Darkness

It was very surprising to see that the County Council of Norfolk did what they already announced last year.
Street lights are turned off in parts of the city of Norwich. About 4,000 lights are switched off. It was announced this would be between 12 and 5, giving a saving of £ 35,000. Keeping on a light extra is costing
£ 20 per night. Last night I noticed lights were off from 1 AM till 6 AM. It was a cloudy night, so pitch dark.

There were a lot of protests to prevent that this would happen, but the council has dismissed every complaint.
Predictions that streets will especially be dangerous for women have been rebuffed by statements that lights will be kept on on streets where there is CCTV. So these streets have double protection while others are kept totally in the dark. Should women restrict themselves to these streets? How to get into the neighbourhoods?
The streets in neighbourhoods are in the dark.

What happened to the 24 hour economy in the UK? Everything has to come to a standstill at 12 (or 1 AM)?
The government is going to decide for the people at which hour they should be in bed? What will happen if criminality really will rise, when people will feel less safe on the streets. Turning the lights on again?
I fear that will not happen. I predict more police on the streets, demands on harsher punishment. Should there be a curfew?

After 11 PM there is hardly any bus transportation. All pubs should close at 11 and people should have to rush home by foot when they don't own a car or can't afford a taxi. Going to the theatre will cause problems for these people for the same reason.
The Council doesn't care for people doing shifts that cause them to go home on nightly hours. Better paid jobs and people who own their own business mostly will not have these problems. So this will mainly hamper the lower classes.

It reminds me a bit of what my parents told me about the times when the Germans occupied the Netherlands.
The years 1940 till 1945. There were curfews and police was patrolling the streets and would shoot on sight. Shoot first, ask questions after a hit, was the policy.

I just saw a very significant article: Brasil surpassed the UK on the list of the largest economic countries.
Which will be next?
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It's the last day of the year 2011. I just read this article:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2078947/Street-lights-dark-road-soldier-killed-Christmas-Day-accident-switched-save-cash.html?ito=feeds-newsxml
The first victim because of this stupid decision!
Does this mean that a life is worth £ 35,000?
It really makes you think!

January 4, 2012
A storm passed England last night. It happened to be the night that the good people of this neighbourhood are supposed to have their bins out. They are always emptied very early in the morning.
This time the wind decided to blow them over and empty them.
Normally this would have been a nuisance, but with the lights out it was really terrible. I could save our bins but the rubbish was already untraceable when I got to these bins and their lids. This morning I saw at the end of the street a garden filled with the rubbish of our bin and some more. The poor neighbour was trying to clear his garden. With some light I'm sure we had been able to prevent this at least a bit and the same goes for other neighbours. We only had a little torch.
There is still a lot of rubbish on the street, not sure where this came from. I'm certain it will not be cleaned by the city.
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How Governments show they are busy with fighting the crisis

It was not hard to notice in the news that both British and Dutch governments were showing how determined they are finding solutions for the economic crisis.
The Dutch government is allowing the people to speed up on the highways; 130 will be the standard instead of 100 or 120. In the Netherlands on certain highways there was even a limit of 80 because of fighting the air polution. The right wing government of Rutte noticed that the air quality has improved so in their opinion there is no objection anymore to speed up a bit more. In my opinion the pollution will be at the same height as before the speed limitations. And it will be more costly to drive a car because of using more petrol. The only people who will really see a profit are stockholders of oil companies.

                                           

Another brilliant idea came from the Dutch minister of Education. People should be more concerned with their children in school. So they should be more busy to control childrens' hair on lice and help with reading in class and so on and so on. She gave herself as an example for the population. She is and was a very busy person so she hired a nanny who also helped out in the schools. People should put their children on the first place and maybe should even work less. The professionals already warned against this: parents should not interfere with the new methods schools are using for educating mathematics and reading. The only result would be that children will get very confused.
And this all is very contradictionary to what the economics in the government want: everybody should work more for less salary and work longer too. And mothers should not stay at home, no more kitchen subsidy for couples! Everybody has to get a job.

                                             Lice mother

Both ideas don't help fighting the crisis at all. Only thing is that it doesn't cost the government a penny.
The common people will pay for it.

                                         David Cameron and George Osborne

In the United Kingdom you see similar things.
Historic is the campaign that has been started about having a keen eye on your older members of the family during the Christmas period. People should report signs of dementia to their GP.
Does David Cameron think that common people are educated in health matters? I would expect GPs to become very busy with reports about people's parents and grandparents being a bit forgetful. If this really would be carried out loads of people over 50 will reported about. It's well known that at about that age memory is working less good. The elderly should be cautious celebrating Christmas with the family...

                                         An elderly person

Another idea is : The Big Society.
It's all about a retreating government sold under the name of restoring old social networks and so giving people a greater feeling of safety and possibillities of getting help from their neighbours and family instead of from the government. More social control will get the streets safer and will get people of drug and alcohol abuse. Volunteers should take control in neighbourhoods and charity should take over from government funds. It's all based on the theories of Phillip Blond. He expressed his thoughts in the book "Red Tory".
This all should be subsidised by the government. The money needed can be found in dismantling certain government agencies and stopping subsidies in companies that work for the government.
My problem with this all is for instance that all depends on the common Brit, the wealthy will have no part in this. I can imagine easily how people get home dead tired from their underpaid job, having a fast meal and then have to go out to do their voluntary duties.

                                         Phillip Blond

We here see the same as in the Dutch case: it's all on the cost and responsibility of the common people.
I do hope in both countries enough reasonable voters and politicians will recognise this and will vote against it or will speak out against it.
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