Well, Labour got well and truly (and deservedly) ****** in the local elections recently. How many years have they been in power? Twelve? Sixteen? I honestly can’t remember. The one thing I’m sure of is that we’re no better off – in fact, I’d argue worse – than we were under the last Conservative government. Thing is, they’re both ***** – opposite sides of the same scratched, worthless coin.
Labour’s response to try and win voters back for the upcoming General Election? To scrap plans to tax people for the amount of rubbish they throw out. Oh, and a few more bribes like possibly fixing fuel tax and stuff. Not actually changing anything important, just dropping things they already know will be wildly unpopular.
This will be a rail against Labour. But you know, I honestly believe that if the Conservatives had taken power 8 years ago I can be pretty positive that I’d be complaining about them. Politicians are so far out of touch with reality, it’s unreal. Brown’s claim he “feels the hurt they feel” in regards to the general voting public is a complete sham. As if. The guy’s on almost £200,000 a year as Prime Minister, rent free, and with a guaranteed career on a board of directors somewhere when he steps down (or gets kicked out, the fat useless bastard).
Financially, the UK did well for a while. House prices rose which is great for people who already have homes. I was one of the fortunate ones who bought at the right time. Then friends of mine got screwed by the vast, sharp rise. Looks like they’re dropping now, but not far enough for first-time buyers.
Labour used to be the party of choice for students. Until their promise of free education turned out to be a brazen lie as they removed all funding for students and turned the whole higher education system into a fee- and loans-based mess. Way to go. University for the rich, while the poor can sweep the streets and empty the rubbish bins.
This whole concept of “spin” which seems to have been introduced by Blair has infiltrated every segment of the government and public services as well. The ones I’m most familiar with are the ones relating to the health, police and education services. All this red tape and manipulation of figures just seems to be designed to keep bean-counters in a job. Forget the police, medical staff and teachers (and those they look after, protect and care for) – they’re very much secondary in making the government look good.
I won’t list all the blogs I read, but there are plenty out there for the emergecy services. Not one of them thinks the government methods for collating data are useful. Or accurate. But they do make the crime figures seem better – often by just giving nice friendly names to old things.
Teachers now have completely conflicting sets of guidelines. Recent reports state that the paperwork and mess caused by an interfering government is losing staff from the teaching career path as they get pissed off and leave. These people took up this job to teach, not to fill in bloody forms and give exams to 7 year-olds.
Then there’s the fun with taxes such as inheritance tax. Spend your life paying tax on your income, savings, purchases… and then whoever inherits your stuff from you has to pay a tax on it. Somewhat unfair if it’s, say, the family house. Which is now worth a fortune because of the mad house prices. So they have to sell it to pay the tax, and find themselves homeless as they can’t afford anything else with the money left over.
Crime’s gone mad as we have no decent punishment for lawbreakers. The jails are full, and sentences – when they are handed out – are far, far too lenient. Introducing pointless things like ASBOs have been an utter waste of time. Have they really prevented anything?
Frankly, I can’t wait to see the Labour party kicked soundly out of office when the time comes. But who do we replace them with? At the last General Election I was home for, I went through the manifestos for the main three parties. Labour and Conservative were so similar and in their uselessness that it beggars belief they’re two separate parties. LibDem are OK, but perhaps too liberal.
And now I find out that the BNP have managed to get a seat on the London Assembly. If that keeps up, we’ll be blaming all the black people for the state of the country, not the shitty politicians.
The truly independent parties have a lot going for them, but sadly never get enough of a vote to make a difference. People follow the herd or follow family. They vote for who they’ve always voted for, or who they’re familiar with. I know of people who have run for a position as MP because they genuinely cared and got pretty much nowhere. The lucky ones have gained their deposit back.
It’s pretty apparent from this post and many others on this blog that I’d had it with the UK. We were a great nation many years ago – and not that many years ago. Now we’re a mess. Chavs are all over the place. If it’s not them, it’s yardies. Or whatever. Every city, town and village has its own scum that we can’t keep in line. The pound’s dropped against the Euro and other currencies. Respect other countries have for us is pretty much at an all-time low. Immigration policy is a mess.
Taxes and fees for people trying to run their own businesses are insane as well. The red tape, potholes and so forth are more than any small business owner can realistically be asked to undertake themselves. All the loopholes where they can save a few extra pounds are being closed. This cost the UK a very large number of highly qualified IT staff not long after Labour took power and pushed one motion through. Most of them went to the US where their skills were actually valued.
I’ve mentioned before that I am looking for a way out. I hate to leave somewhere I’m so familiar with and so deeply-rooted (well, I was until 2 years ago) but really it seems the only way to have a chance of a decent life for myself and (hopefully, in the future) my kids is to go somewhere else. Canada I’ve heard good things about. Oz is nice, but starting to get similar problems to the UK in places. NZ is lovely but has some bad memories for me now.
I guess we’ll see. But right now it seems that the UK government is doing as much as it can to piss off, annoy, frustrate and ultimately lose all of its best citizens to other countries.
