Save Our Tango!

[poliphilo]

According to The Star, we Brits want the 70s back. Britain is no longer the country we knew and loved. We lament  the disappearance of great British traditions like red post boxes, Sunday closing, Tango...

Tango? What? You mean that fizzy, orange-flavoured, aspartame-sweetened drink with the silly adverts? Oh, I see- the makers of Tango (Britvic plc) are the ones  who commissioned the survey. It's a marketing ploy to position the fizzy, orange-flavoured , aspartame-sweetened drink with the silly adverts as an Great British tradition that's in danger of being- oh, I don't know what- replaced by the smoothie.  There's even a website to go with the story, featuring a dancing man and a petition. Save our Tango. Oh purleeese! 

Still, Gordon Brown will be happy. Great British traditions- we can't have enough of them!

So how come I'm reading the Star? Well, the car needed to go in for repairs; something to do with the gearbox. There was a copy of the Star sitting on the table in the waiting area of the repair centre and I find it hard to resist newsprint. The lead story was all about Britney wearing fishnet tights.

It wasn't really the day to be taking the car anywhere. Last night's snow had frozen and I had to chisel it off the windows. The scraper broke after a couple of gouges. Our road hadn't been gritted and neither had the approach road (I nearly wrote reproach road) to the repair centre. We came home with a courtesy car- a red, sporty Corsa. Wheeee!

Talking about Gordon Brown (I was, really, about six paragraphs back)  I see (not from The Star) that his government is proposing to use lie detectors on benefit claimants. The next thing will be rubber coshes or maybe electrodes- or hell, why worry about leaving a mark? Since  the whole point is to reduce the population to whimpering subservience they might just as well pull fingernails out and be done with it.

Comments

[idahoswede.livejournal.com]

Don't forget having to carry your identity card soon and produce it on demand of the police.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I really don't like the way we're headed. "The price of liberty is eternal vigilance." Who said that?

[idahoswede.livejournal.com]

Thomas Jefferson for one.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

He was probably the first then. I can't see him cribbing it off someone else.

[daisytells.livejournal.com]

We already do that in America. Almost everywhere one wants to go, the ID is required. In the name of "security".

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I believe a lot of European countries have ID cards too.

I hate the idea- on principle.

[algabal.livejournal.com]

'Lie detectors' (http://www.skeptics.org.uk/polygraph.php) are dangerous, bordering on pseudoscience. They should be an attraction at fairs, not used in criminal prosecution.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

G.K. Chesteron has a story about a lie detector- written in the 1920s I should think. It's called "The Mistake of the Machine". 'Nuff said, really.

I suppose the reason these things haven't been abandoned long ago is that our masters find them to be useful tools of intimidation and control.

[ibid.livejournal.com]

I love how governments think these machines will work.

My anarchism is increasing with every passing day. Bourdieu had the notion of the state as a panopticon watching every aspect of the life of the citizen, he'd have loved it now.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I think this current lot are both incompetent and dangerous.
And, no, I don't think the opposition would be any better- with the exception that- to begin with anyway- they wouldn't be so power mad.

[daisytells.livejournal.com]

So now Britain has its own version of George W. Bush-ism?

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

This is the same government that- under Tony Blair's leadership- stood shoulder to shoulder with Bush when he invaded Iraq.

[mummm.livejournal.com]

I thought that drink was Tang? But... maybe not since that stuff was not fizzy and was supposedly designed for space travel...

We just want our economy repaired... *sigh*

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Tang must be the U.S.equivalent. Tango seems to be a British brand.

[michaeljohngrist.com (from livejournal.com)]

How else to stop people cheating when they claim benefit? All this socialist stuff in Britain may well be the biggest problem the country has- breeding hordes of knife-wielding bored kids who roam the streets cos they have nothing else to do, since getting a job is totally unnecessary. Granted- lie detector tests seems a bit ridiculous and humiliating, but at least he's trying to do something.

All this 'fear CCTV!' and 'they're taking our liberties!' stuff is a bunch of bosh I rather think. The government is just not capable of that kind of thing- they're just not powerful/respected enough.

Benefit fraud, hmm. Create jobs with a huge public works program? I don't understand why they don't turn unemployment pay into some kind of community action- instead of people getting money for nothing, they have to actually spend hours doing something productive. So they're not unemployed- they work for the government at minimum wage.

[(Anonymous)]

I read something last night and unfortunately I forget the specific numbers, but it was something along the lines of 20 years ago there was X people on sickness benefits and 3X on unemployment, and now it's 3X sickness and X unemployment. So however you cut it there is a large lazy contingent in there (although obviously some people are genuinely unable to work). The man writing the piece believed it was because you can pressure your doctor into signing you off "sick", then you don't have to bother geting up every other thursday to sign on for your cash. Then ensues a circle of being long time out of work, and therefore employers won't touch you, and why get a job anyway?
Does anyone remember the Yes, Prime Minister episode when Sir Humphrey is caught off guard saying "joblessness could be halved by cutting benefits and compelling the 'so-called' unemployed to accept offers of work, thereby removing them from the register "before you could say 'parasite'".
Following some recent reading I'm of the opinion that the solution to a lot of this countries woes is to reintroduce strict rules and regs in the classroom, bring back discipline!
Tom F

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I've always admired the "New Deal" policy Franklin Roosevelt inaugurated in the 1920s to beat the last big depression- getting the unemployed working on a huge programme of public works- building dams, railroads- all that sort of thing- whatever the country needed.

I guess the New Deal was also a kind of Socialism- and not so very different from what Stalin was doing in the USSR. The difference is it worked.