A portrait of Britain
SIR, Hitler did it, Stalin did it and successive governments of the world have, with exceptional subterfuge, controlled and brainwashed the people of their country. Hitler's ideals of patriotic fervour gave rise to youth clubs drenched in racism. The Jews and Poles were also targeted through a controlled media together with the cruelly gifted gang of Nazi's. France, although ignoring many of the E.U's directives and once voting against the European Constitution, still haven't got the courage to use their own initiative to make laws in their own government offices overruling the E.U's petty and and nationally intrusive directives! Our own successive governments have meekly followed and stupidly succumbed to the bullying Brussels! I suppose we were lucky to have won two world wars; Hitler's Germany is carrying out their late leader's fervent wishes by rapidly winning the third war; they have already overrun and are ruling Britain. A new word in the English language was, introduced by Blairites to bypass freedom of speech... it's called 'spin' (i.e lies - beautifully dressed up ideas to sound truthful, earnest, sincere and genuine). Very gradually, we, the people, have come to accept the hundreds of spy cameras monitoring our every move; our private lives have become an open book to all and sundry. The rich (particularly M.P's, plus Eastern and Russian billionaires) are getting richer with their enormous pay rises, and their clever accountants who work the system thus enabling their clients' minimum tax commitments... smaller even than that of a cleaning lady? Financial companies and banks from around the world are flocking to our cities - apparently we are the Financial Industry's utopia! But the poor are unable to join this utopia... the poor are having to wait months or years for operations or special medication. Our once proud N.H.S. of 1948, is grinding to a permanent halt. State run affordable homes for the old folk are rapidly changing to unaffordable private homes which are beyond the means of the very poor old folk! Crime of every description is rampant through our land. As individuals we, the taxpayers, no longer matter just so long as we pay our numerous taxes! That is Tony Blair's legacy! Will Old Labour, under the Brown regime, strip our bank balances bare to the bone like a previous Labour Chancellor, Sir Stafford Cripps? Just let us wait and see. And now our pleasures have been curtailed. I am an old lady and a non-smoker but I detest the draconian manner in which people, who enjoy a cigarette, are being treated. How long will it be before that pint of beer or glass of wine will be supplemented with a genetically manufactured non-alcoholic substance? Not in my life I hope, I still enjoy my drop of Tio Pepe! Another of my pet hates is the emasculation of men. Women have taken men's jobs when, if married with children, they should be at home making good citizens of the future! Anyway, men make far better bosses than women, I know because I have worked for both. Men carry the genre of strength, power, stature, resourcefulness and dependability that has been their inherent role for aeons. Women are weak and are still struggling to compete; they have not long evolved sufficiently from the suffragette movement to command total subservience. Just remember ladies, 'If you educate a man, you educate an individual, but an educated woman educates a family.' Why don't ladies be satisfied to bask in the reflected glory of their husbands and offspring instead of becoming stressed out and evil tempered fighting their way to the top of the ladder of success? Don't they know that it's their own power that drives a successful family? (Ooops, that's bound to upset the ladies! - but in my experience and caducity, I know it's true!) Mrs June Alexander (Symonds Yat West)