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I'd argue quite the opposite in fact. If you compare Britain to America and most of the western world Britain is very left wing and can appear socialist at times. By Italy's standards UKIP is liberal.
Britain by the country perhaps, its people are not.
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I agree with referendums to a certain extent. In principal they are an excellent idea however I fear with an electorate that struggles to vote in General elections, very few will vote in referendums. For example say the Death Penalty, it's not going to be fair to hold one because your average citizen won't vote in it, only the people that care passionately (for or against) either way which gives a warped sense of society. It will give way to extremism.
I'm afraid thats exactly what is wrong with politics, people just don't bother voting because things they want (EU withdrawal, death penalty) are just not implemented when the majority want. I can assure you, hold a referendum on the death penalty and you would get a turnout far higher than any seen in any recent election.
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Indeed. I do however think it will be difficult for the Tories to do anything with Europe because whoever the Liberals are allied with, they are a principled bunch and won't vote against Europe.
The Tories will learn (hopefully) not to ignore Europe and other issues such as that at the next election, of course this all depends on whether or not UKIP/BNP can make any impact (thus losing the Conservaties seats as they have done in the past) and whether or not it comes to a small majority/hung parliament.
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A slight exaggeration but in principle I agree. Exams ARE too easy now and it does annoy me. Sorry, I should have made "Education" clearer, i was talking about "Higher education" in Universities because I was thinking about the proposed budget cuts there.
On higher education, it needs cutting back;- there are a lot of courses being offered which give students little hope of having any success in life and is costing us money, both while they are at university and while they are unemployed on the welfare because they cannot get a job.
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It's up to the government to provide good services for its citizens and if they are inadequate then yes, they will have to raise tax. I personally believe that the parties can't keep promising lower income tax, I am aware they gather some back via stealth taxes but not as much as they would from higher incomes tax.
The services the government provides could be good if they cut back on the amount of services they provide;- for example I would not allow any state funding for things such as gay groups, muslim groups - aka minority groups. Ontop of that government needs downsizing and needs to stop telling everybody what to do, because I don't know whether they have noticed or not but nobody pays a blind bit of attention to any government advice groups, adverts and so on which cost an absolute astounding amount to the taxpayer.
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As for the Winter of Discontent. It wasn't caused by Government spending but rather a blunder on "Jim's" part. After the 3 day week Trade Unions agreed a pay freeze and in '78 they demanded a pay rise. The problem however was the government only offered them a 5% pay increase which they to be way too low and so they began to start asking for extortinate amounts. Basically Ford managed to negotiate a 17% pay increase for workers and this set the precedent for other companies pay rises. This resulted in Strikes...blah blah blah...Trade Union power...Crisis, what crisis?....Jim singing to the TUC. I'd go into more depth but sadly I feel this is off the point :D
The factors influenced government spending, thats why it was so serious. The government kept putting up taxes, which ment business would not set up here and that basically ment we did not have any jobs or wealth coming into the country, but yeah as you said thats only a part of it.
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Depends on the sector. I'm not saying we should re-nationalise everything. All I am saying is that we need to invest more in certain government services in particular: Higher education and State pensions.
State pensions should be downsized in importance and private pensions encouraged. On pensions anyway, they must not be too generous because those who worked all their life should not be treated the same as those who didn't work all their life and contribute to the system.
