What's wrong with Britain 2012

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highway

Original Poster:

1,978 posts

262 months

Sunday 1st January 2012
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Spiralling out of some other threads, heres what I think needs to change:

1. Rights without responsibilities

2. Financial reward without work

3. Crime without punishment.

I am tired of the status quo. Is it too much to expect for people to start taking responsibility for their own actions? If YOU decide to have 3+ children whilst having no job, no stable partner, no means and no interest then it is simply not the role of everyone else paying tax to provide a 2/3 bedroom home for your family to live.


If you messed around at school spending your time bullying the teachers and other kids and have left school with no qualifications and no skills then that my friend is on you. The state should not be expected to give you cash to squander while you return less than zero. By which I mean you are aggressive, anti social and generally just a dick around most everyone unfortunate enough to interact with you. If you are unwilling to take the crap job paying crap money that you are barely able to do then you can earn your money, your benefit money, WORKING FOR the state. You can pick up litter in town centres outside pubs, bars and clubs at peak times so you are visible to your peer group. Society pays people to clean the streets already so your human rights aren't being diminished. But you won't look cool, hard or dangerous to your chums, let alone any of the opposite sex, when they see you picking up fag butts outside the club at 10.30pm on a Friday night. Maybe your example will inspire others to try and conform at school and maybe even learn something from the free education that is being laid on for you.

The government can kick start the economy by embarking on a mass prison building programme. Supersize jails all around the country. Heres an idea, if someone continually offends, especially where crimes of violence are concerned, lock them up. Nothing fancy, just insist that the current con trick of getting the judge/magistrate to issue a sentence (only half of which they serve) comes to an abrupt end. Get sentenced for 7 years for robbery? Then 7 years you serve.

Most of the public don't seem to realise that we sentence concurrently here as opposed to consecutively in the good ol USA. The difference is many of our scumbags get charged and sentenced for Multiple offences at the same time. Except while they have got 6 years for serious assault, 18 months for possession with intent to supply cl
ass A and maybe 2 years for robbery, they are serving all these sentences at the same time! This means that a sentence, in that case of 9.5 years is in fact only three years because all the sentences are being served at the same time, and will be halved anyway.

In the States you would serve your 9.5 years. That's what needs to happen here. I'm not interested in the offender. Rehabilitation comes second. Punishment comes first. Punishment is a deterrent. I am interested in the victim. What effect has someone else's actions had on their life?

Punishment where you aren't hanging out with like minded individuals all day, enjoying three squares, exercise equipment, medical care and learning opportunities. No, that's not a deterrent. I want prison to be a place where you would fear being sent.

At the moment if you have a job, certainly if you are
PAYE, getting a conviction, worse jail time, would destroy your life. As such you behave. If you have never worked, have no education and don't intend on getting either, what fear does getting a criminal record have for you? For these people jail time carries the same level of 'fear' that having to have a minor unexpected medical operation has for everyone else. This situation needs to change.

Right, what do you think.

highway

Original Poster:

1,978 posts

262 months

Sunday 1st January 2012
quotequote all
A perfect world would be nice but I'm realistic, I'll settle for a better Britain than we have now.

highway

Original Poster:

1,978 posts

262 months

Monday 2nd January 2012
quotequote all
I've worked with kids in some south London secondaries. One bad kiddie in a class of 30 can be all it takes to nuke the chances of the others around him. Typically in private education this isn't an issue. The parents are all on board and if one kiddie plays up to much then out they go as the other paying parents won't stomach it.

Not the case in state school. It's very difficult to get a child excluded.

The deluded think that hiring in ex-army to teach is the way forward as they could instill 'discipline' this is a nonsense. 15 year olds at school in London know their rights. You could have Mike Tyson in his prime stood in front of them with a flame thrower in one hand and an axe in the other. Doesn't matter cause " you can't touch me, I'll have your job"

Getting an education for free is a privelige. You don't want it, your parent/s can't talk you into trying either? Then own it . Just don't let other kids get dragged down with them. I've seen it happen.

highway

Original Poster:

1,978 posts

262 months

Monday 2nd January 2012
quotequote all
As above, if you don't want to play the academic game that's fine. I just think its outrageous that ( to quote Mr Spock) the needs of the many get outweighed by the needs of the few. If a teacher spends half a lesson trying to keep one lad in check then how much of the rest of the classes time is wasted?

highway

Original Poster:

1,978 posts

262 months

Monday 2nd January 2012
quotequote all
Joking aside, I've considered politics. I believe the essence of what blights the UK is covered in my first post. Problem is to get elected to a position where you can effect change you first have to align yourself with one of the three electable political parties in the UK.

We live in a democracy but politically the three main parties are all close together. It's like wanting a drink but only being able to choose from Coke, Diet Coke or Coke Zero. The other parties are all painted as extremists or mad by the all powerful media. An independent has no hope of making any real change to anything.

highway

Original Poster:

1,978 posts

262 months

Monday 2nd January 2012
quotequote all
When will the silent majority find a voice?

Not the old politics of the left or right, just something genuinely in the best interests of all. Like democracy was supposed to be...

highway

Original Poster:

1,978 posts

262 months

Monday 2nd January 2012
quotequote all
So what do you do as a teacher in a class of 15 year old when one lad decides he doesn't want to conform? Let's say something common, like calling the teacher a word that rhymes with hunt. Teacher first asks child to leave class. Child refuses. Teacher gets headmaster who again tells child to leave class. Whilst this interactive episode of the Jeremy Kyle show unfolds remember there is no teaching is going on. The teachers are undermined.

The child refuses to leave, calling the head a rude word. Do you know what comes next..?

In more than few London secondaries the next step is removing the class to another classroom while naughty lad hold his ground. Sounds ridiculous doesn't it?

Many teachers and heads are loathe to get hands on, for a gamut of reasons. It's easier to blame the head/ teacher or education authority than it is to point to the piss poor parenting or the aggressive (deprived, starved of love and opportunity/ dyslexic, traumatised...pick one) child who is actually causing the problem

highway

Original Poster:

1,978 posts

262 months

Monday 2nd January 2012
quotequote all
Its all cool and the gang to have 7 kids (as in the above example) IF YOU are paying for them yourself. Why should I or anyone else pay for someone elses children?

If you cant afford them dont have them. We stopped at one for that reason.

highway

Original Poster:

1,978 posts

262 months

Monday 2nd January 2012
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How about dont keep churning out kids if YOU cant support them?

highway

Original Poster:

1,978 posts

262 months

Monday 2nd January 2012
quotequote all
If you are talking about people suffering definable mental illness having large families because they don't fathom birth control then that's a different issue. One that's not that much of an issue I'd imagine..

I really don't see how you can make a case for two adults, unemployed and without interest in working, having more and more children whilst expecting the state to lay on a bigger property and provide more cash each time they do it. It's unfair to others who are renting or buying through their own labour and it does these families no good either. They don't look after what they have as they have no vested interest in doing so, easy come easy go.

Joe average breaks a window in his gaff, he fixes it himself or pays someone to do it for him. Council tenant breaks window, best they phone council and someone comes to fix it. For free. And so it goes on.

If you are wealthy, living in a nice area and earning a good whack you may not begrudge those who choose not to work but to breed and live off the backs of others. That I suspect is why the political classes find it quite logical to give millions of pounds of British taxpayers money in overseas aid. They themselves are wealthy, it's not their money and maybe it makes them feel better about themselves.

Never mind that money would be better spent paying uk workers to go to these needy counties and build them infrastructure, a road network, water wells etc.No just hand over the gift of cash..

Anyway, if you personally know a large family living off benefits I accept they may well be reasonable people. Most of them ( that I have met at any rate) are at best unpleasant .

highway

Original Poster:

1,978 posts

262 months

Monday 2nd January 2012
quotequote all
If you are talking about people suffering definable mental illness having large families because they don't fathom birth control then that's a different issue. One that's not that much of an issue I'd imagine..

I really don't see how you can make a case for two adults, unemployed and without interest in working, having more and more children whilst expecting the state to lay on a bigger property and provide more cash each time they do it. It's unfair to others who are renting or buying through their own labour and it does these families no good either. They don't look after what they have as they have no vested interest in doing so, easy come easy go.

Joe average breaks a window in his gaff, he fixes it himself or pays someone to do it for him. Council tenant breaks window, best they phone council and someone comes to fix it. For free. And so it goes on.

If you are wealthy, living in a nice area and earning a good whack you may not begrudge those who choose not to work but to breed and live off the backs of others. That I suspect is why the political classes find it quite logical to give millions of pounds of British taxpayers money in overseas aid. They themselves are wealthy, it's not their money and maybe it makes them feel better about themselves.

Never mind that money would be better spent paying uk workers to go to these needy counties and build them infrastructure, a road network, water wells etc.No just hand over the gift of cash..

Anyway, if you personally know a large family living off benefits I accept they may well be reasonable people. Most of them ( that I have met at any rate) are at best unpleasant .

highway

Original Poster:

1,978 posts

262 months

Tuesday 3rd January 2012
quotequote all
Do people generally think that, all things considered, life and society in the UK now are better than say 20 years ago?


highway

Original Poster:

1,978 posts

262 months

Wednesday 4th January 2012
quotequote all
Those posting advice to emigrate miss the point entirely. The UK should be a nicer place to live than it is currently. We dont get earthquakes, tornados or other natural disasters that afflict other parts of the world. No bear or spider likely to give you a nasty bite and the state aren't likely to do you a naughty should you publicly disagree with them.

Our natural predators, such as they are, seem to be the underclass. Those who dont contribute (dont want to contribute) and ruin the lives of those they interact with, neighbours, those they breed with even those they engage in a bit of road rage with.

I want to see the goverment acknowledge these people are growing in number, then tell me exactly what they propose to do to tackle the problem these people represent.

If you are lucky enough to live somewhere where you dont have to interact with these people, then good for you. Many of us aren't so lucky. Advising people to move somewhere "nicer" again misses the point.

No council estates are built over ancient indian burial grounds, or are toxic by their location. What can blight an estate, a neighbourhood or a road are the actions of often one or two families. Is it too much to expect for our goverment to act to make life better for the many by dealing with the actions of what fortunately, remain the few..

highway

Original Poster:

1,978 posts

262 months

Friday 6th January 2012
quotequote all
There a loads, as in hundreds do thousands who are living on credit though. At the bottom end of the scale it's payday loans. Nearer the middle it's people on mediocre incomes living in houses that were high value, servicing enormous interest only mortgages. They are only able to do this as interest levels are historically low.

I wouldn't be surprised if interest only mortgages, which are currently de rigeur, end up despised and derided in the same way endowment based mortgages, once beloved of the masses, are now.

highway

Original Poster:

1,978 posts

262 months

Friday 27th January 2012
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Just watched Question Time. Some of those people make me consider self harm..

highway

Original Poster:

1,978 posts

262 months

Friday 23rd March 2012
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jbi said:
metal thefts piss me off...

Lock the bds up and throw away the key
How do scrap dealers get away with accepting an 7ft tall bronze statue, sawn off at the ankles, without, clearly, handling stolen goods? Do they think the blokes carrying it off the back of a transit have had in their family for years? The max sentence for handling is 14 years. If a few scrap dealers were sentenced at that end of the scale for taking obviously stolen metals in, the resultant publicity would likely ensure that people stopped nicking the stuff in the first place.

highway

Original Poster:

1,978 posts

262 months

Saturday 14th April 2012
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Everytime a missile from a fighter jet or helicopter is fired by uk forces its £150k lost. Stop fighting wars in the middle east. Britain and America do more than the rest of the world. That's a few billion saved right there.

If we are worried about threats to the uk from overseas then redirect some funds to border control from these wasteful military campaigns. Stringent checks on any one entering the uk with links to Pakistan or Afghanistan or any other place where many may seek to do us harm. If in any doubt, don't let them into the uk.

Slash foreign aid. If we are to help other countries then why oh why are we not sending British workers to build them sewage systems, road networks, basically creating infrastructure using the aid money to finance it. How does that not make more sense than handing over cash?


highway

Original Poster:

1,978 posts

262 months

Saturday 14th April 2012
quotequote all
Have I mentioned my cola analogy yet...

We live in a democracy. Yet there is a choice ( really) between two political parties. Maybe two and a half. The differences between the two are effectively like choosing between coke and diet coke. Much the same. How is that choice.? Can we really do no better than that?

Negative liberty. Google it.

highway

Original Poster:

1,978 posts

262 months

Thursday 30th August 2012
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Well we are past the half way point in the year. How much better is our society now? Why are governments seemingly unable to change lives of the majority of the people for the better when many of the answers are so simple?

highway

Original Poster:

1,978 posts

262 months

Thursday 30th August 2012
quotequote all
Because anyone running as an independent ends up either bankrupt or painted by the media to look like a crackpot.

How can democracy equal aligning yourself to labour or conservative which effectively is the system we have.