I’ve read in ‘The Business’ that the Treasury believes Britons would put up with 80% tax. It’s currently about 60% for most people, when you factor in indirect taxes as well.
Given that manufacturing is in terminal decline, and The Square Mile is Britain’s only source of real income, one wonders where they get these ideas from.
The fact there isn’t a depression at them moment is due to people borrowing against their future with secured loans and credit cards, etc. I understand even the Government is doing this with the Private Finance Initiative; our decendants will foot the bill for today’s public services.
And they accused Ronald Reagan of ‘voodoo economics’? He had nothing on Gordon Brown. The political culture is so corrupt here it’s seen as natural that a dour crypto tax-and-spend socialist should be seriously considered as the next Prime Minister.
He knows he’ll only get it if his boss hands it to him; he’s not charismatic enough to win it himself. Mr. Brown is a poor public speaker with no ability to connect directly to the proletariat in a friendly way.
What has he got to offer: higher taxes, recession, a crumbling infrastructure? Public transport is poor, there’s more street crime, schools are turning out egomaniacs who can’t spell, hospitals are likely to make you worse, not better,
Britain is crap at sports, even football; most teams buy as many foreign players as they can afford.
That’s what you get when you fixate on an unholy mixture of political correctness and pseudo-monetarism. Nationalism and religion are out, cultural relativism is ‘in’. Sell off the playing fields, and snub the symbols of empire.
Funny now how lately Mr. Brown is trying to promote ‘Britishness’. His party have made it so flying the Union Jack on public buildings is considered ‘fascist’ by the socialist types who gravitate to local goverment.
People have other, more serious problems to contend with; they’re working 60 hour weeks just to stand still; most of their money goes in taxes and bills.
The real rot began when banks allowed joint spousal mortgages. In the beginning I’m sure it was a great way to buy a better house. Unfortunately, it soon pushed prices way up. Now it means both husband and wife will have to work until they drop to own their home, and single people won’t be able to afford them at all.
Which means their kids get less attention. The parents try to make up for that by organising more ‘activities’ for them, and buying them more junk. So the kids become more disaffected, like spoiled Caesars. They resort to hooliganism, because they can, and there’s no one to say them ‘nay’.
God forbid you might slap a naughty child, or biff an obvious crook. The current generation still think they’re carrying the torch for the civil rights movement: "Better one thousand crimes go unsolved and unpunished, than one innocent be tried" seems to be the message.
I think political correctness started in Californian universities in the 1980’s. Society had become very civil indeed. There were no more major battles to fight, so good manners became politicised.
Public servants, university lecturers, students, minority groups, and the perpetually-worried middle classes started chattering against all sorts of perceived oppression. And now it’s so _easy_ to take a pop at the powers that be. You’re not likely to be thrown in jail and tortured, in the West. It’s a bit like a chimp throwing his faeces at his keeper.
The result: a society of people afraid to speak their mind, and constantly self-censoring.
The last frontier is the human mind. Fear those who want to enclose it.