David Agnew

Read the above post only down as far as the too many laws bit. I'll come back to the rest later

David Agnew

If killing the unborn is not a sin, then what is?
We have abortion on demand in this country. The state should punish the guilty and protect the innocent. In Britain it is the other way round.
I find it difficult to believe as well. The only reason we have 'power sharing' in Northern Ireland is to reward terrorism. Do you dispute that?
Devolution affects the way that the whole country is governed (for example in England it has created the 'West Lothian Question'). It therefore requires the agreement of the whole country. If a Scottish parliament fails to get the backing of the majority of the British people then it should not happen. That is democracy. Are you in favour of democracy?

Of course I would agree that an independence vote should be purely a matter for the country concerned. But that is a completely different issue.
It isn't united now.

I presume that you are being serious? How can creating unnecessary regulation be good for the economy? How can draining £billions out of the economy to subsidise other European states be good for the economy? How is the expensive to collect and complicated VAT good for the economy? How is the Common Agricultural Policy good for the economy? How is giving away the fishing grounds good for the economy? I urge you to read up on the EU (There are some good books in the 'recommended reading' section of this forum).

Why not replace all this with a simple free trade agreement (which was what we thought we were signing up for in the first place)?

A good law is one that solves a problem. New Labour creates laws that don't solve any problems. This just creates expense and hassle (but it is good for lawyers!)

Yes. Is that an excuse to do nothing?
Yes it was, but for the money that New Labour is spending, we should have an NHS without waiting lists, and survival rates at least as good as the European average. We do not.
It is not good if taxes are so low that the government doesn't have the revenue to do the basics (eg maintain the transport infrastructure), but in Britain the government is wasting money and spending it inappropriate things. it has a moral duty to cut taxation.

Extracting money from the productive economy and wasting it slows economic growth. Evidence from around the world shows that low tax economies have faster growth rates than high tax ones.
Why is it unrealistic to expect British politicians to do the things that we pay them to do?
To get results governments need: 1. money 2. ideas 3. political will. The British government has more than enough of our money to do ALL these things, what it hasn't got is any ideas or political will.

Not off hand no. But I would urge you to read 'The Welfare State We're In' (on the reading list)

I don't have any direct dealings with the British educational system, so the evidence is all circumstantial, but it is compelling:
*Children unable to locate London on a map of the British Isles.
*Record 'A'Level pass-rates, but university admissions tutors complain that students are not qualified to cope with the first year.
* Employers complaining that they cannot get skilled staff.
* Caribbean parents sending their children back to the Caribbean to get a traditional British education
* The lack of basic knowledge of history and geography amongst people I encounter day-to-day.
* Record numbers of people buying private education
* More than a million East Europeans effortlessly finding jobs in Britain, even though we have a million unemployed (this is at least partly due to the dependency culture, but poor educational standards must be a factor)

Akebono

Sir - welcome and have fun.

You are amongst us friends and we cherish.

David Agnew

These figures relating to disability benefit were in the press yesterday:
Claimants: 2,640,000
Cost to taxpayers: £12,500,000,000pa

New Labour will talk the talk about the dependency culture, but they won't actually do anything, because they believe that the people in the dependency culture vote New Labour.

rjt

Equally high levels of imigration suit New Labour for the same reason.

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David Agnew

From today's press:

British teenagers have plummeted in world rankings for reading, maths and science according to an OECD survey.

Over the past 6 years, fifteen-year-olds have fallen from 8th to 24th place in maths, in reading from 7th to 17th place and in science from 4th to 17th.

Spending on education:
1997: £29billion.
2006: £77.4billion.

David Agnew

Percentage of council tenants in state dependency:
1981 20%
2008 55%

Aardvark

..but surely this is because there has been a massive reduction in the number of council tenants?

In 1981 the best part of half the country were councoil tenants so 20% of 50% was 10% of the population.

In 2008 only 20%-ish are council tenants and therefore the figure is the same - about 10% of the population.

All those who were prosperous tenants bought their houses so those who were state dependent were bound to be left behind as they couldn't get a mortgage.

There will always be people dependent on the state. Jesus Christ, a perceptive religious political leader of the first century, is supposed to have said something like 'The poor ye have with you always.' The system was different in those days, but the principle is the same.

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Akria

Although you do seem to be rather late (Smithee's last post was, by the looks of things, some time ago) I wonder whether that could have anything to do with improving standards of education in other nations?

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David Agnew

Could be, but a fall in British standards is more likely.

I am aware that Anthony Smithee has disappeared, but he did ask for figures. I haven't done any research, but as figures have appeared in the media, I have stuck them up here.