Please note that the post below was published more than ten year ago on 21st November 2009 Nick Herbert MP, shadow cabinet member for the Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs, was in Cumbria this morning to see the areas affected by the flooding. He writes on Conservative Home about his visit. Here is an extract. I’ve been in Cumbria today to see the areas affected by the floods. I arrived early in Keswick where I met officials from the Environment Agency. Although the river levels had fallen considerably and homes were no longer flooded, the damage to homes had been done. And the water which had got into houses wasn’t just from the river – it was foul water which had risen from the drains. I talked to fire crews who were pumping flood water back into the river, and discovered that they were from Tyne & Wear and Lancashire. They had been called in at an hours’ notice and had been working on the scene ever since, staying at a local hotel. You cannot fail to be impressed by the
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I thought the quote was worth repeating because
1) Colin Powell is certainly right that there is no magic secret which guarantees success, and
2) Other things being equal, the qualities he praises, particularly hard work, learning from failure, and persistence, make you more likely to succeed at things.
Do those things guarantee success, in Britain or anywhere else? Of course not.
Do they improve your chances of success, in Britain or elsewhere? In my experience, they absolutely do.
1. Carefully select your parents.
2. Have your parents send you to the best school THEY can afford.
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10. Join the Freemasons.
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I went to a direct grant school which was and is one of the best schools in the country. It was then forced to go independent and now only those whose parents have money or who get a bursary can go there.
Some of the boys at that school followed pretty much the rules which Colin Powell suggested, took advantage of the opportunity and have mostly done very well over the subsequent thirty years.
Others larked around. They mostly have not.
Of course where you start in life makes a difference but so does what you do with it. John Major started his life in Brixton with very few opportunities.
Can't say I've noticed any difference in progress between those of my friends who are freemasons and those who are not, There are many good reasons to join but imagining that it will take you to the top of the tree is a very bad one, not least because it won't.
I think perhaps the best answer to the point you make comes from a passage in one of the first things which is said to someone who has just joined the masons, a few minutes after they join.
(By the way I'm not breaking promises or exposing any secrets here, anyone can walk into the shop at Freemason's Hall and the organisation will happily sell you a book containing the words I am about to quote, whether or not the purchaser is a mason.)
"In a society so widely extended as Freemasonry, the branches of which are spread over the four quarters of the globe, it cannot be denied that we have many members of rank and opulence: neither can it be concealed that among the thousands who range under its' banners, there are some who, perhaps from circumstances of unavoidable calamity and misfortune, are reduced to the lowest ebb of poverty and distress."
There is no magic wand which guarantees worldly success, and no organisation which can guarantee that if you join it.
There are some police officers who are also masons in the police but the proportion is not larger than a small minority at any rank or level. Most Chief Constables are not masons, so they obviously managed to get promoted without being members.
To the best of my knowledge the proportion of civil servants and of senior civil servants who are masons is much smaller still, and the same applies.