Why have I referred to the UK as the Disunited Kingdom you may very well wonder? After all I lived and worked there for the greater part of my life and I suppose I really ought to be grateful for what the country gave me. Yes, I am sure there are still many wonderful and beautiful things about it but on the whole it strikes me as being in an unholy mess and here are a few reasons. God help you if you live close to a pub and have to put up with girls (and boys but mainly girls I’m led to believe) slashed out of their minds puking and urinating over your garden wall or collapsing in the street. There have always been drunks (witness Hogarth) and drunken brawls and the country is not unique in this but they seem to be on the increase with deaths involved. Drugs and turf war between drug gangs particularly in sink estates also seems to be on the increase with knifings and shootings and unfortunately innocent bystanders getting in the way, one of the latest being a five year old girl. Wrong place, wrong time. Evidently in our old stomping ground of Hackney, East London there are more than twenty gangs. There has been over the past few years a massive influx of immigrants, many of whom speak no English and have no desire to do so or to become part of the British community. Partly the ridiculous benefits system is to blame here. Why bother to do anything when you are advised what to do in your own language, can pick up a handy cheque every week, enlarged quite considerably especially if there are kids involved? Or fiddle the books and more than likely get away with it to the tune of thousands of pounds. So go on, have more kids. Fiddle away. The state will pay.
The director general of the British Chamber of Commerce states that school leavers are unfit for work. Firms are spending millions on remedial training. Why is this? At one school teachers have walked out over the level of violence. Another headline reads, ‘Drugs, knives, and a head who believes pupils have more rights than teachers.’ And at another school the head gave out 534 detentions in three days! It would seem that too many pupils are simply not interested in being educated or being part of the system and the disruption they cause must have a deleterious effect on those who are interested. The cost of the national debt is £138,360 for every family and despite firms having to spend millions training kids who don’t want to be trained the government is sending millions of pounds to Pakistan for educational purposes. What education? A liberal one? Lessons in democracy? Or more lessens in Jihad? Are the politicians stark raving mad?
I am beginning to think lunacy has taken over. Consider this – Councils say they are desperate for money because of Government cut-backs but the Labour Council of Lambeth in South London decided to lay speed bumps and has sent out a questionnaire consisting of no fewer than five documents. It is available in large print, Braille, audiotape, and a wide range of languages (for those who do not wish to learn English of course) including Portuguese, Bengali, Yoruba and Twi! Then there is a map of the area, but document five is the real humdinger. In order that the council might be aware of everybody’s thoughts on the matter it is ‘important to ask a few questions about yourself.’ (Why?) Assuring readers that the answers will only be used in relation to the traffic calming consultation, (which they’ve already decided on anyway) it asks – How would you describe your ethnic group? (16 options). Which of the following best describes your religion? (9 options including ‘no religion,’ ‘atheist’ and ‘don’t know’)
And lastly, ‘which of the following best describes you? ‘I am heterosexual/straight;’ ‘I am gay or lesbian (homosexual);’ ‘I am bisexual;’ ‘Other;’ ‘Don’t know;’ ‘Prefer not to say.’ And what, may I ask, has any of that got to do with traffic control? And how much money do you suppose was squandered on this little exercise in Politically Correct futility?
Four in five town halls plan cutbacks on libraries and waste removal now for most people is once a fortnight with a number of different colour bins and God help you if you put the wrong thing in the wrong bin! Your wrists will be severely slapped. Here, in our little town of Vamos on Crete bins are emptied twice a week, Monday night and Friday and no restrictions as to what you can get rid of. Bins for recycling are placed in convenient places, like car parks for example.
I haven’t touched on the National Health – the foreign doctor who didn’t know about the kiss of life – the doctors who can hardly speak English - and what is happening with the law? A knife wielding thug has had his conviction and sentence squashed because, on appeal, it was said the judge was ‘too rude’ to him! Can you believe this? The judge in this case was evidently ‘rude, harsh, and sarcastic.’ What he actually said was ‘Shut your mouth and listen’; and this left the defendant, who already had a string of convictions for various offences, so shaky and traumatised he was unable to give proper evidence. Oh, dear, oh dear! Oh, dear! It simply beggars belief. Do I hear the sound of laughter in court as the members of the legal profession waltz their way to their various banks? And is it beyond reason that the criminal left the court with a twos up and a broad smile on his face?
In the meantime at least sixty schoolgirls have been groomed by Asian men, mainly Pakistanis, for sex, some as young as eleven and, until two girls were murdered, thus forcing their hand, police hid the abuse for fear of being thought racist; that is how fraught and divided the country has become. And also in the meantime, just to put things back on an even keel as it were, in a supermarket in Glasgow, a black woman took umbrage to something said to her by an elderly white lady, was immediately on her mobile phone and within minutes two policewomen and a policeman were on the scene of this apparent outrage. Three supermarket security men, the club card seller and a female worker, having traced down the old girl, she was quizzed by the police in front of other shoppers and escorted from the premises while the black lady went sweetly about her own shopping. Now you have to agree this was policing of the very highest order despite the forces also complaining bitterly about the lack of funding. PC stands for Political Correctness. It also stands for Police Constable. It also stands for…But no, I won’t say it.