I love this country :-)

Governments and politicians will never be uncorrupt as long as capitalism remains their master and personal gain their mistress.

Originally Posted by UlsterSV

Goverments and politicians will never be uncorrupt as long as capitalism remains their master and personal gain their mistress.

Ok. Enlighten me as to what political system has ever been uncorrupt.

Socialism, & communism were/are just as corrupt.

You tell me Do you believe all political ideologies are corrupt? A depressing thought, is it not? Reading your previous posts I get the impression you accept corruptness as an inevietable part of politics, and that it always will be.

Originally Posted by UlsterSV

You tell me Do you believe all political ideologies are corrupt? A depressing thought, is it not? Reading your previous posts I get the impression you accept corruptness as an inevietable part of politics, and that it always will be.

Ideologies in themselves arent corrupt.

Its the implementation that suffers. Not necessarily to corruption, but to inefficiency. The inefficiency arises from not just laziness of employing the wrong staff, but from complexities of legislation - tax legislation in particular. As one loophole closes the wording of that bit opens up other loopholes.

Any system humans implement will always suffer from some corruption or inefficiency.

For the record, I was once offered a brand new gixxer not to raise an assessment. Had I remotely thought the offer was serious the dealer would have been reported with no hesitation. To me, I couldnt live with my conscience knowing Ive done something wrong. But someone else probably would have done it.

Squirrel..Your opinion is based largely on you only experiencing government of one particular party since your eligibility to vote. If you really think that your world would be completely improved by a change to any of the alternatives then you really are nieve in your thinking in respect of politics.

To suggest that the present administration has no more interest than it's own public image,can only at best be considered ridiculous.

To also suggest that every government or politician is corrupt is again totally without substance.

Now if like me you lived in a town where someone that 15 years ago was on the dole, and is now the 5th richest person in Spain...all supposedly achieved on his 120'000euro a year salary! This person has been in charge of the planning office which has granted all manner of illegal licenses for massive back handers.........you would really understand what corruption is about!

Originally Posted by Peter Henry

To suggest that the present administration has no more interest than it's own public image,can only at best be considered ridiculous.

Oh I don't know. I think that when they first came to office they had the country's interests at heart - or rather, what they perceived as the country's interests. But now, power has gone to their heads and they are so self-serving. Like Cherie Blair's hairdos. She's not an elected MP and yet she claimed for her hairdresser. Er, how?? Cynical... And this business of the Health Service. How can that Hewitt person face the union meeting and justify redundancies of 7K. And education. Still woefully underfunded. Prescott can only make silly remarks about Cameron (some might well be justified) but it's personal attacks, not proper debate. Blair and Brown papering over the darn great chasms.

IMHO they have completely lost touch. What is particularly distressing is that they don't recognise it.

But this is no different from the previous lot - started off well, but then fell apart.

Its the implementation that suffers. Not necessarily to corruption, but to inefficiency. The inefficiency arises from not just laziness of employing the wrong staff, but from complexities of legislation - tax legislation in particular. As one loophole closes the wording of that bit opens up other loopholes.

In a successful ideology there shouldn't be any 'staff', but the people should be part of the ideology, believe in the ideology, and thus work for the ideology. Then there would be no such thing as 'wrong staff' or laziness. If the ideology is pure - truly pure - then so will be the people who are a part of it. Inefficiencey is not down to the people involved in the political system, but the ideology itself that is behind the political system.



And I admire your honesty

Originally Posted by lynw

Government in the past has rarely been about providing a stable environment for people - purely business. Because it was only those rich enough and educated who stood as politicians. So they fed the cycle of not giving a damn about the poor unless the overwhelming state of something became a risk to the business environment and making sure their business interests flourished.

Yeah that's probably more technically accurate - although I'd say stable business environment and stable society go hand in hand. The current government seems to have little concern about the status of business however, as long as they get to rake in taxes from others hard work.

Originally Posted by lynw

But my point was your original post was a whimsical view of politicians - that in the past theyve only served the country not themselves.

What Im trying to get you to admit is that was a pretty inaccuarate statement. They were as self serving, corrupt and inept as the ones today. The difference in how we see it is in how the media has changed.

Yes, looking back it almost sounds like I'm describing past politicians as benevolent figures which isnt really true. As you say previously, past politicians were interested in earning money for them and their fellow peers - the fact that this made Britain as a whole richer and would ultimately benefit everyone was just lucky.

But instead of government being evil to make the country richer, now they're being evil while making the country poorer while performing for the media circus.

[northwind]

Originally Posted by M65

Fantastic. And they wonder why over 50% of those surveyed backed the BNPs policies.

I think that's because 50% of people have no idea what the BNP's policies are... I heard the BNP spokeswoman give a huge story of how they'll cut taxes, raise pensions, improve schools and hospitals... And when asked how, she responded "By increasing our borrowing". Peter Allan responded, more or less, "Wait a second, you cretin, don't you think that might affect the economy?" She responded "No, why would it?" Genius, absolute genius. She couldn't be trusted with a credit card, and people are going to vote for her party- I predict a BNP win, followed 4 years later by the country belonging entirely to Ocean Finance.


There's a huge amount of spin on the story I think. At the top you get "over 1,000 foreign prisoners, including murderers, rapists and paedophiles". By the end you get "The prisoners included three murderers, two found guilty of manslaughter, nine rapists, and 12 sex offenders including five paedophiles." and an unspecified number committing kidnap, drug and immigration offences. For all we know, the other 974 were inside for speeding.

It's also not made clear till most of the way through that these are people who'd served their sentences, and that only 160 of the 1000 were recommended for deportation by the courts. Are we surprised that they can't trace someone who's completed their jail time and been released? Obviously sex offenders should be on the register- but it does say "a handful have been traced" which could easily mean that those who are normally monitored have been with total accuracy.

But then, "160 criminals who should have been deported" is only 16% as good a headline as "1000 criminals"


And "has pledged to deport foreigners it regards as a threat to national security." when clearly national security has nothing whatsoever to do with it. That's just awful reporting.

It pushes all the buttons... Johnny Foreigner, poediatricians, terrerists, that **** Clarke (whose only redeeming feature is that he's not that **** Howard, or that other **** Blunkett) The only thing missing is an artist's impression of Osama Bin Laden showing a 5 year old white girl his puppies right outside the Old Bailey while Charles Clarke dances with joy in the background and Police and immigration officials have a fistfight.

Not by any means defending the situation of course, just annoyed by the "journalism". It's just a distraction, there's worse things going wrong but they don't push as many buttons

But how many Countries would bring in the European charter for human rights, then give the top lawyers job to their missus to make sure She had a job.

H