The State of Britain

[Perikles]

Here are my thoughts on Britian at the moment:

Politics
All three major parties seem intent on packing in to the 'middle ground'. Even though I don't really believe in 'left' and 'right' I think that the Conservatives are increasingly becoming like Labour, a direction the new Lib Dem leader also wants to follow. What happened to parties having drastically different policies and a bit of open water in between?

Economy
May have done well in the past few years but has only been fuelled by excessive borrowing. Housing bubble will soon burst and the debt will certainly catch up with the Chancellor. All this tax we seem to be paying goes no where and I no longer think that we get value for money.

Health
The NHS has gone downhill. People are having to sell their homes to pay for care they should be getting on the NHS. People are been force out of hospital beds to let others in and it seems to me that they are more bothered about the budget than patients.

Education
IMO the gap between schools is getting bigger not smaller. People are getting refused acess to 'good' schools as they are way over subscribed and are been sent to 'poor' schools. The government of social justice is trying to get rid of the 11+ and grammar schools that have been one of the main factors for upward social mobility for years, but would keep independent schools for people who can afford to go.
The government has also introduced university top up fees of about £3000 a year, they got their education free.

In the World/EU
Our standing in the world has been greatly reduced. After punching above our weight for years the government has consigned us to been a second-class country. We are bossed about by France in the EU and seem to have been taken over by Brussels. Immigrants are flooding to our country for a better life or because we are a soft touch and not integrating, sparking increased racial tensions.

I think that the next few years are vital for Britain, Make or Break. We can either let our country slip or try and sort it out.
What do other Britains think about our country?
What do 'foreigners' think?

[purple elf]

I totaly agree our country is really begining too suck but still we aint 3rd world yet even though were may end up getting closer to it

[The Alcotroll]

"Hello Zero, this is Foxtrot Uniform Charlie Kilo Echo Delta. Permission to transport handcart to location: 'hell', over?"

Pretty much sums it up. While I'm not sure that immigration is as much of a worry as it is made out to be, I certainly worry about the NHS and the seemingly faltering economy. I'm unsettled by the dash for the middle-ground in politics, and disappointed that Ming the Merciless is going to follow Cameron in aping New Labour. Looks like I'll have to vote Green at the next election.
I worry about our dwindling political clout, and the foreign policy disasters Bliar et al have blundered into.

Most of all, I worry about the constant defense cuts touted as 'efficiency' by a penny-pinching chancellor, that are not mirrored by a reduction in deployments for our forces. We're not getting out of Iraq any time soon, we've a major deployment in Afghanistan coming up, and the Argentinians are making noises about 'Los Malvinas' again (I'll see if I can find the article for that). On top of this, look what was in the Observer on Sunday:

The army and the police could be sent in to run Britain's jails as relations between the Home Office and the Prison Officers' Association (POA) reach crisis point. POA sources say the union's 35,000 members are getting their 'ducks lined up' in preparation for strike action later in the year - an unprecedented move that is outlawed under the terms of the association's agreement with the government.

Colin Moses, the association's chairman, declined to comment on whether the union's members were considering going on strike. By law the union must give a year's notice if members are to strike. But Moses admitted tensions between both sides were close to spilling over.

'I've been national chairman for four years,' Moses said. 'This is the lowest point it's been in terms of relations between us and the government. We wanted to work with the Labour government but it's using draconian Thatcherite laws against us. We can envisage there will be a breakdown in the system if this continues.'

The Home Secretary, Charles Clarke, warned the union that the government would freeze its funds unless it withdrew instructions to members not to co-operate with a job evaluation exercise.

Clarke said the union's instructions breached a voluntary 'no industrial action' deal.

However, a POA circular seen by The Observer states: 'If the Prison Service or Home Office are successful in taking any monies from POA funds... the executive will immediately ballot its membership to take industrial action up to and including strike.'

There's something else too, but it's far-fetched enough that I don't want to post it until I've found all the relevant articles and details. I'll leave you in suspense...

Edit: Here it is, and I think it's alarming enough to deserve its own thread.

[Carach]

Politics
All three major parties seem intent on packing in to the 'middle ground'. Even though I don't really believe in 'left' and 'right' I think that the Conservatives are increasingly becoming like Labour, a direction the new Lib Dem leader also wants to follow. What happened to parties having drastically different policies and a bit of open water in between?

None of the main parties interest me....they all ruin the country the same in different ways.

Economy
May have done well in the past few years but has only been fuelled by excessive borrowing. Housing bubble will soon burst and the debt will certainly catch up with the Chancellor. All this tax we seem to be paying goes no where and I no longer think that we get value for money.

Economy isnt doing so well, chancellor doubled the tax on north sea oil companies, as well as increasing tax on just about everything, and finding new things to tax (or same things in different ways) - taxing more isnt the way to make/maintain a healthy economy.

Health
The NHS has gone downhill. People are having to sell their homes to pay for care they should be getting on the NHS. People are been force out of hospital beds to let others in and it seems to me that they are more bothered about the budget than patients.

Privatisation ****s things up for starters, aswell as horrible government control (this is the same for just about everything aswell, schools etc) - they make it so hospitals have to worry about money more than patients...the local hopsital where i live has noticeably improved as of late though, but many of the staff are foreign (i guess thats not bad..but then you have to worry - where have all the native peeps gone?), and another nearby hospital threw my dad out of his bed only a couple of days after a quite major operation (they said he could go home a few days after the op, we couldnt pick him up until 5pm, and the hospital people threw him out of his bed and left him in the 'common room/waiting room' for some 6 or 7 hours until we could - in his dressing gown)

Education
IMO the gap between schools is getting bigger not smaller. People are getting refused acess to 'good' schools as they are way over subscribed and are been sent to 'poor' schools. The government of social justice is trying to get rid of the 11+ and grammar schools that have been one of the main factors for upward social mobility for years, but would keep independent schools for people who can afford to go.
The government has also introduced university top up fees of about £3000 a year, they got their education free.

My mum is a teacher in one of many schools in a large town near where i live, its supposedly the best school in that town, but it is HORRIBLE compared to the primary school i went to (they have literally dozens of people with mental health problems being put into overcrowded class rooms with no helpers, thats what you get for government closing down specialist schools, it affects the normal kid's education) My mum had to be taught many nursing practises in the event of emergencies with these children, she had 1 or 2 that were actually schizophrenic, another that had suicidal tendancies..She had no specialist helpers in her class to deal with these problems.

Her school has to have breakfast clubs in the mornings at like 7am because some of the parents dont actualyl feed their kids, they jsut send them into school to get fed etc etc, teachers have basically become parents because the real parents cba to bring their kids up (in this case anyway, and its growing in the country, people whine at the government for their family problems)

Religious schools are on the increase, muslim/jewish etc, i thought we were multicultural and had no need for this? Some of these schools teach complete rubbish (there are nazi schools in britain aswell, while my mum was training to be a teacher she was sent to one in brighton for a week - they wouldnt allow her to go to some areas of the school or see certain classes being taught) - this needs to be dealt with.

The problems in the education area are endless..and again the government dont exactly help with their controlling - so everyone has to stick to a very strict method/path of teaching and subject topics, Discussing wars in history are not allowed, its all social domestic history, anything relating to the history of the british empire comes as - "we were evil and bad people, we enslaved people" blah blah blah hell a few years back while doing my GCSE's my history teacher basically blamed britain for the holocaust lmfao, we learn more american history than we do our own (and we have thousands of years of history...) i wont go on because theres too much to discuss here.

In the World/EU
Our standing in the world has been greatly reduced. After punching above our weight for years the government has consigned us to been a second-class country. We are bossed about by France in the EU and seem to have been taken over by Brussels. Immigrants are flooding to our country for a better life or because we are a soft touch and not integrating, sparking increased racial tensions.

There are MAJOR problems with this area and it disgusts me, we have gone from the leader of the world/a superpower to some pathetic second class nation in the space of some 50 years. The government have consistently reduced our armed forces (the falklands saved the armed forces one time, unfortunately nto the case this time) we are more commited in the world than we have been sicne the falklands conflict, yet the government have stripped the armed forces to literally, a skeleton (the navy has been utterly destroyed, the admiralty have warned the government any more cuts and the navy will be pretty damn useless) I saw a graph a few weeks ago of how our armed forces, since 1998 (the strategic defence review) has been cut by around half since that time...

We cant seem to do anything ourselves these days either, we always need to talk with america first, Zimbabwe as an example - we tell mugabe "We dont like what your doing! we think you should stop!" Verbal warnings that most people in the world now know mean absolutely nothing, because we never back it up. People are laughing at us.

Being bossed around by france of all people has to be the biggest humiliation though, we are constantly gangbanged in the EU, throwing money away being a part of the organisation and gaining very little back (we lose far far far more than we gain from the eu it isnt funny) Again - politicians with backbones like marshmellows screw us over here...

My immigrant views are clear if people look at my past posts on related threads, the current policy the government have is bad and needs to be changed ASAP.

[Drunken]

the local hopsital where i live has noticeably improved as of late though

To my knowledge the one down the road from me was named as one of the worst in britain..

I think we should make a bigger effort to make the world like us. Whilst the government should do something about making us like them, politics bores everyone and it means that many people have things they dont like about certian laws ect

I dont know much about th state of our education, other than as the number of poeple living here increases, we will need more schools and teachers, which isnt happening as far as I know

[Denny Crane!]

Here are my thoughts on Britian at the moment:

Politics
All three major parties seem intent on packing in to the 'middle ground'. Even though I don't really believe in 'left' and 'right' I think that the Conservatives are increasingly becoming like Labour, a direction the new Lib Dem leader also wants to follow. What happened to parties having drastically different policies and a bit of open water in between?

Well its not the 19th century anymore. Modern society demands policies that are not so simplistic, our politics are more centered around economy and one or two core current event issues (and a slight cult of personility).

Economy
May have done well in the past few years but has only been fuelled by excessive borrowing. Housing bubble will soon burst and the debt will certainly catch up with the Chancellor. All this tax we seem to be paying goes no where and I no longer think that we get value for money.

This is certainly true, while europe has struggled we have patted ourselves on the back for having such a great economy which has been buoyed up on a trillion £ worth of consumer spending on credit cards. As a person who works in retail I can guaruntee you we are feeling the pinch now. Spending on the high street hasn't been this bad for at least a decade maybe longer thats as far as my memory goes.

We have a marginally high income compared to the rest of the world, surely in the top 10 however we pay through the nose for everything. When my Grandma was in hospital I paid 50p a minute to call her and 70p an hour to park up and visit her, I am soon to pay congestion charges, my insurance is high and I can only afford to rent. We pay so much in tax, then we get hit by stealth taxes and we seem to have poor public service despite this.

Don't expect the housing crisis to end anytime soon.

Health
The NHS has gone downhill. People are having to sell their homes to pay for care they should be getting on the NHS. People are been force out of hospital beds to let others in and it seems to me that they are more bothered about the budget than patients.

People think the NHS is bad, I do have problems with the way it works (see above) but we do actually have a surprisingly good health system. I would prefer to live in this country for healthcare than america.

A lot of the problems are created by Labours target driven style of government. Tell a hospital it has to meet so many operations a month and they are going to choose minor surgery over major surgery.

The new selection system of medical graduates is insane, it is just been made so that people are not given jobs on their academic merits but on the strength of their leadership and teamwork skills. They are assesed purely on their application forms with no interview process

Education
IMO the gap between schools is getting bigger not smaller. People are getting refused acess to 'good' schools as they are way over subscribed and are been sent to 'poor' schools. The government of social justice is trying to get rid of the 11+ and grammar schools that have been one of the main factors for upward social mobility for years, but would keep independent schools for people who can afford to go.
The government has also introduced university top up fees of about £3000 a year, they got their education free.

I have no idea what the new reforms are about, as far as I can make out it is a form of backdoor privatisation of the education system.

The popularity of degrees that are a waste of time needs to be stopped as well. Communication studies, media studies, drama and others. What happened to biology chemistry and physics.

In the World/EU
Our standing in the world has been greatly reduced. After punching above our weight for years the government has consigned us to been a second-class country. We are bossed about by France in the EU and seem to have been taken over by Brussels. Immigrants are flooding to our country for a better life or because we are a soft touch and not integrating, sparking increased racial tensions.

Hmmm agreed. We need someone like Chirac in charge here.

I think that the next few years are vital for Britain, Make or Break. We can either let our country slip or try and sort it out.
What do other Britains think about our country?
What do 'foreigners' think?

I think we need Baroness Kennedies reforms.

Peter

[the Black Prince]

i can certainly agree with these sentiments, especially with regard to defence...

with education systems in university's, the funding crisis can partly be linked to the governments drive to get more people into university, and granting more colleges university status, without any additional funding for the unis to improve facilities and resources to deal with this. and the cost is passed onto the students.

with regard to foreign policy, the government continually tries to hit at its old weight without realising that its policies and the state of its armed forces have reduced both the size of its reputation and its "stick" so that it no longer carries the weight it once did.

as far as prison officers go - thats the fault of NOMS. the National Offender Management Service. a new body set up in 2004 to merge the administration of the Prison and Probation services into one body.
thats the problem with labour, its all administration and mangerialism. and no actual substance.

reminds me of that episode of Yes Minister about the hospital with 300 administrators but no medical staff and no patients

as for political parties, labour beat the tories in 97 by campaigning on popular polices, instead of traditional labour policies, and 2001 and 2005 showed that despite falling public opinion for the party and for blair, those are still winning policies and a winning strategy.
to match up to him, Cameron is going to fight him over the same policies. i think actual policy will play little part in the 2009 election. its going to be a face off not on ideology, but on a small number of core issues, on Cameron vs Brown, with overall policy being exactly the same for both parties - just right of centre...

[Denny Crane!]

I am unsure as to why people think we need such a big army?

It is so inefficiently run we would be better off scaling it down massively and concentrating on having a highly trained highly efficient armed force rather than a large one that we have no hope of maintaining to any reasonable standard.

Peter

[Drunken]

Most probably the reason we have an army the size it is is so we can say that we help others in wars or we made an impact. Commiting thousands of troops looks better than if we commit a hundred.

[Denny Crane!]

Most probably the reason we have an army the size it is is so we can say that we help others in wars or we made an impact. Commiting thousands of troops looks better than if we commit a hundred.

I am not motivated by the impressions we give to other countries.

Of course if we do send them out to some foreign desert country I would like to be able to do so by providing them with body armours and boots. If you want to talk about impressions ask why we are nicknamed the "borrowers". Now since the proportionate spending on defence compared to our GDP has decline rapidly since the '80s and the army is one huge money wasting machine can you think of a way to effectivly reduce waste and increase efficiency?

The only way I can think of is in my previous post.

PEter

[Elu Barcino]

Most probably the reason we have an army the size it is is so we can say that we help others in wars or we made an impact. Commiting thousands of troops looks better than if we commit a hundred.

But to have a large army we would either have to cut spending somewhere else, which people would whine about, or raise taxes, which people would whine about too.

[Carach]

I am unsure as to why people think we need such a big army?

It is so inefficiently run we would be better off scaling it down massively and concentrating on having a highly trained highly efficient armed force rather than a large one that we have no hope of maintaining to any reasonable standard.

Peter

Theres only so low u can get before the efficiency becomes irelevant because your force is so weak it wouldnt beat anyone.

this is the point we are coming to.

We need a larger than normal (compared to the rest of europe at least) as we have commitments to many parts of the world, people fail to realise there will never be world peace for the forseeable future, and as a result an effective armed forces is needed to protect our interests.

The conservatives were trying to get rid of much of the armed forces before argentine invaded the falklands, thank god they didnt disband most of the military before hand, otherwise we would of been beaten by argentina (which is humiliating when we were only a few decades earlier, one of the most powerful nations in the world)

Now again, we have more commitments than we have had since the falklands, and labour are cutting back massively aswell, to the point we can only just barely meet minimum requirements to each (which is pathetic really)

We are also parrt of the world police (and have been since the days of our empire - we were the first 'world police' i guess...) so we must have an effective armed forces to carry out our duties in the world (links to the above.

The british armed forces were far larger a decade ago than they are now, we didnt have any real problems maintaining them then, they were still one of the best trained armed forces in the world...(although the government, as usual, neglected equiping the military effectively - thats why we took as many losses in the falklands as we did, thats been the case since ww1 at least..)

Good armed forces are a requirement for a world power, a requirement to have any political power, a requirement for a nation that were extremely powerful up until very recently (when we did throw away our military abilities)

As a result, we cant go into places on our own when we should be able to.

[Denny Crane!]

Carach:

I disagree with interventionism as a policy so the idea of maintaining an army to police the world is abhorrent to me, we police areas we have interest in while a new holocaust happens elsewhere. As for defensive capabilities once again good training and efficient well armed troops are more important than numbers.

Good armed forces are a requirement for a world power, a requirement to have any political power

I disagree with this, Japan has strict policies on operating its forces in anything but a defensive capacity and yet they maintain a strong world prescence through their strong economy.

The biggest problems labour has created are:

Creating and allowing A letigous society.

Over legislating.

Target driven beauracracy.

Beuracracy.

Massive increases in taxes that have been used to fund beauracracy.

Increases in red tape stifling business, over legislation for workers rights.

Allowing a country to indebt itself to the tune of £1 trillion meaning a crash at some point in the future.

Welfare state increases

Political spin and a loss of trust

The biggest successes of Labour are:

Increasing foreign investment in the UK.

Wrote off an awful lot of foreign debt from poor countries

Banned anti personell mines

Devolution

Freedom of information act

Good friday agreement in Ireland



So it hasn't been a disastrous run but it has not been a good one either, the bad far outweighs the good.

Peter

[Perikles]

The biggest successes of Labour are:

Increasing foreign investment in the UK.

Wrote off an awful lot of foreign debt from poor countries

Banned anti personell mines

Devolution

Freedom of information act

Good friday agreement in Ireland



So it hasn't been a disastrous run but it has not been a good one either, the bad far outweighs the good.

Peter

Yes but what has Labour done for Britain there. I know that Blair has done very well in Africa and I admire him for it but as I said before Blair has done nothing for health, education etc.

Edit: Oops-could a mod merge my 2 posts? I forgot to edit it.

[Denny Crane!]

Yes but what has Labour done for Britain there. I know that Blair has done very well in Africa and I admire him for it but as I said before Blair has done nothing for health, education etc.

Did you miss the line about foreign investment in the UK?

Since we do not have a strong manufacturing base, actually virtually no manufacturing at all, foreign investment is the lifeblood of our country.

Minumum wage, fox hunting, devolution, good friday agreement.

I don't like labour either but I don't attack them with some fanatical hatred either, any government is going to acheive something.

Peter

[Elu Barcino]

The biggest successes of Labour are:

Increasing foreign investment in the UK.

Wrote off an awful lot of foreign debt from poor countries

Banned anti personell mines

Devolution

Freedom of information act

Good friday agreement in Ireland

I would add 'minimum wage' and 'Human Rights Act' (not being followed too well ) to that.

[Denny Crane!]

I would add 'minimum wage' and 'Human Rights Act' (not being followed too well ) to that.

Minimum wage fair enough. But the human rights act was the most mismanaged piece of legislation ever done, why do you think it is not being followed properly? The fact is the country under labour was heading in the right direction with labours legislative path anyway, this was an arbitrary piece of legislation that is open to abuse.

Peter

[Chuffy]

The NHS really has become terrible, not just from a patients point of view, but from Nurses and Doctors as well. My mother is an NHS nurse, she finds it to be the most soul destroying job ever. Two years ago my grandmother was hospitalised after having a stroke and it really was terrible, the fact that most of the nurses were phillipinos and could hardly speak english just made our entire family angry when something as simple as communication was extremely difficult and sometimes impossible.

New Labour? New Labour is very conservative.

Sure okay, smoking isn't good for you...but do we really need these draconian methods of banning people from smoking?

Credit cards annoy me, if you don't have the money to buy something in the first place...DON'T USE A CREDIT CARD TO BUY IT. Idiots.

And Tony Blair and God....hahahaha! He really needs to step down, I've never liked the man, I like him even less now.

Congratulations Blair, you have succeded in creating the nanny-state in Britain.

Yeah, I hate my country. Don't worry, I hate every other country as well, we all suck.

[Perikles]

Congratulations Blair, you have succeded in creating the nanny-state in Britain.

Congratulations Mr Blair, on ruining our country for good. I can't think of one really good thing he has done, its all spin.

The point isn't whether or not we need a larger army, or even whether it needs better funding (I think yes on both points, but that's by the by).

What I'm angry about is the fact that while Labour has been cutting back on defense spending since it got into office (and to be fair, the Tories were at it before), in six years it's sent the army on five wars (as well as continuing commitments in Gibraltar, Germany and others). It's also wheeled out the Army for at least one Firemen's strike, the foot and mouth outbreak and security cover for the Commonwealth games. The Army is due to be involved in containment and culling operations when Bird-Flu hits these shores and there's also talk of making us cover for the Prison Service, who are threatening industrial action over another pay and conditions dispute.

To expect the army to do all that, while steadily eroding their funding, is nothing short of criminal.

Too true, Blair just seems to rely on the military all the time will stabbing them in the back. Soon he will jump ship and leave this sinking ship that is Britain to Gordon Brown, God help us then!

Competition!
Name one good thing that Mr Blair has done!

[The Alcotroll]

The point isn't whether or not we need a larger army, or even whether it needs better funding (I think yes on both points, but that's by the by).

What I'm angry about is the fact that while Labour has been cutting back on defense spending since it got into office (and to be fair, the Tories were at it before), in six years it's sent the army on five wars (as well as continuing commitments in Gibraltar, Germany and others). It's also wheeled out the Army for at least one Firemen's strike, the foot and mouth outbreak and security cover for the Commonwealth games. The Army is due to be involved in containment and culling operations when Bird-Flu hits these shores and there's also talk of making us cover for the Prison Service, who are threatening industrial action over another pay and conditions dispute.

To expect the army to do all that, while steadily eroding their funding, is nothing short of criminal.