Why is that then Indalo ?
Nothing quite like a good political discussion to get the blood flowing.....
Hope its not increasing your blood pressure too much ?
Lynda
PS....I agree with you over the aircraft carriers......
Nothing quite like a good political discussion to get the blood flowing.....
Hope its not increasing your blood pressure too much ?
Lynda
PS....I agree with you over the aircraft carriers......
I don't believe it's wrong Funklyn and it certainly isn't a slur on our armed forces and why you even suggest that only serves to reinforce the paucity of argument with which I am familiar from tories.
Indalo
Well, if you dont believe its wrong to think that the tories have harmed the british public more than the nazis then I dont quite know what else I can say to you but everyones is entitled to their opinions ......
probably best to leave it there .......I dont want to hijack this thread with purely politics.....I prefer my political discussions over a glass of wine over supper with lots of people .......and definately preferably of all political persuasions
Lynda
I went through a bad divorce back in 2002 and i lost the lot a 5 bedroom detached house with no mortgage. What absolutely staggered me was how trying to start again from scratch, JUST HOW DIFFICULT IT HAS BECOME FOR ALL the YOUNGSTERS.
I went to University. I did not have to pay for my tuition, and i did not have to pay for my keep. I had a small overdraft when i left, but that was only because of my Drinking!.
Nowadays a kid will need to raise 27,000 for tuition fees, and another 25,000 to live for three years while at University.
When i left University i got a job earning 9100 a year and my first house cost me 22,000 a year, so 2.41 times my earnings
Nowadays that same job would pay about 22,000 pounds and the same house has just been sold for 182,000 pounds so 8.27 times my earnings.
I insured my first car at age 18 for 108 pounds per year, today the average insurance paid by an 18 year old boy is approximately 2100 pounds.
Then you take into consideration youth unemployment at endemic levels circa 40% + and even if you can get to university and even buy a small house you will without any doubt be left in a chronic debt situation for the rest of your life.
I am 50 years old, and when i started out it was a PIECE OF **** in relation to what the kids face today and i am talking about the bright kids, it is far worse for the less bright, and the facts i have used above prove this beyond any reasonable doubt.
My new wife is Ukrainian and she said that what the Communists were able to achieve was the elimination of all hope within people, so they turned to Vodka or Violence, sound familiar?
What i believe in, is give the kids a far better and fair chance and some hope, and then hammer the idiots who never want to work, as then there would be no excuse.
I went to University. I did not have to pay for my tuition, and i did not have to pay for my keep. I had a small overdraft when i left, but that was only because of my Drinking!.
Nowadays a kid will need to raise 27,000 for tuition fees, and another 25,000 to live for three years while at University.
When i left University i got a job earning 9100 a year and my first house cost me 22,000 a year, so 2.41 times my earnings
Nowadays that same job would pay about 22,000 pounds and the same house has just been sold for 182,000 pounds so 8.27 times my earnings.
I insured my first car at age 18 for 108 pounds per year, today the average insurance paid by an 18 year old boy is approximately 2100 pounds.
Then you take into consideration youth unemployment at endemic levels circa 40% + and even if you can get to university and even buy a small house you will without any doubt be left in a chronic debt situation for the rest of your life.
I am 50 years old, and when i started out it was a PIECE OF **** in relation to what the kids face today and i am talking about the bright kids, it is far worse for the less bright, and the facts i have used above prove this beyond any reasonable doubt.
My new wife is Ukrainian and she said that what the Communists were able to achieve was the elimination of all hope within people, so they turned to Vodka or Violence, sound familiar?
What i believe in, is give the kids a far better and fair chance and some hope, and then hammer the idiots who never want to work, as then there would be no excuse.
This is an interesting opinion about some of the youth of today, (livejournal blog, no NWS content).......
Adult Content Notice
Adult Content Notice
What an interesting thread.
I saw, "call me Dave" talking tough on TV yesterday. What I wonder is, where does he plan to put all these people who have been arrested? The prisons are full, the police cell blocks are full and a the juvenile detention centres have been full for a while. This is all set against a backdrop of Ken Clarke plotting to reduce the prison population from it's present level. The tough talk and the sums don't correlate.
I saw the detestable Michael Gove on Breakfast News this morning. He appeared to have a mouth full of fluid and was trying to talk without spilling any as he trotted out well worn phrases about learning lessons. I don't think that I have ever been so disillusioned with politics.
The current disorder situation has been brewing for years and the lessons have been obvious.
I saw, "call me Dave" talking tough on TV yesterday. What I wonder is, where does he plan to put all these people who have been arrested? The prisons are full, the police cell blocks are full and a the juvenile detention centres have been full for a while. This is all set against a backdrop of Ken Clarke plotting to reduce the prison population from it's present level. The tough talk and the sums don't correlate.
I saw the detestable Michael Gove on Breakfast News this morning. He appeared to have a mouth full of fluid and was trying to talk without spilling any as he trotted out well worn phrases about learning lessons. I don't think that I have ever been so disillusioned with politics.
The current disorder situation has been brewing for years and the lessons have been obvious.
It certainly is......all part of lifes rich tapestry......and as for room in the prisons....I was just thinking the same.....wondering how many rapists and pedophiles might be released to make room for the rioters.......
Ever get the feeling we are on a hiding to nothing ?
Lynda
Quite true! Some will be squeezed into prisons and the overcrowding will be relieved by early release of low level crime short sentence offenders. Who will they be? Naturally not the murderers, rapists and paedophiles, but the rioters of course!
Others will get community service sentences. Those who don't bother to turn up for those will be sent to prison and benefit from even earlier releases, since their crime will be the even lower level one of failing a community sentence order. Those who turn up occasionally for their community service and perform in a desultory fashion will default long before completion and probably not be pursued at all.
All this is apparently thought to be a policy!
You're not wrong there Flecc........I despair really.......and although I am the first to admit that maggie didnt always get it right at least she didnt waffle about as much as all our recent crop of leaders....no matter which party they are from.
Lets see what 'my mate dave' is really made of, because if he doesnt start getting this right then there really is not much hope left.....I remain to be convinced, even if he DID stop to have breakfast here in Ilminster last year
Lynda
Lets see what 'my mate dave' is really made of, because if he doesnt start getting this right then there really is not much hope left.....I remain to be convinced, even if he DID stop to have breakfast here in Ilminster last year
Lynda
I'm with you on Michael Gove, (Edinburgh's shame!) Tillson but you're a little out of touch I'm afraid on current cellular availability within the prison system. Recently, for a variety of reasons, there has been a drop in prisoner numbers and there is actually spare capacity at the moment.
Although it's frequently difficult to identify the actual catalyst for the kind of events we've seen this last few days, there is no doubt that the shooting of Mark Duggan in itself was not the inspiration behind what we have witnessed. Historically, there are usually factors involving social deprivation or exclusion behind civil unrest. Only recently, I read the story of the Littleport riot and the reasons for that weren't much different from many other similar events over the last couple of centuries.
We have created an underclass in this country from which there probably seems no escape for many. They have no social graces; they are amoral and harbour a festering resentment of all those they perceive as better off than themselves. Governments of both persuations have continually failed to grasp that job creation and retention is the singlemost useful thing that could be done to tackle the sub-culture spawned from chronic long-term unemployment.
All my life this country has squandered billions of pounds on foreign aid to countries whose people commit acts of genocide, war, torture, rape and brutality against their neighbours, (sometimes even against their own people by ethnic cleansing) and those same people hate Britain and the USA. For me, charity begins at home and although my views are socialist, I'm afraid international socialism has to take a back seat till we get our own house in order.
To do that, we could begin by trying to give the underclass some dignity and that dignity comes largely from work. As we pay them for doing cock-all, we may as well pay them for getting up in the morning and doing some work, no matter how menial. The principle has worked elsewhere so it can work here too. No work = no pay = no food.
I knew I shouldn't have looked at this thread again!
Indalo
You are so right there Indalo......deep down we are sort of singing from the same hymn sheet !
My dad brought us up with the saying........
'no workie...no eatie '
Lynda
My dad brought us up with the saying........
'no workie...no eatie '
Lynda
What i really liked about Margaret Thatcher is that she talked the talk and walked the walk NO ARGUMENT. love her, or hate her she was no hypocrite.
Blair in my mind is an abomination of a human being a sad apology of a man. This was the leader of Britain's Socialist party who has nearly 4 Million pounds of mortgages on his Buy To Let empire !!!!!!! or when his political career ended goes and works for that bastion of Socialism JP Morgan Chase. Or despite starting a completely illegal war in Iraq that has the cost the lives of over 500,000 Iraq,s and many believe closer to 1 million, he accepts a job as a middle east peace envoy !!!!! At Nuremberg they hanged Nazi leaders for prosecuting aggressive war, which is war without the sanction of the then League Of Nations and now the UN. Tony one quick question, SHOW us the UN Paperwork? !!!!
And the less said about Gordon Brown the better. A COMPLETE DISASTER
In my opinion this is a major part of the problem VERY POOR LEADERSHIP, it appears to most of us that the Politicians, Bankers, Lawyers, have got there heads so deeply into the trough they can no longer see the reality, and if they can, then they no longer care unless it leads to something for them. It is the ME, ME, ME society.
And a lot of these kids are now saying " and what about ME" they are following there LEADERS EXAMPLES !!!!!!
Debt of this country increased from 480,000,000,000 pounds before this financial crisis to 1,890,000,000,000 today or 30,000 pounds for every man woman and child in the country.
AND NOBODY GETS REALLY INVESTIGATED AND NOBODY SERVES TIME
That is the real disgrace.
Blair in my mind is an abomination of a human being a sad apology of a man. This was the leader of Britain's Socialist party who has nearly 4 Million pounds of mortgages on his Buy To Let empire !!!!!!! or when his political career ended goes and works for that bastion of Socialism JP Morgan Chase. Or despite starting a completely illegal war in Iraq that has the cost the lives of over 500,000 Iraq,s and many believe closer to 1 million, he accepts a job as a middle east peace envoy !!!!! At Nuremberg they hanged Nazi leaders for prosecuting aggressive war, which is war without the sanction of the then League Of Nations and now the UN. Tony one quick question, SHOW us the UN Paperwork? !!!!
And the less said about Gordon Brown the better. A COMPLETE DISASTER
In my opinion this is a major part of the problem VERY POOR LEADERSHIP, it appears to most of us that the Politicians, Bankers, Lawyers, have got there heads so deeply into the trough they can no longer see the reality, and if they can, then they no longer care unless it leads to something for them. It is the ME, ME, ME society.
And a lot of these kids are now saying " and what about ME" they are following there LEADERS EXAMPLES !!!!!!
Debt of this country increased from 480,000,000,000 pounds before this financial crisis to 1,890,000,000,000 today or 30,000 pounds for every man woman and child in the country.
AND NOBODY GETS REALLY INVESTIGATED AND NOBODY SERVES TIME
That is the real disgrace.
Shep, I cannot argue with anything you have said and I agree with your point that Thatcher was no hypocrite. Unfortunately, she was singularly instrumental in leading a cabinet of toadies into enacting some of the most disgraceful policies of post-war politics.
Her legacy is the disaffected and disenfranchised youth we see on our streets today and that state of affairs is the inevitable consequence of Thatcher's dogmatic "them and us" style of politics. The tories didn't win the last election; they gained power with the laughable party purely because the parliamentary labour party had, (and still has) no credible characters on board and people were fed up with Brown preaching his presbyterian thriftiness to the nation while he maxed out the country's credit card.
How the members of the laughable party can sleep at night, I really can't understand as they have never had any affinity with the tories. On the contrary, they were always fairly closely aligned with the Labour party and the "Dem" bit came out of their amalgamation with the Libs and the Social Democrats. The tories may be lots of things but one thing they are not is social democrats!
Labour really needs to look hard at the ridiculous electoral college they employ as any collective process which produces Ed Milliband as leader is on a par with the committee process that, in trying to produce a great racehorse, came up with a camel! At this time, the most credible member of the team I can think of is Benn the younger. He seems reluctant, (like his father) to actually involve himself in taking up the reins and actually leading the party.
Many years ago, the buzz word in American politics was "New Deal".......I know, it's actually two words! It's time we had a new deal for our people.
Indalo
Politics has gone the same way as corporate business, it's the bottom line that counts, nothing for the workers, you are a number in the machine. Management (political leaders) hide behind management speak thinking they are fooling us, of course they have many 'deliverables' and once you 'drill-down' into their 'high-level' policies you find it's all empty words because nobody really knows what they are talking about, they talk in generalisations and obscure the reality that there is nothing behind their words, not even a 'new deal' !
I blame America, they started it, our politicians just adopt it and think they are as clever as the Americans and we all know how clever American politicians are.
But of course, politicians are businessmen, corrupt or not, and when they leave politics they will need to fit-in to the corporate world and mess that up for the workers also.
I blame America, they started it, our politicians just adopt it and think they are as clever as the Americans and we all know how clever American politicians are.
But of course, politicians are businessmen, corrupt or not, and when they leave politics they will need to fit-in to the corporate world and mess that up for the workers also.
C
Cyclezee
Guest
England in Flames!
Since I started this thread, I have been following it with interest and it has been fascinating to read the differing views of members.
First the rioting started in London, and now it has spread to several other cities in England and so far only England?
With my Scottish background, I am well aware that the same if not greater levels of poverty, unemployment, deprivation, crime, violence, alcoholism and drug abuse exist in Scotland, but the same unrest has not happened there. Why is that?
Is it the cultural and political differences, or could be something as simple as the weather keeping people off the streets?
Football and religious differences have lead to some disgracefull behaviour and episodes of violent criminal behaviour in Scotland, but nowhere near the scale of what is happening in England at the moment. Is this purely an English problem?
I do not profess to know the answers to the problems or to be alarmist, but someone needs to tackle this situation before it escalates even further and we see pictures of death and destruction on our TV screens reminiscent of Northern Ireland.
Since I started this thread, I have been following it with interest and it has been fascinating to read the differing views of members.
First the rioting started in London, and now it has spread to several other cities in England and so far only England?
With my Scottish background, I am well aware that the same if not greater levels of poverty, unemployment, deprivation, crime, violence, alcoholism and drug abuse exist in Scotland, but the same unrest has not happened there. Why is that?
Is it the cultural and political differences, or could be something as simple as the weather keeping people off the streets?
Football and religious differences have lead to some disgracefull behaviour and episodes of violent criminal behaviour in Scotland, but nowhere near the scale of what is happening in England at the moment. Is this purely an English problem?
I do not profess to know the answers to the problems or to be alarmist, but someone needs to tackle this situation before it escalates even further and we see pictures of death and destruction on our TV screens reminiscent of Northern Ireland.
My knowledge of Scotland is somewhat out of date, but at one time I stayed with a deprived family in the old Gorbals of Glasgow for a while before that area was demolished. In stark contrast, some while later I was a guest of the Lord Lieutenant of Dundee on occasions while working there, so I have that old impression of the social contrasts. However, I was never as aware of the inequalities of wealth and position in Scotland as I am in London all the time.
Here the justaposition is extreme, immense and often obscene levels of wealth and privilege in close proximity to equally extreme poverty and deprivation, with both groups large and obvious. With the poor unable to improve their position, primarily due to unemployment, it only needs a spark to ignite the fire.
Another factor that assists in setting off unrest in London and indeed many parts of England is the population density, over 8 millions in Greater London, over 50 millions in England. In Scotland there are 5 millions in the whole area, with 1.2 millions in Greater Glasgow and only just over half a million in the Unitary Authority area of that city.
Some have tried to bring race into the issue, but that's not a relevant factor, the deprived in London being of every racial background, the arrests in the disturbances amply illustrating that.
C