There are a handful of MPs who know what they're doing or are at least doing their best with the right motivations. Unfortunately none of these will end up anywhere near ministerial posts, let alone PM. Our political system sucks.

My last hope was that we might make a go of a coalition government, as I'm a fan of consensus politics. Looks like we can't even manage that. I'm more depressed for my kids than myself TBH as there's no sign of the downward trend reversing or even stabilising.

interesting observation, I don't see much real evidence of a downward trend in my day to day dealings with things, other than the general educational standards and behaviour of people, but that isn't economic.

when you say "downward trend", what do you mean?

Really?!

Please explain how.

I think the standard of politicians is dropping. Too many of them with no clue and no real life experience or relevant skills. There is also an increasing failure of the media to hold these people to account and ask hard questions.

I'm willing to admit that might be 'grumpy old bugger' syndrome kicking in, mind.

I believe there are signs. The construction industry, which I believe, is one of the good tangible monitors of economies. I work as a consultant with many of the large design firms in the UK and generally things are a lot better than they were a year ago, without doubt. Were companies were making redundancies, many are now having to scramble to recruit staff due to skill shortfalls due to the increase in workload. I train said staff, and at the moment I'm run off my feet. Thats my little world, but from my perspective things are not as bleak as the media make out.

It is certainly true to say that the public sector cuts are tempering that "recovery", as Manchester City Council has just shown, but do believe that the industry is now stable at least (i.e. enough work to sustain its current overall size), if not recovering.

ah right, I thought you meant a downward trend in economic terms, not in terms of the quality of politicians.

I wholeheartedly agree, 20/30 years ago politicians were in it for mush more alturistic reasons (as well as feathering their own nests) but very few were in it for ego or self publication, now they are all pretty much the same, many are lifetime politicians or civil servants who have little or no real experience of the arenas in which they are operating/legislating.

It's no better at Local Authoruty level either.

I probably should have been clearer. I was thinking more of the general state of politics and the social infrastructure - particularly education - rather than economics. My own company is having probably our best year ever, and we've been around for more than 30 years.

As I said to Standee, it might just be me developing into a typically grumpy and disillusioned bloke with his 50th birthday closing in, but I'm pretty depressed about the UK right now. In particular we've made a right mess of our education system and seem intent on making things worse. That doesn't bode well for the future IMO.

Indeed, as I was saying on the dissertation thread until it disappeared, education in the UK has become totally devalued, anyone and everyone can go to University and get a degree in something, that isn't what our ambition should have been, what we should have strived for is that everyone has equal opportunity to access higher education if they have the relevant intelligence and dedication, instead we dumbed down the whole system in the name of making it "fair", which has led to complete degredation of the skills of young people, I'm only 36 and even I despair at the quality of spelling and grammar (not on these boards, I mean in letters/emails) and a total lack of general knolwedge about the wider world.

But then I am sure my Dad's generation said that about the generation that are just hitting their 40's now!

The UK has to become a nation of innovators, engineers, technicians, scientists instead of builders, farmers, fisherman and manufactures - I think we are, slowly and begrudgingly heading in the right direction. Our engineering, architectural, as well as scientific, academic and economic industries are among the best respected the world over. Clients in emerging economies still want British companies to do the job - and there is a reason for that - quality.

I work in one of those industries, and I promote innovation - which British companies are investiing in in the bucket load. I think the future is an exciting one, especially for the UK - we are leading the way in many areas of importance.

Politically, we need to sort ourselves out. I agree. Has that ever not been true?

I do agree that we have made a bit of a mess with the Eduction system in this country... not only have we managed to now pull funding from school building and maintenance programs (Thanks Mr Cameron), but education cuts make it very difficult for teachers to teach, and there is the real worry that we will be losing teachers when we should be getting more of them. I firmly believe Eduction should be protected above just about everything else. Further, IMO, we need to get kids off "media studies" courses and into architecture, science, maths etc more, and we have failed to do that for many years now - but thats my personal soap box issue.

Unfortunately, countries like India and China, and even places like Iran are not making the same mistake - that we need to sort out, but I do believe that our above mentioned industries will see us into a bright and prosperous future.

you know my thoughts on that, so no point covering old ground.


what cuts?



do you think many of the recent graduates that have become teachers are really capable of educating legions of architects, scientists etc..

I don't, most new teachers I have met recently can only teach by using pre-prepared materials and lesson plans, they are not educators nor inspirational.

Point 1 - I'm not complaining about the subsidies in the short term. What we have to be very careful about though is ensuring our economic recovery is not disadvantaged because the price of energy charged to our manufacturing base, and for that matter domestic consumers, is higher than the price charged to our competitors in other countries as a result of our green crusade. Further investment in green technology can only be maintained long term if our economy grows and creates the money for investment. Crusading for the green approach is fine (and Mr Huhne in the current regime is a real champion) but it's not viable to fleece the citizens and businesses for the extra investment cash forever by way of higher energy costs - this will prevent the economy from generating future investment needed and we will fall behind.

Point 2 - I'm not representing the 'deniers' as you put it - I didn't offer my view on climate change so put down your placard. The reference to poor science relates to several gaffes in the lifetime of the IPCC. [url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8387737.stmHere's one[/url. Producing scaremongering garbage like that provides plenty of ammo for those who can produce other science that is contrary to the view, and leaves the argument open to those that may be suspicious of vested interest in what is now and will continue to be a multi billion pound industry.

Anyway as I said at the start well done to Hull for getting the nod here - a much needed boost.

The biggest problem education faces in my view is the declining standard of people entering the teaching profession. For the last 30-40 years education has been abysmally handled by successive power bearers. We are now left with the frightening prospect that due to the fact that our education standards are so low the overall level of those hired to teach is not high enough. It's a bad place to be. Whilst having shiny new buildings might help - and if we had the money would be great - it wouldn't address the core problem IMHO.