay. When
we were asked not to smoke in shops, we were told, you cannot smoke in shops, you cannot smoke in
pubs and restaurants. Well, can I smoke just like. Partly. No. Can I light it up in them No
Whereas the rules on Mask in the Uk are a bit. They're a bit crazy. They're a bit crazy.
Understandable, but crazy. So number six, then. This is one you may recognise, you may not, you may have
noticed it you may not, but journalism has become commercialized. It used to be a while ago where a journalist
would ask the strong questions but the problem is if they ask the strong questions, they no longer get asked
back to do the interview. Then Donald Trump is the big one. Here we got Piers Morgan in the UK
is about the only person that's allowed to interview Donald Trump. He's not anymore because he's took a different stance
since COVID-19 and he's called out Trump and Boris for their failures in how to deal with this. And
so therefore, Piers Morgan has really changed his stance. And to the degree that Donald Trump now
has called him out on Twitter and said, I can't believe what's happened to you. Why have you changed? Well,
I guarantee if Donald Trump comes over here again,
Piers Morgan won't be allowed to interview him again. So this is where journalism has become commercialized.
Unless you ask the nice, soft questions, you won't get to do the interview. And because those interviews are worth
money on adverts and viewers, all these Tv stations and these um journalists want to be the ones to interview
them. So they've become soft and And I blame politicians for this and journalists for this
and the public, we shouldn't be tuning in for um you know, an interview of a journalist should not be
a party political broadcast. It should not be advertising for a political person. It should be information for other people
And the tough questions to know whether they're working for us or not. I can say that I'm a politician,
I'm a local councillor, and I would rather be asked the tough questions to make sure I'm doing my job
as opposed to, well, no, just ask me nice fluffy questions, ones that are going to get me re-elected that
I can give nice answers to.
So really, journalism has really sold its soul to the politicians I I feel, in large areas.
And we need to have some politicians that will push back um Chris Wallace, brilliant. Fox News, he did it.
But he'll never interview Trump again because of what he did, because he questioned. He said, no, I'm sorry, sir,
but you're wrong. You know, defunding the police, that's not what Biden's about. And no one's talking about defunding the
police and getting rid of the police anyway. What we're talking about, I say we because I agree with it.
And that is, look, if we can prevent crime, then we don't need as many police officers. We'll still need
police officers because they do more than just prevent crime or they protect the public from other stuff as well.
When things go wrong, there are natural disasters and all the police are there to help protect us, things like
that. So it's not about getting rid of policemen. It's about if we can sort out the suburbs that most
of the crime is at with education and stuff like that, perhaps we don't need too many officers. And that's
what defunding the police is all about. But of course, it's been hijacked by the right to say they want
to get rid of all policemen just so all their criminals can just run around and do everything they want.
And unfortunately, people are falling for this right left argument. The
right says all politically correct you cannot put up a flag. And the left say, well, we never said you
couldn't put up a flag. Yes, you did. No, we didn't. It's this it's this battle um and
journalism are not helping this. And I think it's really come to the forefront of this. And the last one
I'm going to say, and you will have many, many more of this um but the last one I'm gonna
go into detail with is the stock markets. The stock markets are so out of whack with the
economy, it's unbelievable. They have become a game of how do we move the stock market? When the stock market
is climbing, they're making money. When the stock market is dropping they're making money. So the stock market used to
reflect what's going on in the economy and in the businesses. It's not. It's now a game. It's a game
of can the hedge funds and the investors move the stock market. And the more they move it in a
predicted way, the more money they make up or down. So when it crashed, they made money. When it went
up, they made money. The people that lose are the genuine businesses on there. The businesses behind the hedge
funds, behind the investors.
And there's in for a really big crash now, again. It'll go right down and then it'll go back up
again. And both ways people make money. And what when you get our leaders say, look at the stock market
is record highs. It's a game. It's no longer representing the economy, far from it. It's so out of whack
with the economy. The economies are in so much trouble right now um And this
Recovery since the 2008 crash just hasn't happened anywhere. It's a fake recovery. They all know it.
They all know it's this economy is built on sand and they all know it's going to collapse soon. But
the hedge funds and all don't care because they don't care about the business and all they invest in, they
care whether they make money for the hedge funds. Now, I know you don't tune into a Stillness in the
Storms podcast to hear about the stock market, but part of the spiritual journey is about understanding these things. You
cannot disconnect and ignore these things. The
spiritual journey isn't about walking away. So
I'm going to quickly go through um a few more that I wrote down. But I did, but I'm not
going to go into them in detail um First of all, we should fear a virus more than we should
fear World War Three. That's a pretty obvious one um And humans are not as caring as what we believe.
I thought humans were very caring about other people. Just this whole face mask argument proves we're really not like
caring about other people. We're still thinking about ourselves collectively more than we do other people. Even
when handed many months of paid leave. When we're handed this time out, we still will waste it. You know,
I said on a call last night that if I was. If I had suddenly another 100 years to live
and someone said, here, here's a pill, it'll make you live another 100 years I know what I'll do. I'll
waste 90 of them. I think I've got another 100 years I don't need a rush.
That's the reality. Most of us didn't read the books, we didn't get fit fitter we didn't change our lives
during the three-month lockdown that we were going to do when it started.
That's a whole different show. No government can tackle the global problem alone. Absolutely. It's about time we
started to really work together.
Just like um But we've got lots of meetings about the economy of truer and we cannot
tackle it alone. The council can't do it. The businesses can do it alone. The people can't do it alone
It's got to be. We all got to work together on this.
Governments cannot work to work alone. To fix problems that are global problems.
Governments need to mature and take responsibility instead of blaming others when things go wrong. Well I I would say
this for humans as well. Humans and governments, we need to take responsibility. You know, we got it wrong. How
can we learn and don't just keep blaming other people.
Even when faced with the most difficult circumstances, humans will not forfeit their right to protest for what is right.
Well, I agree with this I I really agree with this. I agree with Black Lives Matter. I don't agree
with the way it's been hijacked and abused. Now that's a different story. That's the same as every kind of
political movement.
Human apathy and complacency is our real danger. We get used to what is comfortable even in times of
adversity. Look at the way we're opening up now. The threat is as real today as what it was four
months ago. Yet we're opening up we're being braver we're We're almost looking at like it's not a problem anymore.
Well, it is a problem and it's growing now. We are learning more about it. We are saving more lives,
more people have been treated better. And I have to say the Uk has been at the forefront of this.
We've come up with two treatments and we're quite far ahead on the vaccines as far
as the information that is coming out. So that's one where the UK are doing terrible for everything
else but we're doing okay on the fight against um and isn't it ironic that the countries that are doing
worse in their lives are doing better in the science. Yeah,
that's quite interesting. Yeah, 2020 is a lot of things. And one thing's for sure, it's a year that nobody
expected at the year that everybody will be talking about for many centuries to come. There'll be thesis
and documentaries wrote about this in 300 years time. If we're still here, we'll be learning from this. The next
the next um pandemic hopefully will save lives because we learn from this. Hopefully we'll put together teams that can
descend on any country that has any outbreak within a few hours. Yeah that's let's learn a lot from
this year. Let's see if we can learn a lot about our lives in this year um It's easy to
point where the government, like I've done on this podcast, has
failed. There's not very often to see where we failed. And I know where I failed. I haven't, I haven't
used and capitalized on this time out as much as I should have done.
I thought three months, four months ago, I got plenty of time. Four months were opening up and I haven't
done half of what I said I was going to do. That's something I've learned about myself.
Let's embrace it, let's grow through it and let's don't waste any more of it. Thank you for listening to
this podcast. Thank you for tuning in and I really appreciate your time. Deep Bow and I'm Steven, your host
of Stillness in the Storms. Head over to my website and be and you can become a patron or support
me on Facebook. That would be awesome and amazing. And you get to vote on new topics of podcast
and you also get to once a month sit down with me in a zoom room and ask me the
questions that I can help you find a little more inner peace in your life. Take care, guys. Have a
wonderful day. Whatever you're doing, wherever you are.
