Those people who know me will know that my one overriding emotion is anger, I have always struggled with my temper. When I was a child, I was a typical little ginger haired boy who would lose his temper at the drop of a hat. I found at school that I soon got a reputation of being the 'one with the temper' and I suppose that has followed through my life. I get very frustrated about many things, and if you have followed any of my posts you will soon realise that a lot of things frustrate me and make me angry. I have always been someone who rants and raves at the TV, I deliberately don't watch certain programmes because I know that I would just get too angry and start shouting.
So with all this in mind I decided to set up this blog site, just really so I could vent my anger and frustration. I know my posts are quite long but for me writing this stuff down here helps me release some of my anger and has a sort of cathartic affect. With this in mind I just wanted to write down a few things that really bother me, some I have already covered in previous posts but I feel I need to mention them again. They are in no particular order.
Deforestation and the environment.
I believe the focus for the majority of our environmental campaigners has been on the wrong thing. I have mentioned in an earlier post that I do not believe in 'man made global warming' and if you want to look at why I don't believe in that look at my earlier posting. I am an environmentalist; I believe we should look after this world; we should recycle everything that we can and we should be looking at population growth, particularly in environmentally sensitive areas. One thing I believe the governments' around the world should be focusing on is making sure we don't destroy anymore rain forests, because once they are gone they are gone. I believe this should be the top priority of environmental groups, not so called 'man made global warming'.
Immigration
I have covered this previously, so I won't spend to much time on it. I will just mention a few things here to give you something to chew over. Space: we are a small island, and we are filling up rapidly, some people I know have just returned from Canada and the main thing they said about that country is the amount of space there is. Canada is the 2nd largest country in the world with a population of about half of ours. Housing: 80% of all new houses are being built for immigrants. Schools: there are many schools around the country were English is spoken by less than half of the children attending. Public services: immigrants use them as well, the NHS, social services, etc. Crime: many places have seen crime rates soar, if you think me saying that is unpalatable, well tough that is the truth. Cultural change: I love being British, I am proud of my heritage, I love this country and what it stands for particularly tolerance, fair play and politeness, I am seeing this country change beyond recognition and I don't like it. I love our countryside and I don't want to see it concreted over, my children are still young, I want them to grow up in a country which still has wide open spaces, not housing estates and new roads. Unemployment: there are over 2.5m unemployed in this country, why on earth do we need anymore people here to do the work. There are a lot of people who say that British people don't want to do the menial work, there is no proof that that is true, and there are plenty of immigrants doing work that British people would be proud to do.
Political Correctness
Again I have covered this before, but I am going to say this, I believe that a minority of people have pushed forward an agenda to destroy freedom of speech in this country, they have decided that anyone who says certain things is wrong and they should be censured. Why is their opinion more important than yours? What right have they got to say "you can't say that"? Surely everyone is entitled to their opinion and if you are not, then we are then living in a society that doesn't allow debate and this then leads to a police state.
Welfare scroungers
The Labour Government have created millions of people who are dependent on benefits, we have many people who don't want to work because it is easier on the dole. The last Government handed so much money out, they said they were trying to eradicate child poverty but they have just created an underclass who will never work. Prime Minister William Gladstone said this "Any fool can give the poor money, the question is whether money gives them freedom". The welfare state was set up as a safety net for those who got into trouble, what we have now is a safety blanket. We now have a situation in which people who want to work don't because as soon as they start working they lose all their benefits and end up even worse off. I am not going to go into great detail on this point but suffice to say, if something isn't done about this problem we will reap a harvest of a greater more broken society.
Health and Safety
I don't think I need to say much here, I truly believe our country has gone stark raving bonkers. I remember when I was younger I used to read stories about health and safety in the USA and think to myself, "at least here we are sensible, and that could never happen here" but unfortunately it has. The simple truth is most health and safety has nothing to do with our health or safety but about litigation.
Targets
The last Government were obsessed with targets, they sound like a good idea but unfortunately they are not. All public sector organisations have targets and they have taken over, people have lost focus on the job they are doing and have focused on the targets set by a centralised Government.
Injustice
This is a big issue and one which is close to my heart, I will post a separate blog on this issue later. I will just say this for now, I am a Christian and for me this is a hugely important issue and should be for all Christians. There are over 2500 verses in the Bible which talk about injustice and we as Christians should be standing up and shouting the most about it. There are many things we can do to fight injustice and I believe we should all do something, however little, no excuse!
Truth
I have written about this issue before, so again I am not going to say much here, except, it is very easy to listen to propaganda and not research things for yourself. If you have the time and inclination don't just follow the crowd but find out for yourself.
There we have a few issues which make me angry, I know there are many things in this world which are wrong but at least we should be trying to do something about them. I suppose for me I will try and do something and hopefully make a difference. I know you may not agree with everything I say but at least you can disagree with me, I believe that is what makes life interesting.
Friday, 28 May 2010
Wednesday, 26 May 2010
Debt
If I were to ask you about budgeting, in particular how you manage your household budget, you may answer differently to someone else. You might think it is okay to have a credit card, as long as you pay it off every month, someone else might think it is okay as long as you pay the interest every month. Some people don't have a credit card and will never have one, and they only buy something if they can afford it and have the money in the bank, which I suppose is the most sensible thing to do. You could say if everyone behaved frugally this country wouldn't be in the mess it is in now, and you would probably be right. To Put it simply, we should all live within our means. Putting all that aside, the simple truth is, we as a country are in debt, huge amounts of it. So, the question has to be asked, how do we get out of this mess? The government have decided to act quickly, they have announced £6 billion worth of cuts. I believe this is a tiny drop in the huge ocean of waste and I truly believe if the Government doesn't do something quite radical and make huge cuts we will see this country go under. That sounds very pessimistic, but unfortunately for you and me the facts speak for themselves. So let us look at our countries finances and after we have looked at them, I want you to think about what you would do.
Currently the official figure for our national debt is around £800 billion, but some analysts put that figure as high as £2,200 billion. This is how they came to the second figure:
Public sector pension liability £1,400 billion.
Contingent liability for Network rail £22 billion
Public Finance Initiative £139 billion, a major attraction of PFI is that, in theory, it transfers the risk of failure for a project from the Government to the private sector. However the reality is the Government carry most of the risk. Because if the project fails the Government have to pay, this happened a number of years ago with the London Fire Brigade. A company took on the maintenance contract for all stations and equipment but found that, when they took on the contract they hadn't taken into consideration the diesel cost and could not afford to carry on. The fire authority then had to take on the contract.
£130 billion of intervention in the financial sector.
The total of all this comes to about £1,395 billion, bringing a total of about £2,200 billion. That is our countries debt, the government aren't even dealing with this, they are trying to deal with the deficit, which is about £163 billion every year. The situation is this, the Government raises about £540 billion pounds every year but currently we are spending about £700 billion every year, by any ones calculations this is not good. It seems that if something isn't done soon this country could go bankrupt. You might say that sounds a bit over the top, let me tell you this, currently this country has a triple A rating when it comes to our economy. That means when we borrow money we have a low interest rate and financial markets don't see us as being a risky country to invest in. If we do not sort our finances out speculators and investors will not invest and we will have to borrow money at a high interest rate and we will have to go to the IMF cap in hand and ask them for financial aid. As I have said above the Government are making £6 billion worth of cuts, I believe this is a ridiculously small amount and the Government needs to be doing more. Let me put this into context, imagine your income was £30,000 a year but your outgoings were £39,000 a year, you would have to do something about it, or else you would eventually end up bankrupt. So you decide you would cut some of your spending by £900 a year, I am sure I don't need to tell you that £900 is not really going to make much difference to your financial situation (Imagine on top that figure, having £120,000 on credit cards and loans). This is what the Government are doing, £6 billion sounds like a lot of money, and to you and me it is, but if you look at our countries debt it is a tiny amount.
So, what could we do that wouldn't have an affect upon the public sector and still pay off the debt? I have already talked about waste in a previous post, but I just want to mention a few things here that hopefully will make you think.
Currently the Government is committed to spending £18 billion on a climate change bill. The Government wants to cover our beautiful countryside with wind turbines which are not going to produce enough energy for our needs, and we the tax payer are paying for it.
At the moment we have a very costly welfare system with over 70 different types of benefits, the Government could cut costs by £8 billion just by reforming it.
We pay £16 billion into the EU every year. Leaving would have no detrimental affect upon our economy. And before you start quoting figures about 60% of our exports going to the EU, the figure is nearer 40%, manufacturing only makes up 13.7% our economy. The EU are going to regulate Hedge funds, which generated £5.4 billion last year for our economy. Hedge funds had nothing to do with the financial crises and 80% of them are dealt with in London, if they are regulated they will leave and set up in Geneva, Dubai or the far east.
We need to deregulate; SABMiller, the 17th largest British Company is thinking of moving its head quarters outside of London because of over regulation. Unilever is thinking of doing the same, this will mean less income for our economy and less prestige for the City of London, meaning more and more companies could end up leaving, thus taking their jobs and tax elsewhere. You may say good riddance, but be careful, London is currently the largest financial centre in the world and generates huge amounts of money for our economy.
Cut QUANGOS by half, thus saving about £45 billion. Many QUANGOS overlap and 250 chief executives of these QUANGOS are paid over £150,000 a year.
There are over 25,000 public sector workers earning over £100,000 a year, and over a 1000 earning over £150,000 a year. This needs reforming.
I haven't got started on how we could boost manufacturing, I will leave that for another post (I am sure you can't wait). There we have a few simple ideas which I have researched, I am no economist and no expert in financial management but something needs to be done. I want to finish with this; when Labour came to power in 1997 our national debt was £350 billion and our deficit was £6 billion, that is pretty manageable. We are now in a situation in which we are hugely in debt and I put that down to Labour's total mismanagement and in particularly Gordon Brown. Gordon Brown will walk away from politics in the near future in a financially sound position unlike the country which he ran, he will probably follow his predecessor onto the lecture circuit making even more money. I believe Gordon Brown should stand trial for what he and his Government did. Remember this, we live in a democracy and people should be held to account for their actions, unfortunately they won't be and we the British people will continue to suffer the consequenses of his total mismanagement.
Currently the official figure for our national debt is around £800 billion, but some analysts put that figure as high as £2,200 billion. This is how they came to the second figure:
Public sector pension liability £1,400 billion.
Contingent liability for Network rail £22 billion
Public Finance Initiative £139 billion, a major attraction of PFI is that, in theory, it transfers the risk of failure for a project from the Government to the private sector. However the reality is the Government carry most of the risk. Because if the project fails the Government have to pay, this happened a number of years ago with the London Fire Brigade. A company took on the maintenance contract for all stations and equipment but found that, when they took on the contract they hadn't taken into consideration the diesel cost and could not afford to carry on. The fire authority then had to take on the contract.
£130 billion of intervention in the financial sector.
The total of all this comes to about £1,395 billion, bringing a total of about £2,200 billion. That is our countries debt, the government aren't even dealing with this, they are trying to deal with the deficit, which is about £163 billion every year. The situation is this, the Government raises about £540 billion pounds every year but currently we are spending about £700 billion every year, by any ones calculations this is not good. It seems that if something isn't done soon this country could go bankrupt. You might say that sounds a bit over the top, let me tell you this, currently this country has a triple A rating when it comes to our economy. That means when we borrow money we have a low interest rate and financial markets don't see us as being a risky country to invest in. If we do not sort our finances out speculators and investors will not invest and we will have to borrow money at a high interest rate and we will have to go to the IMF cap in hand and ask them for financial aid. As I have said above the Government are making £6 billion worth of cuts, I believe this is a ridiculously small amount and the Government needs to be doing more. Let me put this into context, imagine your income was £30,000 a year but your outgoings were £39,000 a year, you would have to do something about it, or else you would eventually end up bankrupt. So you decide you would cut some of your spending by £900 a year, I am sure I don't need to tell you that £900 is not really going to make much difference to your financial situation (Imagine on top that figure, having £120,000 on credit cards and loans). This is what the Government are doing, £6 billion sounds like a lot of money, and to you and me it is, but if you look at our countries debt it is a tiny amount.
So, what could we do that wouldn't have an affect upon the public sector and still pay off the debt? I have already talked about waste in a previous post, but I just want to mention a few things here that hopefully will make you think.
Currently the Government is committed to spending £18 billion on a climate change bill. The Government wants to cover our beautiful countryside with wind turbines which are not going to produce enough energy for our needs, and we the tax payer are paying for it.
At the moment we have a very costly welfare system with over 70 different types of benefits, the Government could cut costs by £8 billion just by reforming it.
We pay £16 billion into the EU every year. Leaving would have no detrimental affect upon our economy. And before you start quoting figures about 60% of our exports going to the EU, the figure is nearer 40%, manufacturing only makes up 13.7% our economy. The EU are going to regulate Hedge funds, which generated £5.4 billion last year for our economy. Hedge funds had nothing to do with the financial crises and 80% of them are dealt with in London, if they are regulated they will leave and set up in Geneva, Dubai or the far east.
We need to deregulate; SABMiller, the 17th largest British Company is thinking of moving its head quarters outside of London because of over regulation. Unilever is thinking of doing the same, this will mean less income for our economy and less prestige for the City of London, meaning more and more companies could end up leaving, thus taking their jobs and tax elsewhere. You may say good riddance, but be careful, London is currently the largest financial centre in the world and generates huge amounts of money for our economy.
Cut QUANGOS by half, thus saving about £45 billion. Many QUANGOS overlap and 250 chief executives of these QUANGOS are paid over £150,000 a year.
There are over 25,000 public sector workers earning over £100,000 a year, and over a 1000 earning over £150,000 a year. This needs reforming.
I haven't got started on how we could boost manufacturing, I will leave that for another post (I am sure you can't wait). There we have a few simple ideas which I have researched, I am no economist and no expert in financial management but something needs to be done. I want to finish with this; when Labour came to power in 1997 our national debt was £350 billion and our deficit was £6 billion, that is pretty manageable. We are now in a situation in which we are hugely in debt and I put that down to Labour's total mismanagement and in particularly Gordon Brown. Gordon Brown will walk away from politics in the near future in a financially sound position unlike the country which he ran, he will probably follow his predecessor onto the lecture circuit making even more money. I believe Gordon Brown should stand trial for what he and his Government did. Remember this, we live in a democracy and people should be held to account for their actions, unfortunately they won't be and we the British people will continue to suffer the consequenses of his total mismanagement.
Monday, 17 May 2010
Paranoia
I have found for a number of years now that our world is changing faster and faster, we are seeing greater leaps in technology and greater changes in the way we think. I don't necessarily mind change but I sometimes think we have change for changes sake. One of the things that has changed is the way so many of us look at life, this becomes obvious when we look at the amount of scares we have had in the last few years. Over the last 20 years there have been a numerous amount of scares, whether it be 'mad cow disease' or 'salmonella in eggs', there just seem to be one thing after another. The most up to date scares are bird flu, swine flu and global warming. I think we live in a more paranoid time than at any other time in our history, which I think is quite ironic because we seem to be wealthier, healthier and more peaceful than at any other time in our history.
Why is this? What is the driving force behind so many of the scares that have occurred in the last few years? I believe 2 things; the media and our politicians. The media have a lot to answer for. Newspapers love a bad story and our politicians don't like to be held responsible for the problems within our society, even though they have the ability to change how our society runs.
Let's look at some scares and some so called truths and then think about how you have reacted to these. I have covered this before in an earlier post but I think it is worth revisiting. I am not going to go into too much detail, I just think it is important to think about, and research things for yourself rather than just believing what we are told by the media, politicians and so called experts.
1.ADHD: We are told this is a genuine condition, but there is no clinical scientific evidence to back up the theory behind this. Many parents would say their child is incredibly difficult and has been diagnosed with ADHD, but since there is no clinical diagnoses for this, I would have to question the diagnosis. We need to ask some simple questions; why is ADHD only diagnosed in boys? Maybe this has more to do with boys being treated the same as girls and not being given the opportunity to release all that pent up energy. I have two boys and I know if they are stuck inside for too long they are bouncing off the walls. Boys need to exercise, too many boys are fed processed food which is full of artificial ingredients, is it any wander that they can't sit still. There are many reasons why boys behave the way they do, to believe a diagnosis which is based on flawed science and then drugging our children is very dangerous. Maybe the truth behind ADHD is as simple as this; pharmaceutical companies want to make huge profits and they will do it anyway they can, even if it is by selling drugs to vulnerable people. I believe this will lead to huge problems within out society in years to come.
2. Bird Flu: We were told this so called pandemic was going to kill 150 million people, in the end the death toll was somewhere in the region of 150. Again maybe the driving force behind swine flu had more to do with big companies than a genuine scare.
3. Swine flu: Just look at the above.
4. Salmonella: According to experts there is a danger of contracting salmonella from eggs, we are at the point now were schools do not allow children to use egg boxes in model making. You have more chance of being struck by lightning down a coal mine than from contracting salmonella from eggs or egg boxes. We have rational intelligent people never questioning anything, I think it is about time we started to question the experts who set out so much of our regulations.
I could give you a lot of examples but I just wanted to make a small point, many of us over the course of our lives will be told certain things. We will be told that it is the truth and if we deviate from that 'truth' there could be dire consequences. Let me give you 2 examples to illustrate what I mean.
23 years ago we were told by experts that the best way to avoid cot death was to lay our children on their front, 5 years after this pronouncement we were told to lay them face up. How many children died because of this bad advice?
In the mid 20th century psychiatrists believed that pre-frontal lobotomy was a miracle treatment. It is now universally excepted as a barbaric and destructive operation.
The whole point of what I am saying is; it is very easy to except what our so called experts tell us without ever questioning their wisdom. The reason for not questioning it, is usually because we don't have the time or the inclination which I understand. I believe it is very important to question and to research the truth and the subject and also to listen to other opinions. I have seen so many scares over my lifetime come to nothing and I have become more and more cynical over the years. We need to be clear on one thing, it is very important that we look and listen to clear objective clinical scientific evidence, not subjective emotional scientific theory. If we continue the way we are going it'll be very difficult to discern what is the truth and the only people asking the questions will be those who are seen as extremists and lunatics and then the world will truly have gone bonkers.
Why is this? What is the driving force behind so many of the scares that have occurred in the last few years? I believe 2 things; the media and our politicians. The media have a lot to answer for. Newspapers love a bad story and our politicians don't like to be held responsible for the problems within our society, even though they have the ability to change how our society runs.
Let's look at some scares and some so called truths and then think about how you have reacted to these. I have covered this before in an earlier post but I think it is worth revisiting. I am not going to go into too much detail, I just think it is important to think about, and research things for yourself rather than just believing what we are told by the media, politicians and so called experts.
1.ADHD: We are told this is a genuine condition, but there is no clinical scientific evidence to back up the theory behind this. Many parents would say their child is incredibly difficult and has been diagnosed with ADHD, but since there is no clinical diagnoses for this, I would have to question the diagnosis. We need to ask some simple questions; why is ADHD only diagnosed in boys? Maybe this has more to do with boys being treated the same as girls and not being given the opportunity to release all that pent up energy. I have two boys and I know if they are stuck inside for too long they are bouncing off the walls. Boys need to exercise, too many boys are fed processed food which is full of artificial ingredients, is it any wander that they can't sit still. There are many reasons why boys behave the way they do, to believe a diagnosis which is based on flawed science and then drugging our children is very dangerous. Maybe the truth behind ADHD is as simple as this; pharmaceutical companies want to make huge profits and they will do it anyway they can, even if it is by selling drugs to vulnerable people. I believe this will lead to huge problems within out society in years to come.
2. Bird Flu: We were told this so called pandemic was going to kill 150 million people, in the end the death toll was somewhere in the region of 150. Again maybe the driving force behind swine flu had more to do with big companies than a genuine scare.
3. Swine flu: Just look at the above.
4. Salmonella: According to experts there is a danger of contracting salmonella from eggs, we are at the point now were schools do not allow children to use egg boxes in model making. You have more chance of being struck by lightning down a coal mine than from contracting salmonella from eggs or egg boxes. We have rational intelligent people never questioning anything, I think it is about time we started to question the experts who set out so much of our regulations.
I could give you a lot of examples but I just wanted to make a small point, many of us over the course of our lives will be told certain things. We will be told that it is the truth and if we deviate from that 'truth' there could be dire consequences. Let me give you 2 examples to illustrate what I mean.
23 years ago we were told by experts that the best way to avoid cot death was to lay our children on their front, 5 years after this pronouncement we were told to lay them face up. How many children died because of this bad advice?
In the mid 20th century psychiatrists believed that pre-frontal lobotomy was a miracle treatment. It is now universally excepted as a barbaric and destructive operation.
The whole point of what I am saying is; it is very easy to except what our so called experts tell us without ever questioning their wisdom. The reason for not questioning it, is usually because we don't have the time or the inclination which I understand. I believe it is very important to question and to research the truth and the subject and also to listen to other opinions. I have seen so many scares over my lifetime come to nothing and I have become more and more cynical over the years. We need to be clear on one thing, it is very important that we look and listen to clear objective clinical scientific evidence, not subjective emotional scientific theory. If we continue the way we are going it'll be very difficult to discern what is the truth and the only people asking the questions will be those who are seen as extremists and lunatics and then the world will truly have gone bonkers.
Tuesday, 11 May 2010
Education.
Education, Education, Education. Tony Blair famously said these words at the beginning of his premiership, he stated he wanted 50 per cent of all school leavers to go onto higher education. This sounds like a good aspiration, his view was that this would be beneficial for the economy (a more skilled workforce, earning more money, paying more tax and bringing more companies looking for skilled workers to this country). He also said it would be beneficial for individuals, as a person with a degree earns more money over their lifetime than someone who doesn't have a degree. This all sounds great but this is a very simplistic view and unfortunately not correct. The reality for so many graduates is, unemployment or at the very best low paid unskilled work. Now let me say this before you start accusing me of being negative and of being someone who is against people going onto university. I believe going to university can be one of the greatest experiences of anyones life, it can be a time when someone learns independence, learns new ways of looking at life. It can be a time when people meet many more individuals with different view points, people become more active at university, whether that be politically or get involved in charity organisations. It can be a time of learning new truths, a time of great learning. I know many young people go to university for many different reasons, not just necessarily to get a job but they just want to learn, and that is very commendable. I would say this is as true now as it has always been. I know many people who have gone to university and say it was the best 3 years of their lives, probably for all the wrong reasons, I think that is part of growing up.
So, what is the point of this post. As you can see above, I hope I have proven I am not against people going onto university. What I am against is the culture we now live in, in which you are almost seen as a failure if you haven't got a degree, or if a young person doesn't go onto higher education they are wasting their talents. In September 2009 400,000 young people graduated, that is an awful lot of people suddenly looking for employment, and unfortunately the majority of them will not end up with a good job. The reality is, we now have millions of people in this country with degrees; as you can imagine with this many degrees about, this rather cheapens this once sought after qualification. Let me use this analogy: when DVD players first came out they where very expensive, only a very few people could afford them and they were sought after. Now everyone has got one, they are very cheap and no one thinks they are that special. I would say that is true for so many degrees. When I left school in 1987 if someone went onto university, that was deemed very special and you would be pretty much guaranteed a good job, let us fast forward 23 years, the same cannot be said for our university leavers. I know many people who have degrees (probably about 40-50)I can honestly say this, anyone I know who got a degree prior to 1990 walked into a good job. Most of those who have got a degree in the past 10 years, unless it is a vocational degree have either become a teacher (because they can't get anything else)or are doing something that doesn't really require many if any qualifications. I work with someone who has a degree and they said it was a complete waste of 3 years, I could give you example after example of this, but I am sure there are many people who would say the same. There will be many people out there who will disagree with me and will say it is always worth going onto university if you can. But having seen the reality of at least 30 friends, family, acquaintances or workmates with degrees, doing something they would never have chosen to do before they went to university, or doing something that requires no university education sums up the reality to me.
As I have said already, I am not against people going to university, I just believe there are too many young people doing so (51 per cent of girls now go onto university). I also believe our education system has been dumbed down, the government would argue that because we have seen year on year improvements in results, this proves that things are getting better. I just cannot see this being true, if we are to believe the results, our young people are receiving a better education and are becoming more intelligent every year. The government would say the fact that so many young people are achieving such high grades at GCSE, A level and degree proves this to be true. When anyone like me criticises the results and is cynical about our so called fantastic education system, we are seen as trying to knock young people and their hard work and achievements. I am not complaining about our young people, I do believe that they do work hard, but what worries me is that we are seeing so many young people achieving very little after 17 years of education. When I was young if someone managed to get 10 O'levels at grade C and above they were deemed to be very intelligent, and if someone achieved 3 grade A, A levels that was almost unheard of. We are now in the position were education boards have brought in the A* grades and universities are having to set entrance exams for places because so many applicants have got 3 A's at A levels. I do not think that we have seen such a huge improvement in standards, I believe we have seen a downgrading in standards.
Let's be totally honest here, getting a good degree from a good university is a good thing and can open doors to a good career, but getting a degree does not somehow guarantee anything except a piece of paper with a qualification. Unfortunately there are too many young people going to university with no real understanding of what they want to do once they leave. We have too many young people being told by teachers that university is a guarantee of a good job. Unfortunately the reality for our young people becomes only too apparent when they leave and find there isn't an employer waiting with open arms and a job earning £30,000 a year. I would encourage every young person to get an education, but I believe it has to be the right sort of education. We need people with trades and with vocational degrees, every person I know who went to university to study for a vocational degree has now got a job in the area of expertise they studied. There are now many young people with degrees who will not earn more than me over the period of their working life and I have got 4 CSE's and 2 O' levels. Only 3 weeks ago I heard Gordon Brown in a speech saying how those with a degree will earn more over their lifetime than those who don't, again for an awful lot of young people this is not true. The problem is quite simple, as I have highlighted above, there are so many young people with degrees. An employer is looking for someone special not just someone who has a degree. Unfortunately a degree is no longer a guarantee of a high standard of intelligence or education.
I believe there has to be a change, I believe if we carry on the way we are going, we are going to end up with many, many young people disillusioned and out of work. The government have driven forward a policy without any thought to the consequences of the people they are governing. We have many young people who will leave college this year and go onto university with dreams of gaining a qualification that will get them a highly paid job. Unfortunately it won't be until 3 years later that the reality will hit them and they will go into the big bad world with nothing to show for their hard work except a massive debt and no job. Ba Humbug!!!
So, what is the point of this post. As you can see above, I hope I have proven I am not against people going onto university. What I am against is the culture we now live in, in which you are almost seen as a failure if you haven't got a degree, or if a young person doesn't go onto higher education they are wasting their talents. In September 2009 400,000 young people graduated, that is an awful lot of people suddenly looking for employment, and unfortunately the majority of them will not end up with a good job. The reality is, we now have millions of people in this country with degrees; as you can imagine with this many degrees about, this rather cheapens this once sought after qualification. Let me use this analogy: when DVD players first came out they where very expensive, only a very few people could afford them and they were sought after. Now everyone has got one, they are very cheap and no one thinks they are that special. I would say that is true for so many degrees. When I left school in 1987 if someone went onto university, that was deemed very special and you would be pretty much guaranteed a good job, let us fast forward 23 years, the same cannot be said for our university leavers. I know many people who have degrees (probably about 40-50)I can honestly say this, anyone I know who got a degree prior to 1990 walked into a good job. Most of those who have got a degree in the past 10 years, unless it is a vocational degree have either become a teacher (because they can't get anything else)or are doing something that doesn't really require many if any qualifications. I work with someone who has a degree and they said it was a complete waste of 3 years, I could give you example after example of this, but I am sure there are many people who would say the same. There will be many people out there who will disagree with me and will say it is always worth going onto university if you can. But having seen the reality of at least 30 friends, family, acquaintances or workmates with degrees, doing something they would never have chosen to do before they went to university, or doing something that requires no university education sums up the reality to me.
As I have said already, I am not against people going to university, I just believe there are too many young people doing so (51 per cent of girls now go onto university). I also believe our education system has been dumbed down, the government would argue that because we have seen year on year improvements in results, this proves that things are getting better. I just cannot see this being true, if we are to believe the results, our young people are receiving a better education and are becoming more intelligent every year. The government would say the fact that so many young people are achieving such high grades at GCSE, A level and degree proves this to be true. When anyone like me criticises the results and is cynical about our so called fantastic education system, we are seen as trying to knock young people and their hard work and achievements. I am not complaining about our young people, I do believe that they do work hard, but what worries me is that we are seeing so many young people achieving very little after 17 years of education. When I was young if someone managed to get 10 O'levels at grade C and above they were deemed to be very intelligent, and if someone achieved 3 grade A, A levels that was almost unheard of. We are now in the position were education boards have brought in the A* grades and universities are having to set entrance exams for places because so many applicants have got 3 A's at A levels. I do not think that we have seen such a huge improvement in standards, I believe we have seen a downgrading in standards.
Let's be totally honest here, getting a good degree from a good university is a good thing and can open doors to a good career, but getting a degree does not somehow guarantee anything except a piece of paper with a qualification. Unfortunately there are too many young people going to university with no real understanding of what they want to do once they leave. We have too many young people being told by teachers that university is a guarantee of a good job. Unfortunately the reality for our young people becomes only too apparent when they leave and find there isn't an employer waiting with open arms and a job earning £30,000 a year. I would encourage every young person to get an education, but I believe it has to be the right sort of education. We need people with trades and with vocational degrees, every person I know who went to university to study for a vocational degree has now got a job in the area of expertise they studied. There are now many young people with degrees who will not earn more than me over the period of their working life and I have got 4 CSE's and 2 O' levels. Only 3 weeks ago I heard Gordon Brown in a speech saying how those with a degree will earn more over their lifetime than those who don't, again for an awful lot of young people this is not true. The problem is quite simple, as I have highlighted above, there are so many young people with degrees. An employer is looking for someone special not just someone who has a degree. Unfortunately a degree is no longer a guarantee of a high standard of intelligence or education.
I believe there has to be a change, I believe if we carry on the way we are going, we are going to end up with many, many young people disillusioned and out of work. The government have driven forward a policy without any thought to the consequences of the people they are governing. We have many young people who will leave college this year and go onto university with dreams of gaining a qualification that will get them a highly paid job. Unfortunately it won't be until 3 years later that the reality will hit them and they will go into the big bad world with nothing to show for their hard work except a massive debt and no job. Ba Humbug!!!
Friday, 7 May 2010
The Election
The election is now over and here we are, with what everyone was predicting; a hung parliament. This result has been talked about during the whole campaign and was predicted at the beginning of the campaign, the parties have spent a lot of money and we have ended up with a result that was expected. I suppose the question has to be asked, was it worth spending all that money? I suppose with the benefit of hindsight it is easy to say that. I have 3 questions to ask, and I want to try and explore them; firstly, how on earth have Labour managed to get so many seats? Secondly; with the country in such a disastrous state, and Gordon Brown being touted as possibly the worse Prime Minister this country has had in years, why haven't the Tories managed to get a working majority? Thirdly; is there now a case for electoral reform?
If you have read my previous posts you will realise that I try to stick to the facts and never deliberately print a lie, I genuinely mean that. I am a Christian and I always try to tell the truth and hope that that comes across. With that in mind I want to try and answer the first of my questions. To me, Labour have been a disaster, practically from day one. I say this because, even though I did not vote for Labour in 1997, I was quite hopeful that after the years of sleaze and what seemed to be a corrupt and tired government we were going to get something new and refreshing. I was hoping, New Labour would take our country forward into a new millennia and we would see real change and we would have a government that was going to listen to the people and govern with this in mind. I quickly became disillusioned and there were a number of reasons for this. I will not go into great detail but I will mention them and you can make up your own mind. Pensions: Gordon Brown destroyed our pension industry overnight by taking the tax relief away from from company pensions, thus wiping out any financial incentive for companies to invest in them. This has been one of the worse things any Chancellor has ever done. Gold: Selling 395 Tonnes of our gold at $275 an ounce, not only did he sell it when the price was rock bottom he announced the day he was going to sell it. Education: Since coming to power Labour have increased spending on education by 52%, that sounds fantastic until you read the fact that more young people are leaving school unable to read. Many of our schools are battlegrounds, with teachers hands tied, unable to do anything. I will cover education in a future post. NHS: We now spend £101 billion on the NHS every year, yet we see bureaucracy and targets becoming the priority. TARGETS: this I believe has been one of Labours greatest failings. Targets sound like a good idea but unfortunately the simple truth is that managers become fixated with them to the point that they become the focal point, this has been borne out by a number of reports. The enquiry into the the Baby Peter case by Lord Lamay stated that managers had become focused on TARGETS. The enquiry into the 1200 deaths at South Staffordshire Hospital said that manager had become focused on TARGETS. Every government run organisation has to achieve targets set down by the government; from policing to the fire service, from rubbish collection to education. I could go on and on but I will say this, it isn't necessarily the fault of the mangers, because their funding is based upon achieving TARGETS, and so we have to lay the problem at the feet of the government. The economy: when Labour came to power our deficit was £6 billion, now it is £163 billion. Gordon Brown insists that this isn't his fault, because he says we are in a global recession. To a certain point this is true, but we have to look at the simple truth that Gordon Brown has been in the enviable position of having an economy that has practically had greater growth than at any other time in our history. Instead of paying off the UK's debt he decided to spend it on creating a huge public sector and increasing the welfare state, this in turn has had the affect of increasing those on state benefits and thus increasing unemployment. The public sector: we now have 8 million public sector workers, only 2 million of those are front line workers. We have seen the private sector decrease and the public sector increase, thus we have a situation of the wealth creating part of our economy decrease and more and more workers now reliant on the government for their jobs. I believe this will come back to bite us, we only have to look at what is happening in Greece. Spin: Looking back at Tony Blair's time in power I believe that his legacy is; spin, Iraq and less democracy. Tony Blair came to power on the back of Tory sleaze and left on the back of creating a country that was more cynical about politics than any other time in history. I believe Tony Blair came to power with the full intention of changing everything within our democracy e.g. Prime Ministers Question Time, the position of Lord Chancellor, the House of Lords, immigration, to name but a few and to do this with as little consultation as possible. Iraq: This country was led into a war under false pretensions, it is as simple as that, Tony Blair and his government decided to follow America regardless of the consequences. Over a million people marched through London protesting against this illegal war and the government ignored them, I believe this shows New Labour's contempt for democracy. The Eu Constitution: Again this issue has shown New Labour's total disregard for democracy, I have covered this before but let me say this one thing. Regardless of whether you agree with the EU or not, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown in 2005 as part of a manifesto commitment promised the British people a referendum on the EU Constitution. The EU changed the name to the Lisbon Treaty and agreed that it was practically the same and Gordon Brown refused us a referendum, I am afraid this sums up this whole party. Immigration: this issue above all other issues has shown New Labour for what they really are, this is a policy which New Labour decided to follow and in doing so have created huge resentment and I believe real trouble within this country. I have covered this in previous posts so that is all I am going to say. Peter Mandelson: this man to me is the embodiment of New Labour; no scruples and no morals. This man was forced to leave government twice in disgrace, was given a job as an EU Commissioner and after retiring from that job, he was given a job within Gordon Brown's cabinet. I don't think I need to say anything else !
Why haven't the Conservatives managed to get an outright majority? This isn't a simple question to answer, but I believe this opens debate on our whole party system. David Cameron and Nick clegg have shown that they are more about style over substance and that with David Cameron we have another Tony Blair. I believe the electorate can see through this and in seeing through it most people will agree that we do not want a rerun of the Blair years. I have listened to many people talk about David Cameron and his qualities but I really cannot see that he has the right qualities to govern. He has shown that he is quite capable of standing at the ballot box and haranguing the Prime Minister, but as far as leading this country, that is a different matter. David Cameron has shown that he is not able to deliver by not being able to give us clear direction on what he would do if he made government. He also promised us, the British people a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, and has reneged on that promise. He is a man who has shown that he is too willing to kowtow to the politically correct liberal left over any sensitive issue and has not stated the truth on immigration. He has been guilty of not sorting out the expenses scandal within his own party and unfortunately for us, he potentially could form the next government.
Finally, our voting system. Many people will argue that the system we have at the moment is the system we have always had and it has always worked. Some people might say that if we brought in proportional representation this could bring instability, and some may say "better the devil you know than the devil you don't". I believe there has to be a change. We have a situation in which the Democatic Unionists in N.Ireland got 168,216 votes and achieved 8 seats, the Greens 285,616 and got 1 seat and UKIP 917,832 and got no seats. I think what highlights the inequality within the system more than anything is the Lib Dems, they got 6% less votes than Labour but Labour got 258 seats and the Liberals got 57. I think this has to change. It is as simple as that, I could go into the rights and wrongs of our system but I believe this simple truth shows the fundamental problem with our 'first past the post' system of democracy.
I have watched for the past 13 years as our government has ruled with almost total disregard to the electorate, they have squandered Billions of pounds of our money on pointless projects. They have brought thousands of new laws in and they have still got a huge amount of seats. As someone who has become more and more frustrated by New Labour, it does make me wander what they have to do to make people change how they vote. I remember someone saying this to me about some people in our country; 'some people have always voted for Labour and even if the standing MP murdered their whole family they would still vote Labour'. This to me sums up the situation within our country today and I believe without a change in the system we will never see real change.
If you have read my previous posts you will realise that I try to stick to the facts and never deliberately print a lie, I genuinely mean that. I am a Christian and I always try to tell the truth and hope that that comes across. With that in mind I want to try and answer the first of my questions. To me, Labour have been a disaster, practically from day one. I say this because, even though I did not vote for Labour in 1997, I was quite hopeful that after the years of sleaze and what seemed to be a corrupt and tired government we were going to get something new and refreshing. I was hoping, New Labour would take our country forward into a new millennia and we would see real change and we would have a government that was going to listen to the people and govern with this in mind. I quickly became disillusioned and there were a number of reasons for this. I will not go into great detail but I will mention them and you can make up your own mind. Pensions: Gordon Brown destroyed our pension industry overnight by taking the tax relief away from from company pensions, thus wiping out any financial incentive for companies to invest in them. This has been one of the worse things any Chancellor has ever done. Gold: Selling 395 Tonnes of our gold at $275 an ounce, not only did he sell it when the price was rock bottom he announced the day he was going to sell it. Education: Since coming to power Labour have increased spending on education by 52%, that sounds fantastic until you read the fact that more young people are leaving school unable to read. Many of our schools are battlegrounds, with teachers hands tied, unable to do anything. I will cover education in a future post. NHS: We now spend £101 billion on the NHS every year, yet we see bureaucracy and targets becoming the priority. TARGETS: this I believe has been one of Labours greatest failings. Targets sound like a good idea but unfortunately the simple truth is that managers become fixated with them to the point that they become the focal point, this has been borne out by a number of reports. The enquiry into the the Baby Peter case by Lord Lamay stated that managers had become focused on TARGETS. The enquiry into the 1200 deaths at South Staffordshire Hospital said that manager had become focused on TARGETS. Every government run organisation has to achieve targets set down by the government; from policing to the fire service, from rubbish collection to education. I could go on and on but I will say this, it isn't necessarily the fault of the mangers, because their funding is based upon achieving TARGETS, and so we have to lay the problem at the feet of the government. The economy: when Labour came to power our deficit was £6 billion, now it is £163 billion. Gordon Brown insists that this isn't his fault, because he says we are in a global recession. To a certain point this is true, but we have to look at the simple truth that Gordon Brown has been in the enviable position of having an economy that has practically had greater growth than at any other time in our history. Instead of paying off the UK's debt he decided to spend it on creating a huge public sector and increasing the welfare state, this in turn has had the affect of increasing those on state benefits and thus increasing unemployment. The public sector: we now have 8 million public sector workers, only 2 million of those are front line workers. We have seen the private sector decrease and the public sector increase, thus we have a situation of the wealth creating part of our economy decrease and more and more workers now reliant on the government for their jobs. I believe this will come back to bite us, we only have to look at what is happening in Greece. Spin: Looking back at Tony Blair's time in power I believe that his legacy is; spin, Iraq and less democracy. Tony Blair came to power on the back of Tory sleaze and left on the back of creating a country that was more cynical about politics than any other time in history. I believe Tony Blair came to power with the full intention of changing everything within our democracy e.g. Prime Ministers Question Time, the position of Lord Chancellor, the House of Lords, immigration, to name but a few and to do this with as little consultation as possible. Iraq: This country was led into a war under false pretensions, it is as simple as that, Tony Blair and his government decided to follow America regardless of the consequences. Over a million people marched through London protesting against this illegal war and the government ignored them, I believe this shows New Labour's contempt for democracy. The Eu Constitution: Again this issue has shown New Labour's total disregard for democracy, I have covered this before but let me say this one thing. Regardless of whether you agree with the EU or not, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown in 2005 as part of a manifesto commitment promised the British people a referendum on the EU Constitution. The EU changed the name to the Lisbon Treaty and agreed that it was practically the same and Gordon Brown refused us a referendum, I am afraid this sums up this whole party. Immigration: this issue above all other issues has shown New Labour for what they really are, this is a policy which New Labour decided to follow and in doing so have created huge resentment and I believe real trouble within this country. I have covered this in previous posts so that is all I am going to say. Peter Mandelson: this man to me is the embodiment of New Labour; no scruples and no morals. This man was forced to leave government twice in disgrace, was given a job as an EU Commissioner and after retiring from that job, he was given a job within Gordon Brown's cabinet. I don't think I need to say anything else !
Why haven't the Conservatives managed to get an outright majority? This isn't a simple question to answer, but I believe this opens debate on our whole party system. David Cameron and Nick clegg have shown that they are more about style over substance and that with David Cameron we have another Tony Blair. I believe the electorate can see through this and in seeing through it most people will agree that we do not want a rerun of the Blair years. I have listened to many people talk about David Cameron and his qualities but I really cannot see that he has the right qualities to govern. He has shown that he is quite capable of standing at the ballot box and haranguing the Prime Minister, but as far as leading this country, that is a different matter. David Cameron has shown that he is not able to deliver by not being able to give us clear direction on what he would do if he made government. He also promised us, the British people a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, and has reneged on that promise. He is a man who has shown that he is too willing to kowtow to the politically correct liberal left over any sensitive issue and has not stated the truth on immigration. He has been guilty of not sorting out the expenses scandal within his own party and unfortunately for us, he potentially could form the next government.
Finally, our voting system. Many people will argue that the system we have at the moment is the system we have always had and it has always worked. Some people might say that if we brought in proportional representation this could bring instability, and some may say "better the devil you know than the devil you don't". I believe there has to be a change. We have a situation in which the Democatic Unionists in N.Ireland got 168,216 votes and achieved 8 seats, the Greens 285,616 and got 1 seat and UKIP 917,832 and got no seats. I think what highlights the inequality within the system more than anything is the Lib Dems, they got 6% less votes than Labour but Labour got 258 seats and the Liberals got 57. I think this has to change. It is as simple as that, I could go into the rights and wrongs of our system but I believe this simple truth shows the fundamental problem with our 'first past the post' system of democracy.
I have watched for the past 13 years as our government has ruled with almost total disregard to the electorate, they have squandered Billions of pounds of our money on pointless projects. They have brought thousands of new laws in and they have still got a huge amount of seats. As someone who has become more and more frustrated by New Labour, it does make me wander what they have to do to make people change how they vote. I remember someone saying this to me about some people in our country; 'some people have always voted for Labour and even if the standing MP murdered their whole family they would still vote Labour'. This to me sums up the situation within our country today and I believe without a change in the system we will never see real change.
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