Teen pregnancy typical of Nu Labour's failings

[feral]

And leaving teenage pregnancy aside - wouldn't it just be nice if the country was a bit less sh!tty generally? And that's not all down to our "attitudes". A lot of the blame lies at the door of No 10.

I dunno Omni ..it does seem to be down to attitude and little else .When you compare laws and services between different EU countries they are all basically the same .In some countries they work and in others they fail miserably .Why ? I mean just take littering as a tiny example .Most countries have people who sweep it up,paid by the tax payer .So why do some countries sink in littered streets because people chuck their litter on the floor continually whilst others have streets you could almost eat off ?

[omnipleasant]

I find myself in the odd position of blaming our crappy government and having people tell me that it's not their fault, it's ours, Feral...

[vania]

I'm not. You're the one who keeps saying we should be more like Norway/Sweden etc... and that Toynbee has a point, i..e low tax policies lead to higher teen pregnancies.

I'm just pointing out that, as has been said, there is no point implementing a Swedish tax policy on a British social/cultural set-up and wondering why it doesn't work.

And, for the umpteenth time, I'm not sure your suggestion works as I don't believe there are massive issues with lack of opportunties. I think the problem is a lot of people do not believe any way exists of improving their lot.

[omnipleasant]

"You're the one who keeps saying we should be more like Norway/Sweden etc... and that Toynbee has a point, i..e low tax policies lead to higher teen pregnancies."

Crap education and social infrastructure and poverty and inequality entrenched by government policies etc etc exacerbate many problems, including teen pregnancy. Seems bleedin obvious to me, to be honest.

I agree that we in Britain we have a fairly selfish cultural outlook though compared to many countries though.

[mids]

I'm sure there were far less teenage preganancies when I were a lad. I do remember one girl in 2nd year disappearing for a while and when she came back the rumour was that she'd been 'scraped oot'. Lovely phrase.

[feral]

Feb 17, 2009 14:00:32 GMT @omnipleasant said:

I find myself in the odd position of blaming our crappy government and having people tell me that it's not their fault, it's ours, Feral...

Yes and no .You have to look at why people have different attitudes .To keep on with the littering example .Here people dont chuck so much litter on the ground because they are aware that someone else will have to pick it up after them ..and sides ..it doesnt look nice .In UK its more that people chuck it because they are aware that someone else will pick it up for them so they dont need to ..and who cares if it doesnt look nice in the meantime.
Who allowed this attitude of no responsibility to grow ?

[omnipleasant]

Does Germany not have litter pickers then Feral?

Would fewer litter pickers mean less litter?

[VikingHumpingWitch]

Feb 17, 2009 14:06:37 GMT feral said:

Who allowed this attitude of no responsibility to grow ?

Thatcher, IMHO. All about the individual, society doesn't exist, just you and your family. I don't say she started this idea, but she did a feck of a lot to make it acceptable (which, again IMHO, it really really isn't).

[omnipleasant]

Agree with VHW. And Labour have done far too little to change it.

Economic growth is everything. Must lower tax, must deregulate, must get the economy growing. Bollox to society or quality of life or anything like that.

[feral]

Feb 17, 2009 14:08:02 GMT @omnipleasant said:

Does Germany not have litter pickers then Feral?

Would fewer litter pickers mean less litter?

Lol yes we have litter pickers and road sweepers .Just the same as UK and from what I gather they're out and about more or less as in UK .Perhaps less ...dunno ..I dont really take note of when ours go past . They dont have so much litter to pick thats for sure

[vania]

I don't disagree with #83. I would add that in addition to providing the support, you need to make people understand that the support is there, for them.

And I do agree on the selfish culture too. We seem to have a stronger culture here of passing our responsibilities onto others/the government wherever possible.

[omnipleasant]

That's all I'm saying, Vania. See, not so controversial!

[vania]

That's all I was saying too! I was stating the obvious that unless you fix that, any additional revenue provided by moving to Swedish level tax takes will, quite literally be spunked up the wall.

You'll just get more and more people expecting the government to do more and more for them.

[mids]

Feb 17, 2009 14:06:37 GMT feral said:

Who allowed this attitude of no responsibility to grow ?

Absolutely without a doubt, the left.

[omnipleasant]

I'm not sure how improving education or whatever would lead to more people expecting the government to do more for them.

I agree that we pass responsibility / blame onto others far too readily though. It goes back to the selfish "fcuk thy neighbour" attitude. I'M a responsible type. It's EVERYONE ELSE who isn't.

[feral]

Thatcher, IMHO. All about the individual, society doesn't exist, just you and your family.

I think you could probably bring up convincing arguments to say that thinking of yourself as an individual means more responsibility towards yourself ..which automatically takes the onus off society .
Its academic really .Successive governments balls things up ..I think often cos theyre too busy trying to do it in the exact opposite way to their predecessors.

[vania]

But Omni, as I said, if you improve the quality of education but people still don't see that as being a 'route for them' it's a waste.

You have to change all those underlying factors first. I genuinely do not believe that lack of access to good quality education, healthcare etc is of the proportion that Toynbee would have us believe.

And as has been pointed out even if you improve sex education, it will have no impact if people don't care about the consequences.

I also don't think comntinually lamblasting the government to do more/give more money helps in reducing the culture which leads to a lack of personal responsibility.

[cobblers]

Feb 17, 2009 14:09:30 GMT VikingHumpingWitch said:

Feb 17, 2009 14:06:37 GMT feral said:

Who allowed this attitude of no responsibility to grow ?

Thatcher, IMHO. All about the individual, society doesn't exist, just you and your family. I don't say she started this idea, but she did a feck of a lot to make it acceptable (which, again IMHO, it really really isn't).

I think that's a load of rubbish. It's the expanded welfare state that causes people to think 'I can fcuk up and continue to fcuk up and it's someone else's responsibility to pick up the pieces, the world owes me a living'.

[vania]

Feb 17, 2009 14:19:36 GMT feral said:

Thatcher, IMHO. All about the individual, society doesn't exist, just you and your family.

I think you could probably bring up convincing arguments to say that thinking of yourself as an individual means more responsibility towards yourself ..which automatically takes the onus off society .
Its academic really .Successive governments balls things up ..I think often cos theyre too busy trying to do it in the exact opposite way to their predecessors.

I was going to make the same point which is why <controversial!> I think it's simplistic to automatically blame Thatcher/Thatcherism.

You can be individualistic in a positive manner too.

[mids]

Thatcherism was all about taking responsibility for yourself and your familiy though. You can argue about whether or not it worked but that was at the core of it.