You're correct, Miss Swipe.
That, of course, is the other issue. The fact that we're a small island with a dense population, and we do not have unlimited capacity.

Our roads are congested.
Our hospitals are full.
Our schools are full.

I remember when I was a child in the 1980s, I was in a primary school class of 25. That was considered the maximum at the time. 25 was a large class. Now these days I hear it's not uncommon for children to be in classes of 35 or more.

20 years ago, when you had a baby on the NHS they would keep you in hospital for a whole week taking care of you. Now, as I understand it, for your first child you'll be lucky if they keep you in for 2 nights - and any subsequent children you stay only one night.

I'm sure everyone has heard the tale about putting a frog in a pan of boiling water: it jumps out. But if you put it in cold water and heat it up slowly then it doesn't notice, and gets cooked where it sits. Actually I read this was not true - but it still serves to make a good point. This country is gradually being eroded away. There are fewer and fewer tax-paying contributors, proportionally - and more and more people who take and take. The change is gradual, but it is there.

Even for the "good" immigrants who come here to work, you need to understand that they're still allowed free healthcare and education for their children. It's not uncommon for a family with several children to come here - where one person is working and the rest are his/her dependants. They're perfectly legal, sure. And they're not bad people.. no way siree. I have nothing against these people as individuals. But if you account for the cost of healthcare and schooling, it is very common for this hypothetical family to actually be taking MORE from the public purse than the main wage earner pays in income tax. The result is a NET LOSS to the United Kingdom.

And none of the mainstream parties care about this - because of their "I'm alright Jack" attitude. The politicians live in their ivory towers with their duckhouses and moats, and because they can afford BUPA and private education, they don't give a crap on a personal level.

Young people today are faced with the highest house-price-to-earning ratio in history. It's impossible for a single person to get on the property ladder, if they're only earning an average wage. This is because of the simple laws of supply and demand: there are simply too many people in this country, and not enough housing. So what should we do? Concrete over all the green space in the UK to build housing? Some of the lefty brigade seem to think that we should, because they are under the illusion that we have unlimited space!
(EuroSong I love horse meat: best of all the animals, Tue 6 Apr 2010, 1:09, 1 reply)

To correct you on just one of those points.
The NHS now doesn't encourage unecessary hospital stays. If you can go home you're sent home, it's for clinical reasons, you generally recover quicker at home than in a hospital it's got nothing to do with money/capacity.
(PsychoChomp, Tue 6 Apr 2010, 11:24, closed)