The Dakkadakka UK Manifesto.

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**Mr Mystery**

Following on from the discussion about working for benefits, this subject began to be broached. And I think you'll agree it really does require a thread of it's own.

Basic premise is, there's a lot wrong with Britain right now. From Benefits Culture to ropey education, to outrageous tax dodging at the highest levels, Britain needs a panacea, and it needs it sooner rather than later.

Now I know this website can be a little too right of centre for my tastes, being a lefty liberal, but I reckon this could be a recipe for success. A bipartisan attempt to come up with would be manifesto pledges, with the aim of getting Britain back on track. First up, education.

I've experience State education in the UK, and it's not that great. Being mostly intellectual, many of my lessons (P.E., Technology) were of no interest and thus no value, and thanks to the other side of the coin (students with great aptitude for technical education) what intellectual stuff was taught failed to sate me, and I wound up switching off. I'm now 30, with a series of would be careers behind me, and only now am I switching on again and considering going to Uni (to be a Teacher).

Now, time was (in my parent's era) that schools were either Technical, or Grammar. I say we should look into ressurecting this. Channel the aptitude of your students better, and produce a better student I say. Britain needs sparkies, chippies and builders, hell, even network engineering and other more modern things can be taught in a better way. And for those who want it, re-introduce apprenticeships as a form of higher education. After all, not everyone has the ability or application for University, so look into ways of maintaining their education in the work place.

Come on fellow UK Dakkaites. We can patch this old girl up yet.

**Da Boss**

Looking at the UK as a relative outsider, it seems like a pretty well run country to me, on the whole.
I mean, it's far from perfect, but there are much worse places. I work in teaching, and I can compare it to the system I came from (the irish one) and say that your kids have better teachers, more modern curricula, more equipment, more IT and less time off (which I see as a good thing). The system is in most regards much better than what I was trained in, indeed, to the point where it is a real challenge for me to bring myself up to meet it. What was considered great in Ireland is only satisfactory here.
What IS a problem, from what I can see, is the culture of ranking schools. I understand it is supposed to act as an incentive, but from what I see, it makes a culture where kids do not really experience failure in school, and where they have very very little personal responsibility. This may be just the school I'm in, but it's highly rated by OFSTED, so I assume it is the direction they want schools to go in, generally. I'd like to see kids educated more about personal responsibility, accountability, and work ethic. Irish kids in my experience were a lot less lazy than these guys, and let me say, they are overwhelmingly nice kids, but they really, really don't like doing hard work. They also seem to think as long as they pass, they'll be alright.

My experience is really, really limited though. I bet there are lots of other teachers who are experiencing completely different things, and drawing very different conclusions. I do think that the ratings obsession is damaging and british kids need more social responsibilty and less education in victim culture, though.

The other thing that shocks me about britain is how schizophrenic your public transport system is! Excellent coverage, excellent service (mostly) absolutely shocking prices. Trains are more expensive than flights in some cases! Mental!

**Mr Mystery**

That's something I'd also like to propose to the Party. That public transport should be publically owned. In a city, prices are about nice (in Edinburgh for example, £3 gets me all day access to Lothian Buses, which operate extensively and reliably within and without the city limits). But, in the South East, where I live in a small town, just to get to my friends house on the other side costs £2.70.... Trouble there is that it's just a little further than I can normally be bothered to walk.

I'm not one for too much state ownership, but public transport should not be run for a profit where possible. For many, it is a vital part of their life, be it commuting to work, or just to get to the supermarket and back, and some of the prices are obscene. Arriva for instance, will not issue return tickets during the peak times. This to me is pure profiteering. The people using the service for the most part have no choice in the matter!

**Orkeosaurus**

You guys should abolish your little "parliament" thing and go full monarchy. That would be pretty sweet.

**syanticraven**

I hardly think education is the biggest problem we have.

Certainly should not be our starting point of fixes anyway.

**Da Boss**

Where would you start? (Not a hostile question, just interested)

**Mr Mystery**

Yet if we want to make a lasting change to Britain, education is the natural port of call. Get 'em while they're young and all that.

**Orkeosaurus**

The problem is that if you're talking about education administered by the state you're going in circles. To change state policy requires you to change public opinion, which best done through public education, which is the result of state policy.

**Mr Mystery**

Not really in the UK.

We don't have a lot of campaigning on either side of the political spectrum about curriculum.

**Orkeosaurus**

Or that's just what they want you to think!

**syanticraven**

Da Boss wrote:Where would you start? (Not a hostile question, just interested)

I don't think the problem is with education. Everyone receives the same education in high school yet there is a huge dynamic range of students.
The difference I would say is how they are treated at home and when out/interact with friends.

Something the state cannot control.

I would start on something the state can control. Benefits. Sure my family relied heavily on benefits for good causes but there are many hundreds of people that see benefits as a top up to what they get or easy money. It annoys me when people tell me to appeal to charities or government benefits just because I can "Free money, only an idiot would pass that chance up" I hear it almost daily. Sorry if it sounds to controversial but I would definitely cut benefits too many people are abusing the system - I just need a system that doesn't reward the sly and damage the innocent.

**squilverine**

I'll chuck in my 10p worth.

One of the things which really enrages me is vandalism, the sort of petty vindictive damage which has little or no reason behind it. I honestly believe that people are in some way shaped by the environment that surrounds them. It is well known fact that an area which contains lots of broken window and graffiti is more likely to suffer from more of the same.

My idea to combat this is to introduce disproportionate fines for such damage. Lets say that you smash a shop window, right now you probably get a relatively small fine and a slap on the wrist, at worst a couple of days picking litter. In most cases the owners of the shop wont want to get insurance companies involved at the risk of raising premiums and the dammands for expensive shutter systems, so they cough up the cash themselves. It is also not just the fee for replacing the window, but the boarding up, clear up, damaged stock, loss of custom and so on. The knock on effects can make the real cost of the damage several thousand pounds. So instead of a silly fine or a slap on the wrist how about a fine of £5000 or 50 days community service, and not the soft stuff, proper hard work. Suddenly the idea of smashing up public/private property doesn't seem like such a fun idea.

**Orkeosaurus**

I agree. Give them an inch and they'll take a mile.

**Mr Mystery**

Ah, but no doubt the Human Rights Act could be exploited by those being fined to prevent it.

Thus, a new law would be introduced, 'The Society Rights Act'. This would be a counterbalance against the individualistic nature of Human Rights laws. Gone to Prison? Well, apart from a News channel (I see that sort of information as a distinct right) no telly. You're bed need not be comfortable. Your food should be nutritionally balanced, but not necessarily tasty. The exact type of imprisonment could be made to vary. For the younger criminal, continue down the rehabilitation route, for what it's worth. For those going down for a long, long time (15 years plus) well, goodbye to creatue comforts.

Essentially, the Society Rights Act would look at the harm caused to wider society by your actions, and adjust your human rights accordingly. After all, a Drug Pusher, who has destoyed more than just his customer's lives in their selfish pursuit of easy money, would be put in an extremely austere prison, literally with the basics, and tough titty. All their property would be seized, and they would be monitored upon release. In return, however, to try and break the cycle, certain crimes would have a legal caveat preventing a prospective employer from refusing a job based upon them.

Likewise, drug users imprisoned would go cold turkey from their addiction, with suitable medical aid on hand should things go ill.

**Da Boss**

Hmmm, I don't really want to indulge in policy porn.
I was looking at the budget figures there (my attention politics wise has mostly been focused on the disastrous situation back home, so I hadn't been paying attention to hte cuts over here much). Seems like a sensible approach.
Welfare is a huuuuuge portion of the budget, it obviously has to be cut. I just wonder about the potential social problems from having a boatload of potentially homeless people knocking around, if they can't afford rent and so on.

**Mr Mystery**

Well that's the thing.

I rather fear that the Tories have swung the axe in places for no reason than they can get away with it just now. Still don't trust those shifty sods an inch!

**Valkyrie**

Well I've just finished compulsory education, and have now moved onto higher stuff, and during my 5 years of ~~secondary school~~ hell, you can really notice the no-hopers around yourself, if you know what I mean.
Some people just ignore everything that they are being told, just throwing away the chance of a good education, and the final piece that really pisses me off, is that they will be supported by the state until the day they die.

**Mr Mystery**

Not necessarily true. For some (you could say many) education comes at the wrong time due to non-educational pressures. For instance, a great many of my female friends fell pregnant around the age of 16, and now, the ones I'm still in contact with are doing home study degrees, and have been since their kids started going to school.

Sure, some will remain no-hopers, that is sadly inevitable. But by changing the education system to better support the different proficiencies of students, the more people will get out of it first time around. For instance, I was a high aptitude pupil (my former teachers have told me this since, specifically when I did a Screech and worked for my old school) and yet never fulfilled anywhere near my potential. Why? Comprehensive Education simply did not cater to my needs as best it could. Comprehensive education simply doesn't allowed for high or low end students. Hell, it barely allows for middling students.

But seperate it out again, into technical and grammar (minus the snobbery of current grammars) and we might start getting somewhere. Certainly, without people in my class going slower, I might have been offered a pace more suiting my ability. And I would definately not have had to sit there as the teacher went over something for the 6th time because a couple of people didn't get a subject I got on the first pass! This is deadly to a young mind.

**Da Boss**

Unfortunately, the alternative (not supporting them) is worse.

**Ahtman**

The problem with Britain is that there are British people there. Or so I've heard.

**Orkeosaurus**

Also, they keep misspelling words.

**Mr. Burning**

A communist state run and inhabited by humans who have none of the current flaws that currently make such an ideal impossible.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Ahtman wrote:The problem with Britain is that there are British people there. Or so I've heard.

The problem is that there are 'fen billys' with webbed hands and feet - I'm looking at you Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire and Norfolk.

**Albatross**

I think a good place to start would be a single unified constitution, bringing together all of the documents that make up our current constitution. I would include guarantees to protect British sovereignty, repealing all extant treaties currently in operation, to be renegotiated under the terms of our new constitution.

For example, this would sever UK ties to the European Convention on Human Rights, and replace it with our own set of rights derived exclusively from our new constitution.

Also, no extradition treaty could legally be agreed upon which didn't have equal terms for the UK.

**SagesStone**

Mr Mystery wrote:Certainly, without people in my class going slower, I might have been offered a pace more suiting my ability. And I would definately not have had to sit there as the teacher went over something for the 6th time because a couple of people didn't get a subject I got on the first pass! This is deadly to a young mind.

This happened to me, but I didn't slow down for them. The teacher was happy to let me continue at the pace (they wondered why I spent long periods of time doing nothing after a while

) and in the end I was roughly 3-4 chapters ahead of the class.
I'm happy to help the others if they ask for it, but try to cheat (recently some people tried to steal some test answers, which were on a usb, when they realised they failed to copy the actual answers I locked the computer stopping them from getting another try (and tried not to laugh as it's an IT course)) and I'll leave them to fail.

**mattyrm**

I am not going to add anything of use to this thread MM.

You are a self confessed socialist and as a result can not be trusted to speak with any modicum of sense with regards to running a country, the labour party has brought us to the brink of ruin once again, and unlike Mr Cameron i am not willing to work in a coalition.

**Mr Mystery**

Quiet you and join in already!

**Frazzled**

You guys need a taco subsidy.

**Kilkrazy**

There used to be a Taco Bell in Uxbridge. I went there once when I was living in Hayes, it's a few miles down the Uxbridge road. I didn't go in. This was the mid-80s.

Back in 1996 I went to a Taco Bell in JFK Airport. It was one of the worst dining experiences of my life, even including Greek restaurants.

Any illusions I had left about the USA being the land of customer service were thoroughly dispelled, I can tell you.

**Ahtman**

Kilkrazy wrote:Any illusions I had left about the USA being the land of customer service were thoroughly dispelled, I can tell you.

Wait, we were known for customer service at one point?

**Kilkrazy**

So it was claimed.

I don't believe it any more. If anything, US companies are often worse than British, because of weak consumer law.