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

>I know the facts - but I don't like them - call it my island mentality - and inate sense of fairness<

If that is the case why the knee-jerk attack on the present government, who you acknowledge have no power to change the system?

Because - naieve soul that I am, I expect a Labour government to do something about protecting the poorest members of society - and I don't mean putting an armed policeman on their door-step and providing them with an id card.

Surely we should be looking at the social engineering required to produce a literate society that will have a future in the world, we no longer need factory fodder to feed the production lines, we need builders, and craftsmen, and artisans. We need people who build for the future, not consume for today.

That, alas, is not what we have. Possibly the Iraq war is an attempt to provide work for the masses as cannon fodder, it worked in Georgian and Victorian times. Somehow, though, I think not.

I see a governemnt made up of lawyers, who see legislation as the answer to life's problems. I see a government that talks about raising money to develop society, and yet just taxes people then wastes what they have raised.

Education, health, transport, the environment, public housing, social provision, all areas that should have developed over the last 10 years at the cost of global corporations and financial institutions.

Instead we've had a series of petty attacks on things like fox-hunting, personal freedom, and the House of Lords.

Personally I think this government deserves to be attacked - Labour Party members should be storming Downing Street, demanding action on the things they claim to care about.

As I've repeatedly said, and will say again here, I have truck with this government. They are sh*t*s of the first order.

However, the only way to solve this problem would be through legislation, and you don'ty want that.

I don't think legislation - alone - is the answer.

And quite frankly I don't think some of the appalling legislation that's been presented lately was even related to the question.

However - it is also obvious that what we have isn't working - even the politicians have noticed - they are thrashing around looking for a quick fix. We need a politician and a legislative with an attention span greater than 4 years.

Well if you want long term stability and decision making then let's have a Presidential system of government...

...oh wait hold on isn't that what your lot have been complaining about Tony B doing? He is, after all, barely beholden to public opinion at the moment since he plans to retire.

Politicians squabbling for power through electability is the means by which parliamentary systems attempt to represent people's core values in the administration.

No - I think Tony B. is making decisions by his instincts, thus it was right to go to war with Iraq because he was a despot.

Well if that was the equation - he's right, but it isn't, there's the aftermath and the tidying up, and the fact that even in the most one-sided wars people die.