The way I see it, far too much time and energy is being spent on this Environmental stuff, we have some very serious problems going on, that should be having MUCH more time and energy spent on....below I've outlined my top three most important political issues.

I think the three most important issues, in equal order are:

Illegal immigration

Teenage yobs being out of control

Prison overcrowding

I have no problem with legal immigration, I actually think we should encourage more legal immigration, especially from those who have a degree and/or a skill.

We're a multi-cultural nation and we should embrace it, legal immigrants help to diversify society and make society more culturally interesting.

It's the illegal immigrants that are the problem, and as we know there are hundreds of thousands of them. I don't really know how we can get this increasingly dire situation under control.

I know that if it were possible, then I'd support rounding them all up and deporting the lot of them, but obviously I realise that this isn't actually a feasible option.

How can illegal immigration be stopped, I mean short of building a wall and blocking off the Channel Tunnel, where they most often enter Britain illegally from, all crammed into lorries and whatnot.

Teenage yobs out of control. I'm 29, and I literally cannot recall teenagers being THIS out of control and running wild when I was a teenager.

We've reached almost crisis proportions, where teenage yobs are roaming the streets and terrorising anyone who comes in their way, and often terrorising people in their own neighbourhoods....and with knives and guns.

I don't think the ASBOS scheme is any use whatsoever, in fact, the teenage morons actually are proud to get an ASBO, to them and their equally moronic little friends, getting an ASBO proves how hard they are and they wear it as a badge of honour.

I watched that Trevor McDonald programme a few months ago, the one where Ann Widdecombe went and spent a week on some rundown estate in Islington.

Gangs of teenage yobs just ran the entire place, people were afraid to go out, even during the daytime, some elderly woman hadn't left her house for TWO YEARS because she was so afraid of the gang of teenage yobs that prowl around.

This needs to be dealt with, society can't have teenage yobs running amok and terrorising law-abiding and tax paying people and making them so afraid that they can't even step outside of their own homes.

I think it's time to get hardcore with these teenage yobs.

I think the police should be given powers to have a Zero Tolerance policy, where they can just cart these yobs off the streets and take them away, no matter WHAT their ages are.

I think it's time to introduce Boot Camps, there are plenty of disused military barracks throughout Britain, that could easily be turned into Boot Camps.

Boot Camps with cold showers and a severe discipline regime....if any yob steps out of line, they get birched and humiliated in front of the other yobs....what the teenage yobs need is discipline and to be taught respect, respect for both other people and other peoples' property.

I would actually also support the return of National Service for these yobs....get a Sergeant-Major screaming down their moronic ear holes.

Prison overcrowding. This of course is the fault of the Home Secretaries from 1997 up until the present, I mean it's not as if they can pretend that they hadn't noticed during the last ten years that prisons were filling up at a rapid pace.

I personally believe that prison should only be for those who are a danger to society ie. murderers, rapists, armed robbers, peodophiles etc....those who simply cannot be allowed to ever walk the streets ever again.

I don't think that people who have shoplifted, not paid a fine, not paid their Council Tax etc should be in prison, I think Community Service would be perfectly adequate for these sort of offences....and I think that because the majority of those stuck in prison are in prison for these sort of non-societal threatening offences, is the reason why we've got ALL 80,000 prison places full up.

I dare say, if you freed those in prison for shoplifting, not paying fines, not paying Council Tax, you could free-up tens of thousands of prison places that could be rightly filled by those who ARE dangers to society.

They have murderers and rapists in Open Prisons, why? Because there's no room for them in the regular prisons, because too many people are stuck in those prisons for, in the scheme of things, more trivial crimes.

Anyhow, these are my thoughts for the evening, feel free to add what you think are the most important political issues that we should be dealing with.

Well some people would like us all to embrace this multi-cultural tosh, bypassing 'personal choice' which they otherwise hold so dear... Holland reckons its multi-cultural experiment has failed badly, so why are we being urged down this route?

By the way Laurel, we had a good debate on the reintroduction of National Service (civil and military) which aroused great passion. Would that be somewhere in your recipe?

Yes, if you read the section I wrote about teenage yobs out of control, I do advocate the return of National Service.

1 Iraq, and how to sort out the carnage
2 Iran, how to prevent futher missunderstandings and more carnage
3 Family values

Yes, but you mentioned National Service more in terms of Boot Camps and big hairy-@rsed sargeant-majors with loud voices and lurid vocabulary. I had something a bit more constructive in mind.

Agreed, Andrew. Iraq and Iran are at least as pressing as the other serious stuff.

While agreeing with some of what you say I think far more important are:-
1. Return of Habeas Corpus
2. Return of the Rule of Parliament.
3. Reduction in size of Government

Then sort out PC speak

Once that has been done the people will be in control again, not a ruthless lying cabal of people who have hijacked the Labour Party for their own ends. (and overturned it's basic premises and principles. Taken the UK into war after war for heavens sake!!!!)

Pointless even talking about Iran and Iraq until we have sorted out government.

Laura_1977 wrote:


The horse has kinda bolted on that one. Hardly anyone gets in these days and it costs £11,000 to deport just one immigrant.
Besides, what harm are they to anyone?



I'm not convinced this problem is any worse now than when I was a kid in the 80s. Kids today have a bit more bravado but it's all bluff. Giving teachers back the right to discipline children might help but until everyday members of society will deal with them it's also unsolvable.



There are far too many people in prison. Prison blatantly doesn't work, is expensive and makes career criminals out of one-time miscreants.

It's pretty obvious we need to try something else like restorative justice.

Jonjii is absolutely right although #2 should come before #1. Unbeknown to most, Britain is still on the verge of dictatorship. The innocuously-named Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act and Civil Contingencies Act are probably the biggest threats to Britain since the Battle of Trafalgar.

Before #3 we need some strengthening of privacy laws in this country. Google wasn't kidding when it said it's planning to gather and process enough info on us in order to be able to make big decisions for us like choosing a job.

Sometimes I think that putting proper democratic measures in place (better voting system, MPs elect PM, ability to hold PM & ministers accountable) would ensure survival of Britain as a free country. Maybe that should be #2.

I don't think we can wait that long. Getting really bad-tempered about Iraq might help the process of sorting out government and speed the culprits towards the exit door of political life.

Hi Yorkie, I am not putting down the importance of the Iran/Iraq/Afghanistan issue but I really think that at the moment the Blair/Brown unholy pair have set themselves up with dictatorial powers and will brook no opposition.

Gordon is a Stalinesque control freak who is ruthless, despite what he says while making nice awaiting his coronation..... we all know why no one opposed him for leadership.. if they did they would be banished to the outer darkness with a glowering sulky and vindictive dictator with a loooooong memory.

My point, going along with Dave Gould's amendment, is that the power balance is well screwed at the moment with debate in Parliament limited to relative inconsequentialities while all power is being consolidated in the executive.. WE NEED TO URGENTLY REVERSE THIS! THE EXECUTIVE SHOULD BE SERVING AT THE PEOPLES PLEASURE WITH PARLIAMENT BEING THE ULTIMATE ARBITER! Right now parliament won't even cough without sanction from on high.

Furthermore huge attacks are being mounted on the judiciary aimed at hamstringing them and taking away one of our fundamental rights, that of Habeas Corpus, the right to liberty. How can we in the UK even contemplate giving ANY individual the right to incarcerate another without recourse.


So those are my points Yorkie, Get power back to the people and refuse to allow any further erosion of our rights and then the conflicts we are engaged in abroad can be sorted by the will of the people of these islands.

Don't disagree with any of that, jonjii, but it'll take too long using usual methods. With such a wet opposition civil society will have to take matters into their own hands - mass civil action, rallies, marches and a healthy dollop of civil disobedience, to concentrate minds and get things moving.

Oh dear, does that sound too subversive for webcameron?

Hi Laura, I don't disagree the three issue you raise are in themselves very important, I follow debate on all three with great interest and think something needs done about them!
However, the tone of your language would suggest you think we should all agree that these 3 issues be "the most important" ones. We'll have to agree to disagree there.

I think the danger has lessened significantly as Brown isn't competent enough to abolish elections if he was so inclined and that the media are somewhat on the case now.

But abolishing elections was something that Blair was apparently making a bee-line for. Indeed, on that basis, I predicted the recent attacks on the House of Lords, the media and the ECHR twenty months ago as these are our last lines of defence against dictatorship.

This whole environment stuff needs clarity and persuasion.. At the moment it is coming across as another high handed way of pushing the citizens around and taking more taxes off them.

Reducing the size of Government and reducing taxes should go together... once the government is back under the control of the people!

Illegal Immigration, Prisons and Teenage Yobs are all high on painful issues to be confronted. As is the foreign policy and the reckless military adventures Tony Blair has us engaged in.

There are others... for example that the NHS is far to big to be controlled by a political crony appointee.. In fact it is so complex that I believe an effective Highly paid Chief executive assisted by his own appointed board from proffesional managers and Doctors should run it on behalf of the government. (Not mandarins but guys from the City_

Similarly with some of the other big departments... Transport for example.

But all of these things are as nothing to me if we continue on this reckless path towards totalitarianism.

I am shortly to become like a broken record... a one issue debater.

We have to get democracy back on track and make sure that the Government serves the people not the other way around.

Hi Laura

Successful first post!

Jonjii

Yes as always most of what you say fits with my view.

How this country is Governed is key, currently effort and capital is wasted.
Much time spent on spin and waffle.
There is interference in areas that should be a matter of personal decision & choice.

Despite vast expenditure and increased manpower, there is an increasing failing of service, because everyone is tied up in bureaucracy, statistics, and targets.

On the environment;
Too much effort in nonsense like Gore (at vast cost), the case is already made, Man made or Natural Global Warming is here, But we need to stop using fossil fuels.

Little effort at defining realistic policies to eliminate fossil fuels by 2050. (The recent Energy White Paper was quite good, but there are lost opportunities, and obvious blind alleys)

Taxes and rationing are not the way forward. Structural change is needed, and that takes strategic thinking.

Illegal immigration
Legal immigration should be reduced & a strong urgent removal policy for Illegals.
The UK is overpopulated, we should reduce by 20million by the year 2050, to bring our population down to a sustainable level.

Teenage yobs being out of control
Get police back on the streets, give them, and the public rights to deal with misbehaviour.
Have punishments that will frighten and enforce respect for people and property.
Priority should be to make all criminals responsible for their actions.
Remove all their rights for protection under the law (civil & criminal) when engaged in any criminal act.

Prison overcrowding.
Build more (uncomfortable) prisons. What you get is what you serve.
Training, character building, and rehabilitation is needed.
Proper hospitals for the mentally ill criminals, we have to stop dumping schizophrenics etc. into prison.

Picking up on jonjii post;

The NHS, We need a political statement of requirement.
Don't want centralization etc. to get out of control, but yes take it out of the hands of politicians.

I would also make the Managers & Administrators servants of the Doctors.

Transport
A biggy, our society/civilization depends on transport.
Currently overpopulation is creating capacity problems. Taxation is being used to modify behaviour to control that.

The greens are pushing ideas based on reducing emissions for further controls. As well as some wild unworkable technical proposals.

In fact some 20% of UK Fossil Fuel consumption is used in transport.
Best estimates are that only a 3 to 5% reduction can be made by all proposed measures.

We need to understand what is required to make our society work, and think again.

To this I would add Agriculture, we should be working to be as self supporting as practicable.
The EU Common Agricultural policy has all but destroyed Agriculture in the UK.
Dairy farmers are going out of business daily, because its cheaper to import milk from Ireland than produce it here.

Totalitarianism Big brother is here, the removal of citizens rights, and Constitutional protections go ahead without pause.
The emasculation of the House of Lords means the historical protection we had for over 600 years, is now being removed.

Jonjii



Well said!

Glynne wrote:



Yup. £120 billion thrown at the NHS with nothing to show for it. Could fight 100 Iraq wars for that tho I'm sure we can find better causes.

Three complete restructurings, the last changing the structure back to where the Tories left it:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/02/25/nrhewitt125.xml



This is another one which is unavoidable although one thing could much reduce it: the media employing de-spinners.



And 10 years late.

Very impressed by most recent video on Webcameron.



Agree about rationing (Big Brother potential). Don't see much alternative to taxes and massive subsidisation of public services & CO2 alternatives.



There already is one for the latter. But what good would it do and are you happy to pay the £11,000 per illegal price?



Absolutely no chance, unless you start paying old people (ie us) to commit suicide.
Even if we used enforced abortions, it would just make the pensions crisis worse.



What rights do you think the police or public don't have?



Punishment encourages disrespect. Think about it.



You mean we should be allowed to kill somebody who is committing a crime?



They already are and that's part of the problem. Unfortunately, "Can Gerry Robinson Fix the NHS" has disappeared from the net. The BBC should release it (and Buzan's In Search of Genius).

The summary is that management is almost impossible in the NHS since anyone can veto it. The exception, of course, is Govt diktat.



Electric/H2 transport, powered by sequestered gas, sustainable and, if necessary, nuclear.

Agree with the rest.

Welcome Laura
You have made some good points which are creating debate. However you think far too much time and energy is being spent on this Environmental stuff. If that refers to my input then please read http://www.wind-farm.co.uk You will see my concerns are relevant to all issues,hence the title 'Democratic Deficit'

Votedave says the environment and quality of life are the most important to him.

Glynne says that "Despite vast expenditure and increased manpower, there is an increasing failing of service, because everyone is tied up in bureaucracy, statistics, and targets".How true!
As Jonjii puts it so succinctly
"We have to get democracy back on track and make sure that the Government serves the people not the other way around"
.
That is really all we need ,but which political party can and will do it ?

Laura_1977



I agree these are problems, but possibly (probably!) not for the reasons you do.

1) Illegal immigration. The situation at the moment needs fixing, yes, but I don't go along with the claims of some that all immigrants want to sponge off our benefits and use the NHS for free.

A lot of people are trapped in poor countries and want a chance at improving their lives and the lives of their families which is not a bad thing at all, but the way our immigration system works at the moment they're denied the chance to do it legitimately.

2) There have always been problems with teenagers being "out of control" the difficulty at the moment is, perhaps, a lack of teaching of social responsibility.

Introducing ASBOs etc isn't going to do anything to improve this situation.

3) Yes, our prisons are overcrowded, but that's because our Government has introduce huge swathes of new laws (including ASBOs) that end up criminalising people and locking them up simply so they can say "we're being tough on crime!" when better alternatives (that aren't so "tough" but do work) are available, but not used because they don't look good in the media.

Personally I think the *single* most important issue is the increasing loss of Civil Liberties and the Control Freak/ Big Brother/ Nanny State.

Our Government has taken away more freedoms in its time than any other Government before. The right to protest, the right of freedom of expression, the right to a fair trial, the right not to be locked up without a trial: All of these have been attacked and weakened by this Government and now they want to introduce a law to allow them to declare a "State of Emergency" that could let them sweep all them away in one fell swoop.

If we don't do something and *soon* to stop this, all of the other issues will be irrelevant because we'll wake up to find ourselves in a Dictatorial Big Brother Surveillance State where we have *no* liberties or rights to object at all.

Graham, Exactly

Graham wrote:


They already did this in 2004. It's called the Civil Contingencies Act and seems to be modelled on Hitler's Enabling Act:
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2004/40036--c.htm#22

And this too. What a year 2004 was, it really was!!

In a nutshell: the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act
"For ministers, developers, the public, councils and the planning profession what counts now is how the new regimes set out in the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 work out in practice.
Critics have suggested the legislation could made the planning system overly complicated and less democratic.
However, ministers deny this and insist the legislation will mean a new system to 'make better plans and make better planning decisions more quickly'"

2007 The ctitics have been proven right

Okay here's my tuppence worth.

Illegal Immigration is not that big of a problem because there are more important things to worry about.

Teenage yobs. I agree. Here is an example of an incident that occured recently in Merseyside. I was sitting on the bus and saw three lads spitting at passenger eventually they started aiming for an old lady. At this point I got very annoyed and spoke to the driver who said he could not do anything about it. Enraged by this I stood up and bollocked these lads out. (Bear in mind I am only 21) One of them stood up and attempt a face off. He swung and I dodged he hit his head. The driver stopped the bus and kicked ME but not the lads out. I explained my situation clearly and politly but was kicked off the bus.

Later that day a Police Officer was patrolling my neighbourhood and I stopped him because I recognised him as the Officer who had taken my statement after I reported an Assualt a month ago.(a group of lads attacked me, I defended myself without punching back) I detailed this to the Policeman and he asked what I thought could be done and I shall give the same answer here. The line must be drawn in the sand by the communities. We must stand up and shout enough is enough. No Further! I had and still have the feeling that if other passengers on that bus had of stood up with me those lads would have been off the bus. Government cannot do anything as long as communities are too scared to stand up and say NO! ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!

Prison overcrowding. As I'm sure you know the prison system is not effective as a deterrent. We have high re-offender rates which is why the prisons are overcrowded. My nan is a Prison Visitor and she was telling me that some of these inmates have things like games consoles and TV's in their cells. There is actually a catalogue from which the prisoners can order things like curtains and radios. Now is it me or does that not sound like punishment? My answer? Prison should be bare essentials. No TV or magazines. Less leisure activities. More work. However I do believe that education should be allowed. The harder and more unpleasant it is inside the less likely convicts will be likely to re-offend! Also Illegal Immigrants are part of the prison overcrowding problem. If people were forced to apply for asylum before arriving here they would not have to wait in prison and detention facilities therefore more room for criminals!

Agree with some of the above points. In addition:

Social cohesion: stop the me, me, me, attitudes. Propose a half day per week, or a day per month, of voluntary work with a reputable charity or community association, paid for and in agreement with emloyers.

Health & Safety: too much, too far - damaging well-meaning relationships with student/teacher activities etc.

Compensation Culture: again, too much, too far. Time to stop big businesses and public bodies making small out of court settlements, to the ultimate detriment of the whole of society.

1 End Prohibition now.

It costs this Country 18 billion pounds pa to police in all it aspects.

Affects of this

Remove prison overcrowding immedialtly.
Lowers crime overall
Removes prostititution to a large extent.Home Office figures 95% of prostitutues are problem users.
Stops contributing £5 billion to organised crime per year.

Releases 18 billion pounds to lower taxes and build rehabliitaiton centres for those predisposed to addiction.

2 The environment I think we need to make a decision now, is the Environmental threat real then if so we need to take action now.It is going to be a bitter pill but doing half hearted measure is going to cost us big time in the future.

Can I be controversiall here and see what you think.Encourage one child per family (i'm against coercian) by tax credits for single child families.So no financial incentive for larger families.The fact is that there are too many of us for the planet to support we need less people arriving on the planet.

Then we would have no problem with allowing well educated immigrants in to help pay for our pensions.

3 Less Goverment interferance in all aspects of our life all these identity cards CCTV etc

4 Back to human values of respect and concern for our community

Tizzy


I could not agree more me, me, me is a problem and community service would be a good thing. However, maybe it could be made a part of school, college and even uni education. A certain number of hours volenatry community service.



Whilst I see what you are getting at there are reasons for a lot of the health and safety laws. In fact I am actually sick of people passing inscpetions even though there are some serious health and safety risks. From what I've seen the HSE needs to be far more rigourous.



Here, Here! I agree completely. In fact I used to want to get into law but halfway through study I got sickened by the Compo Culture that has risen. Now I've switched the Social Science With Politics!

Laura
I wonder what you think of this

Tenants to be rewarded for behaving well !!!!!!!!
Wonder too how those who desperately want a home, rent or buy feel about this.

I should have thought that to respect and care for your property was the expected behaviour