Not Maggie Barber in this case - though I wish he would come back, we are suffering from a serious shortage of cross gender personalities on this list of late - we only have Betty left these days.
I have been following the discussions this morning about who would welcome back "The" Maggie or not and feel the need to quote the esteemed Mr Emmott (senior) on whether he is suffering from rose tinted nostalgia. "Not really, honest!! It's just that this lot are so disastrous it makes one nostalgic for the times when we had a leader who could make a decision even if that decision was wrong." I am in tune with this - the current government have screwed so many things up completely I hardly know where to start... Try getting a policeman to come to you for anything non life threatening, especially after dark - you will wait a long time - or get one of those "specials" (people who like playing at being policemen, but have no powers whatsoever and even have to call in for someone to come if an arrest is needed). Police totally bogged down with targets and protocols and PAPERWORK. The average policeman these days is an administrator who likes to pop out and arrest someone now and again (when he has time) Don't get ill between the hours of 5pm and 7am Monday to Friday (you are stuffed at weekends) - less than 10 years ago if you fell ill at home at night a doctor would come and see you, OK it may have been a doctor from a deputising service, but it was a doctor. Now what do we have? NHS direct where you get a call centre with a computer protocol - if the computer deems you ill enough then you might get called back by a nurse no less and if then you are Really Really badly, a doctor may call you (but he/she won't come out and visit ) you will then be advised to either visit a night service some miles away or attend A&E (or most likely, see your GP in the morning) Thousands more speed cameras Everything is geared towards sound bites How did things get like this? There are tons more examples of things which have become immensely worse in the last 10 years, but I can't be arsed to type them all Am I just a seriously grumpy old man? I wanna give the Lib Dems a chance this time - at least we may bring back standing terraces Steve G (with his grumpy head on) _______________________________________________ the Leeds List is an unmoderated mailing list and the list administrators accept no liability for the personal views and opinions of contributors. Leedslist mailing list [email protected] http://list.zetnet.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/leedslist "He's not the saviour, he's a very naughty boy" Sean Emmott 15th Sept 2008
