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.
You are correct in that the big issue is that politicians don't think about future generations, they think very short term - like the 3-4 years until the next election. I don't really know how to rectify that. The people who have benefited mostly from that are current pensioners btw, and the ones who have lost out are our children and future grandchildren / great grandchildren.

Surely you must give some credit to Labour for GB Energy? Of course we don't know how it will play out at the moment, but if we can start being less dependant on foreign energy sources that would be a great help to future generations.