This post campaign will win the election for Brown.
Do we want that?
Maybe Brown will try to do the same to cameron.
Then who are the winners?
The Liberals.
Surely the days of winning an election with slick advertising by Saachi and Saachi, are over.
We've torn the MPs apart with their expenses. Now it's the turn to do the same with the media.
No longer will we be told what to think.
Thanks goodness he let people out of the prisons. They are bursting at the seams. They are ineffective. Many people who get locked up need straightening out by us, the community.
And we can tackle the problem at its roots. Do it now with the people on our own street. Get to know them. Tell them to behave.
It's us that need to take charge rather than leave it to an ineffective system.
3 comments:
'Tell them to behave?' How old are these miscreants?
I can't think of anything less likely to change a potential criminal's behaviour than have an old biddy wag a finger. Although I have been known to tell a group of bullies to leave a lad alone.
I can't see it matters who will get into Parliament, the job of running the country will be just the same. Pity we can't just elect those we know to be hard-working individuals with the right attitude. Rather than take a party line of follow my leader.
It stands to reason that when a cake is divided up the most influential/powerful will get the largest slices and so on down the line. Looked at from a world view, it is the poorest of workers in the third world that eventually come of worst.
I guess I will be looking for someone who does not appeal to the greed within us, but rather seeks a better world for all.
I don't agree with the "I can't think of anything less likely" comment.
In my experience it is surprising how effective repeated comments, to people who misbehave, can be. However they must come from a lot of people and not the 'odd' person.
No one likes to be critised. On the other hand if we do something outrageous and no one says anything then we become bolder and bolder to do even more outrageous stuff.
I believe criminals start small and are encouraged to take on greater crimes because people just stand by and are silent.
Neighbours, teachers, shopkeepers, people at the pub; all have a role to play and often don't play it. People are reluctant to be heard. We need to learn to speak out and then we too get more willing to say something. Mary Wilson, social worke, who lived in Dalton by the church showed me how it could be done.
She had the confidence of years of practice and I've seen total strangers cowered by her tongue into behaving themselves.
Like all things, start small and the ability to achieve grows.
Ah, if you are talking about schools and teachers, plus pre-school children then we are into a different ball game.
At school, fairness with discipline is what is needed. Getting at the root of bad behaviour may well disclose factors that need addressing.
As with pre-school children, the home is the greatest influence.
Authority figures within a community no longer have the power over behaviour that used to exist. You think an old biddie can shame a teenager into doing what is right? With certain people maybe, but some parents are quite likely to tell you, through their children, to b***** off and mind your own business. They cannot take criticism and to criticise their children is to criticise them.
I like to chat to youngsters I meet and, just as I will acknowledge achievement and ingenuity, or take an interest in what they are doing, or merely say hello, I will also tell them if they are doing something they should not be doing. Actually, I find young people I meet on footpaths, readily smile and say hello.
But I rather think the criminals in prison are there for good reason, although I believe a lot of them should be working on community projects, if possible to suit the crime. Working on secure smallholdings might be good too.
Now do you really think if I told a drunken thug, on a dark night outside a pub, to stop beating up another guy, he would listen to me? Would a bank robber listen if I told him he was a naughty boy and should be ashamed of himself? Or a teenager, stoned out of his mind, smashing every seat in sight feel ashamed if I interrupted his fun to tell him he was a naughty boy? As much as I look at these scenarios and would like to see myself as Supergran or Wonderwoman, anything I could do would either be useless or foolhardy.
No, providing challenging projects with rewards of self-esteem, seems to me the way forward. These already exist but more are needed, and at different levels.
Prisons that just 'lock up' do little to reform hardened criminals. They should have to work - creatively if possible - but certainly to give something back to those they offended against.
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