RE: 2015 UK General Election
May 2, 2015 at 12:54 pm
(This post was last modified: May 2, 2015 at 1:05 pm by I_am_not_mafia.)
(May 2, 2015 at 11:30 am)Pandæmonium Wrote: Sure we don't have an empire anymore, but the UK is still one of the most powerful richest places in the world. We live in a technological and medical wonderland.
The UK is extremely powerful relative the vast majority of other states in the world. I'm not speaking as a patriot or any of that bollocks, but just stating a fact. When people say the UK is irrelevant I think they're talking in the context of an imperial hangover and not the current context of it being inferior militarily but still exerting a massively disproportionate influence on world affairs relative to its size, a leader in research, finance and manufacturing (yes, even the latter despite what repeated stories of manufacturing dying in the UK say).
Currently the UK is the 2nd largest economy in the EU and the 5th in the world by GDP. Hardly irrelevant as I'm sure you'll agree.
I've just lived three years in Germany, the largest economy in the EU. They aren't spending 100 billion on Trident and rushing off into every war around the world as if they are world's policeman. Quality of life there is significantly better than the UK. Germany still has manufacturing which is world-renowned.
It's the empire mentality that's holding the UK back. That and the fact that the political system and the establishment has existed intact since feudal times because the country has never been conquered.
(May 2, 2015 at 12:41 pm)Iroscato Wrote: What really sticks in my craw is the little people being constantly trampled on, now matter how well or badly the economy does. It's like the strategy of each government is to devise new and increasingly inventive ways to make the poor suffer. And it is about fucking time that stopped.
Agreed. It's either through incompetence (Labour) or malice (Tories).
When I lived in Germany I was made unemployed at the beginning of 2014. Because I had worked for over a year I was paid 66% of my wage by the government for at least 6 months. Then I was to be means tested for the next 6 months. I filled in the form for the means testing but never bothered submitting it so didn't claim the second half of the year.
The money I was paid did not just happen to be 66%, it was the same for everyone. 66% of whatever they had been earning. I was only called in every two months. I was very nervous every time I did because I was expecting it to be like the UK but the guy was aware I was looking at left it up to me. After the 6 months he put in on an integration course when it became clear my lack of German was holding me back.
Now admittedly tax is extremely high in Germany, about 50% of what you earn, but in the end I figured out what with exchange rates, cost of living and all I bring home post tax the same amount in Scotland as I do in Germany (less so in England because the cost of living is higher). But in Germany that tax gets spent on the people. Every child is guaranteed a place at nursery school. If a woman becomes pregnant then the employer doesn't have to pay maternity leave, the government does. Even though I do not and will not have children, as a woman this still affected me in the UK because small companies are less willing to employ an older woman of child bearing age in case they have to pay maternity leave.
It doesn't have to be the way it is in the UK. Germany shows us that. Germany still has unions for example!
