Getting fed up with this country

RE: Getting fed up with this country

Such as?

RE: Getting fed up with this country

Your right, compared to a lot of other parts of the world, we are well off and have things pretty damngood. A good standard of living, a free(ish) society (by comparison), free elections, ect. But it does'nt stop me dreaming of seeing my days out somewhere where there is a nice clean beach and some bloody sunshine.

RE: Getting fed up with this country

Muke,
Would you care to add some meat the the bones?

RE: Getting fed up with this country

I suspect he's sick and tired of ever increasing taxes in return for ever decreasing services. On the plus side, before long, only the rich will be able to afford to own a car... oh, hang on, I'm not rich.[8D]

RE: Getting fed up with this country

It's not what Mike was talking about in starting the thread, but along with woodcat I find Britain difficult because of the climate. I joke ( ??? ) that my last ten incarnations must have been in desert or jungle, as it really hits me here. I've lived (this life!) in places where winter was far colder, but there was variation, hot summers, and the sun also shone through the cold winters.

So that's my problem with Britain. [&:]

RE: Getting fed up with this country

For me its living on the edge.........

The edge of anything that might just help me and my family e.g. tax credit, grant aid for my son etc. It just takes a few pounds to push you over - but what a difference it is.

I'm also going to have to up the bit I take off to cover Tax & NI now as I see that has gone up somewhere near 23.4% per £1.
ho hum

FBx

RE: Getting fed up with this country

Ditto, V! 🙂

Another problem I have, is that I'm afraid to walk to my yoga class alone, even though it's only 7:30pm. I also worry for my daughters being out alone-at any time.

RE: Getting fed up with this country

Original: Muke
I suppose I shouldn't really complain because compared to a lot of people in this world we in the UK are comparitively so safe and well off, but I'm going to anyway:D

I think Muke is right. Countries like Britain arethe exception to the norm because normality to most people in the world is a police state where polititians are corrupt and their rhetoric is meaningless apart from loyalty to a tribe or faction. Normality is often mass poverty and millions crammed into shanty towns.

Normality is where the police are a bunch of armed thugs that can ruin your life just by accusing you of a crime and have you put away without caring whether you are a law abiding citizen or not. Normality is where everyone except the rich are treated with contempt by the Police and other representatives of the state.

Normality is where you have a secret police that can take you in for 'questioning' if they suspect you of showing signs of independant thought. Where you have identity cards so you have to justify your existance to the state rather than the other way round as in a free country.

Normality is a controlled press, a rubber stamp parliament, biased courts, violent prisons, useless schools unless you are rich.

Notwithstanding the above I can understand where Muke is coming from. While I am hugely greatful that I live in a country where 'normality' is kept at bay I think that we need to be vigilant about our relitive good fortune.

None of it came about by accident. Our freedom, democracy and relative prosperity was built up by the efforts, courage, vigilance and steadfastness of previous generations and people who have come to this country attracted by our way of life.

I believe that many of the things that are normal in other countries are beginning to appear in this country, like ID cards, like the attempts of government to panic us into giving up some of our freedom in exchange for security.

Rather than invade other countries on the pretext of them having weapons of mass destruction we should look closer to home at the people who would become our own despots.

Dunkirk.

The above contribution was inspired by Peter Hitchens' blog in the Mail online. ( the only hatred here is againstpoverty and dictatorship )

RE: Getting fed up with this country

Hi,

The mystery of why Muke, the originator of this thread is getting fed up with this country continues. Many of us have speculated and have attempted to come up with a reason for Muke's disillusionment.

The following is a piece written by a Russian journalist visitor to Britain and gives a clue to how those who had hoped for freedom and liberty in their own country view Britain today:-

"Under its corrupt government, which is widely believed to sell seats in the upper house of parliament in return for contributions to ruling party funds, the once-free nation of Britain is rapidly turning into a police state. Pre-trial detention, once limited to 72 hours, is being repeatedly extended to far longer periods. Old rules about the accused being innocent until proved guilty are being cast aside. The right to silence has been abolished and so has the law which prevented anyone being tried twice for the same offence.

The police increasingly take action against individuals for expressing opinions which defy 'political correctness', the official orthodoxy of the British state. The major Churches claim that new laws discriminate against their freedom of conscience. The streets are under perpetual surveillance by closed -circuit TV cameras recording every action. The citizens are shortly to be issued with internal passports similar to Russian ones, and will be compelled to provide their fingerprints to their authorities. Schoolchildren are already being fingerprinted on such pretexts as allowing library access. The police increasingly use arrests - not followed by charges - to harass those they wish to pursue - and anyone arrested - whether convicted or not - is now compelled to give a DNA sample. As a result, Britain now has the most comprehensive DNA records of its population, anywhere in the world.

Many state bodies now have the power to search people's homes, and the old maxim that 'An Englishman's Home is His Castle' is now so untrue as to be laughable. Elections are still held, but are a sham in which all the parties have more or less the same policies. The main political movements, which have lost much of their popular support, are kept going by state subsidies and contributions from millionaire businessmen. The main state-owned broadcasting system is slavishly loyal to the government and keeps minority viewpoints off the air, or treats them with contempt and derision, while the other channels mostly purvey low-grade pornographic entertainment, so-called 'reality' shows of stunning banality, old movies and sport.

Meanwhile, actual crime is out of control, though citizens are legally prevented from many actions of self-defence and a government minister recently advised Britons to 'jump up and down' if they saw an old woman being attacked in the street, in the hope of distracting the attacker. This is the country which lectures Russia about 'civil society' and 'human rights'. "

RE: Getting fed up with this country

Thanks for posting that. Whew - it's quite a summary ... but the scary thing is that it's all true.

V

RE: Getting fed up with this country

Hi All

I just thought I'd add in my two penneth - I'd like to say ditto to what everyone else has said. We hear that other countries are unlawful and dangerous, but what about ours? People are afraid to be out on the streets at night on there own, constantly feel the need to worry about there children, taxes are rising and services are always decreasing, you can get put in jail or receive an ASBO for just trying to help enforce the law of the land and the list goes on an on and on. On top of that we have got this blooming miserable weather all the time and we are constantly been told that it is our fault that climate change is happening!!! We are forced to recycle (which i have always done anyway) but then we have our landfill waste the rotting food etc left in our garden bins for 2 weeks, there has been a huge incerease of rats due to this [link= http://www.tiscali.co.uk/news/rat-attacks.html ]http://www.tiscali.co.uk/news/rat-attacks.html[/link]If all that wasn't enough reason to be fed up with the country we have the fact that the government is in chaos and is in reality making a mockery of it's self.

Laura

RE: Getting fed up with this country

I do try to think positively, and while the topic of this thread can have its negative aspects (this country) life in general can be wonderful, let's not forget.

But getting back on topic. I didn't even know until the news today that new passports with some kind of electronic encryption have already been issued to 2 million people? I didn't get the details, except that the slightest damage or crease can invalidate them and so a new one is needed as the electronic readings don't work, it turns out.

My reason in posting this is that these things cost £30 (!) and the estimate is now that due to their vulnerability they'll last about 2 years. The thing is, I did a quick think and realised that means that to have one of these passports, it'll now cost us half a dollar or half a euro on average per week. (£30 converted = 50 or in fact more than 50 $s or euros, then divide by 2 years.)

RE: Getting fed up with this country

Perhaps it is wrong to compare living here with my experience of living in Thailand but believe me, life here is better .

Here you have free speech; a welfare state; a state pension; free surgeries; a corrupt free police force; no coups; gun laws; relative safety on the streets; proper sewerage ... I could go on.

True, in some respects things have changed for the worse here but if I were to choose where I lived, I think you'd know the answer. Believe me, I like the Thai race, my extended Thai family are the most wonderful people that I trust implicitly but life there was unstable.

Please don't moan too much because the grass is not always greener on the other side.

Love

RE: Getting fed up with this country

Hi Sue,

You are right, and I think we all agreee with you on the fact that we are fortunate to live in a developed nation that has a great background in relative democracy. As I read it, so far as the political angle goes, the concern people have is that what WAS good and great has been severely undermined in just a decade, so that some of the things you list are partially lost, and may be further lost.

Safe in the streets? I would definitely feel safer at night in many other non-developed countries nowadays. Depends where you live.

No coups? A coup can take different forms. There are creeping coups. Putin, for example, has in a hidden way taken Russia half-way back from the democracy it tried to gain. In Blair's time IMO there has indeed been a partial coup.

Non-corrupt police? I agree that the lower-echelon police don't stop you for speeding just to pocket $50 as a bribe as elsewhere. But at higher levels very mysterious things are going on. (See other threads.)

Freedom of speach? I think you can only speak freely if you have free access to knowledge and to what is really going on, and the information released to us is very restricted.

So to me at least, it's not about preferring to live in Ghana or Nepal or South Africa or Iran. It's about what WAS good about Britain being eroded away so startlingly quickly.

V xxx