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!

oblomov we can't strive for balance because what most people want isn't balance, it's over to teh right or the left.No-one could agree what balance evebn is probably, it differs from person to person and even according to subject. A person who might have a very liberal progressive view of education, for example, might be really far to the right when it comes to something like sentancing for crimes.

I strive for my balance, but I'll bet my balance is different to yours.

A corrupted system, matie. Started out grand, went down the pan.

BIG failure and now another mess to be cleaned up.

' 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.'

LOL if you think most HISD (Houston Independent School District) schools are 'decent'.

Typical lazy policy-making from the Tories - just borrow a policy from another country, with a completely different culture, population mix, mentality, world view, etc. instead of using all that expensive private education and brains to think of one tailored to the needs of the here, the UK.

I don't buy it for a minute. Not one.

And I could jump on a plane tonight, kids in hand and go and live in the US from now until the world ends.

Or live here.

Or anywhere else in the EU.

But the US has some major issues itself.

There are not the same as the UK's, as the UK's are not the same as theirs, that is why policies need to be created here, but British people for British people.

that wasn't quite what I was thinking of tispity, more along the lines of potato picking, toilet cleaning, chicken garrotting, etc!

A huge number of immigrants do come over to this country, work hard, and make a life for themselves. Sure, there are a minority who might work illegally or criminally, but most don't, and they're often coming over with no money, language barriers, living in poor areas, etc etc It just shows there IS still some social mobility possible in this country, if you have the appropriate work ethic.

expatinscotland,

Thanks for the explanation.

But it isn't just the States - lots of other countries have the basic concept of charter schools too.

We have our own academies in this country - just not very many of them. Some of them do seem to be working very well, especially in the most deprived areas, like Hackney.

Yes, I think its pretty much broken and what's more I don't think it can be fixed, at least not without measures which would never be sanctioned because they'd be considered too extreme.

These social problems have always existed.

but I do think the rise of the underclass is a more recent phenomenon.

I mostly lived in council accommodation as a kid and people were working class - but they weren't scum. I don't remember anybody drinking white lightening at 10am and even though I was a bit of a handful I would never have dared skip school or swear at an adult.

There being no sense of shame if your kid misbehaved is a fairly new thing I would say.

I've spoken to people in teaching, social work and child psychology who all say that there has been a definite shift for the worse in the past 15 years or so.

When you have a situation where somebody that has never worked a day in his/her life and never intends to - can get more (by working the system) than somebody that works a 40 hour week then something has gone badly wrong.

fortyplus I think hits the nail on the head beautifully when she states that people need to start taking responsibility for themselves, start using their common sense (my addition!), bloody well get on with it, stop blaming others and stop expecting to be micro-managed to within an inch of their lives by "government".

'It just shows there IS still some social mobility possible in this country, if you have the appropriate work ethic.'

AND if you leave your family back in your native country, where the cost of living is far, far lower, so that you are free of childcare restraints and can afford to live on the absolute bare minimum, often sharing a flat with so many the landlord is acting illegally, and then send every penny that you earn above bare necessities out of the country back to your family.

You can even claim tax credits and child benefit to send back, too!

Then everyone can talk about how lazy Brits are in comparison to you.

Agree expatinscotland, but the only reason those low-paid jobs are filled by economic migrants in the first place is because British people have become too precious and molly-coddled to want to do them. Would you want to get up at 6am to wring chickens' necks for the minimum wage, when you could be tucked up nicely in bed for slightly more money?

Do you think those people want to leave their children? They are exploiting an opportunity borne of our laziness and arrogance, and our welfare state, and they do it because the system at home doesn't allow them the luxury of choice.

Groundhogs I am veryc areful about nto allowing the kids toaccess unsuitable games etc, never complain about basic school rules (well I did about the water one but had V Godd reasons), and my kids aredisciplined etc

You don't have to be non-PC to do that. Just sensible.

I don't think Britain is broken, looking upwards from a council house Thatcher era childhood.No more than it was anyway.

'Agree expatinscotland, but the only reason those low-paid jobs are filled by economic migrants in the first place is because British people have become too precious and molly-coddled to want to do them. '

That's not entirely true at all.

Many of them are seasonal or do not offer contracted hours, making the income received unstable and entirely unsuitable with paying rent if you're not living 15 to a flat because cost of living here is so high.

And in many other cultures, it's expected for one person to work away from home AND there is extended family willing and able to look after children.

Here in Scotland and in England, too, a number of employers at these factories and farms were found actively discriminating against hiring Brits not at all because of work ethic, but because they weren't paying the minimum wage.

There was a recent Panorama show about it, featuring a British-Indian young woman going around looking for work undercover.

Oh and

I agree that some areas are more broken than others: the converse side of that is that some are less broken.

I agree with Armadillolots.

And yes there is a more visible undercl;ass but they were always there, I was aware of them.Maybe we need to ditch JK and the people who make it OK to be that way, push them back into their box,but its not new. There are some genuine underclass horribles all ASBOs and the like but a great many mroe who look like the underclass and actually are not,they have jobs and respect but dress the sameway and live in similar palces. Maybe if we took the air out of the worse ones sails by making it a v v uncool thing to be, we'd start realising who is who. Most people are OK.

And yes, Haiti is broken not us. We have roofs and food and I have never yet found a street I cannot walk down without feeling safe(in daylight anyway- I dont like dark). That includes a lot of deprivation areas,and whilst we need to address the poor ones tarring everyone else with the same brush is just unfair.

It's social mobility and selfrespect we need, and given that much of the tory stuff makes mefeel really bad about myself as a carer claiming, I cannot see how that will change anything for the postive.

BTW Dad is the only non-boss's family UK worker in his factory (sausages and burgers, yuck).

The POlish dont work harder. They dont earn less. They do refuse to take holidays because they are scared always for their livelihoods, they work even when really sick and often become very ill at work as a result.

That's not a psoitive, we didn't get workers rights just to ship in loads of people who are tooscared of the poverty they experienced to shout loudly.

I am nto talking about fripperies either- sick leave, annual leave- basic stuff.

"AND if you leave your family back in your native country, where the cost of living is far, far lower, so that you are free of childcare restraints and can afford to live on the absolute bare minimum, often sharing a flat with so many the landlord is acting illegally, and then send every penny that you earn above bare necessities out of the country back to your family.

You can even claim tax credits and child benefit to send back, too!

Then everyone can talk about how lazy Brits are in comparison to you."

Sorry, don't buy that. Sure STAYING on benefits because that's what you've always done/parents do/everyone else does CAN be the easy(er) option. But getting on them in the first place? A nightmare. Getting on them when you're not a national? Even harder.

And your claims simply don't tally with the primary schools up and down the country where half the class now speak Polish/Ukranian/Urdu. That's not British tax payers supporting children in other countries, that's families settling here, working their nobs off, PAYING taxes, and trusting in our education system to give their children better opportunities than they would ever have at home.

It is no coincidence that many of the jobs with the longest hours and lowest pay are done by immmigrants, and it's not because of our cushy welfare system. Our cushy welfare system is the reason those jobs aren't done by the long-term unemployed.

in fact I've just re-read this sentence with some astonishment:
" often sharing a flat with so many the landlord is acting illegally"
are you trying to say that it is the immigrants' fault that the landlords' are in breach of the law?

That rather neatly takes us back to the issue of modern day Brits refusing to take responsibility for their own actions...

'But getting on them in the first place? A nightmare. Getting on them when you're not a national? Even harder.'

It's not hard at all. Not when you're an EU national. You are not subject to immigration restrictions.

The tax credits application and the child benefit form are available in a multitude of languages.

'And your claims simply don't tally with the primary schools up and down the country where half the class now speak Polish/Ukranian/Urdu. '

This demonstrates nothing about a person's immigration status. My father was an American citizen by birth. So was I. Neither one of us spoke a word of English when we entered school.

We rarely spoke English at home.

Millions of Brits who are not immigrants don't speak English at home at all.

IF the whole problem is people being used to too much state support and noone taking responsibility for themselves, how come the Scandinavian welfare states have not had far greater social and moral problems over the last 4 decades? Couldn't get more molly coddled than Sweden in the early 80s, could you? A country that was (and is) renowned for its low teenage pregnancy rates

are you trying to say that it is the immigrants' fault that the landlords' are in breach of the law?

That rather neatly takes us back to the issue of modern day Brits refusing to take responsibility for their own actions...

If I had meant to say that, I would have, so please stop trying to twist my words round because everyone can see what you're doing.

I've worked voluntarily with many immigrants, particularly from former French colonies here, because I speak French.

Rogue landlords abound here and a lot of immigrants don't realise it's illegal for to rent a one bed flat to 15 people or not fix the boiler.

Apologies for not using quotation marks:
'are you trying to say that it is the immigrants' fault that the landlords' are in breach of the law?

That rather neatly takes us back to the issue of modern day Brits refusing to take responsibility for their own actions... '

I think the media promote an idea of broken Britain, and I resent them for it.

My corner of Britain isn't broken. My kids and I get looked after when we're ill; we get opportunities when we're well (for example, the children's centre where I virtually lived when i was getting on my feet learning to manage 2 under 3s). Now, as we walk to our local school we say hello to shopkeepers, streetsweepers and lollipop ladies. My DD has great friends at school and at (generally subsidised) clubs. But, of course I'm not living in the 'real world'; only in inner-city London.

I don;t like an external body - such as DCam or the Daily Wail - trying to barge into my life and make me afraid. That is not the experience of me or of the people around me.

Our corner of Britain isn't very broken, either.

Nor have I ever lived on benefits.

OK, expat, I understand you clearer now. Not trying to twist anything..

Likewise, I appreciate there are lots of reasons for non-English speaking children to be at primary schools, I'm not trying to oversimplify anything here.

But there are places across the country - and quite a few of them - where schools and other public services now have to cater for Eastern European languages when they didn't just 10 years ago. To me that's a very clear trend people were coming here because a) there was work available b) they were willing to do it c) Britain was preferable to the country they were leaving to raise a family in, and I don't see why any of that is controversial.

And, to go back to the OP, if we're all supposedly harking back to some golden era where there was stronger communities, less material wealth and greed, a simpler way of life etc etc - well, there are plenty of people who live in countries which are still like who would clearly rather be over here, cleaning our toilets and scrubbing our sprouts.

yeah, it was a feeling of community shame and responsibility that led to unmarried pregnant girls being spirited away to give birth, from where they returned with hollow eyes, no baby but a very stiff upper lip. .

'looking away' is just another side of the coin to 'tolerance'.