It turns out, following a Government-funded study that people in Britain are less happy than, for example, people in Nigeria. I don't know how much the study cost but I cannot imagine it was mere couple of quid.
What, do you think, makes people in Britain glum? It cannot be the weather alone because otherwise we'd all have poppoed off to climates warmer and brighter. It can't be a lack of natural beauty. After all, you only have to toddle off to the Peaks or the Lakes or to the rolling hills of Somerset to find beauty in abundance. We cannot claim the sort of poverty or deprivation that afflicts many other nations. Even our food, once a running joke in France, is infinitely better than hitherto.
What makes me angry is when I see a country being laid waste by incontinent spending by government. They can waste money on studies like this but they can't educate our children, equip our armed forces, fill pot holes or care for the elderly or insane. They can still find money for 'fact finding missions' to Bali but they cannot heal the sick, provide enough policemen or, for God's sake, clear our rubbish. When they built the Scottish Parliament building, the original estimate was £40,000,000 but a slight overspend led to its costing almost exactly 10 times that amount!
It isn't this new coalition government's fault alone. It's the whole bloody lot of them: ignorant of our anger and isolated from the worst of their own failures.
When we protest politely, they ignore us. When we rebel violently (and some might say all to rarely) they ignore us.
Does anyone else feel that instead of funding ludicrous studies that tell us nothing of practical use they might concentrate on providing, to one of the most highly-taxed nations in the world, a decent level of effective government? That would cheer me up!
2 comments:
Well dear Mons it’s called Government by sound-bite. There are a whole number of intractable problems that governments (and their civil servants) fight shy of. For example the Spanish practices of our boys in blue. School teachers spend hours in the evening marking work at no extra pay, a policeman won’t break wind without ‘overtime.’ Half the police budget annually goes in pension payments. The employer ( the British tax-payer) pays over a 20% contribution to their pension pot compared with 5% or 6% in the rest of the public sector. A soldier can retire at the age of 40 with a pension equivalent to a 1/3 of their salary. A policemen retires at 40 literally on full salary. Why? Because their’s is a dangerous job - allegedly. Well more dangerous than our brave lads in Afghanistan it would appear. Genetically it seems we have more people with bad backs in this country than the rest of Europe. Must be something in the diet? We have families going back three generations who have never worked! Instead of tackling the problem we import Polish labour…. I could go on ad infinitum. The answer to your question is it’s far easier to be seen to be doing something by announcing the results of surveys… and before anybody asks I’m a Socialist!
Very well said Monica! I can't tell you the number of times I've thought the exact same thing. My government has been committing the same sins for as long as I've been alive... but on an even grander scale. The sheer volume of waste in government today when there is SO MUCH need out there is a reason for great shame. I live in a rather economically challenged area, and we sure could use a bit of that government largess that they throw around with so little thought everywhere else. Thanks for giving me an avenue to vent. A wonderful piece!
xo~L
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