Groans from me over breakfast as the Conservative Party announced the next item in the list of things it will do if voted in at the next General Election …
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'Place a cap on the number political asylum seekers admitted into the country every year'
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'Place a cap on the number political asylum seekers admitted into the country every year'
This comes on top of last week's promise to
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'Increase spending on health, education and the police AND cut taxes'
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And this is all on top of their long standing support for the attack on Iraq, implementation of ID cards and all the b*llshit War on Terror legislation.
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Most people, particularly those who live with the consequences, agree that some controls need to be put on immigration. Many tax payers are also concerned that taxation has increased greatly and a lot of that extra money has been wasted. A lot of people are against the War and the erosion of civil liberties.
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And the Tories keep f*cking it up. I've lost count of how many political open goals they've missed. Asylum claims are a fraction of the total annual migration figures and their proposed tax cuts are tiny. So, why on earth are they wording their proposed policies in such a way as to leave them open to scorn and ridicule? The tax cut proposal was met with
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'Tories pretend they can cut taxes and increase spending. Look, there are some flying pigs'
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'Tories pretend they can cut taxes and increase spending. Look, there are some flying pigs'
And tomorrow the headlines will read
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'Tories will refuse asylum to babies fleeing death camps'
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Muppets. They really don’t deserve to get in. But what does the lack of a credible political opposition mean for the rest of us? Actually, maybe rather than being very, very stupid they're being very, very clever. Maybe they don’t want to take over governing the country. I wouldn't.
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One of the cruellest jokes of politics is taking over a country just before your predecessors' incompetence and corruption starts having an obvious negative effect. I personally suffered from the reverse effect in my last job. I'd worked with a sick company for a year or so and just as all my measures had started cutting-in a new guy came aboard. As far as the rest of the World was concerned it looked like he had a fantastic impact within weeks of taking post. Strangely, he felt no need to correct any incorrect perceptions and even worked quite hard at restricting the amount of good news, so that it looked liked he was responsible for a steady improvement in the company's fortunes. Our current Labour government played a similar trick with the surpluses it inherited from the previous Conservative government.
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Those surpluses ran out a few years ago and over the next few years we in the UK can look forward to big tax rises, rising unemployment, the popping of the personal debt bubble, a nightmare in Iraq and maybe a collapse in the housing market thrown in. What kind of idiots would want to take over the government just before all that was about to happen?
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The situation in Iraq will go South first. They're going to have elections there in a few days time. Along with the 'hand over' to the interim Iraqi administration last June and the assault on Fallujah a couple of months ago, these elections are the most recent in a succession of initiatives; each of which was going to finally stabilise the situation.
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Mmmmm
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The security situation in large parts of Iraq is now so dire that the police hide their identity behind masks and the insurgents make no attempt to disguise themselves, even in the capital city in broad daylight. Most of the election candidates are standing anonymously and God knows how anyone could have done any campaigning over the last few months. I just can't believe that there has been much in the way of political rallies, or door to door canvassing, or any kind of serious political activity. Many of us in the West would like to strangle some of our politicians. The Iraqis probably do.
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But, hey, Tony Blair told us last week that 14 out 18 provinces in Iraq are stable enough to hold elections. Shame that the missing 4 provinces are home to half the total population. Thanks Tony, for never failing to disappoint by never ever telling the honest truth about any given issue.
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Nope, the Iraqi elections won’t work and even if they did that doesn’t mean UK or US troops are ever going to pull out. In the Presidential debates last year Kerry mentioned that the US was building 14 permanent bases in Iraq. No-one contradicted him during or after the debate. The US is there to stay. Forever. Full spectrum dominance of the Middle East and 'Stan' republics requires no less. And there's everyone in the US and UK believing, wanting to believe, that there will be an end-point to the nightmare.
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Settle in boys and girls, the holocaust in Iraq is going to continue for a very long time indeed. It was always meant to. Your leaders aren't incompetent as you would like to believe. No, they're wickeder. Which, as we all know, is worse.
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So, anyway, Iraq's going to go South. Later on, UK taxes will rise to pay for the massive increases in wasted public expenditure and people will start to choke on and default on the £1,000,000,000,000 of personal debt we've managed to run up in the UK. What has particularly impressed me is the huge number of fellow citizens who've significantly increased their mortgages to pay for such investment essentials as long haul holidays and plasma TV sets. Sadly, sniff sniff, the time will soon come when people will no longer be able to buy imported electrical cr*p from Dixons or employ Latina cleaning ladies or East European builders to improve their houses. The retail and service sector will wither and unemployment will rise. Tax receipts will fall and then public sector cuts will follow. And so on. The question is not IF this will happen it's just a matter of when. Britain is long due what is euphemistically called a 'correction' and the longer it is delayed the worse it will be.
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So, putting myself in the Conservative Party's position, would I want to return to government before, or after this happens? Mmmm, tough call. However on reflection, if I was in the Conservative leadership I'd start promising the reintroduction of child labour, the right of doit de seigneur for local Conservative MPs and the state execution of cute kittens and hold back my less extreme policies for the next time around.
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Anyway, I'm laughing. My girlfriend has a New Zealand passport and I can speak Italian. What about the rest of you?
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3 comments:
True, something between 45-50% of the Iraqi population lives in the 4 'unstable' provinces.
It's a bit like watching all those blue and red lights during the US Presidential election. It looked awfully impressive for Bush until your realised most of his states had a population of two people and a goat called Bob.
Please, revisit this Blog entry in a few months time and see if I've called it wrong. Unlike politicians I'm not in the habit of erasing my mistakes ...
I live in London, and a very depressed part of London at that.
Lots of people love living in London - there's no doubt that it's one of the liveliest and most vibrant places in the world. It certainly is the most ethnically diverse. If you're a 20 something, don't have kids, don't look very far into the future and spend everything you earn, plus a little bit more, you can have a great time.
One of the key aspects of life in London and the UK is that the gap between the haves and have nots widens every year, whatever the government. We've even taken to importing large numbers of have nots to keep the costs of employing members of our slave class down. This is most noticeable in London where most of the people having a good time live in a cocooned World and take cabs to their relatively safe enclaves after a night out.
The rest of the country is not so bad but there is a sickness around. A spiritual sickness (sorry if that sounds pompous). We're the most materialistic, bad tempered nation in Europe. Check out any city or town centre any weekend night and enjoy the sight of hundreds of drunken, angry kids vomiting and hitting each other. Marvel at the sheer rudeness of many people you meet on the street.
Would I recommend moving to the London? Maybe to someone in their mid 20s looking to party for a few years then clear out to bring up a family somewhere nice. It's also a good place to base yourself for a few years and use your earnings to see a bit of the world. We are well-served by cheap air travel and it's less expensive to fly to Prague than take a train to somewhere near like Bristol. Outside of London, the North and the West are less sick and definitely friendlier but there aren't so many jobs around.
Your friend's a teacher? I think I may have mentioned this story elsewhere but a couple of teachers I know were joking with me a few months ago about how their headmistress went recruiting in South Africa and was telling people that her school was in a place that was just like Capetown. The school is in Tower Hamlets which is a lot more Jo'burg than Capetown. But once she snags people they get stuck for a year or two and that's all she's after.
Your friend moved to the UK because she was worried about physcial assaults in school? Pardon me, but that's really funny. Mind you not all London teachers are assaulted, some of them get accused of sexual molestation and get suspended instead. The first reaction I got from friends when I told them I was considering teacher training was startled surprise 'You're not going to teach in London are you?'. I had to reassure all of them that I had not gone insane and would move overseas as soon as possible after qualifying. 'Oh, that's alright then'.
Starting salary for a new or overseas teacher in London c£20k. This is a fraction of what I was earning as an accountant and not enough to sustain a reasonable quality of life in this city. That's one of the reasons why I haven't bitten the bullet and signed up for teacher training. Starting salary outside London c£18k which will go a lot further the further you are away from London.
Stef's top tips for places to migrate to
1. Canada (if you can stand the weather)
2. New Zealand
3. Australia
4. The US
5. France / Spain / Italy
The UK would barely make the Top 20. Pretty much every friend I had living in London has cleared out now, mostly overseas. I'm only still here because my parents are too old, sick and stubborn to clear out themselves. My patience is wearing thin though ...
It could be just me but don't the French look more clued-in and France more appealing as time goes by? They don't get sucked into silly wars. Well not recently anyway. They've already built Olympic standard facilities for the benefit of their people instead of the nonsense we're going through in London. Their trains work. Their health service works. They're saucier ...
Re. Conservative Hell. I'm not sure if they would be that different. Most of our politicians have completely run out ideas, steam, mojo or any connection with the real world. Most of all they can't inspire people. When they talk we don't believe them. When they stand for election only half of us turn out to vote for them. It's all pretty rubbish really.
Boo
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