Senior_AP

This country is becoming massively over-populated. It is also, by definition a snowball effect.

So, what do we do??

Possibly:

Any couple wishing to have children must apply to do so. They should be means checked to ensure they are financially and humanly capable of raising a child. Someone(s) (governmental body) should meet with aspiring parents to assess their capability to raise children.

This would be fairly leniant, only people that obviously are not in a position to breed would be denied.

Also, I believe a 2 child policy should be in place also. Having any more than 2 children on this little isalnd is, these days, anti-social.

It's just too crowded!!

Probably opened the floodgates but should make a good thread with sensible debate.

Leslie

If things go on in their present direction SAP, eventually children will be artificially conceived in test tubes from genetically selected material. They will be brought up by State institutions and educated to do exactly what the political masters want. They will have an allotted time span and will then be disposed off.

The family will be extinct.

Les

Brendan Hughes

Legally, it's a non-starter - in breach of the right to a family life.

If you want to live in China under their political system, please feel free to do so.

Senior_AP

Any ideas what could be done, cos at this rate its gonna get very bad very quickly!!

rusty1977

Having kids is the key to a better life:

You get a free council house

Money paid into your bank for nothing so you can go down your local Whetherpsoons and drink cheap booze all day.

The more of them your have the more money you get!

No wonder they are all at it like jack rabbits its like some people are trying to start their own race.

Remember watching that family on Wife Swap the one who got her massive baggies out in the Sport!

Frosty The Snowman

I think the government is trying to increase the population at the moment not slow it down.

I do agree that there is enough people in the country now and the infrastructure can't keep up. I would say that benefits should be gently lowered for people with more than 3 children, especially people those who just have kids to get a house and money so they don't need to work.

Ooo.....just to say as a response Bredans right to family life bit, fair enough if people want a large family but they should be in a position to pay for the upkeep of their kids not rely on other people to do that for them.

Brendan Hughes

Flattered that you asked me. Frankly, I don't give a damn - I will never be running for a political party, and never will be in charge of any sort of policymaking in this area, so I'm sure others are better qualified than me to answer.

You can't stop people having children. Right-wingers would say you reduce the benefits available to discourage parents, or perhaps making them dependent on some calculation involving school test results etc. Left-wingers would say that encourages child poverty, juvenile crime, policing costs etc. Human geographers will tell you that less children means less workers paying for the oldies' pensions. Don't look to me for the answer...

Went to my son's school recently for a talk by a maths bod, saying about how they were trying to improve British maths tuition. He said the world survey showed the best maths tuition was in Singapore. So should they copy that system? They then noted that Singapore also had one of the highest teenage suicide rates in the world. So, erm, maybe they shouldn't copy that system. That was a pointless digression to say one size doesn't fit all.

ajm

This is actually a subject I feel quite strongly about too. It is in the government's interests to breed and pack in as many tax payers as possible. Local councils want to tear down businesses and pack in as much housing as possible because housing council tax goes to local councils, whereas businesses go to central government. The problem we are seeing is that, whilst we may be getting more tax payers, we are actually getting more benefits claimants too, and these are the ones that are breeding the most!

Biologically, over population will sort itself out through the boom and bust effect. Eventually we will either starve or be wiped out by disease epidemics. We are already seeing more and more resistant strains of virus and bacteria, nature will eventually redress the balance. The only question is how many other species we will take down with us.

This is the reason we assume our position as top predator, to cull other species, weed out the weak and the sick and keep the population balanced to avoid the boom and bust effect. Unfortunately we have overlooked ourselves in this and the long term outlook will be rather nasty as a result!

Senior_AP

What then??? Everything here is queues queues queues!!

Suggestions.

Brendan Hughes

Move to Montana.

Senior_AP

What about poor little England?? She's being suffocated!!

davegtt

what about poor little england? aint you heard? we aint poor, we give hand outs to any1 and every1, apart from those who need it most.

the idea you came up with is on the right lines, should apply for children and those the the government dont see fit to breed should be allowed to have kids as its their choice but the governmnet should refuse benefits to these people. but where would u stand again it if pregnancy was an accident, unplanned if you will as Im sure a good 405 of the children in england were unplanned. what then?

ProperCharlie

What is your basis for saying we are over populated? As I remember from the research I did the last time this nonsense topic appeared , we are only forty something most densely populated country in the world. Also, the natural reproduction rate is failry static. I beleive the govt. is interested in getting some immigrants in to try to avert the pensions crisis.

Senior_AP

The unplanned pregnancy is an awkward situation.

It's a massive, fundamental change so this would need addressing. I'm just producing the idea, this can be addessed in the green paper!! lol.

Senior_AP

I don't base my opinions (opinions echoed by the majority) by comparing us to other countries.

I am taking this on its own merit.

fast bloke

cut benefits completely. Anyone who can't afford children but have them anyway go and live in a big institution, where they get fed and educated. no cash, no ciggies, no booze, none of lifes luxuries.
It always annoys the **** of me when I see kids living in poverty and parents smoking a tenners worth of ciggies every day, having a few beers and generally looking out for themselves

corradoboy

I have long thought that this little island is overpopulated. FFS France has 7x our land, and the same population, New Zealand is the same size as England with only 4m (IIRC) and Canada is ferhookin mahoosive with 1/3 of our population. Politicians seem to believe that large families are they key to our future, but as has been stated earlier, the largest families tend to be in the poorest communities thus generally being a large burden on society, not a benefit. I propose that all child related benefits be capped at the 2nd child, and that includes housing. If you want 8 kids but can't afford them, why the **** should I foot your bill and pay for you a bigger house ? In my life to date I have been unemployed twice, totalling a duration of less than 6 months. I have never been arrested (boring, huh! ), claim no benefits of any kind, pay all my taxes unless I can avoid them , always vote and feel pretty bl00dy unappreciated by my elected representation. I used to work with an individual who had 6 kids (3 weren't his ) in his household, claimed over £400 a week in benefits on top of his £180 a week wage (hence he got out much more than he put in ) and barely a month went by where either he or one of his clan wasn't arrested for one thing or another. Add the cost of his housing, benefits, the cost of the Police investigating, the CPS prosecuting, Legal Aid defending and many other factors and he must have been costing us all £00,000's a year

The one problem we have is we don't teach people to be responsible for their own actions.

ProperCharlie

That's exactly my point - what merit does your argument have? What is your definition of "over populated"?

Say, for example, we had 20% more people and 40% less cars - might make the UK a better place to live.

Also, have you explored the implications of your suggestions - that we end up with a population where the majority of people are over 60 years of age?

Welcome to utopia...

fast bloke

you can be fairly certain that the number of unplanned pregnancies would fall dramatically if the outlook was bleak enough.

mad_dr

Perhaps would-be parents should be made to PAY to have children. You could buy a license which would let you produce a child. The monies paid would go towards funding their own child support, "parent and child" car parks and to contribute to easing the visible decline that the coutry suffers as a result of overbreeding.

If you can't afford to have a child, go somewhere else to have it, but don't make everyone else pay for it - both in terms of money and quality of life...

Hmmmm

fast bloke

that wouldn't be a problem if all the tax we paid wasn't handed out to the workshy masses.

MattW

<cough> Immigration <cough>

Sits back to watch the fireworks

ProperCharlie

be nice if that was true - however, the NHS budget is much larger than social security. Maybe we should do away with the NHS as well as benefits? Then we could really save some money.

Brendan Hughes

CIA world factbook

UK area land 241,590 sq km
Population 60,270,708

France area land: 545,630 sq km
Population 60,424,213 (July 2004 est.)


As I said, we don't seem to teach maths very well. Or research for that matter.

Senior_AP

Coooor!! I thought I was tough on this issue. Respect FastBloke!!!

Jap2Scrap

Random sterilisation is the only way. Every fifth baby born is sterilised at birth. Exponentially that's a lot of future pregnancies stopped and makes having children a kind of lottery with mothers-to-be hanging on tight until they hear that the woman in the labour ward next door just had number 5. Should make all that waiting around for the thing to drop more interesting for the fathers too. I can see it now, "bet you a tenner my kid keeps his tackle."

Senior_AP

I'm liking this. Getting plenty of support from you guys!!

ProperCharlie

BTW I think BUPA charge between £6k-£10k if you want to have your baby in one of their hospitals, and it isn't covered by health insurance as pregnancy isn't an illness. Should cut down the number of safely delivered babies, shouldn't it?

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

So, there's this lady. She has three little kids and husband number one dies. She marries another bloke who already has 3 of his own a bit younger than hers. They have three more, then he's out of the picture too, leaving her to bring up 9 kids on her own.


So what do they live on? State handouts of course.

BUT: since becoming old enough to work, NOT ONE of those kids has NOT worked. They all pay tax, NI, etc. So they are in effect, supporting the country that helped support them.

We do need kids for our, and others' future.

This true story has been brought to you by Alcazar enterprises. Names have been withheld to protect innocents.

Alcazar:

MattW

Woohoo, Adolf Hitler alive and kicking