h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

"So you don't buy the 'E additive' argument but feel that the 'lumpen proleteriat' (whoever that revoltingly offensive phrase applies to)"

'Lumpen Proletariat' is a Marxist phrase. It is distinct from the Proletariat. The Proletariat are the hardworking, socially-concerned working-class. The Lumpen Proletariat are the work-shirking petty criminals (Marx was less polite) who largely harm their 'own' class. Both undoubtably exists, then as now. Funilly enough, most people seem to regard the working class as either one or the other these days.

As for things being safer in the 'good old days' my father grew up in Birkenhead in the 40s and 50s and his neighbourhood was a no go area for the police unless they went in mobhanded

plenty of middle-class people buy junk pre-packaged food and not all working class people do but as has been said finding a decent greengrocer or butcher isn't easy nowadays

Perhaps if mothers stayed at home and looked after children instead of farming them out to childminders, so they can have Chelsea Tractors and foreign holidays, we'd have a society again.

And I know that is grossly unfair to loads of single mothers and struggling families, but hey this is the thread to air our prejudices isn't it ?

A teaching friend of mine is horrified by the thought of involving parents in education, he claims that the vast majority can't teach their offspring basic manners and social responsibilty, letting them interfere with formal education is paramount to putting an alcoholic in charge of an off-license.

Until we decide that posessions are less important than social justice we will have the world we've allowed the politicains and businesses to build around us.

I believe it was Rousseau who said something like - The English are stupid, they are only free once every 5 years, when they vote for slavery - pardon me if I've mixed that up a little.

Well. I've not read or posted anything on this thread for the past couple of days to see how it panned out. My word, haven't we got a lot of interesting debate?

E-Numbers. The debate will rage on. Those companies which use them will provide persistent reports stating all is well with those who eat their food. Those who are independent will refute this persistently and try to change things. Ergo: Nothing changes as the independents are too small to fight the conglomerates and those choosing to purchase the goods are too lazy to find alternates in this consumer world.

Halcyon days. The exact reason that I stopped talking about my years as a youth was because I realised it was all nice and fluffy. However, I do remember the only time my mother hit me (for biking around the village for 3 hours without telling her where I was) and realising why my mother hit me, because she'd told me the reasons. I think things are a lot more problematic due to advances in social mechanisms. I have to think it's a phenomenon that's only happened over the past decade and that because there's been such a stark cultural change (and yes, I'll bang on about culture til I'm blue in the face!) with society.

Why do we have so many reality shows? More importantly, why are programmes like Supernanny, Little Angels, Teen Angels and now the ultimate reality/bring-your-kids-up-correctly show The House of Tiny Tearaways becoming so popular? How come there is so many people lining up to get their lives "sorted out" by so-called gurus who are doing nothing different to what my parents did for me?

EVERYONE has a lifestyle improvement option to watch on TV.

Can't be a*sed to clean up? Get Kim and Aggie to do it for you.

Can't stand the fact that you look older than your age? Go on Ten Years Younger.

Can't understand why you're obese? Let the woman from You Are What You Eat test your poo samples and have a go at you so you start to eat healthier.

The list goes on.

Now there's even televised court proceedings where WE, the public, get to decide upon the outcome. WHO DEVISED THAT LOAD OF TWADDLE?! It serves to debase the judicial system - flawed though it is - even further and reinforces the idea that someone ELSE is to blame for your issues. "Had an accident at work, in the street or on the road in the last 5 years...?" then "...keep ALL the compensation..." I'm not saying those entitled to it are wrong to think they should claim but having worked on an Insurance Claim Helpline, I have been met with the wildest claims: "I shut my hand in a door." Yes, well that's probably because you're stupid.

THIS is what I mean about culture. There will be some people out there who say it doesn't reflect them or bother them yet it may do. There will be some who say that their lives are pretty well sorted anyway and do live like that yet there must be some overpowering urge for those who are slumped in their dirty double-seater settee, nearly filling the chair, with 2 years' worth of dust and rubbish around them looking a decade older than they really are going "That's Me!"

I don't deny the fact that it is media-based and, surprisingly, sometimes the media gets it wrong. You do look around sometimes and think to yourself that people really cannot be bothered.

MRSA is from people not bothering to clean hospitals.

ADD is from parents not bothering to feed their kids correctly* or spend adequate time with them (* - obviously the former is a subjective opinion).

Labour winning an historic third term is primarily due to people not bothering to go to the polls, being unhappy with having no valid alternative party to choose from the one they don't agree with or knowing that their vote is a waste of time.

Here it comes again: CULTURE is what needs to change. A CULTURAL shift from being a dependency culture. Taking charge and responsibility for your life and the lives of those who are dependent upon you.

Stop worrying about the immigration "problem", stop worrying about WMDs and their non-existence (I was against the war personally and feel Blair should have lost for that debacle alone but he won. I've accepted it.) and get to the core of the issues facing us all: Cultural Negligence.

MRSA is NOT caused by people failing to clean hospitals and the Tories attacks on hard working NHS and contract staff was a disgrace.

MRSA itself is the result of a society that used drugs to often and too quickly. We bred super-viruses that way that are imune to the usual methods of virus control.

AND (most importantly) - every single one of us carries MRSA within us, naturally. The single biggest contributing factor to the spread of MRSA is people (ie visitors) being filthy individuals who don't use the hand wash solutions as requested on the doorr of every ward in every hospital. SLG will tell you from personal experience that visitiors regularly spit in the wards and generally treat the places in ways they wouldn't dream of treating their own homes.

Though broadly speaking I do agree - the most important issues before the British public - Europe, climate change and the like are cross party issues, not party political ones.

"Perhaps if mothers stayed at home and looked after children instead of farming them out to childminders, so they can have Chelsea Tractors and foreign holidays, we'd have a society again."

Ahhhhhh! Yes, we should have kept them stifled, barefoot and pregnant. What fools we were for allowing them lives of their own.

Society going to hell in a handbstket? Got a group to blame that doesn't include you?

k - willing to bet the person that posted this is a middle-aged man.

"Labour winning an historic third term is primarily due to people not bothering to go to the polls"

and there was me thinking it was down to a lot of people going out and putting a 'X' beside the Labour candidates in a lot of constituencies.

"being unhappy with having no valid alternative party to choose from"

In my constituency, I had a choice of Tory, Lib Dem, Labour, Communist, Scottish Socialist Party, BNP, Socialist Labour, Christian somethingorother and Green. Assuming your constituency had a similarly wide choice, what were you looking for?

"knowing that their vote is a waste of time"

I voted. My candidate won. My vote wasn't a waste of time. Nor were those of a hell of a lot of people looking at the election results.

Well indeed. And interestingly, despite their much heralded revival the 'resurgence' of the Tory vote still failed to win them as many seats as Michael Foot's Labour Party, which was generally thought to have been heralded by 'the longest suicide note in the history of British Politics' (the left-leaning Labour manifesto that year). So all that money on Lynton Crosby was very well spent - he identified a lot of voters concerns, didn't he?

If thats a resurgence then I am pleased to announce that i am, indeed, your Dutch Uncle.

It was interesting watching Question Time last night where my favourite issue was aired; that of the West Lothian Question. Without the Scotch MP's New Labour only managed 21% of the English vote. How democratic is that?

So your solution is what? Let the Tories manage Britain with even less of the vote?

The election wasn't fought under PR, and Scotland is still part of the UK last time I looked. Until it gets a fully devolved parliament of it's own with control over all policies in Scotalnd then they should have a voice in the parliament that controls the UK.

(Of course, the minute they do get fully devolved power I'm emmigrating to Glasgow as i don't want to live in a country that votes Tory for the rest of my lifetime. )

>>"Labour winning an historic third term is primarily due to people not bothering to go to the polls"

and there was me thinking it was down to a lot of people going out and putting a 'X' beside the Labour candidates in a lot of constituencies.<<

How witty. I do realise that this was the case, but it appears less than 40% of the country voted so it could be levied that this was "primarily due to people not bothering to go to the polls".

>>"being unhappy with having no valid alternative party to choose from"

In my constituency, I had a choice of Tory, Lib Dem, Labour, Communist, Scottish Socialist Party, BNP, Socialist Labour, Christian somethingorother and Green. Assuming your constituency had a similarly wide choice, what were you looking for?<<

A stronger oppositional party which represented a creditable option not just a Conservative party still reeling from the fallout of 1997 - and I realise that in some constituencies the Lib Dem really did count. I refer also to the fact that some independents were able to secure their seats because the vote actually MEANT something in those areas for a change.

>>"knowing that their vote is a waste of time"

I voted. My candidate won. My vote wasn't a waste of time. Nor were those of a hell of a lot of people looking at the election results.<<

For the 36% who voted, I am sure their democratic gesture goes unquestioned.

Amendment: the statements "less than 40%" and "36% who voted" is in relation to the fact that Labour got only 36% of the "popular" vote.

Voter turnout appears to have been around the 60% mark.

Turnout was 61.3%

New Lab 35.2%
Cons 32.3%
Lib Dem 22.0%

I'd suggest that the figures actually show something far more interesting (and potentially devastating for Howard and his successor.)

This is pretty much maximum turn out for the Conservatives. The present Governement is massively unpopular, not just with those who are 'idealogically' opposed to Labour but also within its own ranks. The Tories made a huge effort to mobilise their vote, and as always the Tory faithful answered the call.

And this is as good as it gets for them. Blair goes, Brown (or (unlikely) someone else takes over the Labour party. Huge droves of those who *didn't* vote Labour this time solely because of Blair and the war will return to the Labour fold and the Tories may well face another '97 style route in 2008/9.

And I think Howard knows it, hence his very quick back-pedalling on 'I won't resign if we lose' to 'Bloody hell, I'm off!'

In other words, the Tory vote has nowhere to go from here. The Labour vote can and will get bigger next time, unless the economy colapses wholesale.

I read something a while back about proposed boundary changes to bring the number of Scottish MPs down into line with the population. Does anyone know if that happened?

The Boundary Commission, chaired by the Speaker who nodbody can understand a word of his Clydeside accent, keeps the distribution of votes under constsnt review. You can see by the last results how effective they have been.

You do like your little pops at scottish MPs.

It's all part of my campaign to resolve the est Lothian Question. The Scotch have quietly invaded English institutions and particularly politics. It's about time we sent them homewards to think again.

Isn't their a rule about plagiarism?

Notice that European Freudian slip. West Lothian, interesting enough instigated by a Scot, Thomas Dalyell.