I personally know at least one person who switched his vote to Tory due to his belief that Labour would form a coalition with the SNP. It was as if there was a whole radical left part to the party.
I'm with Carrabuh on that one. Too many parents think that there child's entire education is exclusively the schools responsibility. Add to that, that putting them in-front of a computer game is easier than; educating them, conversing with them or making any real effort. And you can see why a fair few are coming through as complete remedials with little or no basic skills even social ones! Her indoors made me endure that benefits Britain show the other night and for a developed nation I cannot believe the system is allowing people on mass out into the big wide world with so little education and life skills. We are in-danger of losing whole estates to a benefits way of life with no end in sight, there appears little collective will to change in those communities. So making that lifestyle less appealing as the Tories are attempting seems a reasonable plan. Is it their kids fault? No, but they need to be diverted from that path, it would be better if it was by giving them aspirations but it's probably cheaper the Tory way. It makes me realise how lucky I have been to have had parents who whilst not highly educated, were supportive and interested enough to ensure that I not only worked hard, but had opportunities to excel (Whether I did or not is another debate entirely!) Where might I be if they were; lazy, scrounger layabouts? Probably wearing my best tracksuit with a can of Special brew cursing the Tories and the rich and the benefits people and the Police and everyone who's fault I deemed it instead of getting off my lazy harris! Bah!
They don't curse The Tories though. When canvassing these areas it brings it home to you the sheer hopelessness of it all. They have dropped off the scale completely in terms of any kind of social or political awareness,they truly are an underclass and have a gripe with everyone. The mere fact that you are taking part in any kind of political action draws abuse from them. It really reminded me of Shameless, and this was a Lowestoft estate.
100% agree.There are areas in Yarmouth just as bad. See the report ref Registry Office weddings in Yarmouth.
Not at all, I don't think it was the voting system that caused the issues in the countries you have listed. Just taking to much credit. not paying enough tax, corruption and retiring to early.
There we go as soon as someone goes against the status quo, people try and suggest that the only alternative is a system that isn't currently working. To be fair I haven't advocated any type of system. Just suggested that ours isn't representative of the countries views. Maybe this is one of the reason why many people can't be arsed to vote, because it doesn't count for anything. What you seem to be saying is we have to accept an unrepresentative bastardised form of democracy because the only alternative is weak government. Of course we can't have a government that truly represents the voters views because they wouldn't elect the right government. You can see where this is going. What is Spain thinking trying to have a representative government, don't they know this is only weak government, they need strong government like they had under Franco. Interestingly you don't say the sort of system that has given Germany or some of the Scandinavian countries such a stable government in recent years, even though the voters in these countries are much more like us than the Greek, Spanish or Italians. To be fair a change of system would require MP's to behave like reasonable well adjusted adults rather than like overgrown schoolboys. You only have to watch PM's question time to see the sort of inspirational leaders our current system puts in power. At present in England we are effectively only one party away from effectively being a one party state and with Labour seemingly hell bent on self destruction the thought of this countries politics being dominated by the conservatives for many years fills many people with genuine fear.
About 3 years ago we were thinking of taking on an office based service technician. No qualifications needed and in house training provided starting on about £16.5k per annum with the possibility of one day being a fully fledged service engineer, with car etc.. This lad comes in, about 18 years old and it's quite obvious that he hadn't ever been gainfully employed and hadn't attended college. The interview was a little hard to get through but I thought "good on him". Then the talk turned to salary etc...... I asked what sort of money he was looking for and he wanted £20k at least and ideally a car. Not willing to budge on the money at all. Even for a great opportunity. Turns out he had a kid and needed £20k a year to make it worthwhile for him and because of this he walked away. Madness. The guy that took his job now earns upwards of £35k year and has a car, phone etc....
That's not the first time I've heard of such a story. I knew someone who was training as a BMW technician and got fed up being paid a pittance!!!!
Whilst I agree with the sentiment that too many parents think their child's entire education is exclusively the schools responsibility. I think in the real world things are far from straightforward. Governments for many years now have almost been encouraging people to take this view and the current government is no exception. Successive governments have done their utmost to encourage parents to have less and less input in their children's education. The view seems to be parents can't be trusted and should be at work being productive, children should be in state education at an earlier age and for more hours and heaven forbid if you take your children out of school unless their ill. After all we need to steer them away from practical skills and non state endorsed views and get them indoctrinated into the work ethic as soon as possible. The government spends millions to encourage parents to put their children into "battery style" pre-school privately owned business, but does nothing to support a family where either mum or dad choose not to work because they want to stay at home and bring up their children. Many parents work their arse off trying to give their children a decent rounded education. Of course if your not working and on benefits you've got all the time in the world to teach your children. You should be reading with them every day, assuming of course you can afford books. Can't afford books, never mind just pop done to your local library. Oh I forgot it's been closed, "cuts you know", "well we're all in this together". Thank god the government has now decided to limit benefits to the first 2 children, which should over time reduce all but the most committed people on low income from having more than 2 children. Social engineering at its best. Of course there are many people who take the piss, but not everyone on benefits in uninterested in giving their children a better education and life than they had. Those NOT on benefits of course are much better parents and the more money people have the better parents they are, educating them, conversing with them or making a real effort. Those well round individuals turned out by the great private schools such as Eton, have been brought up so well by their parents or should I say their nanny and staff a various private schools. Just trying to give an alternative view
When you get away from ' first past the post ' one of two things happens. As in Germany you have a three party system - left, right and a smaller centre party who automatically go into coalition with the other party who wins the most seats. This means that the only permanent feature is the party who get the least votes which, to me, never seemed very democratic. We were heading that way in this Country until the electorate booted out the voting reform proposed and then booted out the third party in the last election. Alternatively you end up with a Parliament full of small parties covering everything from Communists to Fascists and after every election it takes about 6 months to form a coalition which usually falls apart in another 6 months. I fully accept that the ' two party ' system is flawed, although it has not done the USA any harm but, in my opinion, it is better than any other system proposed including the one party State that has not done China any harm. Democracy itself is flawed but I prefer it to any other system proposed and the same goes for capitalism.
Pmsl hasn't done the US any harm? Oh dear I really wouldn't be holding the US up as a bastion of fantastic democracy. All having just 2 partys does is give polar extremes, you're stuffed if you agree with a couple of policies of party A and a couple from party B The absolute worst thing that happens even with any number of partys is the morons that when you ask why they voted for x they say because my parents always votes that way and so did their parents etc etc. Tbh if it were up to me you'd have to name at least 2 policies of any party before getting your ballot paper. How many would fail that "test"
If it were up to me you'd have to pass a basic IQ test before you could vote, mind you that would rule out half of the British electorate
It depends where you set the level. Presumably at 100 would cut it.It might not achieve the result you expect though. High IQ people have a tendency to be left wing.
What a load of tripe. You sound like you don't have children to be honest and are just speculating. Ensuring kids do not have holidays during term time is to prevent loss of education. If the parent can vouch that the holiday will be of benefit to the child then I'm sure the head will allow it. If you are that disadvantaged you won't be taking them on holiday anyway. How on earth is that taking away a parents education of their children? Would I take my kids out of school to go to a hotel in Majorca, absolutely not (not that I'd go anyway). Would I take them to Ghana to see their Grandparents et al and see the sights, absolutely. I'm confident the school would also allow it. The two I have at school (7 and 6) have a home learning book that encourages the parent to do some of the tasks with the child that they do at school at home, they have choices of school topics, literacy and numeracy tasks. In addition, you are encouraged to put anything unrelated in the book that is of educational value. The parents who do work their arses off to give their kids a well rounded education will not be producing kids that cannot read and write properly. Most kids do not need constant attention to get on with home work unless they have been spoon fed answers at home when growing up or a lack of interest shown by the parent previously. Libraries. For goodness sake there are loads of libraries. You can take out plenty of books in one go and manage them online, or heaven forbid a phone call. Lets not forget the school library of course, my kids have access to a new book to take home every day. There are very few excuses for children to fall behind in reading. The only one I'd accept is if the parent cannot read themselves. Perhaps if you cannot afford 3 children then you should focus your time and money on the two you have. If the state can afford to give me benefits for three then so be it, only two, one ? then again so be it. The country has massive debts, social engineering? what utter claptrap, people still have the right to have children, its just that the other people of this country will not be paying to bring them up. My missus was privately educated and she loved it. The stuff she knows is staggering and she only came over when 11 and hardly spoke any English. I wish I had access to that education when growing up and whilst I wouldn't send them away I'd love to give mine a private education. I also realise that it is impossible for the state to provide an equivalent education. Its my fault I can't afford to give them one, not the rich. By the way, those not on benefits will most likely be better parents. That is genuinely unpallettable to say but I am sure it is true. If you believe the responsibility of a childs education lies with yourself, you are not going to be going to far wrong.
Carrabuh has already responded very well and I agree with pretty much everything he has said. And I agree with his unpalatable truth. However it isn't as simple as all that. A child can easily be ignored and palmed off by the rich. I know people working 12 hrs + daily and away on business frequently, in part to give their children a better life. But is it? Would a child rather have their Dad back each evening? Rather than a console or nanny or exotic hol? Good parenting is independent of wealth, it is about support, love and moral guidance (many other things too! Like quality time, But I haven't got all night!) Some how we could do with more parents at home in the most formative years guiding and educating their kids but who can afford that these days! Bah!
