ConservativeHome's Platform

Anthony Makara: Britain imports too much

Over the last weeks I've read much about the subject of welfare reform. The arguments about incapacity benefit and workfare. However all these strategies for welfare reform fail to answer one fundamental question. How are we going to get people into work? I believe all the proposed plans for welfare reform will fail because they do not tell us how we are to create the one million plus jobs needed to end welfare dependency. This is because the British economy no longer produces the jobs that the unemployed need. Lets face it, a person is either in work or they are on benefit, it really is that simple, the answer to unemployment is to create jobs.

You may well ask, why are there not enough jobs?

Well, for a start we are not making the goods to supply our domestic market anymore, we are importing those goods. So a radio that could have been made in Britain is being made in China instead and a Chinaman has work while the Briton that could have made that radio remains unemployed. We are also importing food and fuel that we could be producing ourselves too. This means that yet more of our people are unemployed and languishing on benefit.

So why are we not producing these goods ourselves?

Tony Makara: A nation sleepwalking into decadence

Ever more in life, the things that would repulse us are now being accepted as 'Normal' and are laughed off and being accepted as 'Fun'. Whether its people eating maggots on a game show or a transvestite vomiting into the face of a small child on 'Little Britain' it seems like the British public has lost its sense of propriety and has sleepwalked its way into decadence. As a nation we are losing the very values and the very sense of decency that made our nation great.

Human beings are creatures that copy the behaviour of the perceived successful members of the group. So it should come as no surprise to us that young boys copy the snarling attitude of premier league footballers and young girls imitate the sluttish behaviour of certain drunken female celebrities. In fact it's fair to say that the media goes out of its way to promote the behaviour of such negative role models.

Therefore I feel it is time that the Conservative Party looked at the question of public decency and the knock-on effects of irresponsible output in all branches of the media. I am not calling for censorship, but rather am asking for a reevaluation of existing laws on decency and whether media output can be called to account.

Tony Makara: The problem of unemployment

For the last 35 years our nation has been plagued with mass unemployment. A problem which has been allowed to fester by each government of the day. A mind-set has developed in which unemployment has been accepted as inevitable. Such a defeatist attitude is, in my opinion, not acceptable.

Unemployment is a drain on the exchequer and has knock-on effects in terms of social breakdown. Those alienated from the mainstream economy can often be sucked into a sub-culture of criminality or can diminish psychologically as their self-esteem wanes after years of unemployment. Work isn't just about making money, it is also a lifestyle. Work brings structured responsibilty to an individual and a sense of being a part of society.