Hear hear!
They also make noise... Councils often have to pay for double-glazing in the houses near the bumps. How can that be a good thing?
But then again, nothing about Britain is 'Great' at the moment... Questionable wars, schools with so little funding that they cannot even afford to educate, ineffective police force, disasterous health care, unreliable public transport, higher education funding crisis, out-of-control media and a Labour government.
Just my ten pence.
A labour Government needn't be a bad thing, but in this case they are too right wing and as such are abad thing. its a crazy state of affairs when the conservatives are only slightly more right wng than labour. But it has happened.
Mr_Lenehan
27-07-2003 16:01:27
England isn't that bad!
Yeah okay transport isn't perfect everywhere, but it runs, and the majority of the time it runs on time and on schedule.
The only reason the health service is so shammed up is because of money... at least there is a health service! I had this idea which I thought was good wanna hear it? You set an end date to the NHS, say the end of June 2004 (so that you can spend the whole NHS budget in two/three months on admin fees and appointments).
If you have an ongoing illness you need to make a claim to the NHS between the 01.04 and the 31.6. If your claim is approved you get NHS funded treatment. Then the NHS shuts down, leaving everyone with the option of either prayer or private health insurance. If you're not on the NHS by the 31.6 and you get squahed by a bus on 01.07 then you either die, pay for it yourself or use your medical insurance.
This will then mean that you can set an exact budget amount on the NHS per year, and as people die that amount will become less and less. Reduce income tax by 1-2% and providing that you've got your current illnesses/conditions registered with the NHS then you medical insurance will be in the ?10-25 per month depending on occupation and so on.
It then opens up a whole new market for private health insurance which can be provided to companies as a sort of perk to employees (depending on the sort of company)... the possibilities are endless and it sorts out the NHS in that if you want treatment, you pay for it.
As for the countries police force it's just a case of numbers and police forces all around the global are having trouble fighting crime as it is generally on the uprise.
I can't really stick up for the rest though, questionable wars that we spend money on, out of conrtol media (which i have a solution for as well, put shortly it involves a special part of the police force that have guns and a licence to shoot anyone with a microphone and/or camera).
I do beleive that education has more deep rooted problems. Obviously money is one thing, but it's teachers too. There are far too many human rights laws that allow children to abuse teachers, but protect the same children from the teachers they are abusing (i.e. they can hit teachers but teachers can't do anything to the children). I believe that if a new system was developed (suggestions welcome) that could effectivly control the kids, then the teachers could do their jobs better - and there would be less teachers quiting, and manybe even more people wanting to be teachers.
I think its easy to blame your government for the failures of a nation, but i think its also important to look at the deep root of a problem to see what is causing the scenario in the first place.
And thats my 10pence worth... abuse and threatening emails welcome.
Private healthcare is certainly not the way forward for this country - it means rich people have access to good healthcare and the poor don't.
This is't right - everyone should have access to healthcare regardless of their income. Long live the NHS!!!
Sam
Gonna have to side with the leftists here. No way can this country afford to have private healthcare. Theoretically its a great idea, taxes "should" drop by enough to allow everyone to choose their own healthcare, but they wouldn't, we'd all have to spend more money on our basic health. People on lower income would be shafted.
No, not long live the NHS. It's a shambles.
Tear the damned thing down. Fair healthcare is a good thing. But I think it'd be better if the NHS ran a core infastructure, subsidising doctors etc, but should be a non-governmental not-for-profit organisation. The fact that Labour are trying to manage every aspect of the NHS proves how inneffective they are in government.
Public sector spending has increased 35%, but I cannot name a single area of improvement! Swindon buses have halved, healthcare is a shambles (still), trains are rubbish (still), schools are worse than ever (some having to close down due to being unable to even pay staff), students don't get grants, cars are still the most cost-effective mode of transport for the average person, we're going to war more often and for worse reasons than we have in the last 50 years, we have no clue as to whom anything that goes wrong is accountable and generally this country is failing on every point. Why can't anyone see that? Schools shutting down all over the country isn't exactly a sign of effective government! It's not even backwater places, Churchfields, Headlands, Hreod, Greendown and many primary schools in Swindon have had to send kids home and/or shut down due to funding problems.
The NHS is just a furnace in its present form and has been for 20 years. Throwing more money in to it just makes the fire bigger.
I agree that all should get fair and free healthcare, which is why I am against our present system. As it is, people aren't treated fairly (as it's trial-by-postcode as to the condition of your local hospital) and by the time you're eventually treated in hospital etc, you might as well have paid for private care and taken out a loan -- at least that way you're more likely to live, which is more important in my opinion.
--Matt
Alex B
07-08-2003 22:05:16
Didn't we already have the health service rant omewhere else?
Or was it the start of this thread? I can't remember....
That was posted over a week ago...
--Matt