At the request of various members ….
Would you all please post a comment about about yourself: background, political preferences (even if none of the above like me), what you would like to change in the UK etc. If in doubt let it all out – have a rant if it lets off steam!
Even tho who have put such info in other posts please do the same (just cut and paste it). I will delete your previous versions once I see the duplicate on here,
Thanks.
Contact your local elected officials - for free
by John Bray
03 Feb 2009 at 10:07
I was born in Lancashire, UK, grew up in Bury and now live in Las Alpujarras region of Andalucia, Southern Spain.
In my earlier years I was an avionics technician working mainly with helicopters for the Army.
Before moving to Spain, I used to work in electronics – mostly for the railway industry. I was involved with electronics design as well as periods in sales, marketing and PR. Nowadays my time is mostly spent in growing food and doing web-site work.
Politics: have never belonged to any political party and don’t vote (it only encourages them). It’s not really a democracy if you can’t vote not to have a government
) I despise all politicians equally and so I suppose I could be said to be neutral.
I’m no longer really angry about the system because I’ve pretty much separated myself from the effects of it. Nevertheless I still care about what it is doing to other people. And I’ll be happy to help others facing far bleaker prospects than me – just don’t ask for money!
See my web site (http://www.johnbray.com/) for more info.
by Goldtop
03 Feb 2009 at 11:43
I am a forty something, self employed male currently located in rural Suffolk but about to relocate back to within the bounds of the M25. I was born and raised in Yorkshire but lived in London between 1990 and 2002.
I work as technician within the entertainment industry as well as being a part time journalist. I have no political affiliation and have in fact long considered myself anti establishment as I cannot believe that it is possible for any political party to put the interests of its country and its people above the interests of itself and big business. With today’s ‘world finance system’ and ‘global market’ I now feel that this is more true than ever. I am no anti-globalisation militant however, just a forty plus father trying to make a living.
I have never taken part in any political process beyond voting (which I have not done for a long time as none of the political parties speaks to me or seems to speak for me) but I feel that recent events have/are taking not just the people of Britain but the whole human race to the brink of catastrophe. If the only way to affect this, or at least make a voice heard, is to use the system as it stands (i.e lobbying) then I suppose that is what must be done. After all, other protests in their many forms seem to be either ineffectual or prone to subversion.
Is it possible to get the government to consider the financial implications of its global policies on the people at home? Is it possible to re-establish a skills base within this country? Is it possible to give people some real world meaning and hope to their existence? Can we avoid the very real possibility that the whole of the western world will become the new third world when the economic house of cards eventually collapses? Is it possible to conduct international trade in an honourable and equitable way?
Maybe so. Perhaps some of the ideas from here may influence the way. That is what I want from this lobby group.
by romeplebian
03 Feb 2009 at 12:07
Self employed for the past nine years, wife two kids one in uni one nearly finished school,voted labour in 97 (big mistake) voted snp in the local elections (wont answer my emails about Dunblane)
Live in the north of Scotland born in England
Ideally Id like to see a change to how the country is run, to make it fairer for all, but not to fair that the fit stay at home and not contribute to the country, do away with corruption, greed, secret society, lies,and fear from ones own country.
I dont have a strong inclination towards anyone or anything, all I know is we cant keep on with the same old, same old that we seem to have had for as long as I have know it.
by CoralBloom
03 Feb 2009 at 15:29
I grew up in a council flat in Glasgow. After a brief period of work the experience of redundancy I took myself off to Uni, earning a PhD in the Molecular Genetics. After research for a few years in the US, I came back to Glasgow. With no work, I returned to Uni and took an MSc in IT.
After a few years in IT, I sold up and travelled to all the places I had dreamed off while I still had the chance, mostly Africa. I’ve been back for 6 months, still job-hunting and looking after my elderly mum.
I abhor the dishonesty going on in the UK. I don’t expect politicians to be perfect – no one is – by I do expect them to do the job their electorate pays them to do.
I’d like to see politicians forced to return to a normal everyday life after they are finished politics, along the same lines Obama his introduced for lobbyists.
I’d like to see the politicians having the courage to explain themselves properly, explain their policies, the up and the downside, the benefits and the consequences and to hell with the spin – and that takes an adult media rather than what we have now.
I’d like to see the politicians standing up the needs of big industry. Banks, transport, I don’t care what industry. As far as I can see, they bend over backwards to appease non-elected entities. Accommodating business may be important, but all too often it seems to be at the expense of the electorate.
We all know the world is changing. The Economics have fallen apart. And those who we put in power will allow the same catastrophe to happen to the environment. Why on earth des anyone think that is rational.
I don’t like it and I want it sorted. I want the right decisions to be made on our behalf. Those decisions can not be deemed the right decision because it suits a bank or an energy producer.
If the right decision is tough, well so be it. Educate us, ensure the impact is borne equally and we will get on with it. But to fail to tell the truth, to manipulate, to look after only your friends, will destroy communities and splinter the country, and the world.
I want to live in a country where success if valued and we have a solid idea of what success means. Kind of like the Olympic ideal for everyone; the Olympic prize to a kid who has a real talent for trombone, the postman who is an asset to his community, the check-out guy who smiles and is an expert in history. Whatever it is, I really don’t want a world where girls grow up dreaming of being just like the star-for-no-reason with a £3K handbag.
by rahere
03 Feb 2009 at 16:02
Rahere isn’t going to post full details as firstly you’d never believe it, secondly it doesn’t matter, and thirdly it would take too long to cover all his polyvalences, you’ll judge him on delivery. His background in Corporate Finance and International Affairs is fairly evident, and he comes from a family of engineers. He is constrained by reasons which need not concern you to offering advice, not involvement, although some of his highly-placed friends tell him otherwise – perhaps it’s a desperate attempt to keep in contact with his roots, Peter Sarstedt’s Where do you go to my lovely is a fairly accurate description of his environment, friends of his DO work for the Aga Khan. For instance, he won’t be posting tomorrow because he’ll be engaged in his own mini-Davos.
Rahere’s concerns are that the system has stopped working, and as Pepé le Pew said today, needs reform – the difference is Pepé has no idea of what, Rahere has some hints. He has an official mandate to act in that respect, but insufficient power to make it work, and has evidence that suggests it may yet be irreparable. He has experienced things which would dissuade at least one atheist colleague, but understands the reasons for such credence – this is why he’s a right royal thorn in the flesh of Ratzinger at the moment in a not dissimilar group, similarly acting as a puppet-master – you are formally warned so you can beware of being unfairly manipulated.
Rahere’s only political involvement was when very young, but unlike his colleague who went on to a short-lived career as the head of a European Parliament group, he rapidly learned better, and has official sanction for neutrality.
by Jericoa
03 Feb 2009 at 16:27
I was born in Yorkshire as well. A bit clever and adventurous to begin with, a clean sweep of athletic and academic prizes at school.Raised eyebrows all around. I wanted to join the military in some form.
Then the wheels fell off, I travelled around Europe by hitchhiking and by train by myself when I was 16 (my parents thought I was going with 3 friends), the following year I did a similar thing in Israel and Egypt but without the parental deceipt.
I did not recognise the cause that had the effect at the time but my academic performance fell off a cliff after that. I struggled through A levels, scraped into polytechnic on a specialist practical engineering course with good travel prospects and took 5 years to complete a 3 year degree, failing 2 of the years and emerging with a third class honours.
I spent the next 15 years travelling as part of my profession, to far east Asia, Australia and India, also spending a lot of time in Brazil.
My work as a civil engineer means I have to engage with the guys that dig the holes and the architects who conceptualise the constructions.
I learnt a great deal through being involved with that ‘hands on’ experience in a number of countries and cultures. I think my understanding of human nature owes a lot to that unfiltered cross culture and cross intellectual exposure over many years.
Eventually I was diagnosed with a psychological disorder(so obvious now why could I not see it myself!)after my wife practically frog marched me to the GP. I had been taking cold showers in the morning, litres of coffee during the day and a stiff drink at night to manage my condition daily. Other symptoms acted on longer cycles over many years for which I had unknowingly created all manor of coping mechanisms.
Only now am I starting to get back to where I was at 15 years old. I am 39.
I dont have any political affiliations. I flirted with the Liberal democrats for a while, probably attracted to them as they are the closest thing to a ‘non political’ political party I guess, but it left me cold.
My primary intellectual interest is philosophy which I like to study in a non academic way.
I also like watching sport on TV and a whole host of ‘normal stuff’ that many people would class as a waste of time no doubt.
I have been writting a book of sorts for a while, I think I will only ever write one. It took me 18 months to do the first chapter and it is basically my attempt at communicating what I think I understand about human nature and what it means.
A friend once described me as ‘one big mixed bag of contradictions’. That seemed to resonate with me.
Ordinarily I think I would be content to live a simple life, but I have a bad feeling at the moment that is compelling me to try to do something which has led me here via RP’s blogspace.
Where it goes from here I have no idea, I just plan to make one decision after another based on what seems right at the time and without compromise and see where it leads. I have no expectation or pre-meditated strategy in that respect.
I also dont have a lot of time on my hands although the government is trying its best to change that!
I am neither wealthy or successful by most conventional measure,far from it, but I am comfortable in my own skin and increasingly learning to back my judgement and rely on my wits once more after a 23 year leave of absence.
It seems right to stop now, so I will.
Jericoa.. real name Simon
by CoralBloom
03 Feb 2009 at 16:27
You are Sooty aren’t you?
Fine, be secretive. We’ll just have to take you with a pinch of salt and be aware of potential manipulation by an unseen hand.
by Rahere
04 Feb 2009 at 01:12
THE RUN UPON THE BANKERS
The bold encroachers on the deep
Gain by degrees huge tracts of land,
Till Neptune, with one general sweep,
Turns all again to barren strand.
The multitude’s capricious pranks
Are said to represent the seas,
Breaking the bankers and the banks,
Resume their own whene’er they please.
Money, the life-blood of the nation,
Corrupts and stagnates in the veins,
Unless a proper circulation
Its motion and its heat maintains.
Because ’tis lordly not to pay,
Quakers and aldermen in state,
Like peers, have levees every day
Of duns attending at their gate.
We want our money on the nail;
The banker’s ruin’d if he pays:
They seem to act an ancient tale;
The birds are met to strip the jays.
“Riches,” the wisest monarch sings,
“Make pinions for themselves to fly;”
They fly like bats on parchment wings,
And geese their silver plumes supply.
No money left for squandering heirs!
Bills turn the lenders into debtors:
The wish of Nero now is theirs,
“That they had never known their letters.”
Conceive the works of midnight hags,
Tormenting fools behind their backs:
Thus bankers, o’er their bills and bags,
Sit squeezing images of wax.
Conceive the whole enchantment broke;
The witches left in open air,
With power no more than other folk,
Exposed with all their magic ware.
So powerful are a banker’s bills,
Where creditors demand their due;
They break up counters, doors, and tills,
And leave the empty chests in view.
Thus when an earthquake lets in light
Upon the god of gold and hell,
Unable to endure the sight,
He hides within his darkest cell.
As when a conjurer takes a lease
From Satan for a term of years,
The tenant’s in a dismal case,
Whene’er the bloody bond appears.
A baited banker thus desponds,
From his own hand foresees his fall,
They have his soul, who have his bonds;
‘Tis like the writing on the wall.
How will the caitiff wretch be scared,
When first he finds himself awake
At the last trumpet, unprepared,
And all his grand account to make!
For in that universal call,
Few bankers will to heaven be mounters;
They’ll cry, “Ye shops, upon us fall!
Conceal and cover us, ye counters!”
When other hands the scales shall hold,
And they, in men’s and angels’ sight
Produced with all their bills and gold,
“Weigh’d in the balance and found light!”
Jonathan Swift
Except that in this case, the unseen Hand is that which wrote מנא ,מנא, תקל, ופרסין on Belshazzar’s wall. Let me expound.
Belshazzar is correctly in Akkadian Bel-sarra-usur, ‘May Bel protect the king’. Bel uniquely and specifically refers to Marduk, whose snake-avatar was Abraxas, and whose speciality was magic, with a direct thread through to alchemy, which is the hard precursor of chemistry, research Franz Mercurius van Helmont for the link – and it’s no myth, see here for an indication of the current interest in the subject on which Newton published about twice as much as he did on more classic science. Ever seen someone rise from the gates of death (less than half an hour to live? I have.
The cult of Abraxas was adopted by no less than three of Marc Dutroux’ Gendarmerie handlers, and the subject of alchemy was also behind the mass-murders perpetrated by the richest man in France between 1435 and 1439, Gilles de Rais, formerly Joan of Ark’s lieutenant-general. Specifically, he was trying to crack the penultimate stage of the classic grimoire, which just states “The Massacre of the Innocents”. I also note that Ian Huntley has also been studying the same subject in prison. And when I see that another member of our community has certain things to add on that particular subject, I no longer wonder, I know.
I speak with authority, my gift in the matter having been tested successfully by the most down-to-earth branch of the Church of England. I can add a huge amount more, but for the moment, enough.
by Rahere
04 Feb 2009 at 04:11
Let me give you a handle, in passing, CoralBloom, given you’re a molecular geneticist. Platinol was the active agent in that resuscitation.
by Jericoa
04 Feb 2009 at 04:47
Crikey Rahere, you should get out more mate!
Perhaps if i understood it I may respond differently. One minute you wow us with economic insight the next its alchemy and grimoires. convensional wisdom would suggest those two fields of knowledge and interest dont often sit in one person.
What a curious chap you are.
Care to elaborate?
by ed iglehart
04 Feb 2009 at 06:47
Short answer: More about me and friends
Those who know do not talk.
Those who talk do not know.
Keep your mouth closed.
Guard your senses.
Temper your sharpness.
Simplify your problems.
Mask your brightness.
Be at one with the dust of the Earth.
This is primal union.
He who has achieved this state
Is unconcerned with friends and enemies,
With good and harm, with honor and disgrace.
This therefore is the highest state of man.
Lao Tzu
by ed iglehart
04 Feb 2009 at 06:49
friends
by marksmith1981
04 Feb 2009 at 07:30
Also fascinated/intrigued by your posts Rahere!
For anyone interested I am a self-employed small business owner, 27 years old with my first child due in a few months. Done OK in business last few years although have never traded through anything like the current recession/depression – though then again, my father says the same and he is 25 years my senior. Always had interests in economics, politics, history, philosophy, theology etc. but thoughts increasingly turning to the future and the kind of world that is currently being shaped – perhaps a chance to correct injustices/imbalances of the past, or perhaps not
I live in hope
by Jambo
04 Feb 2009 at 08:49
Said who I am in the IMPORTANT thread.
But my thoughts on the political questions, well…
My thoughts can be summarised by the statement that we are at a crux in history. This has been brought about by a combination of factors. The important point for us though is that as the status quo gets hammered there exists an opportunity for change. Change of the popularly accepted world view and change of the government.
But I’m getting ahead of myself, so lets start with the current Crux.
Firstly there is the obvious, we have had macro economic imbalances: The west lost it’s competitive advantage in almost all forms of economic activity. The rest lent their newfound profits back to the west, the west spent these loans in more stuff from the rest. Clearly un-sustainable and just gone pop. This is what 90% of the news out there is talking about as the crisis.
However it seems now mostly forgotten this was set off by the economic consumption hitting up against limits of natural productivity. This was visible all over in declining fish stocks, the sky rocketing price of oil and commodities. These increased costs sunk the sub-prime demographic which sunk the banks.
If those two weren’t enough of a crux we are also starting to noticeably degrade the natural productivity through over consumption, visible in global warming, habitat destruction, ozone layer holes, melting ice caps.
But even these things are themselves only proximate causes resulting from flaws in popular understanding and the economic and political systems.
by Jambo
04 Feb 2009 at 09:07
So, these problems give the opportunity to change, but what do you change and how? Things I hope everyone can agree are broken:
We currently are in the bizzare situation where it is obvious that more than 2 children per couple will eventually result in the entire world being used just for human body mass. But challenging this ‘right’ is seen as political suicide.
We are in the situation where societies basic needs could be provided by a tiny percent of the workforce but goaded by ‘keeping up’ and advertising we’d rather work too hard and consume too much. So people are unhappy.
We have government which is clearly beholden to big business AND popular opinion and so simply just lurches from one reaction to another bleeding cash left and right and spewing laws like a vomiting drunk.
We have ‘pressure groups’ (not charities) which target a single emotive issue, rake in cash and then arguably cause more harm than good. (GM crops being totally abandoned rather than pursued sensibly, animal testing for medical use among others)
These are just a handful of problems off the top of my head, but there is a common theme. As seems likely in our consumer and popular opinion driven society. The root cause is the peoples views and behavior. These views are often warped and manipulated by advertising the media and politicians. But it is our views which are the problem. In such a world when everyone is clamoring for change but the biggest needed changes are to ourselves and the apparatus of manipulation, what on earth do you do?
by Jay
04 Feb 2009 at 12:32
I’m an eccentric mum from Leeds with two teenagers, a girl at UCL in London studying architecture and son at college doing A levels.
I didn’t go to Uni myself but left school in the 80′s recession with few qualifications (I’ve since discovered I’m dyslexic) and felt very lucky to get a job in the Ambulance Service as a trainee paramedic. I grew up in the infamous Dewsbury, not far from the estate where Karen Matthews lived. My family still live nearby…it’s home to a lot of very decent people despite all the recent bad press.
I married, and had my kids quite young (early 20′s)and stayed at home for a while to bring them up.
At about 30 I started a new career working as a support worker in the homelessness sector. In the past I’ve worked for Housing Associations and more recently spent a couple of years working for a Local Authority as Commissioning Manager. Funded via central government, I’ve delivered training to other LA’s on best practice around tendering out support and social care services in line with EU legistlation.
I left the LA 18 months ago because of frustration about the way things were being done, i.e not for the good of the general public but to safeguard senior managers salaries and cutting voulentry sector services which were much better then similar LA services etc… When I spoke out I was repeatedly told “to tow the corporate line”. I couldn’t do that and felt my integrity was being compromised. I left.
I’m now a Managing Director for a smallish charity in Leeds, a grass routes community based organisation founded by local residents in one of the most deprived areas in the country.
Politics:- traditionally Labour but no more! I’m disgusted with their actions over the last few years…and it just keeps on getting worse. I don’t feel I could vote for any of the current parties. Big changes are required before humanity consumes itself, others are starting to catch on too.
Hobbies :-I love motorcycling and travel – if i can combine the two all the better!
by CoralBloom
04 Feb 2009 at 13:39
Some thoughts re: Jay
Why are there no economists and politicians telling us that no matter how much we want to keep on living the way we are we just can’t. Have you heard any of the rent-a-quote economic experts mentioning the environmental crisis that is approaching? I haven’t. It’s like the big bogey man that no one dares mention. I’m beginning to suspect that they just don’t know what to do and so have ignored it in their modelling.
We live in a world where peer pressure is just as important to most adults as it is to kids in the playground. Governments, are made of people. They are just as susceptible to peer-pressure, if not more so. It is the people around them who are the key to the power they seek. They respond to business, the media and then the electorate.
Educate those around the government.
Educate the current government.
Educate the media – they are the vehicle of the politicians and big business
Educate the population.
As long as the global economic ship was sailing along trouble free why would it change direction. The iceberg is in front now. Now they will choose to turn or to go straight on. Their choice will depend on the peer pressure around them.
What we have to decide is the direction we want to take.
I think we are all agreed we want a fairer, more honest and sustainable future. I’ll think more on what you say.
by Wharfgirl
04 Feb 2009 at 15:50
I am called Wharfgirl because I have a ringside seat on the collapse of capitalism, down here at Canary Wharf. Watched the Lehmann’s guys drown their sorrows in Smollenskys after emerging with their cardboard boxes of stuff back in August. Every one of my neighbours in in finance or property or both and boy are they suffering!
Born in New Zealand. Came to Paris in ’68 to finish a degree in French. Think those heady days when anything seemed possible politically have spoiled me for life.
By profession a jrouanlist and later dramatist. Worked first at Granada and then LWT. I was once a journalist on Weekend World, an ITV current affairs show from back in the day. Left LWT to run my own production company in the teeth of the last recession and managed to trade through it, largely thanks to my sons passion for Nintendo and footie, which led to two shows which kept my company going for 18 years. But cashed in that business a year ago and now wonder what to do with myself, in between worrying about my meagre savings and contributing to RP’s blog in the middle of the night – it frustrates me more and more.
I don’t belong to or consistently vote for any political party. Have voted for both Maggie and Livingstone in the past. Don’t think either of the parties represent much beyond the desire for power. Don’t think either has the ability or the ideas to lead us out of this mess. Don’t think even Obama can do it, but at least he has principles, intelligence and genuine good intentions.
Thanks to my time on Weekend World, will always be interested in current affairs – from the plight of Palestine, to the way the wildcat strikes are being spun as racism. Enjoy debating ideas. Not sure I believe anything concrete can come of it in this country.
Fave TV show: The Wire
by BobRocket
04 Feb 2009 at 18:41
Hi All,
I’m a refugee northerner from lancs (fave colours tangerine and white)
Married with three primary school age boys.
probably left of centre (pinko liberal rather than pinko commie)
favourite book has to be The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists.
like cats, the animals not the musical
I work for a supermarket chain at the sharp end or at the bottom whichever you prefer
I’m listening to Barbers Addagio at this moment but I like the Killers as well
Eminently practical, I like tangible items, things I can take apart and fix, I wouldn’t know a SIV if I fell over one.
I’ve got an allotment after 7 years on a waiting list
I think that anything is possible if you put your mind to it.
I’ve a mind to make this world better for my children and theirs.
by Albion
05 Feb 2009 at 11:41
Hi All,
A thirty-something (but only just!) former student who has had to get into the real world and get a job. Currently playing with trucks and sheds, and living in the South West – where I hope to stay as long as possible.
Politically neutral, in as much as I hold most current politicians of all parties in equal contempt. Personally, I’m selectively right wing.
I, rightly or wrongly, believe in Britain, and am sad about what it has become. To my mind, the biggest challenge we will face is short-termism, politically and in life generally. Hopefully we can change things, if not – there’s no harm in trying….
Why Albion?
1.It’s the oldest known name for Great Britain, and we can learn from the past (not exclusively)
2.The line from King Lear – Then shall the realm of Albion come to great confusion
3. The line from the Cradle of Filth song Haunted Shores: The wolves are dead in Albion whilst the passive flocks roam free.
The last two, for me at least, kinda sum up the whole situation.
I want to make the world, and Great Britain a better and more sustainable place for everyone. Jambo, above, summarises most of what I think are the issues to be overcome, and I think more will be added all the time.
by bowboy
05 Feb 2009 at 16:17
Hi all,
Grew up on an east-end council estate(hence bowboy)and worked to support myself through a degree in english/history.Had many jobs but am not very career minded.Traveled a bit.33 and still trying to decide what to do with my life.Waiting for the compass to stop spinning.Currently an insurance underwriter at HSBC which I find an agreeable thing to get up and do in the morning and pays the bills.There arent many as I’m not very showy or acquisitive.More interested in history, politics, philosophy, religion, music, literature.Inexpensive interests but very rewarding.Most expensive taste is skiing:would do it full-time if I was good enough.
Have never voted in my life.No real representation they are all the same.Patronising,nest-feathering and unable to admit mistakes or take hard decisions.
Have thought for a long time Britain is a failed state.Our democratic institutions are broken.Our economic system is broken.See echoes of the 1930s and am very worried that we are headed for either national or international conflict.The larger problems of peak-oil,climate and demographics will soon render todays problems irrelevant.
We need to make radical changes but those that hold the reins will never do so of their own accord. They need to be pushed (dragged kicking and screaming)in the right direction.That is what I would like us to try and achieve.
by asymetric
06 Feb 2009 at 11:16
I was born in the midlands as a post war baby (and still remember the rationing) as an only child. I was, and still am, “working class” – my father was a skilled manual worker in the steel industry. I went to my local grammar school and on to university in the South West reading maths and physics.
As with most students I hadn’t the faintest idea what to do afterwards but saw jobs for systems analysts advertised at what appeared to be silly money. I applied and became a trainee with a now defunct but then the major UK computer manufacturer.
Time passed, I changed employers a few times, got married and had children. I finally became bored and annoyed with working for someone else and founded my own company 20 years ago. For some time I enjoyed ‘smelling the roses’ then we became serious as we became involved in larger projects. I still enjoy the challenge of designing and developing systems which do what the clients need (often despite what they say they want) and often without involving computers. However, it’s been a long way from 2nd generation punched cards and paper tape.
Hobbies include walking, playing acoustic guitar (mainly blues & jazz), watching cricket (spend a lot of the summer at my local county ground when I can get away), gardening (I’ve now got another pool dug and will be moving some fish into it later this year). Reading mostly comprises non-fiction (currently reading another of Richard Dawkins’ books) and a few years ago I re-read a number of classics such as Homer & Virgil (the English translations of course) because I felt I hadn’t appreciated them when I was younger.
Politically, I suppose I’m centre ground. Never joined a party (like Groucho – I wouldn’t join any group that would want me as a member!). I remember my father, when I was a teenager, saying many young people vote Labour initially but then they grow up. He wasn’t a Tory – but aware that all MPs are there for themselves but Labour MPs attempt to convince you of the opposite. I’ve sent a number of emails to my local MP on various topics and got back (as expected) just the party line. I warned him about the NHS project both the design concept and which firms to avoid but it was a total waste of time (they’d already got their financial arrangements in place).
Though I am as concerned as everyone about the economy I also have a pet issue – that of the state of our education system. Regardless of what may be achieved by like minded individuals, unless our children and grandchildren have knowledge and analytical abilities they will become cannon fodder for those who plan to turn whatever has been built to their own advantage. Knowledge is power and we must give that to our children. I’m convinced that the dumbing down of our examinations are not due to incompetence but part of a deliberate plan that started with the destruction of most of the grammar schools. It was seen that too many educated adults from the working class would be dangerous.
Part one of my rant over for today.
Note to John: The problem turned out to be using Firefox. It still won’t work with that browser but is OK with IE.
by bobajob
16 Feb 2009 at 07:21
Retired, but setting up a very small business. Mission: to leave the world a better place. Have been: an auditor, management accountant, IT manager, entrepreneur, co. director. Interests: BigBang and how we got to here, where we are all going, current affairs here and abroad, golf and keeping fit