not deliberately politicicising (or however its spelt) but new labour brought spin into politics which means they interfere with the news and the news interferes with politics. 'new labour' were so desperate for power (not that the tories where doing well as they had been corrupted by complacency) that they would and did say absolutely everything to appear popular.
hungerford was tragic but nothing really happened besides an automatic weapon ban which was okay, dunblane was also catastrophic for those concerned but I think the press had a lot more to do with the more or less blanket ban on firearms. this has done nothing for gun crime except ruin an industry of which we were world leaders in the case of companies such as accuracy international (who make the army sniper rifle one of the best in the world) who without a domestic scene has gone under. same goes for paedophoiles and child crimes which are much less than the 1950's but better reported and spun to create headlines so we are afraid to let our kids out. Devil dogs - just the same.
By keeping the public afraid they can impliment more policies which is why we are on amnesty internationals list and the filmakers are producing films like V for vendetta and equilibrium surely not by coincidence.
Speed cameras are a measure of this, they dont reduce deaths as has been proved time and time again. for a camera to be sited there has to be so many deaths. The hot spots just move further down the road, a speed bump does more for speed as does a police car on the motorway. The fact that 90% of cameras are sited against or in breach of acpo guidelines proves this. Down the road from my dad there is a junction desperate for a round about or traffic lights which wont be sited because there have been less than three deaths. The junction in question causes dozens of accidents and injuries every year and white blob on the road is all thats needed but the council did a study on it, not for a set of light but whether they could site a speed camera on that stetch of road.
Its all a measure of broken britain, society has gradually failed in the last 30 years or so. There is no quick fix as will take a complete long term re-education of the country. There was no golden age, the closest thing to re-education was baden powells attempt to take the young off the streets and instill a sense of pride, discipline and self worth. Two wars helped to discipline the generations that followed and we are suffering the peace dividend. Bring back national service? we couldn't afford it, they destroyed the army medical services and wont restore them because it costs too much, same for the junior battalions were they took no hope dropout kids at 16 and trained them for two years before placing them with regular units. If thew cant keep those of maintain a decent volunteer reserve then they wont pay for national service.
Not sure about great britain - what we did was commercial takeovers with the odd war thrown in all in the name of trade and business. We invented globalisation, the colonies were a source of raw materials and a market for finished goods. We gave the world trade, common currency and a common language which is in my opinion a good thing. The greatest thing we did though was to selflessly bankrupt the empire to defeat hitler and japan something america could do well to take note of as their global industrial policies continue to wreck the planet. I wonder what would have happened if churchill had made peace with herr hitler and let the empire continue as it was. We were the worlds policeman and we did what was expected of us. Personally I think we did what was right but we lost the war.
Have I covered everything?
