Am I the only person who, on hearing or reading the news, thinks I am on a different planet to that inhabited by most British people? You hear of things that are so patently ignorant/wrong/ridiculous that you cannot imagine how it keeps occurring. There are far too many example to list them all but hear are a couple of examples to get you going:
1. BBC cuts (and new Labour government spending too). If I go and ask my boss for a £5k pay rise, and come out of the meeting having secured a £3k pay increase, do I see that as a £2k 'cut'? Or as a £3k rise. Am I the only one that thinks it is the latter - that I will get more money from now on? The BBC is getting more money through the licence fee - which we HAVE to pay on fear of prison - every year over the next decade but they have to 'cut' £2billion. BBC bosses and staff certainly live in a different world form me...
2. Drug policy. In some areas, drug-related crime accounts for over 60% of all offences (say the police). Knowing this, what do our courts when a druggie comes in front of them - do they show zero tolerance, or kid gloves? Yep, kid gloves. We are told drug policy is failing, but have we tried a proper one yet?
It should be something like this: first time offenders should be jailed for five years, plus a condition of release is that they are clean of drugs (how can prisoners have access to drugs, by the way. Aren't prisons supposed to be secure?) and are then on a druggies register for the next 10 years and have to undergo regular testing, and if they are found to be using they go straight back to jail for another five years. Absolute zero tolerence. It must be better then what we do now - as the Pete Dogarty (excuse the spelling) case illustrates all too clearly - is he typical of the number of offences a druggie has to run up before having their liberty taken away?