The Labour Party won the 2005 UK general election with 35.3% of the popular British vote. The Conservative Party was just a few points behind with points behind at 32.3% of the popular vote, but because of the first past the post voting system, the Labour Party had a significant majority with 356 parliamentary seats […]
Continue Reading General Election 2010 Poll Results
You’ve gone suspiciously quiet David… Am I about to be bombarded with googled information and statistics?
;-)
LOL, no just busy working on SEO clients sites that pays the bills :-)
David
David, just tried to submit a reply to Helen’s post; it’s not coming up and wordpress is telling me it’s a duplicate?
Is it a glitch or are you surreptitiously trying to ban me for my outrageous comments…. ??
LOL, looks like WordPress decided it no longer wanted your comments Sarah :-)
Your last 3 comments (included this one above) were marked as SPAM and put in the SPAM folder.
Fortunately I don’t get much SPAM comments on this site (some of my sites have hundreds of SPAM comments a day), so I noticed them and recovered them.
It’s really rare for the WordPress plugin (called Akismet) that automatically marks comments it thinks is SPAM, so now we have to suspect Sarah’s a secret comment spammer :-) It’s been a while since a new conspiracy theories been posted on the site, so will have to push this one :-)
I’ll keep a closer eye on the SPAM folder for a few days.
David
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I feel quite insulted! Even your spam folder is judging me now!
I know I’m a capitalist, but come on….!
Sarah
You intentions seem genuine with regard to your health ideas, and your tone has softened from your right wing previous posts, but you still don’t appreciate how important the NHS is to normal people, and how much people like me want to protect that. An idea like this would exacerbate the health inequalities that already exist in this country, which would be a disaster.
Regarding my query on identifying conditions ‘self inflicted’. I appreciate you aren’t a doctor and can’t explain this aspect of your idea. What I am certain of is that qualified professionals could not fairly categorise and advise on the best way to manage this scenario as there are too many variables, risk factors and genetic unknowns. In fact, a surpsising amount of medical conditions are idiopathic. I can see why you would want to single out obese people, smokers and alcohol abusers for ease of policy making, but this itself is a massive can of worms. There are also a multitude of other factors, e.g. what the difference between someone eating too much and being fat and getting Type 2 diabetes, and someone eating too much salt and having a stroke. One is more socially acceptable than the other. The guidelines on stopping smoking, alcohol and nutritional intake are routinely flouted by most of the population. If you really wanted to leave it up to medical professionals to legislate, you would find this would involve panels of professionals (probably working for private sector insurance companies and hospitals) mulling over casework, a massive drain on their resources and waste of their hands on training.
“Of course there will be ill people, the more important question is, are the waiting rooms more or less likely to be brimming with lots of ill people, therefore will the doctor have more time to spend with each patient or increase the times set for individual appointments?”
The answer is more likely or just as likely, if everyone adapts to the new model, the premises for the low income majority will be either the same as at present, or further marginalised due to scaling back of the basic government service you propose. Of course, the richer population will get whatever they pay for (which they do now anyway).
“Time IS money, are you suggesting these doctors work for free??? Do NHS doctors work for free? Do you?”
No, what I’m saying is once the bills are paid, the staff are paid and the treatment is paid for in the NHS, there is no board of directors looking for a cut of dosh from the service provision, therefore no ulterior motive to overbook, overtreat, overprescribe, oversubscribe patients. A private system, for example, for GPs may result in a desire to rush patients through for maximum income. If you think this doesn’t happen, look at stories of other private health services such as chiropractic or private dentistry (some, not all, of which are disagreeable and not in the patient’s best interests). I don’t think hospitals and GP practices should be profitable enterprises.
“I also happen to think that if you open the market and increase the competition you tend to up their game too.”
You would think so but look at the british rail network, look at the rip off electricity and gas suppliers. Often, competitive businesses are the ones most willing to fleece you and make themselves better off; is that something we should allow in healthcare? The provision of health care should never be treated like a business as people’s lives depend on it. Similarly the ambulance service, the police, fire and rescue – life and death public not private services.
“My belief in the reform of the NHS is about giving MORE people more of a choice…”
It would leave the majority of low income people with less choice and quality of services, of that I’m certain. Plus, why call it NHS reform when clearly it’s getting rid of our National Health Service and creating new businesses instead (plus a bog standard public service for the poorest people). The gap between health services for rich people and poor people would simply widen.
I think what’s vitally important to mention here is children. No matter what you political view is, whether it’s the child of a smack head, lazy benefit cheat, job seeker, factory worker, professional or an aristocrat, why should the parent’s money dictate the quality of health care that child receives?
As a side issue on organ donation, I’d say it’s always best to be on the list if you want to help someone unfortunate after you’re gone. Whilst there is a chance you might end up saving another George Best (albeit not for long), this wouldn’t bother me as let’s face it, I’d be dead and it would allow a surgeon to hone his/her skills in transplantation, plus my liver would then be famous. But seriously, the real benefit of a big list of organ donors, is that you are widening the opportunity for a match for someone who desperately needs it; I think this is worth it regardless.
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Helen,
My tone may have softened but unfortunately I do have some views that would probably make you wince!
Within the system that I have proposed I have tried to encapsulate all walks of life and give at least a basic help to all. I’m sorry, but I’m not obsessing with the unemployed, the low-paid or the drug-addicts children, I’ve included them, proposed to help them but I’m not making them the priority, they are not necessarily the most needy of services.
My proposed system is not perfect which I have already stated but the system at the moment is not perfect either. Health insurance healthcare systems in the world do work and work better than the UK system; France in particular is considered to have one of the best and most equitable systems based on an insurance system and private practitioners with almost no waiting time for necessary treatment.
Whilst the NHS may offer a free point of use for all, on the basis of it, is this really fair? Some people never pay into the system who get just the same level of services (theoretically, depending on your particular Trust)as people who pay into it all of their working life and may pay in thousands and thousands through their taxes.
Yes, we should (begrudgingly maybe!) help those who can’t help themselves but is it fair for the hard-working or high tax-contributors to have to wait for 2 weeks to find out if they have cancer because they are perhaps paying for treatment to others who either may not be contributing (or have never done so) to the system or even have just arrived in on a banana boat? Or even maybe, denied life-saving or chance-improving drugs because of where they live?
You can pull apart my idea but my system is probably more fair than the transformation that the NHS will probably have to go through eventually and ensure that those who are entitled to its use are those who get the benefit of it.
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@ Sarah
“…is it fair for the hard-working or high tax-contributors to have to wait for 2 weeks to find out if they have cancer because they are perhaps paying for treatment to others who either may not be contributing (or have never done so) to the system or even have just arrived in on a banana boat? ”
Is it fair for hard working people on low incomes to wait longer on the basis of money? You think it is, I don’t. Most people in this country work and pay tax, and what you are suggesting will mean healthcare quality will be determined by their level of income.
Just arrived in on a banana boat? Have you fallen into a timewarp to the 1960s?
If your not ‘obsessing’ over how your healthcare model will effect children, and not interested in making vulnerable children a priority, thank God you aren’t a policy maker.
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Do you motivate people to improve their lives and their lot in life by handing them everything on a plate that they should be striving for through effort, hard-work and reward?
Instead giving it to them from the backs of those who do? Under the last 2 labour governments, Britain has suffered the exodus of high taxed, highly skilled people, isn’t it possible these people are just fed up to some extent of not reaping the rewards of their efforts? Socialism needs effort from all in order to work.
Someone posted somewhere (I can’t remember where exactly) “instead of giving them hope, we gave them tax credits”. Harsh, I know, but this is life.
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I agree. People need to stop sitting around doing nothing and expecting everybody else to bail them out every time anything goes wrong.
[And I vote Green so I’m not going to accept it being called a right wing view – it’s just FAIR].
“Do you motivate people to improve their lives and their lot in life by handing them everything on a plate that they should be striving for through effort, hard-work and reward?”
Again you ignore the masses of hard working people on LOW INCOMES. People just as hard working, making just as much effort as you. If you are such a proud capitalist, surely you understand those mechanisms, and that workers feed money into profit makers.
“Britain has suffered the exodus of high taxed, highly skilled people.”
Are you sure about your use of the word ‘exodus’?
“…isn’t it possible these people are just fed up to some extent of not reaping the rewards of their efforts? ”
Isn’t it possible that some of these people simply resent paying tax regardless of what it’s spent on, because they are inherently greedy people? Whilst many rich people are rich because they are hard working, educated and skilled, there are conversely a lot of very rich British people who are rich because they were born into rich families and are no more intelligent or hard working than the next man. These people have ‘everything on a plate’ too, but you don’t resent them because they don’t rely on state support.
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“Are you sure about your use of the word ‘exodus’?”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1569400/Emigration-soars-as-Britons-desert-the-UK.html
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/15642/4-000-people-a-week-trying-to-leave-UK
“Isn’t it possible that some of these people simply resent paying tax regardless of what it’s spent on, because they are inherently greedy people?”
Or perhaps that they would just rather pay directly for what they use because what they are getting for their taxes just isn’t good enough. People generally don’t mind paying taxes when they are not being stung with them.
If income tax was abolished tomorrow and the Government announced that the benefits of the non-working family next door was allocated to you instead on a charitable basis, would you turn up with a cheque each month for the full amount of your tax and national insurance? I seriously doubt it.
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https://www.thetimes.co.uk/
This is what I seriously objected to my taxes paying for?
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/163015/20-000-failed-asylum-seekers-stay-in-Britain-every-year
At a cost of 73 million to taxpayers, hmm, welcome to Britain!
Sarah,
Just because the likes of the Daily Telegraph and Daily Express use the word ‘exodus’ doesn’t mean it’s an appropriate descriptive term. Let’s take your (5 year old) Daily Express headline: “BRITAIN is facing a mass exodus of people looking to escape the crime and grime of modern living.”
1. (noun) exodus, hegira, hejira
a journey by a large group to escape from a hostile environment
2. (noun) Exodus, Book of Exodus
the second book of the Old Testament: tells of the departure of the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt led by Moses; God gave them the Ten Commandments and the rest of Mosaic law on Mount Sinai during the Exodus
To take your (three year old) Daily Telegraph figures at face value they claim 207,000 British people left the UK in 2006. There are 61.3 million people resident in the UK of which 62% are at working age. So of the 38.1 million people of working age in the UK, 207,000 people left amounting to approximately 0.54%, not taking into account anybody coming in. Hardly a mass exodus.
The number of people leaving the UK in 2007 and 2008 by nationality (more recent than your Telegraph article):
2007
British 159k
Polish 19k
Australia 16k
India 12k
South Africa 9k
2008
British 158k (0.42% of working age population)
Polish 52k
Australia 20k
India 15k
South Africa 11k
The number of non British people leaving Britain has also increased; for example Polish workers returning to Poland. So of the total number of people leaving Britain yearly, British people are actually making up less of a share.
Also factor in that 15% of all of immigrants entering Britain are in fact British! The proportion of people emigrating from Britain for work related reasons has also in fact decreased over the last few years. Immigrants entering Britain under the highly skilled migrant programme are probably making up for the loss of highly skilled people in the opposite direction. Global capitalism just how you like it.
Somebody posted an interesting comment in the Daily Telegraph article:
“Having just returned home from 7 years in Sydney, I can confirm that Britons migrate because of 2 factors. The first is the constant and corrosive cynicism of the UK press, which informs them on a daily basis that nowhere on earth can be as bad as here. The other is their UK generated, no personal skill involved, property based wealth.” Not sure about the second point, but wholeheartedly agree with the first.
Can you clarify this question please, I’m not sure what you mean? : “If income tax was abolished tomorrow and the Government announced that the benefits of the non-working family next door was allocated to you instead on a charitable basis, would you turn up with a cheque each month for the full amount of your tax and national insurance? I seriously doubt it.”
As for your post on asylum seekers, you, like many of the population, fail to recognise the difference between immigrants and asylum seekers. There has obviously been a delay in deporting people who have been refused asylum; in 2008, approx 73% of applicants were refused. Asylum applications are massively reduced compared to 10 years ago. It’s not a big worry of mine in the big scheme of things. The press can’t complain about the number of applications any more so they are finding something else to get people angry about.
As for the article on the man who has fathered 8 children by 8 women; interesting you say this is why you resent paying taxes. You find it hard to distinguish between people with good intentions in receipt of help, and people like him. For one, it isn’t the children’s fault that their parents have been irresponsible – what are we supposed to do; just ignore the existence of these babies? Secondly, I’m sure if we look back at your previous posts, the crux of your resentment in paying taxes is that you just don’t like paying them regardless. And finally, there isn’t a country in the world without people like this; regardless of benefit system. Do you really think people such as this think about the financial benefits they will receive before they have unprotected sex? Do they think at all? I doubt it. David Cameron’s solution is to promote marriage through a tax allowance. So this sperm donor individual going to suddenly think, “hang on, instead of me knocking you up and leaving you on your own, let get married cos we’ll get a tax break, even though I haven’t got a job or brain, and we’ll live happily ever after!”. What a joke.
Society’s problems are unfortunately there for everyone to see. Deeper thinking will reveal that we should look at the ways to promote social responsibility through education and health advice. Even with that, there will always be stupid, selfish, irresponsible people in the world. The British media love a good story like this, and you lap it up.
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Holy Mother of God! I hope you are a minority, the UK is well and truly over if you’re not!
Firstly, even the immigrants are leaving, if it’s such utopia in the goldfish bowl of socialist Labour, why would they leave? By the way, it’s very easy to export any benefits you might be entitled to after your temporary stay as well, so I imagine you will live a lot more cheaply in say Poland than the UK on the money they hand out.
Secondly, the numbers of people leaving are majority skilled (harder to recruit, engineers, doctors, architects, nurses). Now you are arguing that it doesn’t matter because we can just import some more immigrants to do those jobs.
Here’s what you don’t know, UK skilled expats are amongst the highest paid in the world wherever they are because we are so respected for our hard work ethic, our compassion, our attitude to working and our ability to get a job done properly and we take responsibility for doing a job – we have the best skilled labour. You can’t import these traits from the sub-continent or even the Mediteranean, it’s unique to us as British people, we set examples to the rest of the world believe it or not!
“Can you clarify this question please, I’m not sure what you mean? : “If income tax was abolished tomorrow and the Government announced that the benefits of the non-working family next door was allocated to you instead on a charitable basis, would you turn up with a cheque each month for the full amount of your tax and national insurance? I seriously doubt it.””
Mr GB says no more income tax for you to pay, instead what you would normally pay in tax and national insurance is to be given as a voluntary charitable donation every month to the family next door who don’t work…it saves on the paperwork and just makes the redistribution of your tax more simpler. How many cheques would you hand over?
I resent paying a high level of taxes to dossers. I don’t mind paying taxes at a reasonable level but I resent being screwed out of them and having no choice as to what they are spent on and whether they are lining the moat of some politician’s castle.
“Society’s problems are unfortunately there for everyone to see. Deeper thinking will reveal that we should look at the ways to promote social responsibility through education and health advice.” And Labour have been so successful at this haven’t they? 13 years later.
I’m sorry, but the fact that we are not there is not our loss but the UK’s, we were the ones paying in and taking nothing back out and now we’re not paying tax at all yet we can walk in at any time and abuse the system if we wanted to and the skills we have that are needed by the UK are being utilised elsewhere. I would rather slit my own throat than vote another Labour government in.
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“Holy Mother of God! I hope you are a minority, the UK is well and truly over if you’re not!”
I am contributing to the UK every time I go to work, every time I pay tax so I am part of a majority, you are the minority. I really like the UK and feel lucky to live here, apart from the weather. You read the Daily Express and the Daily Telegraph; which I assume have already informed you that the UK is already well and truly over, with regular headlines along the lines of:
“Paedo gypsy asylum seeking gays are after your jobs, Britain.”
Just to discuss further a few of your points:
“Firstly, even the immigrants are leaving, if it’s such utopia in the goldfish bowl of socialist Labour, why would they leave?”
Because we live in an age of globalisation where people will follow work; that is their right, that was your right when you moved away: capitalism, not socialism.
Not sure what you mean by the comment on exporting benefits?
“Secondly, the numbers of people leaving are majority skilled (harder to recruit, engineers, doctors, architects, nurses). Now you are arguing that it doesn’t matter because we can just import some more immigrants to do those jobs.”
No what I’m arguing is that capitalism also results in a dynamic movement of skilled professions across the world. You have left this country, but someone willing to work for less than you, with the same skills may have taken your place. If you are appalled by this concept, maybe you should rethink your status as a capitalist; you only seem to love this concept when it suits you financially.
“Here’s what you don’t know, UK skilled expats are amongst the highest paid in the world wherever they are because we are so respected for our hard work ethic, our compassion, our attitude to working and our ability to get a job done properly and we take responsibility for doing a job – we have the best skilled labour. “
This seems plausible but also anecdotal; however it’s ironic that you have demonstrated a limited amount compassion in your posts.
“Mr GB says no more income tax for you to pay, instead what you would normally pay in tax and national insurance is to be given as a voluntary charitable donation every month to the family next door who don’t work…it saves on the paperwork and just makes the redistribution of your tax more simpler. How many cheques would you hand over?”
Is this a realistic attempt to explain what happens to tax when it’s distributed? What about the ambulance I might need to ring, the police assistance I might need, the teachers I might want to teach my kids, the army I want to defend my country, the doctors and nurses I might rely on etc etc. Will I have to write cheques for them too? (Actually, that’s probably what you ultimately want people to do). You haven’t got a balanced view when it comes to use of tax. Not surprising as you aren’t a UK tax payer.
“Society’s problems are unfortunately there for everyone to see. Deeper thinking will reveal that we should look at the ways to promote social responsibility through education and health advice. And Labour have been so successful at this haven’t they? 13 years later.”
If you read my post, my point was that the press find and publish cases such as the man fathering 8 children to 8 women and people like you use it as an excuse to wash your hands of all the other people in receipt of government support who are hard working, decent people. You associate all people on benefit with the father of 8, and the 8 mothers of >=1.
This father of 8 scenario will happen regardless of who is in government because there will always be stupid selfish irresponsible people. I’m not daft enough to let it detract from my belief that the government have a responsibility to help people when they need it, many of these people are just as decent and hard working as the next. I wasn’t making a party political point. If you believe any government could completely eliminate societal problems such as these, please elaborate.
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Helen, you’re being paid your own money back and other peoples taxes. It would be cheaper for the country if you stayed home, albeit someone else would have to do your job for you.
Public sector economy is like a goldfish bowl, you get fed regularly from outside however you need to have your water changed from time to time too otherwise you stagnate. Before you comment, this is partly formed of my own personal experiences of working in the public sector (in 2002) before escaping all the change resistant, innovation-lacking, stuck-in-the-mud dinosaurs and into the private sector.
I read the Telegraph, the Times, the Guardian and the Independent. I felt that the Daily Express was more your cup of tea as you previously said “no thanks” to an article from the Telegraph.
I am both a believer in a free market economy and a realist. Free markets don’t work in their entirety and neither do command economies. I don’t believe a large public sector in any country is good, particularly if that country can’t afford it. There needs to be a certain element of socialism but it shouldn’t be all consuming.
“You have left this country, but someone willing to work for less than you, with the same skills may have taken your place.”
Capitalism does indeed result in the dynamic movement of skilled labour however, each country needs a certain element of protectionism and socialism (immigration control and incentives to retain skills) to protect its own markets and skills shortages.
I find it quite horrifying that your thought process is that it’s ok to not worry about people leaving and that you can just to import cheaper labour rather than incentivise people to do well for themselves financially and stay in their home country. More often than not, you get what you pay for and you’re pushing salaries down and keeping people poorer.
I don’t expect you to fully appreciate this, due to you not living outside the UK and seeing for yourself the competition between different nationalities – British work ethic is unique, just having the skills to do a specific task or a qualification is not enough, it’s about the approach and how we do things too. We can’t import our mindset or our cultural behaviour (in work terms sometimes it’s not great in moral terms!).
What has your opinion on my compassion got to do with anything??
Actually our work ethic is also a dying breed now if you take note of the Guardian article stating that company’s are now struggling to recruit due to the low quality of school leavers and graduates due to Labours education successes.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2010/mar/10/tesco-director-slates-school-leavers
2009/2010 Income tax receipts are projected at 140 billion and welfare payments projected at 164 billion, so really I’m not sure and couldn’t comment on whether it’s a fair assessment of distribution.
I’m not sure who’s paying for the emergency services at the minute; quite possibly out of the National Insurance receipts, which I do still pay.
I have a very balanced view on taxes, a Government needs to make sure its spends only what it can afford to buy. Keep taxes fair and people are happy to pay their share and give help to those who need it; sting people who do well and they either leave or hide their money or stop working.
I know you like to think of people like us as completely selfish, how dare we want a better life for ourselves??? We pay for every element of our lives and every service we use because we are required to. We just get to keep that little bit more of what we earn and we derive more benefit from it.
“ If you believe any government could completely eliminate societal problems such as these, please elaborate” – I don’t believe they can completely eliminate it but they certainly could have a good go at dis-incentivising it rather than encouraging it and certainly not making it worse than it already was! I wouldn’t bother outlining any kind of plan as you have shown before that you have no objectivity whatsoever from your “public sector is good” / “private sector is bad” mentality.
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You left Britain because you didn’t like where it was heading, almost everyone who does well for themselves in Britain doesn’t have your view of packing up because of a few problems. Is it really the reason you left or was it money, better standard of living for the same income etc…?
I make a lot a money on the Internet and could live in any country with decent broadband (actually could continue my business with dial up, but… :-)) and I have no plans to leave Britain because I like living here. Since all my income is Internet based (I wouldn’t need to find work) we could be FAR better off in lots of countries, could live like a king in a place like India/Pakistan, but I like it here and more importantly my wife likes it here (ultimate decision maker on where to live :-)).
You said before you now live in the United Arab Emirates. UAE is a strict Muslim state, that’s where a British couple have been imprisoned for kissing in public
I can say for a fact I wouldn’t last long there as I’m always kissing my wife out in public and would never move to a country with such backwards thinking.
Did a little research (very basic research) and sounds like for families earning over £20K a year you can live in UAE for the equivalent of a mansion in Britain, including the costs of food and amenities etc…?
Seriously Sarah, other than it being cheaper to live, do you think where you live now is better than Britain, do you not like the freedom to say kiss your husband in the street?
When commenter’s bitch about Britain I’ve asked a few times which country is better than Britain and so far not one of them has mentioned another country that’s better. Admittedly they’ve tended to be BNP commenter’s with the “Britains destroyed and we need the saviour Nick Griffin to save us all from the traitorous commy/lefty Lib/Lab/Con alliance” :-)
Maybe you’ll be the first and say UAE is better than Britain and why?
David
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David,
We both worked really hard full-time (husband in construction and I was commercial and legal) on top of 1 hour daily commute (both of us).
2k per month in childcare (2 kids, 1 full-time and 1 part-time), mortgage and council tax.. I was the breadwinner so husband had to stay home to look after kids if they were ill or anything like that.
We earned over the thresholds so only paid into the system and not out of it (other than child benefit) but we were actually ok with that.
We moved house (admittedly to a nicer one) because we were abused for standing our ground after being threatened by 2 sets of Pakistani neighbours and then husband arrested for Racism.
Schooling was becoming an issue as the only ones available were awful. It was going to cost us £3k per term for private schooling for just one.
Life just became a grind for us trying to live, work and actually have some quality of life too. We were living not too far away from a socially deprived area full of teenage mums and incapacity benefit receivers. You actually don’t mind the idea of parents on benefits long-term so much if they actually made an effort to spend their time instead bringing up decent kids but they didn’t, they still managed to produce toe-rags!
Over 100,000 British people live in the UAE, it’s morally stricter but does offer a great lifestyle. Crime is more harshly punished, there is no such thing as community service – you go to prison for your sentenced time. Alcohol is served (apart from in Sharjah) if you want it (I don’t actually drink myself) as long as you are not muslim and you are not drunk in public.
So we are really happy at the lack of public disobedience from alcohol and drugs, our kids are safe to play outside and free from threat of knives and muggings. You don’t see pornography on the internet (it’s all banned), or people walking around half-naked, kids having sex (we did witness this whilst out walking our dog in the UK and they didn’t even stop when we walked past!). People automatically have a duty of care to each other, if I want my friend to pick up my kids from school she can without suspicion or hindrance. If I want to take photos of my kids out in public I can without someone thinking we are suspicious.
It’s mainly for our children we live here, there are lots of activities for them and they are surrounded by children of the same background and we also don’t have the threat of the Social Services taking our kids away because someone holding a grudge phoned them anonymously! We choose the schooling as we pay for it and they are streamed according to ability, they also have a lot of competitive sports and activities.
You do have a freedom of speech as long as you’re not insulting the Royal Family and there is always a policeman around if you need one too!
Kissing (pecking!) your wife is fine as long as you’re not snogging passionately in public! Kissing someone you’re not married to can cause you problems as was the situation with the recent case you highlighted. There is always a risk you may cause offence particularly when there are local Arabs around. You just check your behaviour if you are somewhere where there are likely to be Arabs.
The Arabs on a one to one level are the nicest people you could ever meet; stick them in a big white 4×4 with tinted windows and they can be very rude!
Your research is way off! It’s a lot more expensive here, you need a hell of a lot more than £20k per year! My rent alone is around £3K per month (for a very very old villa and not a mansion!) and then monthly charges of municipal tax (council tax equivalent) £150, water / electricity £400 per month, school and nursery fees £1700 per month.
Our food costs are huge because a lot of stuff is imported, we can get a lot of Waitrose products and we can pay around £1.30 for a tin of Waitrose Essential beans(like the savers / value range) as an example! It’s really not cheap!
You should visit and see why so many people of all nationalities are here. You do read horror stories but it is usually inflated.
I would like to come back to the UK eventually, I accept that it would be once the kids are adults as it would be alien to them now (youngest was born here) but I’m starting to think that even eventually is not that probable..
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It is good to see that “None of the above” is one of the vote options as I shall be standing in this election for that very policy in the Stevenage constituency. Have a look at and at the official party site for more details… Of course I shall be voting for myself as a vote for me is a vote for “None of the above”.
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I have followed politics loosely for many years, but over the past five years I firmly believe I could run this country better!
The problem is there are too many people making decisions on single policy and no one can make a decision, sometimes hard decisions have to be made and guess what, sometimes, they are for the better other times they may not work, but at least we know then what doesn’t and then they/we can make a decision to see what will. – Common sense really.
Policies and real life are on a different level from each other, they should work harmoniously.
We need someone who fair, tough and frankly someone who will give us a yes or no answer instead of the long winded thinking process behind the answer and then they avoid answering the question altogether!!
I am in my early thirties, I am worldly wise and very street wise, I didn’t go to a private school, but I have gone through university to attain a degree, I have chosen not to waste any more time at university gaining a Masters or PHD. I have also worked for central government for a short time and I came to the shocking conclusion that they really don’t know what the hell they’re doing, well certain sectors anyway, but if that is true for that particular department, then it is deeply disturbing.
There’s so much dislocation between the people doing the work and the people making the decisions. The general public really are powerless, unless policy touches a nerve, forget it, it will quietly pass by. Local councils have better structure than central government and they are slightly over-staffed but also, sadly, underfunded.
This government is hemorrhaging money, the pound is dropping in value, the cost of living is increasing, the cost of fuel is sky-rocketing, houses prices for first time buyers are out of many peoples range, it does indeed look like we will fall back in to recession. I may paint a dark picture, but things are not that bad, it just needs tweeking to be made efficient before things get any worse.
I believe the Conservatives will make things worse, Labour will keep the UK in the same state, it may get better, but probably worse, the Liberal Democrats could be the answer… There are no other credible contenders.
Something has got to give, things have to change, a quick change will make the UK suffer, so it will take time.
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Green party
Green party hey, any particular reason why?
Or do you just like the name :-)
David
The Greens are the only party who are going to give us real change. The rest of them are so wishy washy about all their policies – they change their mind every bloody minute, when they’re not hurling abuse at the opposition, that is.
The Lib Dems sit on the fence too much, although they’re preferable to the two major contenders, I must admit.
We obviously need something different and the Green Party has to be given a chance. What have we got to lose?
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I’ve read many of the Green party policies and they are very detailed. Most of the parties policy documents are a bit wishy washy, talking generally, but the Green party are specific in what they want to do.
The problem with this from a getting elected perspective is people like myself who care about the environment, but not at the expense of peoples lives can see the Green parties policies would not work without a complete change in the way everyone on this planet lives and we are no where near that stage in our evolution.
Don’t get me wrong, who doesn’t want a utopia where animals have better rights and we respect the environment, but if the Green party enacted all their policies it would destroy the British economy and we’d have people starving in the streets (I’m not exaggerating, read the Green party policies)!!
I see the Green party as extreme, but they aren’t extreme in a BNP type way, the Green party wants a better world, but unfortunately at the expense of our future development.
That being said I think a few Green party MPs would be good for Westminster, so I hope they win a few seats like Brighton.
David
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Only a fool would vote for gordon brown and his henchmen he tells more lies than pinnocio, his nose will be so long soon he wont reach the end, the country has no industry the labour party have sold most of it, he should go into the sunset with his pal mandy, another no entity who has no conscience, what a shower. how they sleep at night i will never know, they want to put a runway over my family grave in harlington, is that civilised, my son takes a pay cut to keep his job, had to sell his house to live, yet people who are not born here get all the perks, what kind of country do we live in, get someone in power who looks after the british, my father who fought to keep this country free must turn in his grave. all in all this country is finished thanks to socialism as is being proved today with the idiotic strikes.get someone who stands up for all things british and gets us out of the common market another waste of government money, my sons have to run marathons to raise money for the local childrens hospital whilst politicians get private health care, they need to get out into the real world, give every aspiring member of parliament £20 to start a business, going to university and then becoming an MP is not the way, the real world is a hard place to live let them find out
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