What is Wrong with Britain?

Then there is the disabling monster that is the British welfare state. There are millions of adults in Britain who have never held a job. They are people who have spent so much of their life in dependency that they are esentially invalids. People who don’t have even basic job skills have no ability to effect change in their lives and control their own destiny.

Five million have never had a job under Labour - raising fears of a ‘Shameless’ generation of benefit addicts

At least five million people of working age have not done a day’s work since Labour came to power, research suggests.

The figure, to be highlighted by the Tories tomorrow, will fuel fears that the Government has cultivated a ‘Shameless’ generation dependent on the state.

An analysis of official data shows that three million in England and Wales had no job between 1996 and 2001, while a further two million had never had a job.

Then there is the way they are working to destroy the middle class by ruining the education system or making college less accessable to their kids. The British concept of social engineering is the exact opposite of what you would want to do to improve a society.

Labour think-tank considers stopping university loans for middle-class students

Middle-class students should be denied loans to cover university tuition fees and living costs, a controversial report from a key Labour think-tank recommends today.

Just so you can have some idea of the crime fighting ability of CCTV check out this crystal clear picture.

CCTV hunt for girl gang who launched vicious unprovoked stiletto attack

Police are hunting a group of women they believe are responsible for an attack on a man during a night out.

Today detectives released CCTV footage showing six female suspects, all believed to be in their twenties.

The 38-year-old, who was left with a broken ankle and stiletto-shaped wound on his head, had been on a night out with his girlfriend at the time of the unprovoked assault in Liverpool.

Now they are starting to move the surveillance state indoors.

Tenants fuming as flats turned into ‘Big Brother house’ with 112 CCTV cameras installed inside

Furious tenants say security cameras have turned their flats into a huge Big Brother house.

It comes after a housing trust installed up to 112 CCTV cameras in their eight three-storey blocks and pointing towards residents’ front doors.

People living there say the move is an invasion of their privacy and fear they will be spied on 24 hours a day.

Here is my latest find. Despite all the cameras they are putting up the rate of violent crimes that are getting solved is going down. In Britain violent criminals know that not only are their potential victims unarmed but their chances of not getting caught are very good. Then when you factor in the chances of getting convicted if caught along with light sentences what you get is a recipe for disaster.

500,000 violent criminals escaped justice last year

More than half of violent crimes went unsolved last year, the lowest since records began, figures show.
Almost half a million thugs committed violent acts without being caught.

Police solved only 47 per cent of 903,993 violent attacks, compared to 77 per cent as recently as 1996, the year before Labour came to power.

The Conservatives said that even the criminals that were caught were unlikely to be properly punished.

Only 48 per cent of suspects identified in violence against the person cases are summonsed to appear in court.

The remainder are issued cautions or on-the-spot fines, have their crime ‘taken into consideration’ as part of sentencing for another offence or face no further action.

Home Office statisticians also estimate that only around half of violent crime is reported.

This means that violent offenders have only a one in eight chance of facing serious punishment.

[quote]Sifu wrote:
As I was reading this article I couldn’t help but think of Cockneyblue’s claim that “CCTV has been effective”. You can read the whole article if you follow the link.

CCTV helps solve just ONE crime per 1,000 as officers fail to use film as evidence

Just one crime is solved a year by every 1,000 CCTV cameras in Britain’s largest force area, it was claimed today.

A senior Scotland Yard officer warned police must do more to head off a crisis in public confidence over the use of surveillance cameras.

Detective Chief Inspector Mick Neville said officers should up their game when it comes to making captured images count against crooks.

He said there are more than a million CCTV cameras in London and the Government has spent �£500 million on the crime-fighting equipment.

But he admitted just 1,000 crimes were solved in 2008 using CCTV images as officers fail to make the most of potentially vital evidence.

Writing in an internal report, Mr Neville said people are filmed many times every day and have high expectations when they become victims of crime.

But he suggested the reality is often disappointing as in some cases officers fail to bring criminals to justice even after they are caught on camera and identified.

Mr Neville said CCTV played a role in capturing just eight out of 269 suspected robbers across London in one month

[/quote]

This doesn’t surprise me at all, as I have already stated, CCTV cameras in the UK are mainly set up to generate traffic revenues. There are also large numbers that have been added to buildings in order to get discounts on insurance premiums. The owners of these cameras wipe the footage regularly and are unlikely to ‘get involved’ by passing it to the police unless the footage directly affects them.

In short, they can work and do on occasions however they have been badly implemented in the UK and there are probably too many of them.

[quote]orion wrote:
Did you know that Brits are now expected to inform their government when they leave their country, where they will go to and what they will do there?

[/quote]

No one told me! They didn’t even want to know when I moved abroad to take a new job…

[quote]engerland66 wrote:
I was born there, haven’t lived there in a while…so, I’m not 100% on this, but pretty sure.

On the highways (motorways) over there, if you drive from one speed camera to another faster than a pre-determined time, you mathematically had to be speeding at some point, so you get a ticket in the mail.

Speeding tickets are a big source of revenue over there - you get them w/o being pulled over. If a camera catches you speeding, you get a ticket in the mail a month or so later.

And there really are CCTV cameras EVERYWHERE.[/quote]

It’s more than that. Parking fines and general driving offences are also issued by camera and computer with no human interactions…

[quote]Cockney Blue wrote:

In the UK there is a full parlimentary debate over whether terrorism suspects should be able to be held for 42 days without charge (up from 28.) This debate is happening in the open by elected officials.

[/quote]

I don’t give a monkeys that they didn’t get their 42 days. They still got their 4 weeks. It was 24 hours not so long ago! Getting to know why you are being held is one of the most basic tenets of our society and it was removed so quickly with barely a murmur of protest. What will they take away next?

[quote]lou21 wrote:
Cockney Blue wrote:

In the UK there is a full parlimentary debate over whether terrorism suspects should be able to be held for 42 days without charge (up from 28.) This debate is happening in the open by elected officials.

I don’t give a monkeys that they didn’t get their 42 days. They still got their 4 weeks. It was 24 hours not so long ago! Getting to know why you are being held is one of the most basic tenets of our society and it was removed so quickly with barely a murmur of protest. What will they take away next?[/quote]

Cockney is always defensive and trying to spin nu-labour as some kind of second coming. Cock like many in Britain is in denial and will not admit that the country is heading for serious problems.

What they are about to take away next is the peoples right to self determination. They have already transferred most of Westminsters powers to Brussels after all %80 of the new laws and regulations are written there.

The British will not complain about anything important because their priorities are all wrong. ie Labour promised a refferendum on the EU constitution in it’s 2005 election manifesto then decided the public couldn’t be trusted to give the “correct vote” so they cancelled the referrendum. There have been no protests of this treason.

Compare that to the fox hunting ban. Protesters took to the streets en masse and storming into parliament to fight the men in tights to make sure they got their fox hunting ban.

Britain has become a cross between 1984 and Monty Python.

[quote]Sifu wrote:

Compare that to the fox hunting ban. Protesters took to the streets en masse and storming into parliament to fight the men in tights to make sure they got their fox hunting ban.
[/quote]

I believe in that instance, most of the protestors were actually from the Countryside Alliance and only a relatively small minority were protesting about the foxhunting ban.

[quote]lou21 wrote:
Cockney Blue wrote:

In the UK there is a full parlimentary debate over whether terrorism suspects should be able to be held for 42 days without charge (up from 28.) This debate is happening in the open by elected officials.

I don’t give a monkeys that they didn’t get their 42 days. They still got their 4 weeks. It was 24 hours not so long ago! Getting to know why you are being held is one of the most basic tenets of our society and it was removed so quickly with barely a murmur of protest. What will they take away next?[/quote]

I agree with you, my point was that it happened in the open by elected officials which is in contradiction to what Sifu implied.

[quote]Sifu wrote:
lou21 wrote:
Cockney Blue wrote:

In the UK there is a full parlimentary debate over whether terrorism suspects should be able to be held for 42 days without charge (up from 28.) This debate is happening in the open by elected officials.

I don’t give a monkeys that they didn’t get their 42 days. They still got their 4 weeks. It was 24 hours not so long ago! Getting to know why you are being held is one of the most basic tenets of our society and it was removed so quickly with barely a murmur of protest. What will they take away next?

Cockney is always defensive and trying to spin nu-labour as some kind of second coming. Cock like many in Britain is in denial and will not admit that the country is heading for serious problems.

What they are about to take away next is the peoples right to self determination. They have already transferred most of Westminsters powers to Brussels after all %80 of the new laws and regulations are written there.

The British will not complain about anything important because their priorities are all wrong. ie Labour promised a refferendum on the EU constitution in it’s 2005 election manifesto then decided the public couldn’t be trusted to give the “correct vote” so they cancelled the referrendum. There have been no protests of this treason.

Compare that to the fox hunting ban. Protesters took to the streets en masse and storming into parliament to fight the men in tights to make sure they got their fox hunting ban.

Britain has become a cross between 1984 and Monty Python. [/quote]

You truly live in a fantasy world. I have repeatedly stated that I was against Blair and New-Labour from the outset and have mixed feelings about being proved so right.

[quote]majicka wrote:
Sifu wrote:

Compare that to the fox hunting ban. Protesters took to the streets en masse and storming into parliament to fight the men in tights to make sure they got their fox hunting ban.

I believe in that instance, most of the protestors were actually from the Countryside Alliance and only a relatively small minority were protesting about the foxhunting ban.

[/quote]

Actually the protesters were from the coutnryside alliance who were against the ban. In the event, they have just carried on hunting but shoot the fox instead of letting the hounds rip it apart.

[quote]Cockney Blue wrote:
majicka wrote:
Sifu wrote:

Compare that to the fox hunting ban. Protesters took to the streets en masse and storming into parliament to fight the men in tights to make sure they got their fox hunting ban.

I believe in that instance, most of the protestors were actually from the Countryside Alliance and only a relatively small minority were protesting about the foxhunting ban.

Actually the protesters were from the coutnryside alliance who were against the ban. In the event, they have just carried on hunting but shoot the fox instead of letting the hounds rip it apart.[/quote]

Sorry, I mis-read Sifu’s post. Ironically, the pro-foxhunting protestors used similar tactics to those who wanted to ban it.

Oi vie! My point had nothing to do with the particulars of the fox hunting ban. I was making a comparison over the response to some really trivial bullshit (cute furry rodents) versus the most important issue of the day which is a new constitution which noone wants and the complete loss of sovereignty to an authoritarian government that noone wants.

It didn’t have to be fox hunting, it could have been any one of the of trendy causes that the British get all worked up over because some actor, actress or musician told them to.

Just because the EU constitution doesn’t tug at Bono’s heart strings it doesn’t meant that it isn’t extremely important.

[quote]Cockney Blue wrote:
lou21 wrote:
Cockney Blue wrote:

In the UK there is a full parlimentary debate over whether terrorism suspects should be able to be held for 42 days without charge (up from 28.) This debate is happening in the open by elected officials.

I don’t give a monkeys that they didn’t get their 42 days. They still got their 4 weeks. It was 24 hours not so long ago! Getting to know why you are being held is one of the most basic tenets of our society and it was removed so quickly with barely a murmur of protest. What will they take away next?

I agree with you, my point was that it happened in the open by elected officials which is in contradiction to what Sifu implied.
[/quote]

Yes we voted them in. BUT we did not foresee them taking these extreme steps. I would have hoped that before one of my most basic rights was removed I could at least vote on it.

(Unfortunately I don’t doubt that the majority of British people would have ratified the terrorism act. Which makes me very sad.)

[quote]Sifu wrote:
Oi vie! My point had nothing to do with the particulars of the fox hunting ban. I was making a comparison over the response to some really trivial bullshit (cute furry rodents) versus the most important issue of the day which is a new constitution which noone wants and the complete loss of sovereignty to an authoritarian government that noone wants.

It didn’t have to be fox hunting, it could have been any one of the of trendy causes that the British get all worked up over because some actor, actress or musician told them to.

Just because the EU constitution doesn’t tug at Bono’s heart strings it doesn’t meant that it isn’t extremely important.

[/quote]

The hunting ban was always just a load of bull. It kept Parliament tied up so none of the MPs could think about a private members bill without knowing it would get talked out due to lack of time and generally kept the public busy thinking about something other than how terribly the country is run. I guess Labour were gutted when it actually went through they have to find other ways to distract people now.

The ban was never really about the animals (which need to be killed anyway) but was and is about attacking a perceived toff activity.

[quote]lou21 wrote:
Cockney Blue wrote:
lou21 wrote:
Cockney Blue wrote:

In the UK there is a full parlimentary debate over whether terrorism suspects should be able to be held for 42 days without charge (up from 28.) This debate is happening in the open by elected officials.

I don’t give a monkeys that they didn’t get their 42 days. They still got their 4 weeks. It was 24 hours not so long ago! Getting to know why you are being held is one of the most basic tenets of our society and it was removed so quickly with barely a murmur of protest. What will they take away next?

I agree with you, my point was that it happened in the open by elected officials which is in contradiction to what Sifu implied.

Yes we voted them in. BUT we did not foresee them taking these extreme steps. I would have hoped that before one of my most basic rights was removed I could at least vote on it.

(Unfortunately I don’t doubt that the majority of British people would have ratified the terrorism act. Which makes me very sad.)[/quote]

Then what you do is you vote them out at the next election and you make sure that you do a bit better background check on the person that you vote in.

[quote]lou21 wrote:
Sifu wrote:
Oi vie! My point had nothing to do with the particulars of the fox hunting ban. I was making a comparison over the response to some really trivial bullshit (cute furry rodents) versus the most important issue of the day which is a new constitution which noone wants and the complete loss of sovereignty to an authoritarian government that noone wants.

It didn’t have to be fox hunting, it could have been any one of the of trendy causes that the British get all worked up over because some actor, actress or musician told them to.

Just because the EU constitution doesn’t tug at Bono’s heart strings it doesn’t meant that it isn’t extremely important.

The hunting ban was always just a load of bull. It kept Parliament tied up so none of the MPs could think about a private members bill without knowing it would get talked out due to lack of time and generally kept the public busy thinking about something other than how terribly the country is run. I guess Labour were gutted when it actually went through they have to find other ways to distract people now.

The ban was never really about the animals (which need to be killed anyway) but was and is about attacking a perceived toff activity.
[/quote]

I understand it was a throw back to class warfare and all that. My point really wasn’t about fox hunting, I was just using it as an example of how the British will get work up about trivial bullshit while ignoring the the really important stuff.

You are right it was a distraction, which was my point. The British are distracted by minor bullshit and ignoring what is really important.

[quote]Cockney Blue wrote:
lou21 wrote:
Cockney Blue wrote:
lou21 wrote:
Cockney Blue wrote:

In the UK there is a full parlimentary debate over whether terrorism suspects should be able to be held for 42 days without charge (up from 28.) This debate is happening in the open by elected officials.

I don’t give a monkeys that they didn’t get their 42 days. They still got their 4 weeks. It was 24 hours not so long ago! Getting to know why you are being held is one of the most basic tenets of our society and it was removed so quickly with barely a murmur of protest. What will they take away next?

I agree with you, my point was that it happened in the open by elected officials which is in contradiction to what Sifu implied.

Yes we voted them in. BUT we did not foresee them taking these extreme steps. I would have hoped that before one of my most basic rights was removed I could at least vote on it.

(Unfortunately I don’t doubt that the majority of British people would have ratified the terrorism act. Which makes me very sad.)

Then what you do is you vote them out at the next election and you make sure that you do a bit better background check on the person that you vote in.[/quote]

You really don’t get it do you. There are some things that no government should have had the right to touch. No one gave them a mandate for the terrorism laws. I used to laugh at the US with their 250ya constitution and second amendment thing but I start to get it a little now. The Westminster system is seriously flawed with its lack of separation of executive from legislature and to some extent even judiciary.

Do you honestly think that any political party around today will revoke all of the extra powers and ‘security measures’ and take down all the useless (at stopping what we were told they would stop ie street crimes) cameras? Or will this stuff lie dormant and largely unused but sometimes misused for a couple of generations until another crisis sometime in the unknown future when a nazi type figure can use all the ready made loopholes to consolidate power?