UK vs PI

I’m not far from retirement and my son is coming up to school age. I’ve really enjoyed it here in Singapore, but there’s no way I can afford to live here on a pension. So it’s decision time. Do I settle in the UK or the PI (where my wife is from)?

On the face of it, it is no contest. A developed country with the 4th largest economy in the world (before the financial crisis) should win hands down over one of the less successful economies in the Far East. But it doesn’t. There is so much wrong with the UK today that I hardly know where to begin.

Let’s start with Law and Order. Gun and knife crime is spiralling out of control (despite government assurances that violent crime is falling), yet thousands of new laws have been introduced which target the (formerly) law-abiding – such as putting your bin out on the wrong day. Our prisons are bursting with little old ladies who failed to pay their TV license or council tax, while violent criminals are let off with ‘community sentences’.

I know that crime is high in the PI, particularly in urban areas, and that the police don’t have the best of reputations, but at least I will have the right to bear arms, and if I shoot an intruder I won’t find that it’s me that’s in the wrong, as happens in the UK.

Another reason for avoiding the UK is found in the phrase ‘Political Correctness gone mad’ – it’s an old phrase, but the ‘gone mad’ part of it seems to have particular relevance at the moment, when a nurse was threatened with losing her job for offering to pray for a patient (in a country which is still officially Christian), and when British workers had to strike to get access to British jobs.

The PI suffers from official corruption, but at least it looks after its own people in terms of its immigration regime, and doesn’t bend over backwards trying to not to offend every religious or political minority. The culture is firmly Roman Catholic, and while those values might not suit everybody, they’re not a bad background for bringing up a family.

The Nanny State is another thing about the UK that drives me ballistic. In the last few months we have been told that children under 15 should not drink any alcohol – the state once again interfering in child-rearing (though its officials have recently been responsible for the most horrendous cases of neglect of children by very the social services who should protect them). Also, that it is ‘irresponsible’ for a family to have more than two children because of their ‘carbon footprint’.

The BBC is something I used to feel proud of, but it has degenerated into a mouthpiece for the left-liberal, politically-correct thought-police who have worked methodically over the years to trash any sense of pride in British history, mock Christianity and Christian values, undermine law and order, marriage and the family and dumb down education.

And it is there that my concerns really hit home, because I have to decide which country I want my son to be educated in. Unfortunately, schools in the UK are so bad that educational issues are only of secondary concern. My main concern would be as basic as safety. Teachers can no longer impose much in the way of disciplinary sanctions because they might infringe on their students’ ‘rights’. As a result, indiscipline is rife and bullying flourishes – a telling symbol of which is the stab-proof blazer marketed by school suppliers.

I will mention just one specific example widely reported in the national press. A few months ago a teacher was being held down and strangled by a pupil, but other teachers dared not intervene in case they were accused of assault. One brave teacher eventually got the boy to release his grip by bending his thumbs back.

If the pupils ever get enough peace from the disruptive elements to concentrate on their lessons, what are they taught? This year a new ‘curriculum’ has been introduced in primary schools which scraps those boring old ‘subjects’ like history and geography and replaces them with ‘areas of learning’. That’s unlikely to improve on the present situation in which pupils can emerge from the system at age 16 unable to read, write or do basic arithmetic!

By contrast, the PI has a good educational system, and many Philippinos achieve university degrees which are recognised worldwide.

I have been an expat long enough to realise that it is easy to get a distorted perspective because one keeps up with the news in ones own country, but for language and/or cultural reasons, takes less interest in the news of ones host country. Also, I am aware that the poor old, confused home country is still not without a few plus points. That said, my dilemma is genuine. The call of home is strong, but the PI, though a much poorer country with many problems, seems to offer an attractive alternative, especially as a place to bring up children.

Perhaps the deciding factor will be the cost of living. If I relocate to the UK I’ll be Mr Average in a tiny house with a postage stamp garden. In the PI I can live like a king on the same modest pension. As my wife says, the PI is a fantastic place to live if you have money – and we’re not talking about that much money by western standards.

© Bysshe, 2009. All rights reserved by the author.