Preparing for the General Election

The nation awaits --- with bated breath --- the forthcoming announcement of the date for the General Election here in the United Kingdom. It's a great opportunity for members of the current ruling party to share with the electorate all the plans that they have for keeping everyone happy. No doubt there will be statements about improvements planned for the National Health system, for increasing Law & Order and, of course, for boosting the Education system.

Ministers will 'talk up' every issue which they feel will benefit the people and be vote winners, and 'talk down' every issue that they think might be vote losers.

There will be many thousands of people in the country --- in fact it will most likely number in the hundreds of thousands --- who choose to believe all the good things that they are told. Why? Simply because we live in a Society where people have been led along the pathway of delusion that has been created by successive politicians.

Some people may be tempted to vote to retain the current party simply because they work on the principal of 'Better the devil you know', but is that really an option? Of course, nobody knows for certain how a new party might actually rule. After all, the recent 'Expenses' scandal was a cross-party scandal, with MPs from all the main parties involved in filching from the public purse by fiddling their expenses, quite apart from the ones who were blatantly dishonest and caught out thieving from the taxpayers.

It would be understandable if the nation decided en bloc to refrain from voting, unable to trust anyone with their vote, but that would achieve nothing at all. That leaves us with what is probably the best decision, and that is to vote out the current party and vote a new one in. Given that there are probably relatively few MPs who you would trust to buy a new car from, it will be very important to ensure that those who can demonstrate that they are actually worth being voted in are the only ones that we vote for. Once they are in power, it is then incumbent on every voter to keep on their MP's backs to ensure that what they promised will be delivered.

It will be a long and painful process to return this country to any semblance of financial stability, and that is something which we all have to take on board. The 'Gravy Train' not only carries Members of Parliament, it also has countless thousands of voters on board as well. These are the voters who want to ensure that their lifestyle of free handouts will not suffer adversely by a change of Government, yet these people are also a major part of the cause of our national woes.

It is no secret that when people get something for nothing then they are careless with it. Things that are obtained for free are usually held in little value. We have become a nation with a sub-culture of free-loaders who despise the work ethic. There is a generation that has grown up in some cases with no-one in the family either working or having any interest or intention to work, and yet it is the work ethic that is so important in giving people a reason to live. Without it then people become like rudderless ships. They float around aimlessly in the ocean of life with few interests beyond supporting a football team or a pop star's antics, drifting occasionally into port where there finances are replenished, and finally arriving at an early grave.

What a pity that life, the greatest gift imaginable, can be so blatantly wasted by some!

It's time for politicians to take the bull by the horns and do what needs to be done for the good of the nation and its people. Of course, such politicians will never win the popularity vote, but they will eventually earn a respected place in the nation's history, just as many have done in the past from across the different parties. So what should they do to change things? Here are a few suggestions:

• Education: Stop dumbing down the system. Return to guiding children by telling them they are wrong and praising them when they are right. 'Nearly Right' means WRONG, so why not say it in the beginning. Misleading a child about their ability and/or potential is not a useful thing, and is generally counter-productive. Far better to recognise the true potential and then help the child to realise it. Making examinations easier in order to create the (false) impression of a good education system is bordering on the insane and certain immoral.
• Welfare: The welfare/benefits system is a wonderful thing when it is applied correctly for the benefit of those who are unable to work for health reasons or who are temporarily unemployed through no fault of their own. However, it should never be regarded, as it certainly appears to be by hundreds of thousands of people, as an alternative to working. For those who choose a life-style that does not include work then that is a perfectly acceptable choice, provided that they can fund it themselves and not accept to be milk-fed by the taxpaying populace.
• Immigration: Sometimes it appears to me that the Government fail to understand that when you live on an island there is a finite amount of land available for people to settle upon. Equally, because of the limitations imposed by that fact, there are a finite amount of resources available as well. These facts mean that immigration needs to be controlled very carefully. It appears that the current government has allowed unchecked immigration as a means of importing voters who will rush to their support, and such behaviour is both abominable and unacceptable. It's great to increase the diversity of culture with a nation, and when correctly controlled is of benefit to the nation concerned, but it goes against the nation when their is a bias involved that allows the culture of the nation to become threatened, and that has been allowed to happen in the United Kingdom.

Well, dear reader, there's a few interesting comments and thoughts of my chest. Will it do any good? Maybe or maybe not, but if it helps even a little to get this once-great nation back on its feet then it will have been worthwhile.