How I would 'fix' the United Kingdom

[Deleted]

You know, Hitler didn't plan to kill all the Jews right away, first he tried to deport them.

The OP sounds Like a conservative. They are Much Much Worse.

[Hyve]

You know, Hitler didn't plan to kill all the Jews right away, first he tried to deport them.

Nice one, comparing anyone who wants to secure national interests before the interests of others is obviously on par with Adolf Hitler. Congratulations, you're a moron.

Infracted: Please refrain from insulting other posters.

[Deleted]

Our Nations Interests > Opinions & Views of other nations.

I'm not talking about killing babies, throwing immigrants into a boat made of plastic chairs and sailing them into Norway, I'm talking about a realistic, human approach to dealing with serious issues. The fact that some people in this thread don't quite view some of the issues as seriously as I do suggests that the public are unaware of what is going on around the world.

Billions, maybe even Trillions of USD is lost in trade because it goes to other nations who have much more control over their finances, systems and population. We need to organise ourselves first, restore Great Britain, then we can start to care for other nations.

It is not opinions or views, it is INTERNATIONAL LAW.

If you break international law countries impsoe trade sanctions on you, you get ostracised from economic and political unions, less countries trade with you, you less economic partners, it completely ruins your country.

We can't simply 'organise ourselves'. We have commities and political parties of teams of people with doctoral education in anthropology, economics, psychology, politics, international law, etc who are far more qualified. You simply CAN'T do anything like your proposals overnight, you seem to live in a fairytale.

[Reeve]

You know, Hitler didn't plan to kill all the Jews right away, first he tried to deport them.

That's a particularly bad Godwin. He hasn't suggested anything about rounding up and deporting existing immigrants. I don't like his views either, but let's be a bit more reasonable.

I don't have any data to support it, but I suspect "the immigrants come here for our benefits and it's draining the country dry" is a probably wrong. Xenophobia is easier to sell than the actual solutions to problems.

[Hyve]

The OP sounds Like a conservative. They are Much Much Worse.

What exactly is wrong with Conservative values? Last time I checked, whenever Socialist or Liberal leaders were in charge, things always went to hell.

---------- Post added 2013-03-25 at 02:04 PM ----------

It is not opinions or views, it is INTERNATIONAL LAW.

And what laws would we be breaking? The same laws as the ones France breaks when they deport their immigrants into the U.K?

[Elim Garak]

Nice one, comparing anyone who wants to secure national interests before the interests of others is obviously on par with Adolf Hitler. Congratulations, you're a moron.

I didn't say you are on par. But you are leaning in the "right" direction

[Butler to Baby Sloths]

What exactly is wrong with Conservative values? Last time I checked, whenever Socialist or Liberal leaders were in charge, things always went to hell.

---------- Post added 2013-03-25 at 02:04 PM ----------



And what laws would we be breaking? The same laws as the ones France breaks when they deport their immigrants into the U.K?

Maggie Thatcher was a conservative, and crippled the British economy pretty much over-night with her intense hatred of industry and anything further north than Milton Keynes, not to mention putting a million out of work.

[Elim Garak]

That's a particularly bad Godwin. He hasn't suggested anything about rounding up and deporting existing immigrants. I don't like his views either, but let's be a bit more reasonable.

I just noted that he runs on the same platform. And since he already claimed to have a mild dictatorship...

[Hyve]

I don't have any data to support it, but I suspect "the immigrants come here for our benefits and it's draining the country dry" is a probably wrong. Xenophobia is easier to sell than the actual solutions to problems.

I'm not against immigration at all. I want a multicultural United Kingdom, the best times we've had in our past is when we've incorporated other cultures into our own. My problem is though that we've got a serious financial issue, and we can't continue to take in more immigrants every day.

If they're valuable to our country, if they're going to work within our nation and improve us, I'm all for them to come in, but I am not for people coming in, claiming money and sending it back home.

[Deleted]

What exactly is wrong with Conservative values? Last time I checked, whenever Socialist or Liberal leaders were in charge, things always went to hell.

---------- Post added 2013-03-25 at 02:04 PM ----------



And what laws would we be breaking? The same laws as the ones France breaks when they deport their immigrants into the U.K?

A source for this influx of french demorted migrants to the UK? Rather than just making things up.

And again, blaming the labour party for the global economic collapse, oh wow. A lot of the laws and regulations in this country that could have protected against it were ignored and even denounced by the former tory government. Whichever party had been in power when the GLOBAL recession hit would have been unable to do anything. If the tories are so great why is our growth and escape from recession so slow?

Again, please actually take a political educaiton before posting about politics, rather than reading a few biased newspaper articles.

[Hyve]

Maggie Thatcher was a conservative, and crippled the British economy pretty much over-night with her intense hatred of industry and anything further north than Milton Keynes, not to mention putting a million out of work.

She crushed the unions for the right reasons, and it was the smartest thing to do. Unions were demanding far to much, and they held the country to ransom. Her selling of Public Services / Sectors was not acceptable, and has damaged us greatly, but the Unions had to be broken.

[Deleted]

Maggie Thatcher was a conservative, and crippled the British economy pretty much over-night with her intense hatred of industry and anything further north than Milton Keynes, not to mention putting a million out of work.

Best and worst Prime minister we ever had apart from Winston Churchill.

[Hyve]

A source for this influx of french demorted migrants to the UK? Rather than just making things up.

And again, blaming the labour party for the global economic collapse, oh wow. A lot of the laws and regulations in this country that could have protected against it were ignored and even denounced by the former tory government. Whichever party had been in power when the GLOBAL recession hit would have been unable to do anything. If the tories are so great why is our growth and escape from recession so slow?

Again, please actually take a political educaiton before posting about politics, rather than reading a few biased newspaper articles.

I don't read many Newspaper Articles. Instead I form my opinion from the business leaders I speak with on a weekly basis, people who used to have their companies in the U.K. and would like to return, but find the lack of commitment from the British Government & People to amend the situation worrying.

On the matter of the Global Recession, if Gordon Brown didn't sell all our Gold & Essential Services, we would've been in a position when the Crisis hit to resolve large amounts of any debt we had, not to mention the debts we owe were mostly created by the Labour Party....

Seriously, do you want to live in a world where everyone just shakes hands, nods and pretends everything is okay, or do you want to work your balls off for 4 - 5 years and be done with all this recession and debt?

[Deleted]

I think your VAT idea is pretty sound, my understand is that it works similar to Norway's system (although I am from the UK so not entirely sure on this!) and it's something I've moaned about for a while. I think your immigration and probably emigration policies are a little harsh. I'd also need to see some stuff about the education system before I voted for you... especially if you're basically adopting Australia level border control (which in itself is fine), will our education system be good enough to train a strong workforce?

University is too expensive for barely any gain at the moment. If you scrapped tuition fees with some of the money you were saving elsewhere if possible (or capped them at £1k per year at the very least) then I think we'd see more people considering Uni as an option.

Our Education sector needs work, but basically in the opposite way to what Michael Gove is doing. There's nothing wrong with GCSEs and A Levels in my opinion. What is wrong, is the syllabus, ICT for the most part. The ICT syllabus in the UK is woefully inadequate. We need to teach these kids how to code, about unix, about soooo much more than MS Office. Otherwise in 30-40 years we're going to be eclipsed by other nations who are writing all of the code, and we'll be a nation of tech consumers. ICT should form a much larger part of the education.

Also want to see views on electoral reform. Basically any party that has Proportional Representation in their manifesto will get my vote... Plurality is a terrible system for any sort of actual democracy.

Your Jobseekers plus idea is actually really good. May I offer that it might also be a good idea if one day a fortnight, there could be a mandatory CV writing and interview technique class as part of the Jobseekers thing you need to do to get your money. Otherwise, they will probably start treating the jobseekers stuff as a job in itself, and complain that they have no time for applying for jobs and going to interviews etc. which is the whole point of it. I actually think that lack of skill in CV writing and interview technique is one of the reasons people get legitimately stuck in Jobseekers (those who are actually trying to get work but can't).

Edit: Just read through a lot of the replies, the people bashing on you for being Conservative in style don't really know what they're talking about. In today's politics, there is no ideological battlefield between socialism and conservatism. It's all blurred into one muddy middle ground. While this is bad because there's very little choice (on one hand), it's also good because politicians of today are basically able to propose whatever they like, and more importantly, what the people want, without being bound by some archaic ideology.

I definitely err on the side of socialism and liberalism, but there are definitely ideas in the original post that I can get behind. The VAT change is clearly a decent change in terms of purely liberal values, because you're giving the choice of taxation through VAT to the individual. If they're rich and want to buy a boat, then the government gets loads of tax through that. If you're poor and don't spend money on "unnecessary" things, then you get taxed a lot less, so you end up with a lot more cash to do stuff YOU want to do with your life, even if that stuff is more expensive, it's stuff you're choosing to do. You don't need to buy a £2.50 lion bar, or whatever.

[Reeve]

Best and worst Prime minister we ever had apart from Winston Churchill.

Certainly the biggest personality outside of Churchill.

---------- Post added 2013-03-25 at 02:12 PM ----------

I keep seeing references to Australia's border control. What's the reputation there? It was the easiest immigration/customs I've ever been through, and fully 3/4 of the foreign people I met there were there on year work visas, with half those people not even working.

[vetinari]

Taxes/finances

1. The UK sets the interest rates it pays on the pound.

2. Government spending is constrained by inflation, not revenue. Taxes don't pay for anything, they control inflation. (interest rates do this in a roundabout manner, taxes do it directly.)

Welfare

Sounds good. But why not simply offer a government sponsored full time job at, say minimum wage to all citizens, then remove Job seekers and all employment regulations other than OH&S? These jobs could range from apprenticeships in public companies, to the government paying the wages for charity workers, to the public works you suggest. As a plus side, you would have a lower NAIRU due using an employed buffer stock instead of an unemployed buffer stock.

Immigration
Banning citizens from receiving welfare for 15 years seems kind of harsh, is it not?

[Hyve]

I think your VAT idea is pretty sound, my understand is that it works similar to Norway's system (although I am from the UK so not entirely sure on this!) and it's something I've moaned about for a while. I think your immigration and probably emigration policies are a little harsh. I'd also need to see some stuff about the education system before I voted for you... especially if you're basically adopting Australia level border control (which in itself is fine), will our education system be good enough to train a strong workforce?

University is too expensive for barely any gain at the moment. If you scrapped tuition fees with some of the money you were saving elsewhere if possible (or capped them at £1k per year at the very least) then I think we'd see more people considering Uni as an option.

Our Education sector needs work, but basically in the opposite way to what Michael Gove is doing. There's nothing wrong with GCSEs and A Levels in my opinion. What is wrong, is the syllabus, ICT for the most part. The ICT syllabus in the UK is woefully inadequate. We need to teach these kids how to code, about unix, about soooo much more than MS Office. Otherwise in 30-40 years we're going to be eclipsed by other nations who are writing all of the code, and we'll be a nation of tech consumers. ICT should form a much larger part of the education.

Also want to see views on electoral reform. Basically any party that has Proportional Representation in their manifesto will get my vote... Plurality is a terrible system for any sort of actual democracy.

Your Jobseekers plus idea is actually really good. May I offer that it might also be a good idea if one day a fortnight, there could be a mandatory CV writing and interview technique class as part of the Jobseekers thing you need to do to get your money. Otherwise, they will probably start treating the jobseekers stuff as a job in itself, and complain that they have no time for applying for jobs and going to interviews etc. which is the whole point of it. I actually think that lack of skill in CV writing and interview technique is one of the reasons people get legitimately stuck in Jobseekers (those who are actually trying to get work but can't).

Nice ideas and thanks for the Feedback. I don't pretend my ideas are popular, or 100% the most ideal to choose, but generally speaking I'm not talking purely from opinion, but looking at figures, numbers, facts and talking with the people who've been and left the U.K. because of these reasons alone.

[Deleted]

Certainly the biggest personality outside of Churchill.

---------- Post added 2013-03-25 at 02:12 PM ----------

I keep seeing references to Australia's border control. What's the reputation there? It was the easiest immigration/customs I've ever been through, and fully 3/4 of the foreign people I met there were there on year work visas, with half those people not even working.

They have very strict criteria of who let let in permanently, You must either be wealthy or be in a trade/profession that Australia currently needs.

[Valerean]

Demanding an interest-rate freeze from our creditors will achieve nothing besides a group of foreign Finance Ministers laughing hysterically.

[Hyve]

Immigration
Banning citizens from receiving welfare for 15 years seems kind of harsh, is it not?

Yeh, reviewing it from the opinions people have made, it does seem overkill. Do you have any other solution to ensuring that the country ins't a target of Benefit Fraud from Immigrants?