It is not even the end of January yet, but if one examines the headlines of
the quality newspapers since Dec 31st, one finds the following catalogue of
disasters. [This is not a political post -- it covers a period during which
we have had governments from both major parties.]

-- The report into the Victoria Climbie case was published today. The
little 8 year old was starved and tortured to death a year or two ago by
her great aunt and her boyfriend, both of whom have life sentences. It is a
catalogue of utter and total incompetence by two London boroughs and their
social services staff, the police and at least one hospital doctor. The
report highlights 12 occasions on which the girl's life could have been
saved. The social security staff were so ill-educated that they could not
read or understand their job descriptions or which forms they had to fill
in. Their immediate manager (female) was a religious crank who did little
but talk about Jesus all day. The hospital doctor (female) identified
cigarette burns as scabies and a police-woman refused to call because she
was scared of catching it.

-- a solicitor has been released from prison today after three years,
having been found guilty of murdering two of her tiny babies and trying to
pass them off as cot deaths. The asshole of a doctor at her trial and first
appeal said that the odds against this happening in the same family were 74
million to one. He also told nobody that he had found evidence of an
disease (meningitis) in one of the babies. He is not a paediatrician. It
was rumoured that the 3 appeal court judges had already made up their minds
yesterday, and the legal authorities had already decided merely to suspend,
rather than disbar, her a year ago. She has been released and totally
vindicated, and can resume her solicitor's post tomorrow. But THREE FUCKING
YEARS!!! I hope she sues them for millions.

-- a young (36) British Asian of excellent character, and with a young
family, was shot dead yesterday in a Bradford street as he attempted to
stop an armed raider from robbing a security van of a large sum of cash.
The robber got away.

-- in the early hours of New Year's Day, two young (17) black girls were
machined-gunned to death, also in Bradford, as they took a breather at a
party. It is rumoured that the brother of one of them is a member of one of
the gangs, who are involved in a drugs turf-war.

-- Tony Martin was refused an appeal from his imprisonment for manslaughter
a few years ago for shooting a 16 year-old dead. The 16 year-old ("A lovely
lad, really" a neighbour, also a traveller, commented at the time). This
'lovely lad' had about 14 prior convictions for the usual juvenile
offences. His two companions, in their 30s, were quite different. From
memory they had about 78 convictions between them for such things as GBH
and armed robbery. They travelled from the south Midlands all the way to
remote Norfolk because they thought that Martin, a recluse living in a
lonely farmhouse, had a house full of valuables. One of them (whom Martin
shot and wounded) is sueing Martin for damages. In this stupid little
country he will probably succeed.

-- companies are dropping final salary pension schemes all over, and going
to money purchase schemes, which will allow employers to pay less in and
the retirees to only get about half as much out as an FS plan. The pensions
industry is about £25 billion in debt. Five years ago, when this government
took office, pension schemes were allowed tax relief on the part of their
investments that were solely for pensions. The Chancellor stopped this,
clawing £5 billion per year into the Treasury. £5 billion x 5 years: £25
billion in debt? Anyone see any connection? No, it must be a coincidence.

I could go on at some length, but if one includes the railways and the NHS,
one sees that England's structure and operation would be a disgrace to a
third-rate banana republic.

Despite being the world's 4th largest economy, we have no money, and we
have never had any money for the past 30 years. During my working days I
ran, and helped to run, many classes for executives -- business and
academic -- at IBM's education centre near Brussels. During informal
lunches and dinners I often asked them the question: "Where has all of the
money gone during the past 30 years?" I never got any sort of sensible
answer.

OK. Got that off my chest. It has needed to be said for years, and this is
the most intelligent audience I know to say it to. Normal service will be
resumed as soon as possible.

--

wrmst rgrds
Robin Bignall

Remote Hertfordshire
England

========
To:
Subject: Re: What the hell has happened to England during the past 30 years?
Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2003 09:25:59 +0000

>Actually, this was in Birmingham not Bradford.

You are right.

--

wrmst rgrds
Robin Bignall

Remote Hertfordshire
England

========
To:
Subject: Re: What the hell has happened to England during the past 30 years?
Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2003 10:23:59 +0000
--------

> In article <cgbg3v8hlldrsf641ma2ru7ep1rho4d932@4ax.com>, Dr Robin
> Bignall <docrobinNOSPAM@ntlworld.com> writes
>
>< SNIP>
>
> Is this supposed to be something new? And unique to Britain? I'm
> afraid you treat the tabloid press, indeed the press and news media
> generally, too seriously. Go back to the "news" of 60, 100, 200, 1000,
> 2000 years ago, and the diaries and histories written since, and you'll
> find much the same thing wherever you go. The only new thing about the
> last 30 years is the ease with which "news" gets propagated, with easier
> communications and methods of interrogating the various sources. Child
> abuse, police and military excesses against populations and individuals,
> corruption at all levels, they are endemic in the fallibility of that
> scum species called "humanity". The news was always there, and really
> hasn't changed a lot. Just live with it, realise that your today is a
> wonderful part of tomorrow's history, the world is a fascinating place
> you know :-)

I actually read 'The Times' and 'The Independent' each day, and listen to BBC Radio 4 news. I don't even use tabloids as toilet tissue.

What are you trying to prove? That we screwed the world up when we were
more primitive? The fall of Rome was possibly one of the greatest
calamities. The burning of the library at Alexandria a 1000 years before
that another. The dark ages 1000-1500 yet another. Religion, greed and
ignorance.

We as a species know more about the universe around us and about ourselves
than at any previous time in history. If you chose the 100, 1000, 10,000 or
one million people currently living who know most about all subjects other
than mendacity and spin, I doubt there'd be a single politician included.
Yet we (only 60% of us last time) vote every 5 years or so to give these
people authority over us and they do as they like.

One would expect that by the 21st century we would had learned to control
ourselves and our destinies better. But we are structured such that the
very last people who are qualified to *MANAGE* our affairs sensibly are the
very ones we elect (or who seize power).

Where is the mandate, for instance, that the politicians say they will lose
of they do something sensible?

It is clear, and an American wrote in 'The Times' recently, that if you
outlaw guns only the outlaws will own them. Yet any little druggie can get
a gun. It's just law-abiding citizens who cannot. Any of you who live in
England should realise that you probably live within 20 minutes drive of an
addict who will kill for his next fix. Why have you not been done over?
Because there are only a million or two of them and 58 million of us.

But just before I moved here, two black blokes stole a car and followed a
wealthy couple from London back to my small town, shot and killed the
husband, wounded the son-in-law (on their own doorstep) and escaped with
jewellery and Rolex watches to feed a drug habit. They were sentenced to
life last year.

But the law forbids law-abiding English citizens to own and use the means
to defend themselves and their families and property, when the police are
obviously unable to do it. And the average thug who breaks into a house is
street-smart, young, strong, agile and used to dirty fighting. The average
guy in a middle-class area has a sedentary job. Letting the two come into
contact leads inevitably to the house-holder losing. That does not seem to
be ever taken into account when airy-fairy lawyers talk about 'reasonable
force' in personal defence situations. What, exactly is a reasonable force
to be used against an unreasonable addict who will do anything for his next
fix?

One recent trick (for modern cars are too difficult to steal from the
street without keys) is for gangs to roam around affluent areas looking for
nice cars in drives. They then smash down the front door and torture the
inhabitants until they get the car keys. By the time the police bother to
arrive (even if a 999 call is placed during the robbery) the thieves are
away and the car well on its way to the Middle-East or Russia. Car-jacking
is also prevalent. I know that all of these things are rife in the States,
but in a bigger country you can maybe move such that you are 2 hours drive
from these scumbags.

And what about the drug laws, based on prohibition. Various organisations
-- the police, social services, the Salvation Army -- have reported that
the situation is out of control. In some towns just about every person
under 24 is an addict of something or other. Gangs from various foreign
countries -- Turkey, Jamaica, Afghanistan, Kosovo -- have shooting wars on
the streets, almost nightly in the larger cities. I would have thought that
we had learned a lesson about Prohibition from the States' example in the
1920s, but apparently not. Making all drugs available on the NHS at no
charge would eliminate drug dealers overnight.

So who are these people who believe in prohibition and whose votes the
politicians would lose if it was repealed? And who are these people etc.
etc. whose votes would be lost if mature Englishmen were given the means to
protect themselves?

They are the managerial and financial incompetents who have run this
country since World War 2. That's who.

I am having to have investigations at the London Clinic, probably one of
the best and most expensive hospitals in England, because one of my kidneys
is on the blink, maybe due to all of the incompetent surgery I have had.
Luckily I have good private insurance as part of my IBM early-retirement
package. It costs £9.50 per calendar month for Jeanne and I. When it
expires March 31, to renew it privately will cost £400 pcm. The treatment I
get at the LC is good, but no better than that I had in 1981 from a local,
newish securite sociale hospital in Poissy, west of Paris, which was
included in my securite sociale and mutuelle payments.

With 15 years in France, 15 in England, for organisation and management of
its affairs, France wins hands-down in most areas I can think of.

Before anyone asks, my wife is an only child and her mother is 87. We
cannot leave England while she is still alive.

--

wrmst rgrds
Robin Bignall

Remote Hertfordshire
England

========
To:
Subject: Re: What the hell has happened to England during the past 30 years?
Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2003 20:09:49 +0000
--------

> In message <8nog3vo74s0c3s9pnkja80fs2u9so8fk95@4ax.com>, Dr Robin
> Bignall <docrobinNOSPAM@ntlworld.com> writes

>>
>>> Dr Robin Bignall wrote:
>
> Snip
>
>> Or the fact that in 1982 I watched the Falklands War on TV in France. They
>> had their own feed, and one day I saw live pictures of the British ships
>> with machine guns strapped to every single vertical surface with belts,
>> wire, rope, anything that would hold them.
>
> Um...Are you sure it was 'live', Robin. As an ex-TV BC engineer I'd be
> very interested in knowing how they got the pictures back. RN ships had
> satellite equipment but I don't think the MoD would allow live pictures
> to a foreign country w2hile denying the BBC the same facility. The BBC
> would kick up hell about it.
>
That's the impression I got at the time. We stayed up all hours to watch.
The shots were certainly not in the VHS -- I watched it again today.

I don't know what the press situation was like out there in the Falklands.
The French certainly made a fuss about the success of the Exocet.

>All recorded pictures and sound were censored by the MoD too. Hence the
> famous phrase by Hanrahan 'I counted them all out and I counted them all
> in'.
>
We heard that in version anglaise, with a French track over the top, then
heard it again on BBC Radio 4.

--

wrmst rgrds
Robin Bignall

Remote Hertfordshire
England

========
To:
Subject: Re: What the hell has happened to England during the past 30 years?
Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2003 20:49:00 +0000
--------

>Robin, my reply was not about your points (I'll come on to that), but an
> obAEU one about your use of the word "political". It seems to me that
> anything which discusses the nature of government, failings of the
> machinery of state or the state's servants is political. I accept that
> they have nothing to do with party politics, but they take an implied
> view about how the state is failing its citizens and what needs to be
> changed.
>
I think we'll have to differ on that, David. I think that the topic is more
concerned with bad organisation, low efficiency, bad management and waste,
in all state and local government institutions. Do we call the collapse of
Enron or Robert Maxwell's raids on his pension fund 'politics'? I don't
think so. In both cases there was greed and lousy management. Politicians
may have been involved, but it was not politics.

If commenting about how the country is run is 'politics' it is because the
people who run the country are either politicians or are politically
motivated. We do not elect our equivalents of sheriffs and prosecutors,
local health authority managers, judges and the like; they are supposed to
be permanent, salaried employees. But when the Lord Chancellor, the top
person in the law, hosts a lunch and expects donations to the Labour Party
from the attendees, you have to wonder who is fooling whom.

Many newspapers are commenting on the Climbie report and the 'cot death'
case today. I even bought a couple of tabloids.

There have been about 50 cases of kids being killed over the last 30 years.
Each one which hit the headlines had an enquiry and a report saying much
the same as the current one, and all apparently have been ignored. Keith
Waterhouse of the 'Daily Mail' was involved in the first one -- Maria
Colwell in 1973 -- and Climbie brought it all back to him. He remembers 50
years ago just as I do. Any kid seen on the streets during school hours had
a truancy inspector around to the house toute de suite. At the slightest
sign of a kid being ill-treated the school nurse would call in the district
nurse. They were not shy about involving doctors and the police. As Dena Jo
said, in those days even on a council estate nobody locked their doors and
kids could play outside without fear. The odd kid-basher, usually a drunken
bully who also beat his wife, would have a Black Maria around in no time
and a stiff prison sentence.

I'm glad to say that the medical authorities are taking a look at the
pathologist, Williams, who hid the data about the two babies having a
bacterial infection at the lawyer's trial and her first appeal, but
remember that it was not until Dr Shipman (who is suspected of killing
pretty near 400 of his patients) was actually in jail that the BMA actually
got round to banning him from practising medicine.

The country is run by idiots. That is not political, it is factual.

People say that to pick out the bad bits ignores all of the good work being
done. I think that if people are paid a salary or a wage, we should expect,
even *demand* that their work is at least satisfactory, and give a medal
and/or more money to the outstanding ones. But why is it that the history
of England over the past 30 years is one of sheer (I got it right this
time) incompetence or indifference?

--

wrmst rgrds
Robin Bignall

Remote Hertfordshire
England

========
To:
Subject: Re: What the hell has happened to England during the past 30 years?
Date: Fri, 31 Jan 2003 12:30:50 +0000
--------

> Dr Robin Bignall wrote:
>>
>
>>
>>> Robin, my reply was not about your points (I'll come on to that), but an
>>> obAEU one about your use of the word "political". It seems to me that
>>> anything which discusses the nature of government, failings of the
>>> machinery of state or the state's servants is political. I accept that
>>> they have nothing to do with party politics, but they take an implied
>>> view about how the state is failing its citizens and what needs to be
>>> changed.
>>
>> I think we'll have to differ on that, David. I think that the topic is more
>> concerned with bad organisation, low efficiency, bad management and waste,
>> in all state and local government institutions. Do we call the collapse of
>> Enron or Robert Maxwell's raids on his pension fund 'politics'? I don't
>> think so. In both cases there was greed and lousy management. Politicians
>> may have been involved, but it was not politics.
>
> I definitely sense a difference between "politics" which is stuff
> practiced by politicians, and "political", which references the
> attitude, ambition and expectations of everybody for their society. The
> outrages you quote perpetrated by big business should have been checked
> by the machineries of the state, but weren't. In my mind it is a
> political act to wish that they had been.
>
> I am only discussing the finer points of the exact meaning of a couple
> of words here.

You are quite right. One of the COD definitions of 'politics' is the
governance of the country by the state, or words to that effect.

So we can't actually discuss anything meaningful. Even sex. Hilary Benn, a
minister in some government department or another, is coming (nice word
that) up (goes well with it) with a list of places where one can and cannot
have sex. Apparently having it away in your private garden will become an
offence, but you're alright in your house, even with plate-glass windows
and the curtains open. ('The Times' yesterday.)

If you look at any aspect of life that is important: birth, marriage,
death*, food, travel, housing, income, taxes, leisure, health, law and
order, shopping, you name it, you will find that at the top of the chain
there is a politician, less intelligent than even the most way-out AEU
participant, who has the right to tell you what you can do and what you
cannot do, based usually on some ideology and utterly devoid of any
old-fashioned common sense.

As I have said before, the whole world has gone completely insane.

Possibly the only exceptions to this rule are places such as Iraq, Cuba,
Haiti (under Papa Doc and his son) and other, similar dictatorships.

* An elderly man who had suffered from MS for years recently went to
Switzerland to be quietly and gently allowed to die in dignity because he
simply did not want to live anymore. An organisation there gave him an
anti-vomiting medicine, and then a strong dose of a sedative, and he
quietly passed away. His wife, who is also elderly, and who had looked
after him without help for years, accompanied him. What wife would not in
such circumstances? Before she even got onto the plane to bring her back,
the police announced that formally they *must* look into this matter, for
if the wife actually aided and abetted him in his suicide, she could be
guilty of an offence that could result in up to seven years in prison.
(It was also in 'The Times' this week.

I think I've said enough about this matter, David. Unless someone has any
new insights, maybe we should let this thread quietly pass away. Mind you,
if you do, don't forget the 'aiding and abetting' aspect of the death of
something vital!!!

--

wrmst rgrds
Robin Bignall

Remote Hertfordshire
England

========
To:
Subject: Re: What the hell has happened to England during the past 30 years?
Date: Fri, 31 Jan 2003 21:39:00 +0000
--------

>Dr Robin Bignall wrote:
>
>> * An elderly man who had suffered from MS for years recently went to
>> Switzerland to be quietly and gently allowed to die in dignity because he
>> simply did not want to live anymore. An organisation there gave him an
>> anti-vomiting medicine, and then a strong dose of a sedative, and he
>> quietly passed away. His wife, who is also elderly, and who had looked
>> after him without help for years, accompanied him. What wife would not in
>> such circumstances? Before she even got onto the plane to bring her back,
>> the police announced that formally they *must* look into this matter, for
>> if the wife actually aided and abetted him in his suicide, she could be
>> guilty of an offence that could result in up to seven years in prison.
>> (It was also in 'The Times' this week.
>
> I'll shut up, honest, but this perhaps shows a difference in outlook
> between us. I cannot believe that the police are seriously considering
> prosecuting the wife, but they may have announced an "investigation" to
> keep the rabid tabloids off their backs.

They did announce that they must carry out a formal investigation, as I
reported. What you can and cannot believe is your business.

I just listened to 'Any Questions' on BBC Radio 4. The topics of the 'cot
death' trial and the Victoria Climbie case were discussed at length, as was
the whole topic of Britain's decline during the past 30 years. I must be
prescient.

The whole of the eastern side of England and the north came to a grinding
halt today because of snow. Herts and Kent were two of the southern
counties most affected, according to the radio. I measured it with a ruler
in my garden this morning. It was two inches deep; it was about four inches
in Kent. Because of that hundreds of accidents occurred, and many people
were stranded in their cars overnight on motorways.

Three key points came out of the 'Any Questions' programme.

1. The two most senior politicians (Alistair Darling and Chris Patten) both
agreed that had the lady in the 'cot death' case been a badly-educated
person on welfare, she would have rotted in jail for the whole of her life
sentence. It was only the fact that she was an articulate lawyer, with a
loving and determined husband, that led them to find that the prosecution
had, in effect, suppressed the evidence of the bacterial infection of both
of her babies by not making a full disclosure of the evidence to her
defence.

2. England (indeed Britain, but I have not lived in any of the other
countries so will not speak about them) may well be at war soon. Its armed
forces will be equipped with automatic rifles which, despite major rebuilds
by Heckler and Koch, do not always fire when their triggers are pulled. And
a state-of-the-art radio system which has failed all of its tests and is
useless.

3. I erred when I described England as a third-rate banana republic. The
truth is worse. England has no bananas.

I rest my case.

--

wrmst rgrds
Robin Bignall

Remote Hertfordshire
England

========
To:
Subject: Re: What the hell has happened to England during the past 30 years?
Date: Sun, 02 Feb 2003 01:25:53 +0000
--------

>
>> Is this supposed to be something new? And unique to Britain?
>
> No.
>
> Unfortunately, it's happening everywhere, Robin.
>
> When my family moved from Brooklyn to Los Angeles in 1963, the first thing
> I noticed was -- well, actually the first thing I notice was that, compared
> to the bathroom in our Brooklyn apartment, the bathroom in our L.A.
> apartment was cavernous. It actually wasn't, but that was my little kid's
> perspective. But that's not important. The *second* thing I noticed was
> that people in my new neigborhood didn't lock their doors. I found that
> unbelievable because, in Brooklyn, we had had bars on our windows. The
> city was pretty much safe and clean. There was a magazine stand three
> blocks from my home. My mother thought nothing of letting my sister and me
> walk to magazine stand at night. Unaccompanied by an adult. No one was
> pushing drugs at my elementary school. No one felt the need to keep a
> loaded gun in their homes for protection.
>
> If you drive through that very same neighborhood now, you'll see bars on
> many of the homes. Those homes that don't have physical bars have
> electronic bars and advertise that fact. "This home protected by Acme
> Security" or whatever. Drugs are everywhere. Some schools have installed
> metal detectors because guns are such a problem. L.A.P.D. has always been
> corrupt. I had to move 150 miles away in order to live in a place where,
> if I wake up in the morning and discover I'd left my front door unlocked
> all night, I don't feel panicked.
>
> Ours is a civilization in decline. I usually try to look on the bright
> side of things, but even I don't feel optimistic about our future.

Neither do I, Dena Jo.

I think that America and England are alike in one key respect, otherwise we
would have anarchy. I think that in both countries, about 80% of the people
are law abiding, work reasonably hard and have similar values: a decent
home and environment, a reasonable job, a reasonable chance for their kids,
and so-on. Maybe another 15% are too poor or stupid to care, and the last
5% are just plain evil. That 5% ruins it for a large proportion of the rest
-- the rotten apple theory. It seems to be growing.

--

wrmst rgrds
Robin Bignall

Remote Hertfordshire
England

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