When this economic strategy is implemented when you are Queen, Miss Kitty, it means that the cost of goods and services in the UK would become so expensive that it would cripple its own good intentions.

Without capitalism or globalism, we'd all be living in much more reduced state with a much lower level of comfort or prosperity. Many of your suggestions are similar to what was praticed in the Soviet Union - and the typical Russian worker had a much lower standard of living compared to his counterpart in a standard Western country.

What has globalisation meant? It means the cost of goods and services are far cheaper than they were ten or twenty years ago. Clothing, food, electronics, all the goods so beloved of rioters, are far cheaper than they were for our grandparents. We may not have the factories we once did, but our lives are certainly much more comfortable than the lives lived by our grandparents who worked in those factories. Our subsidised UK unemployed youth lives a much better lifestyle than a chinese factory worker making cheap shoes or fake football shirt.

Yes, there are tradeoffs. The economic model has changed. We don't have the industrial base we once did. Then again, we don't have the agricultural base we once did and there were plenty of people who lamented the decline of agrarian Britain and shifting of the population to the nasty, dirty, oppressive mill towns.

Who knows what the future may bring to us, but I'd be cautious at wanting a return to some old economic model that's now long obsolete and can only be held on to at an enormous economic and political cost.

Only in that people no longer have jobs and income due to improper management of an asset bubble. People with jobs don't go rioting and looting, they feel they have too much of a future to risk.

I pretty much agree with much of what you have said here, but not your earlier post. Whilst your suggestions for business are 'nice' they are impractical and unworkable and also penalise those who set up and run good, profitable businesses.

If someone has been foolish enough to spend far more than they can afford on holidays or handbags, why should they be bailed out? As you say above, many have become too greedy and should live more moderately.

It seem to me that society has become too consumer/status driven and that is what needs to be addressed. WAGs should not be role models, people shouldn't be judged because of the labels they wear and we need to put more value of what really matters in life, family, friendship, health.


Having read masses of comment today on different sites, forums etc, I am getting rather fed up with the number of apologists for these thugs. No matter the situation there is simply no excuse for the looting, theft and criminal damage that happened last night.