A few concerns

Recently I was told I could be made redundant in the very near future, I must be honest I was a little surprised by this as I always thought my job was safe. I suppose what bothers me most about this news is, if I could lose my job that means almost anyone could lose theirs. My job is a front line job, I suppose it is one of those jobs that every society needs to function. The situation is this, all local authorities have been told they have to save money, and Suffolk Fire and Rescue has got to make about 25 per cent savings over the next 4 years. Suffolk fire and Rescue has the smallest budget per person of any fire service in the UK and 75 per cent of its budget goes on wages, as you can imagine there aren't really any savings to be made, this means front line fire fighters will have to be cut.

Putting aside my personal feelings about my job and its uncertainties, what concerns me is that with our countries parlous financial situation why are we continuing to give more and more money away? Why is our Government not looking to protect British workers? What I have come to realise is that for an awful lot of people, if something doesn't effect them they are not really bothered about it. So for example the issue of Travellers buying a field and building a permanent camp on it is something that for most people does not effect them so they are not bothered. But if one day you woke up to find a group travellers setting up camp on your doorstep you would be bothered and I am sure even those who are very politically correct would soon be complaining.

I just wanted to look at a few areas and ask the question, why are we as a country continuing to put up with it? I have in the past talked about waste, and I am sure with some very simple auditing we as a country could save billions. What I continue to find amazing is that people are not talking about the elephant in the room, and that is immigration. If you have read my blog before you might be thinking, 'here he goes again, same old same old, think of something new to say'. But I just wanted to look at it again, because until someone starts to do something about it I will continue to write about it.

Over the years we have been told that immigration continues to bring benefits, but having looked into it, it is quite obvious that there are no obvious benefits. I have said this before but I want to reiterate it; there are currently 2.5 million unemployed in this country, the Government are looking to remove 1.5 million off incapacity benefits onto the unemployment register. Public sector cuts will mean that about 500,000 people will lose their jobs and the possible knock on effect will be another 500,000 losing their jobs in the private sector because many private companies rely on public sector work. There you have nearly 5 million unemployed including many graduates and over a million 16-24 year olds, why on earth do we need more immigrants? On top of this, with the continued influx of foreigners there is more pressure on our schools; I was talking to a friend who works in a school which has a lot of immigrants from many different countries and she was telling me it is very difficult to teach these children because many do not speak a word of English. Can you imagine sending your English speaking child to this school, what sort of education are they going to get when the teacher has to spend so much time focusing on the non English speakers?

With the added pressure of having smaller budgets, local authorities are having to make the money go further, and with a rising population this means every individual will have less money spent on them. As you can imagine it will be the poorest and most vulnerable who will be effected the most, as they are the ones who rely on services more than the wealthy.

Most local authorities continue to waste huge sums, there has been no change in many of our chief executives wages and public sector bodies continue to pay extravagantly. I was talking to someone recently and they were telling me that a head teacher of a state school near where his family lives is paid £200,000 a year, that is more than the Prime Minister. As much as I think teachers do a good job, I do not think that a head of a comprehensive school should be paid so much.

There are many things which concern me, I read every week of huge waste, of people being employed doing non jobs, and what I find so amazing is that when these concerns are raised by local tax payers and the press the local authority spokesman issue the same platitudes, about value for money and understanding peoples concerns.

I wonder at what point people will start to take direct action; recently we had students going on the rampage, I personally don't think it is everyones right to go onto higher education. Having seen so many people I know leaving university with a degree that is as much use as a chocolate teapot and struggle to get a job I do think this issue needs to be seriously looked at. But there is a point here about people starting to fight back, with so much pressure on so many people I do believe something will eventually give. We have many countries throughout Europe on the verge of bankruptcy, we have already watched as Greece and Ireland have had to go cap in had to the EU and IMF. It is very likely that Portugal will be next and Spain, Italy and Belgium are not looking very safe either. If these countries go under there is no way their economies will be saved by the EU. When this happens I believe we could potentially have massive civil unrest.

The UK is not out of the woods by any means, and for many they have not felt the effect but none of us knows the future. I believe that unless our leaders start to listen to the people and start to do something about the issues I have spoken about our country could well head in the same direction as many other countries, and then we could end up with massive civil unrest as well. I know that sounds very gloomy but until our leaders start being honest, start listening and start doing something I believe we could see this happening.