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!

Actually Riven's comment about the police bringing you home reminds me - I was chatting with some friends in their mid-30s to 40s the other day about scrapes they got into when they were younger, and quite a few of them were scooped up by police and taken home. But they weren't charged, just given a stern talking to and made to feel a bit of a prat.

Likewise, most of my friends used to drink in pubs underage. The landlord knew they were underage, their parents knew they were in there. So they could have a pint of something mild and sit quietly in the corner without drawing attention to themselves. As soon as anyone started acting like an idiot, they were out the door.

It's not like nobody ever drank too young or got into trouble a few generations ago, it's just that we didn't label it, or put crime statistics on it to make us all feel bad.

And of course what it did mean is that they weren't getting paralytic in a bus shelter somewhere.

Yes Britain has always been broken. Every generation looks back approx. 50/60 years and says things were so much better then. Golden ages only exist in the minds of future generations.

Urgh David Cameron. He is a greasy little con artist.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with shame when it's used in the right place!

I wouldn't call it genuine shame when child abuse was covered up, or communities packed unmarried pregnant girls off to 'sort out the problem' - that was about covering up, papering over the cracks to keep a veneer of respectability.

Genuine shame is about recognising when you have left yourself or others down, treated yourself or others badly. It's only in recognising that, that people can move forward. If the Doncaster boys had experienced genuine shame about some of their earlier crimes, then perhaps they wouldn't have progressed to this one.

sorry twinset. which word should i have used ?
'supposedly christian ' ?
'christian based principles'
'general lovingness generally'

sorry. didn't mean to make this a religion issue. surely you knew what i meant, 'roughly ' ?

agree with 30.
i grew up in the middle of dartmoor. i used to get on the bus for a half - 16, get off and walk in the club, being 18.
i had a few drinks, but not coma'tose-d, like you see girls lying in the gutter now. and like i say i am not a deliquent now.
and the police bought me home when i was caught shoplifting. the sahme. i never did anything naughty again.
like anyone would care, these days.

twinset. sorry too. misunderstood. seen you on many threads recently. i want to get my dd into local catholic school. and thought your post was odd, but now get it.

no no . ds1 is at lovely catholic school. i was at mass this morning. i was shocked at a lady on a thread recently questioning the catholic faith but wanting her dd to go to the local catholic school. ypou were on that thread too.

twinset and oblomov digress. as you were ladies.

I am dreading them getting back in, I remeber all the sleaze, lots of extra marital affairs and odd going ons...

'Urgh David Cameron. He is a greasy little con artist.'

Zac Goldsmith even worse. A man who lied and cheated on his wife and family for years; traded in his 35-year-old wife for a 25-year-old model.

A man who has designs to represent Britain, but who is a non-dom here so he gets out of paying tax whilst the rest of us who work pay away.

A tax-dodging scumbag as bad as the worst 'scrounger' anyone can dream up.

Speaks volumes about the Tory party without saying a word.

all the leaders are awful. they are all as slimey as eachother.

Compared to places like Haiti, Britain is far from broken.

Read any Dickens novel and you can see that social depravity goes back a long way on this island. I think thet there will always be an element of feckless souls like myself!

I can't speak for the 50's and 60's but my own experience of growing up in 70's & 80's is that things haven't changed so very much.

I was always out at the weekend, getting far too drunk, 3 shots for a £1, bottles of martini in the loos at work whilst we got ready to hit the town. I'm not saying it was right, but I can't see it's that different now.

A friend of mine used to drink around the back of the shops with friends and even set an old farm building alight which burned to the ground. Said friend grew up went to University and is a totally respectable member of society.

My point is, young people make mistakes, not all of them are rotten through and through yet they get blamed for so much of the problems in our society. If we're talking about responsbility, what about some responsibility on us adults for the crap lives some children still have to lead? We're supposed to be in charge, are we not? Should society not share in the blame for what happened at Edlington?

I just think we're far too ready to judge other people now and to blame all the ills of society on others.

My elderly neighbour told me yesterday that 'all young 'uns today are on drugs and are robbers'

Dh's family still tell funny stories about how dh drunk himself comatose as a teen. Or about how greatgrandma hit the cider and gin (taken together as she had some vague notion that cider was kiddie's stuff).

These days, in the similar lower middle class setting where we live, there'd be a lot more shame attached to these incidents.

Sadly, being a politician has become so career onrietated that those in power are just too far removed from the majority. Lots of MPs are barristers who, lets face it, are highly skilled in bending the truth to sell an idea in the way they want.

To my mind, if you're going to be minister of education (for example) you should have experience of being a teacher. Likewise, minister for health, a nurse or doctor. Most of us wouldn't have been given our jobs if we didn't have the relevant skills. How can a barrister or economist know the first thing about the needs of Joe Bloggs. They have no experience of being them.

I don't have any trust in or respect for any politician. They are only interested in bettering themselves and furthering their careers.

(apols to any barristers, economists etc who take offence - I don't mean to tar everyone with the same brush)

I was a real geek at school. I got my a-levels and a degree and now I'm a single mum.

People like Cameron tend to think that single mums grow up sniffing glue or that our children will end up that way.

I think that drugs permeate all strata of our society. In the private school that I attended most of the kids were snorting coke and speed in the loos at break.

I think that the upper classes can get away with more bad behaviour but want to look down on people so blame all societies ill on the working class.

I do also think that the young are blamed for a lot of societies ills.

I think DC is a spineless lazy arse who rips off crap ideas from the US and sells them to people as policy.

My eyebrow always rises to the heavens when something exceptionally horrific happens and journos start trying to panic us all into thinking that it must represent some newfangled modern life trend.

The boys who attacked those other two boys came from an exceptionally horrendous family background. It is an exceptionally extreme case of unimaginable abuse generating more unimaginable abuse. That kind of stuff is SO rare on a national level. It is no more representative of a trend/ general problem with our nation than is Jonathan Ross being an overpaid wazzock or young autistic men hacking into the CIA's computers.

Newspapers depend on hysteria like a vampire depends on human blood. All they're trying to do is to get us to buy more papers.

I remember the marvellous Andrew Marr saying 'If a headline asks you a question you can be safe that the answer is going to be: No.' So save your money or spend it on chocolate instead

long post - musings

The rise of rampant consumerism and materialism is not to blame for all societies ills but it has created a weird juxtaposition of complex attitudes and wants for all social British classes and migrants. Someone pointed out earlier that an "unbroken" society is one where each member of society has a stake in it.

Many understand that education is the key to social mobility. Education has allowed to me to live many different lives all before i'm 40. I've travelled and lived abroad (to the fancy famous hotels in europe and to impoverishment in Romania, owned and sold modest property, lazed and partied as a student, had friends or come into daily contact with people in all stratas of british society from those described as 'feral' to proper 'toffs. I've worked in bars, in education and in business. I've lived very frugally and lived comfortably. Now I'm a mother and my ideas of what my responsibities and my rights/entitlements in this society are changing all the time to others or what i thought before. I've made the most of the opportunities without even realising what they were.

Sometimes I feel the government is telling me to eat up all my dinner because of the starving in africa and I should be grateful for what I have. But the shiny box in the corner shows me a different brighter shinier life that i sometimes have reached out and experienced but ultimately I know is either a life one has through luck or a very hard slog......and it causes me resentment somewhere deep down. But hey ho - you know what this life will do me fine and I don't see what I'm doing so wrong compared to others.

They are telling the same to others who come from a far much worse and disadvantaged position, who have never met the same people I have, who aren't as educated or have the get and up and go or "bright enough" to work out what is holding them back. The opportunities ARE there but the reality is they feel the government is telling to eat up all their dinner because of the starving in africa and they should be grateful for what they have. But the shiny box in the corner shows them a different life......and it causes a resentment on the surface because they have no stake in that and some of the basic entitlements are just their lot.

It's not nice to feel you are scum or forgotten in this society but a factory or low skill mundane job, modest house, 2 weeks off a year, holiday by the sea in the UK, good free healthcare is not going to cut it for a particular (note not all)great majority in society when they are young or disadvantaged in the first place. It's just not worth the effort in your eyes and limited world experience and the drugs and drinking culture just add to that. Consumer society wants more because it sees more and actually if I can have bits where I can sit out the short term on drink and drugs and partying when I'm young and oblivious to the long term consequences or the cycle of despair I might be setting up for my future generations- i'll do that -thanks. I don't care if those further up the social ladder want me to get up off my bottom and find work (there's no jobs I'm willing to do or will support my family properly , just as you would not be willing do it either) Sweeping the streets of snow which some say I should do for my benefits is demeaning to me and just because I'm not as bright or as healthy or as educated as you-doesn't mean I don't know a good deal or a bum wrap when I see one. Don't tell me I have the opportunity to become a doctor or an oxbridge candidate when I'm at school- people like me don't want to and will never be. Nor do I want to do and fight and serve my country which coveniently wiped out asizeable proportion of my so called underclass of jobless folk a couple of generations ago and before that whenever this country had a war.I've seen the reality and those that don't make it home on the telly. But hey ho - you know what this life will do me fine for now and I don't see what I'm doing so wrong compared to others.

Apathy is the luxury we can all nowadays really afford in our society... that what's broken.