Why don't the people of the UK blame the government more than they do for societies problems?

Question

The Government in one way or another controls almost every aspect of our lives, yet so few people blame them when things go wrong.

Answer 1

I can't see anything wrong, and they don't control my life.

It's not the government's fault people ignore the law, so how can you blame the government?

The government cannot force anybody to behave responsibly, they can only request that they do. At the end of the day it is up to the individual to take responsibility for their own actions.

Answer 2

A very good, thought provoking question!

I think the answer is threefold-firstly the Government has created a political environment where there are so many issues that need addressing education, law & order, immigration,NHS etc, etc, etc that each one acts as a diversionary tactic for the other, making it difficult to focus on any one central agenda.

Secondly, the Government has demonstrated such a level of incompentence and ineptitude in dealing with fundemental issues that the Nation believes that if the Government did take action matters would get worse for their involvement.

Thirdly, apathy towards Government, the Nations priorities have shifted from National wellbeing to personal wellbeing ,manifested in material gain, possesions, self interest, ego and greed. What the Government thinks or does is no concern to them, as long as their credit card works in order that they can purchase the homogenous Chinese crap that the advertisers tell them they will be an outcast without!

These three circumstances have not happened by accident, they are the products of a process to create the situation that prompted your question ,engineered by the Government , to promote lethargy and avoid scrutiny, critisism and accountability.

Answer 3

They do, strange that health and safety have not got a division that checks on all fire arms, they check on every other aspect of our lives. When people had responsibility for their own actions and were not able to run to court at the drop of a hat England and the UK were better places. The other reason for the problem is that the people see their lives dictated to by the Brussels dictatorship, and no sign of a referendum on membership yet, so they lose heart and don't give a damn any more, thus the government is responsable for the present situation.

Answer 4

Governments and politicians can do very little to change things. What they do best is to create new laws, new rules and regulations and ways of taxing the people.

What do the people do? They try every trick in the book to avoid paying tax and in most cases simply ignore new laws passed by Parliament because they think it does not apply to them, or perhaps they can bend the law a little so that it allows them to carry on as if nothing new had happened.

The reality is that people in UK will do pretty much what they like and no amount of hot air coming from the Commons will make a jot of difference.

I now see people sitting in the gutter in London's West end, drinking from cans and bottles. This simply did not happen in my youth back in the 1950s and 60s. The country is now beginning to look like something from Rake's Progress - booze alley and beer street etc.

Answer 5

You don't provide a single example of where the government controls, "almost every aspect of our lives". Elsewhere on YA, members have raised questions as to why it was felt necessary to the erect a statue of Mandela in Parliament Square. Perhaps because like Gandhi, he demonstrated the power of people to effect change when governments did not.

The people elect the government, the people can remove them. Simple as. And in the meanwhile, all those people who want to see change and feel the government is not moving quickly enough or in the right direction, get organised, get elected, demonstrate, protest, in fact do almost anything other than suggest on YA that you are powerless.

Answer 6

Blame is an easy way to off load. perhaps instead of blame what we should be talking about is responsibility. This is the area that most people do not consider. I would start by making a rule that a government should be made personally responsible for not coming up with their promises in their manifesto. If this was to happen maybe a more realistic picture would be painted, instead of the hype that goes with the voting arena . Lets have something that insists they deliver.Then they can blame themselves if and when they don't!! Then the price to pay would be theirs and theirs alone.

Answer 7

I thought people did. That's the impression I get from talking to people and reading the newspapers. And I am grateful that we still have freedom to do so, as I have lived in countries where you could get into serious trouble for criticising the regime in any way. This government has given away our country and harmed us irreparably. A change of government could not retrieve the situation. I think that we are all stunned by the enormity of what has been done to us. But at least we are allowed to say so!

Answer 8

I was going to say that government doesn't run every aspect of our lives, then I thought about recent problems and decided that yes, you could trace them back to bad government.

11 yr old gets shot - why have we got so many guns in this country? It's not 'society' who organises gun control, it's governments.

Binge drinking - governments allow 24 hr drinking and the production of alcopops (designed specifically for young drinkers) to continue.

Just think of any problem facing society and most will be traceable back to government.

Answer 9

I do blame the government, but we also have a responsibility to society to stand up for ourselves and not just let them push us back into the boxes they have designed for us

Answer 10

whatever we say about the government in the uk the voters put them there (for myself the sooner an election is called the better) but looking back - the turnout by voters in 1997 was the lowest in years and the government was elected by less than 50% of the elegible voters!!! says a lot about the state of British politics doesn't it?