Long gone are the days of being able to say that we live in "Great Britan" because the great has been lost. It seems that very few people have an understanding of the current situation faced by the government and how they are going about tackling these issues. Sure, i don't agree with all the changes that they have made, or these new laws that have been brought in, but let's face it, the alternative is the Labour party or UKIP and who wants them in power? Labour got us into this mess (which they have admitted) and UKIP are a party plagued by bad press and not the strongest at campaigning for change. So what are some of the good things and bad things that this government have done.
The gay blood ban.
Not too long after getting into power, this government tried to tackle a VERY sensitive topic, without really having an understanding of what the public felt, or indeed feel about it.
The orig status of the ban, was a lifetime ban on people who identified themselves as being gay. This law came in, back when admittedly, the LGBT community had a huge problem with HIV / AIDS. To try and keep these out of the blood supply system, governments world over signed in laws designed to stop gay people from donating blood, since this was the way at the time of keeping blood clean.
Over the recent years, tests and surveys have all confirmed that people who identify as straight actually are now more at risk of having HIV / AIDS, which is why it's uber important that we all take abit of extra care of ourselves, have protected sex and get tested on a regular basis to know your status. Anyway....
This government set about trying to create change with this law, understanding that the gay community wanted change because it's not longer fair to say to us that because we are open about our sexuality, we are thus banned from donating blood, when we are no longer in the "at risk" catagory.
The law was changed from a lifetime ban to a simple year of abstinance. How do you prove that you've not had sex for a year?
I explained how i felt in a video at the time....
The Economy.
You may well be correct in the thinking that THIS is the topic which the government have the most battle about, which people feel most passionate about and where the most arguments are caused, when people speak about the current government, either for or against them.
Let's look at where the economy had gone wrong.
Labour signed in new laws to do with how much bank's could lend to customers, the law went as far as to allow banks and lenders to lend upto 5 times the income of a person, that, added with interest on top meant that the re-payments were too high for alot of people once they got into the re-payment of the money, this, lead the banks to start to wobble.
Labour also increased how much the government was borrowing to spend on services, like NHS, the police, fire crews and ambulance staff. When the banks started to wobble here of course, we all saw the colapse of banks in different parts of the world (the most famous being in america, where the bank literally fell to the floor overnight). When this happend, the UK banking industry in effect, followed through and had no change of underware. They began to go from a wobble, to major cracks showing and some were at the tipping point of falling out of control.
Labour decided to give them money in return for shares in the bank, some, to this day years on, are still something like 40% owned by the tax payer of the UK. This is when the UK started to slide (quite fast) into what's called a "Credit Crunch".
Years on and it's time for this government to start to pay back some of the lending and bring about the much needed change in the banking system, in order for them to bring in money once again as profit, then the shares will be worth something, the government can then sell them on and eventually, the country can start to stand on its own two feet again.... but why is it taking so long?
The whole lending industry has been operating wrongly for too long, bank owners taking home millions of pounds per year in their own wage and bonus payments. We saw they were lending too much to people where the clear sign's were there to say "this person, cannot pay back that amount of money" yet the transactions still went through. They had huge over-heads to pay through the system and eventually, the profits would drop and trimming the fat would become a regular thing.
To bring about these changes does require time in itself. It's never going to be an easy thing to tell banks how to operate, yet this is what the government seems to be trying to do.
They themselves need to look at government, how much it is costing and trim back some money where it can be, without shutting it down and starting again.
The way the government is handleing it's money at the moment is exactly the way people handle it at home. If you want something, but you don't have enough money for it on a regular basis, you A) look at things that you're paying for, ask yourself "well, do i really nee that" followed by it being cut if you find you can do without, for however long. B) look at gaining an extra income, take on a 2nd job or do some self employed work to bring in an extra income, for however long. This is what the government is doing in it's only way, by cutting expenditure where it can and raising taxes. To me, it makes complete sense to do this, but, here's the little thing nobody likes to admit.... The UK tax payer LOVES to think that they're owed something for nothing. Notice the amount of people who complain that they "pay into the pot, but cannot take out"? Because during times where the government needs alot of an income, they cannot afford to pay things to people who simply put, can do without the money.
There's ALOT to this economy and i really could be here all day typing, but we shall have to move on. All's i can say is, next time you're arguing about the economy, quickly google the latest defecit amount and then work out how you would pay that back, keeping in mind the amount you already have to pay out on things like the NHS, benefit system and such. You may then see exactly how hard it is to get this money paid back.
Last minute changes.
This government seems to be FULL of them. Some i think are done genuinly for some good press, like if the amount of petrol tax increases had gone through that they threaten every few months, the country would be at a stand-still, because nobody could afford it.
Marriage equality was another topic that threw the government into debate, sometimes quite heated too, but i'll show you a brilliant example of when this government has actually worked hard at a last minute thing, yet recieved next to no thanks for it.
In August of 2011, a police incident took place which shouldn't have happend. They had been following a male who they believed to be connected to a drug dealing gang who also delt in getting guns into the UK and of course using them too. On this one particular day, plane clothed officers, armed, pulled over a taxi that the male was in. They found him to be armed and when they thought he was going to shoot at them, they got in there first and shot him, with one of the shots fired, killing him.
The week after this incident, a peaceful protest took place outside the local police station. The only demand of the crowed was for an update on the investigation into this incident. To find out WHO was carrying out the investigation and to of course know what was going to be happening over the course of this time. The police station was locked from the inside and nobody made an appearance. It's said that about 3/4pm of this day, the crowed of people began to grow in numbers and trouble started to happen. Skip forward a few hours and this area of london was thrown into looking like a warzone, but something was different about this riot.
While you saw the typical buses on fire and windows being smashed, these rioters also targeted the news reporters themselves, the BBC who had reporters out came under attack and even had one of their van's set alight.
We skip forward another night and more of london finds itself in scene's like this, with clearly the police un-able to contain the situation.
Skip forward another 2 nights and London, Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham and other major cities all report scene's like this as the whole country saw that the police couldn't cope. This all happening during a time that the UK's parliament was on a break, where MPs basically have two weeks off work.
After a 6th night of trouble, David Cameron returns to the UK early off his holiday and calls all MP's to a "Code Cobra" meeting. A cobra meeting is basically government slang for "The shit has hit the fan, get into work and sort this out". The meetings established at first what had happend before moving onto what futher action could be taken, finished up by what the government are going to be doing once the trouble has started.
So what did they do?
The violence stopped after a 7th night of trouble, on a night which most of the UK was under a cloud letting out alot of rain (Rioters hate the rain apparently). Insurace companies were told to pay out as usual and that the government would help with these costs should insurance companies struggle to find the funds. Large retailers were told to simply pay for the damage out of profits until an agreement could be made.
The government also orderd the late night opening of court's, extra resorces was given to police to help bring in as many people as possible and of course (my fave bit of this) tougher punishments for ANYBODY found involved.
I was happy with this news, but less happy that the army hadn't been called in or used (Yes, the UK still had an army at home, despite being in a warzone else where in the world).
But this is what i mean when i say that the government has reacted to stuff last minute and have done pretty well at handeling these sorts of situations.
All in all, i think alot of people are unfair when they speak down of the government, but who's name keeps coming up time and time again?
David Cameron.
See, people know their MP's that well, that everytime they think a bad decision has been made, they think it was personally made by david cameron himself, that everytime something good happens it's "oh well, david cameron was only doing that for abit of good press".
To finish off i'd like to say this.
If you're going to have a political rant to me about british politics, then know who the MP responseable is. David Cameron is the face of the government, not the cheif decision maker, there's a whole government of people behind him who day in and day out make these decisions wether they're popular or not. Understand how the politics system works abit more and then we can talk, until then, if you're just going to blame david cameron for you feeling hard-done by, then i really won't be having much of a chat with you, other than to tell you that simple message.
No comments:
Post a Comment