Get a grip Mr Brown (From Northwich Guardian)

Get a grip Mr Brown

8:49am Friday 8th January 2010

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DEAR Mr Brown, I hope your bunch enjoyed the long Christmas break, which we, the British public, paid for one way or another.

Again I received cards from people I never ever see. Why do they do it? It was no surprise that despite the constant flow of letters I receive from the banks, (thanks to you I am a shareholder) I did not receive one single card. Come to think of it I got not a single ‘thank you’ either for lending them my money.

With the coming of a new year we are all hoping for big improvements to ‘our lot’ or for most of us ‘our little’.

I am reminded of the words sung by Sinatra. ‘It’s oh so nice to go travelling but it’s so much nicer to come home.’ Get a grip and bring our kids home? Sending thousands abroad to fight your invisible battles won’t do a jot of good. While they are roasting in the hot sun the terrorists are here, in comfort, integrating and waiting for their moment.

I predict another tragedy similar to the London bombers. I predict that soon we will discover training camps both here and in the USA, not in far off places with strange sounding names.

Get a grip on schools. Instead of allowing school play areas to become development sites or deemed too dangerous to play on, expand play for all children.

Stop this PC rubbish and the invasion of the health and safety brigade.

It must be a big shock to leave school wrapped in cotton wool only to be sent away to get shot at.

Have a nursery beside every school and all schools close together so that parents who take many children can go to one destination. Build community centres so that children can stay in safe places after school and learn good social skills and English.

Get a grip on those who take advantage of the old and infirm so we can have decent, clean, well-staffed centres within easy reach of medical care.

Get a grip of the philosophy of the work-life balance. Supermarkets don’t open on Sunday in Germany but they do in America. Who do we belong to, Europe or the US? We should not belong to either.

Create a national pride service where 18-21-year-olds work towards learning what makes our community thrive and not how to break it.

Get a grip of our pub industry. Instead of driving pubs to the wall because the supermarkets want it all, begin the process of revitalising one of the fundamental and necessary building blocks in the sociability of our nation.

We are fast becoming a nation of recluses who cannot afford to enjoy the warmth and friendship of the declining army of ‘Mine Hosts’ this country is blessed with. Allowing pubs to sell beer at the same prices as drinking at home would reinvigorate the community spirit this country was famous for.

Pub landlords play a vital role in policing the consumption of alcohol and a more mixed clientele would bring its own rewards with supervised drinking and family togetherness. How can it be right that a pub has to sell beers at the price for a pint equivalent to a four pack from a supermarket when the latter abdicates all responsibility once it has passed through the front door?

Stop using the word benefits and get a grip. A benefit is something that enhances a life. Those who have paid in to the system should be seen to be receiving their entitlement.

People who are really disabled and sick do not benefit from having to beg for what they need. It is their entitlement, which we all contribute towards. MPs who steal benefit while the aforementioned go short.

Foreigners who are accommodated in luxury despite never contributing a penny will feel the benefit while the aforementioned going short.

Bankers, who run good businesses into the ground, benefit while the aforementioned go short.

If you really care about your country and want to serve it for another term then get a grip.