Great Britain ??

Gillie

Free Member
Apr 12, 2006
13,065
1,463
North West England
Ok below are listed 20 people that writer Quentin Letts thinks is responsible for 'ruining' Great Britain!

Now I can understand his adding such as Tony Blair, but Jimmy Saville?? :eek:

1. Jeffrey Archer: "His crassness, his boastfulness, his social mountaineering, his pushiness, his sheer screamingly obvious dodginess, were traffic signs to his character and should have prevented him getting as far as he did."

2. Howard Schultz: The man who put world domination on the agenda for coffee chain Starbucks.

3. Tim Westwood: "Middle-aged Westwood is a Radio 1 disc jockey who has so immersed himself in the music of black rappers and American-style hip-hoppers that he has started to talk like one - and is leading thousands of young listeners down the same ill-guided alley."

4. Tony Blair: "There is a good, rough word to describe Tony Blair but we had better not write it out here in full."

5. Paul Burrell: "After Burrell, we expect less of close confidants. And we are less surprised by his sort of treachery."

6. John Prescott: "Prescott, a revolting specimen with the manners of a flatulent caveman, demeaned our public life."

7. Sir Jimmy Saville: "There are other examples - Tony Blackburn, Sir Paul McCartney, Keith Chegwin, Chris Evans - of egomaniac idiots whose refusal to submit to age infects our society with immaturity."

8. Richard Dawkins: "Anti-religionist Dawkins, the best-known English dissenter since Darwin, is the merciless demander of provable fact."

9. Janet Street-Porter: "This ageing non-revolutionary helped to mould a London media elite who are now hooked on youth."

10. Sir Alex Ferguson: "A man who has helped to drive the fun out of football and who often seems to forget that the contest between two teams of 11 lads is merely a game, not a struggle between right and wrong."

11. Richard Brunstrom: "The traffic-crazed Chief Constable of North Wales Police has pursued motorists to the point of frenzy."

12. Margaret Thatcher: "It was in the pursuit of the trade unions - specifically, Arthur Scargill's National Union of Mineworkers - that Mrs Thatcher did lasting damage to our country."

13. Princess Diana: "The sorry truth is that this adored concept, this packaged, airbrushed Diana, weakened our society. She made us more neurotic."

14. Charles Saatchi: "Does Saatchi never stop to consider what it does to the nurse or the soldier on a basic wage to see such fecklessness as Tracey Emin's 'Everyone I Have Ever Slept With' hailed as a masterpiece?"

15. John McEnroe: "McEnroe helped spread bad sportmanship to a generation of youngsters."

16. Stephen Marks: The man behind FCUK is blamed for "contributing to the coarseness of language in public."

17. Frank Blackmore: The man who introduced the mini-roundabout to Britain's roads. Enough said.

18. Alan Titchmarsh: "Alan is 'doing his bit for the environment' by joining something called the 'Saving Planet Earth' project. But after so much Alan Titchmarsh, will it want to be saved? Or will it plead for euthanasia?"

19. Richard Beeching: Behind the closure of a long list of railway stations. "To this day, there are traffic jams and bottlenecks which can be traced to Beeching."

20. Edward Heath: Heath was blamed for creating a climate of political terror about immigration.
 
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downsouth

Free Member
May 16, 2008
1,063
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Bournemouth
Disagree on Beckham, does a lot to raise the profile o the UK, a lot of people can learn from some of the actions he takes and the way he conducts himself from a global perspective. OK, overpaid footballer to most but one of our most recognisable personalities

List so far

Stephen Fry
Steven Hawkins
Richard Branson
David Beckham
 
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Saville yuk, how to be an in your face boring media ******, but gets credit for all the charity work...and no never saw the programme.

Agree Dawkins should never have even been considered for the list.

Positives

Anthony "Tony" Neil Wedgwood Benn - one of the last of the thinking politicians, shame his son seems to be such a toadie. Yes I know AWB is a connected leftie before some idiot on the forum has a pop.

Elton John - for not giving a **** and just getting on with doing what he does in his own way, like him or loath him the bloke is unique and a killer musician.

Negatives **** me there are so many of them starting a list like that would kill me.
 
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Ok below are listed 20 people that writer Quentin Letts thinks is responsible for 'ruining' Great Britain!
It's a reasonable list. I'm glad to see Dawkins on it, but please add the latest Archbishop of Canterbury too. Remove Margaret Thatcher because she saved us from socialism and made us competitive. I would like to add at least one so-called comedian because British humour, that used to rule the world, is now pathetic. Also, add the said Quentin Letts for chopping off valuable parts of the United Kingdom and referring only to the island of Great Britain.
 
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Rhyl Lightworks

I agree on Stephen Fry and Tony Benn, and would also like to add:
Alan Bennett - everything he writes or broadcasts is brilliant in my opinion.
Ken Livingstone - like him or loathe him, he says what he's going to do and gets it done.
Bill Shankley and Bob Paisley - well I am biased over this.
There must be many others, but it's getting late.
Barrie
 
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A third to Bennett.

He used to have a tramplady live outside his house in her van. He is/was so other worldly, (polite for dead scruffy), that he was hard to tell apart from her. In fact the same went for Michael Foot: he had a tramp and was a scruffy chum. Makes you wonder if a tramp in the garden was de rigeuer for North London intellectuals in the 70s. (T. Benn didn't have one as he was Holland Park, but the serfs on the family farm might count...:))
 
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directmarketingadvice

Free Member
Aug 2, 2005
10,880
3,527
Sorry, I can't have Beckham.

He was a good footballer - international class - but elevated to superstardom because of his looks.

He's a sign of this country's preference for style over substance and our obsession with celebrity.

Pretty and vacant... and whoring himself out to any company that would give him the money...

("teeth rotting soft drinks? I'll take that cash!... clothing companies accused of using child labour? Well, it's not my children...")

Steve
 
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thedesigntailor

20. Edward Heath: Heath was blamed for creating a climate of political terror about immigration.

I liked Edward Heath - His government was before my time but he gave me a bag of apples that he picked himself while I was designing his bathroom. I found him to be very down to earth compared to most politicians.

Though a bag of apples wouldn't put him on the 'best' list either :D
 
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I'd rather not if you don't mind Earl :eek:

I was merly expressing my opinion as to what I though of young peoples ideas of Great Britains.

No one do history at school then,probably to busy watching celebrity whatsit.

I suppose you think a logarithm is a canadian lumber jack dance or some sort of old fashioned birth control.:eek:

Strewth give me strength.First time in history kids have been dumber than there parents.:rolleyes:;)

Earl
 
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thedesigntailor

No one do history at school then,probably to busy watching celebrity whatsit.

Not that I support your generalisation of young people but I cringed today when Radio Ones Newsbeat explained the McCain /Obama debate by saying 'its a bit like Xfactor'.

My God! I know alot of kids listen to radio one but talk about dumbing down and I don't think its even an accurate comparison.
:mad:
 
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I'm not a fan of Tony Benn, he didn't do 'over here' any favours with his gob tbh. the guy wanted to give us away at one stage, and was naive enough to stand up for what was nothing more than thinly veiled terrorism-cum-politics at the time.

Easy to stand up and slabber Tony Benn, when it isn't your family who are slaughtered on a daily basis.

Two-faced tw*t !
 
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Not that I support your generalisation of young people but I cringed today when Radio Ones Newsbeat explained the McCain /Obama debate by saying 'its a bit like Xfactor'.

My God! I know alot of kids listen to radio one but talk about dumbing down and I don't think its even an accurate comparison.
:mad:

Not so much a reflection of the kids as how society fools itself into thinking they are educating them,when the reality is that because of circumstances they can't control.

They concentrate on making education is easy as possible for the educators.I.E the answers come out of a machine and he kid has no idea of the reasoning behind the problem or the method to arrive at the result.

I speak to loads of kids and there education is appalling allied to the height of there ambition being to get on Big Brother.


Earl
 
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A wise philosopher once said (well Billy Connolly did anyway), that anyone who has the desire to actually BE a politician should immediately be barred from ever being one.

That holds true in my book, and the saying could equally be applied to all these potential BB and X-Factor (amongst other televisual dog-dung) contestants.....those with the over-whelming desire should immediately be barred.

I wonder what Big Brother would be like if they just picked out a couple of dozen people at random and let them get on with it ??

Big Brother is to ambition as a Stanley Knife is to contraception.......;)
 
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