Quote Originally Posted by mickd1961 View Post
The problem with our country in general is that we don’t plan properly for the future, this is true irrespective of which party holds power.

The prison system reminds me of our road network and in particular our motorway system.

I’ve been driving almost 45 years now and even back in 1979 it was busy on the roads and obvious car use was going to increase regardless of population increasing as more families became two car plus households.

The U.K. population was 56 million in 1979 and was growing at around 200,000 people a year, it now stands at around 68 to 69 million so on average it has grown at close on 300,000 per year over a 45 year period.

This isn’t rocket science Regis, why have we continued to build and repair three lane motorways, why is rail infrastructure so appalling, why wasn’t HS2 or similar built in the boom years of the 80’s and the halcyon days under Blair’s New Labour?

The same argument goes for prisons, if your population is going to grow by around 20% in a 45 year period you have a duty to do one of two things,

1/ Increase prison places by 20%

2/ Completely revamp the penal system and put the equivalent money into prevention and into support services for those who should never be anywhere near a prison.

In the news last night they interviewed an arsonist who was sentenced in January and who has been released, that must be so comforting for his victim and the neighbours.

They also interviewed a woman who’s ex husband beat her badly over a number of years and who stalked and beat his next partner whilst on a court order that was supposed to see him go nowhere near her, he’s also getting out early.

It’s not good enough by ANY of the governments of the past 50 years, every one of them is to blame.

We need to stop wasting money on foreign aid and in bad procurement and end vanity projects, the country is in a bad state of repair and preparedness for now and the future.

If needed we should risk increasing our national debt level to actually make the place function properly.
Agree with what you are saying, i’m all for long term growth and future planning. We’ve just had a bunch of numpties charlatans in charge for the past 14 years - what have they got to show for? Not a single positive thing. They sold Royal Mail on the cheap, the sold Northern Rock that was generating 1-2billion a year.. why when it was earning us a return did we sell it back? It’s this sort of thinking and mindset to drive the money towards the rich which has screwed us over. And sadly it’s probably what Starmer is helping (time will tell) by not taxing the big big companies appropriately, such as Amazon. We need a foundation to build on. Was HS2 really needed though?
I witness old guy at the GP the other day trying to get help for his teeth, told that they can deal with anything dental - it was his consultant that referred him there. Bye bye NHS dental care - who f’d this one up? So much bad decision making and policies by past government(s) has screwed us over. I just remembered the positive thing the Tories left us with - Brexit.
Have a good day Mick 😂