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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Ways to change the UK for the better....

145 replies

allsquareknickersnofurcoat · 14/02/2011 21:27

We always see suggestions in random threads of what we need to do to improve life in the UK for the average working person. I'm curious what you would do, with all the ideas together in one thread...

(PS before anyone points it out, I know its not an AIBU, but I'd like to see the honest answers that this area produces. Plus you can decide if each others ideas are Unreasonable Wink)

I shall be back asap with my own list.............

Heres a controversial one to get you started: If you are a young mum that still lives with your parents and doesnt work, you shouldnt get healthy start vouchers to spend on formula

OP posts:
goodkate · 14/02/2011 21:58

Blimey spanners you must be exhausted love!

Have a cuppa or glass, catch your breath back

PinkIceQueen · 14/02/2011 21:58

If you live within 1 mile of the school your child attends, make it illegal to drive them there!

goodkate · 14/02/2011 21:59

The Daily Mail is a highly amusing darling of a newspaper that reminds us all Hitler was an evil man. It helps maintain the British sense of humour so I vote for keeping it.

Original poster
allsquareknickersnofurcoat · 14/02/2011 21:59

Pink - same with your place of work!

OP posts:
Original poster
allsquareknickersnofurcoat · 14/02/2011 22:00

The BBC should be a subscription service

OP posts:
GnomeDePlume · 14/02/2011 22:00

I would like to see more people be a little more robust about their own health care.

  • I lived in the Netherlands for a while where the 'three day rule' was strictly practiced. Unless a genuine emergency, patients could not get in to see a doctor until they had waited three days.

  • there was no A&E, all emergencies went via GPs (who were local and did house calls).

When we needed emergency care it was available quickly and efficiently.

I would like to see punishments for anti-social behaviour be pro-social. If someone has been behaving like a drunken lout then several early morning stints performing useful social acts such as litter picking/graffiti cleaning would certainly make me feel a lot better and might be good for the louts' souls.

PinkIceQueen · 14/02/2011 22:00

Here here asqknfc Grin

bubbleymummy · 14/02/2011 22:01

Yy gk - more apprenticeships. I work in a RG university and so many of the lecturers are saying that some of the courses they are offering would be much better being taught as an apprenticeship.

GwendolineMaryLacey · 14/02/2011 22:01

They have free babyfood in their breasts if they dont want to pay for it.

What a fuckwitted statement Hmm

PinkIceQueen · 14/02/2011 22:01

Scrap the TV license.

goodkate · 14/02/2011 22:02

I think that education should be free from birth to 21 and I think those who earn more than £25k should pay for their own medical treatment.

Nippolopolis · 14/02/2011 22:02

Of course there should be better BFing support. I'm a peer supporter and part of a team trying to improve BFing rates in our PCT, but I still don't see why a struggling mum getting help to pay for formula is causing such hardship to the average working UK citizen.

usualsuspect · 14/02/2011 22:02

Theres quite a lot of fuckwittery on this thread tbh

spanners80 · 14/02/2011 22:03

why fuckwitted?

Original poster
allsquareknickersnofurcoat · 14/02/2011 22:04

Gwendoline if they do not earn their own money, why should my taxes ENCOURAGE them to FF? I am not anti-FF, but doesnt that just seem a complete waste of money?

OP posts:
theexample · 14/02/2011 22:05

I think that every country that Britain decided it could just rule under the banner of an empire should take turns to rule Britain, taking the best workers back to their countries as slaves.

goodkate · 14/02/2011 22:06

ha ha I like that one - sadly most of the indigenous population at that time were slaves themselves

xstitch · 14/02/2011 22:07

That's not a reason to make every mother feel bad though. I must add that I bought my dd's formula myself with money I earned as so far the only benefit I have ever had is child benefit. There is also not a week that goes by that I don't have suicidal thoughts with guilt that my milk never came through. I did try to feed her myself but she was starved and dehydrated.

I think the UK would feel like a better place if everyone was nice to at least one person everyday. Yes I do know that will never happen but its a lovely thought imo.

The benefits system needs to change so that it does not actively penalise people trying to get themselves out of poverty like the OP in a thread tonight who is working very hard but is not quite there yet is being penalised.

The legal system needs to change too. I was prevented from moving to take up a job.(yes I am bitter) I am now in the position of having to apply for benefits until I find another job. The job hunt is not going very well.

theexample · 14/02/2011 22:07

And pants should be made of wham bars.

PinkIceQueen · 14/02/2011 22:08

Genuine question - do the foreign students that come here to study have to pay tuition fees?

GwendolineMaryLacey · 14/02/2011 22:08

Because it completely steamrollers over the whole issue of bf. Of course there should be more support, my PND and complete failure to bf is testament to the shit 'support' that there is. But I can't believe that anyone who has spent any time at all on MN thinks it's as simple as 'free food in your breasts, use that if you don't want to pay'. And you know what, these terrible young people aren't immune from bf problems. That statement shows a complete lack of any understanding of the real issues.

saffy85 · 14/02/2011 22:08

You want to change the UK for the better?

And you'd start with "If you are a young mum that still lives with your parents and doesnt work, you shouldnt get healthy start vouchers to spend on formula"? Really?

The country is up to it's eyeballs in debt, unemployment and the law doesn't seem to know it's arse from it's elbow and you'd start with taking people's healthy start vouchers off them? Confused Hmm

Have a few Wine you might talk more sense then love.

xstitch · 14/02/2011 22:08

spanners it is fuckwitted because some woman don't have milk in their breasts so it is wrong as a sweeping statement.

Nippolopolis · 14/02/2011 22:09

"They have free babyfood in their breasts if they dont want to pay for it"

and it's stupid comments like this stopping some of those young mums coming to breastfeeding support groups when they need it because they don't want to run into people like you.

goodkate · 14/02/2011 22:10

OP do you think people believe that the money the goverment has comes from some mystical place in the sky?