to find the whole Broken Britain thing a load of horse crap?

[slightlystressed]

It's really irratating me now, Britain has never been "fixed".

I know Mr Smuggness will be our next PM, and I've been trying to avoid him, but he's frikin' EVERYWHERE! Using the Edlington case to highlight his theory was pretty poor aswell.

God, Im going to unplug the TV for a few days after the Election, his smuggness just might make me explode!

well the report focused on 16 yr old who knew how to milk the system. then said thta lots of people did that in one way or another.
was it riven ? who said people grow up not knowing anyone in their immed family who works. they are all on benefits.
it can't be just my imagination, or media, that makes me think this is true.

The chips on a bus thing happened in islington, which is sort of near me. It made national press though as it was a very rare indiscriminate attack.

I wouldn't mind having chops thrown at me though am greedy...

twin&p, i live in surrey and know a couple of asbo's and there was a chip throwing & a stabbing after chasing a handbag mugger, both in surrey in the last year.

ONE 16 year old girl who they had wheeled out for the interview.

Yes ut happens, but it is NOT an epidemic, it just isn't. Most 16yo toe the line go to school maybe onto uni get a job do some dating dabble in drugs and yes maybe a little minor antisocial behaviour. Same as when I was a girl. I don't see that things have changed.

The thing is as Riven says a lot of this 'benefits culture' was created by the closing of the mines and other tory policies that caused a great deal of unemployment.

There are still areas where the majority are on benefits - like a small town my friend comes from.

Most of the employment was created by the mines and a couple of factories. When these were closed virtually everyone was unemployed. To get to any other place of work you have to be able to travel a long distance. That means a car as the public transport is virtually non existant. To have a car you need a job to pay for it but without a car you can't get a job. SO you are stuck. That's it. Your outgoings are higher because the only local shops are high priced corner shops etc. The only choice for those growing up there is to get a good education and get out. But that means getting a good education in the terrible local schools and then moving far from family and friends. Like my friend did - but the sacrifice is that she is far away from her family (all of it - not just parents/siblings) and when one of her grandparents dies or one of her parents become very ill (both of which have happened recently) she is racked with guilt and spends all her spare time travelling to see them.

And she is one of the lucky ones. Most of those that stay there face a lifetime of unemployment and benefits - not because they choose it but cos that is all there is.

Dp has been unemployed for 9 months - constantly applying for jobs. But the area we live in has a huge rate of unemployment. There are 100s if not 1000s going for each and every job. Now we learn another 300 (in dps field of experience) are going to be made unemployed. That's another 300 going for each job that comes up. So even the jobs he is qualified for and has the experience for have a huge competition going for them.

So again we join those on benefits (yes I am working but not highly paid). And at the moment there is no sign of getting off it.

Labour created a solution to a problem that they didn't cause. While it is not a perfect solution - and there are major problems. It was a reaction to someone elses cockup.

ISNT, I do agree with you, most people go to work, law abide.
But we are all fed up aren't we. ? with the government, with society, with the way we treat eachother in a not very christian way ?
feels like society is getting worse.
dh and i work hard. have little left over. we know large % of people of benefits need it and don't want to be on them. but there are people, yes a minority, like,... a know a silly example, but wipe-swap family of loads of children, who had more disposable income than the family working, who they swapped with. and then we think, hang on the system is failing us here.

My mum and both agree, that it is almost unbearable to read any paper of watch the news, becasue it is almost depressing.

I can't be the only one who feels this.

drugs are cheaper and more available now too.

if you think it ain't broken, come to camden anytime of day or night and i'll point out some of the interesting sights which the untrained eye would miss

I agree with unquietdad. and rivens earlier post.
we need balance.
people talk of the 60's and 70's as if it was ALL bad back then. yes abuse was prob more hidden. so we have got better in that sense.
but we have swung to the other extreme, of anything goes, children ruling, swearing at teachers, falling over and suing the first person you can.
we need balance.

oblomov I agree that there seems to be a more selfish culture these days - but I also wonder whether that is to do with me growing up and becoming more "hardened" and seen it all before, and that older people have always bemoaned "people today" etc.

However the OP was about cameron and when he talks about broken britain he is assuredly not talking about a well off person who treats others shittily and never gives way to pedestrains when driving his 4x4

tispity which part of camden?

We won't get balance though.We get swing too far to the left, then the right, then back the otehr way, and oscillate forever. Balance will never be achieved, in our lifetimes anyway, not with the political system that we have at the moment.

Groundhogs, I've only got as far as your post and I think it's terrific and on the spot.

i know i grew up in the good old days of going out in the morning, and not coming home till dinnertime, in the summer holidays.
but i didn't swear at teachers. i don't think that easy access to alcohol is th eproblem. I managed to get hold of some young, and I am not a deliquent.

most teenagers have everything done for them, are molley-coddled and wrapped in cotton wool.

our parenting over the last generation leaves alot to be desired. and it is getting worse and worse.

you only have to watch some tv programme, liek dr tanys byron, mother after mother says ' oh i don't want to say no, i am worried she/he won't love me'

I'm like. kids rule. what has happened to this generation, where we are so spineless, re our parenting skills ?

well, round the back of the BR station would be a good bet. i'm in West Hill myself but i was ahem..."educated" around there!

ISNT we all have to STRIVE for balance, though, surely ?

I agree with groundhogs and Obmolov.

The single best social policy I have heard from the Tories is their new schools policy.

Charter schools work really well in America and are massively oversubscribed. I remember a documentary showing just how successful the charter school in Harlem was working.

It is basically what Tony Blair wanted to do, but the old dinosaurs in the Labour party wouldn't let him. One of the best things that Barack Obama did in Illinois was to double the number of charter schools.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdHBiBy96I8

Improving education is the best way to start to fix a very large number of social problems. The pupil premium, where more money goes to children from the most difficult circumstances, is an excellent idea.

Sure there are hideous parts of the country/community where entire generations are in a situation with high unemployment, poor housing, sub-standard education and health care, etc etc, and nobody's claiming that's right.

But is it actually worse overall than it was before? If you go back to the supposed 'golden era' of everyone nattering with everyone else who lives in their terrace over the yard walls, you're often talking about pre-slum clearance. When large swathes of Britain had sub-Victorian housing standards, overcrowding, infant mortality etc etc.

There are lots of people who are genuinely poor nowadays, but very few people truly live without basic facilities such as running water etc. Nobody can claim that the estates were an unqualified success, but they were built for a reason.

I also think the pits and factory work are over-romanticised a fair bit. Sure there are plenty of lads who grow up with no prospect of a job for life like that whereas their granddad might've done, but there are other dirty, hard labour jobs around and nobody wanted to do them - that's why the Polish, Albanians and other immigrants came to work here. And a bloody good thing they did, as far as large parts of the British workforce goes.

'Charter schools work really well in America and are massively oversubscribed. I remember a documentary showing just how successful the charter school in Harlem was working.'

They are a disaster in other cities. Houston, my native city, is one of those.

It is a very unwise idea to look to the US to decide policy for the UK.

It really is.

The apple didn't fall far from the tree in many respects, but they are also far more used to a police state than the UK, for starters.

"but there are other dirty, hard labour jobs around and nobody wanted to do them - that's why the Polish, Albanians and other immigrants came to work here" - they also make a huge contribution to a certain other industry which could imaginatively be described as dirt, hard labour!!!

expatinscotland,

What was so bad in Houston?

Of course not every new school will be good - but if its not, then parents won't send their kids there.

I think charter schools work best in the MOST deprived areas - they can really make a huge change in life chances. Maybe they don't work so well in places with decent schools already.