It's been a depressing week. It wasn't the Queen mum's last hoon around London on top of a gun carriage that had me weeping into my late morning kebab though. It's reading the Gassing Station in the last few days that has been lowering my spirits. Firstly we had a depressing thread about kids gobbing at Porsches, keying Ferraris and stealing anything that isn't nailed down. Then we saw the horrific pictures of the burnt out Griffith, torched by car thieves.

Yes, it is only a car. Yes, it can be replaced, sort of. Yet why did so many of us feel like we were looking at the dismembered remains of a loved one? A few hit the nail on the head. It may be an inanimate object, but it represents so much more. The years of effort required to attain the skills to earn the money to buy such an object of beauty. The months of research, the anticipation and the pride that goes with owning such a beautiful car.

Status Symbols

Whilst we petrolheads may be considered materialistic and obsessed with our status symbols, our toys, there's nowt wrong with that. For so many of us, these cars don't represent which rung of the ladder we are on in our class obsessed society, but how hard we have worked in a society that does reward hard work.

Those of us prepared to get off our arses and work for a living will complain of how we're taxed, taxed and er... taxed but this country still offers enormous opportunities for those who are prepared to work hard.

Which brings me on to those that aren't prepared to work for a living. Those who just sit back and resent those with more material possessions than them. Resenting the rich. Rich in one sense but not in the sense they understand. Rich in the ability to change one's own life for the better. Rich in satisfaction from working hard and seeing the rewards. Rich in character.

Vlad

Whilst I am a capitalist with political views moving slowly to the right of Vlad the Impaler, I do recognise the need for a socialist element to society. Not everyone will have the skills necessary to look after themselves. People will suffer due to circumstances outside of their control. People will get ill and it's our job as a civilised society to help them. I don't resent paying my taxes to support those welfare funds.

What I do resent is paying our taxes to support the scrotes who steal from me and damage my property. I resent paying sky high insurance to fund crime. I resent paying for dozens of people to attend court and to shuffle paper. I resent paying for the farce that sees those who deliberately commit crimes punished with community service, with fines that they won't pay and let off due to an overcomplex legal system.

Fight

I resent paying for them to attend hospital when they fight each other. I resent paying for them to be sewn up when they stab each other and I resent paying for the mindless damage and vandalism they cause without fear of punishment.

We pay for jails that are nothing more than training centres for the young criminal. We pay for teachers who can't teach because the kids have no respect for them. We pay for a police force now full of short-arses who can't command the respect of eight year olds. We pay for Tony Blair to fly around the world massaging his ego as he kids himself that he's a world statesman.

Anti Social

The Government is trying to legislate some order back into Britain with Anti-Social Behaviour Orders, Community Service and Community 'Wardens'. It makes me so angry. Where's the pain that the perpetrators of crime should be suffering? If I steal a car and set fire to it, is painting a few walls going to deter me? If I shoplift will fining me deter me? If I graffitti a wall, will a sound thrashing with the birch deter me? I think perhaps it would.

How do we convey the values necessary to achieve a civilised society to this underclass of criminal family. How do we make kids understand the difference between right and wrong any more? How do we introduce some sense of national identity again, some sense of national pride? Adults live in fear now. We can't give kids a flick round the ear any more for fear of prosecution, or worse still getting knifed by the detestable little toerags.

Fear

The fear of crime in the UK has reached epidemic proportions. Tony Blair took personal control of the issue a few weeks back and nothing at all has happened since. It's no good applying a band aid to this gaping, infected wound. We no longer have any strong minded politicians capable of inspiring their parties with strong policies that will make a difference. We have woolly, scandal-ridden politicians who are too obsessed with their public image to do anything of any note. 

It's time need to cut the crap and reintroduce some proper law and order. Punishments that punish, that strike fear into those considering committing crime. We need simple laws, simple processing, simple punishments. And some pain. Simple pain...