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!

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

Says it all, really.

Excellent post, isolde.

I suspect you had a very different upbringing to methen: my aprents were always pro-education but actually I thought that Universities were forpriavte schoolkids,werefeepaying and even though I fancied it didn't even bother asking as I knew we could not afford it. Scholl did nopthing to make me think I had a future above the factories, I remember doing something in the fifth year- a performance- and my tutor of five years saying 'I didn't know you had it in you'. My responsewas to think- why didn't you? Because my clothes are shabby and myhair needs a good cut? well, yes it would have been that.

There is mroe socialmobility now than when I was small but even then, it'sWC - MC, not UC upwards. Why not? Expectations has to have something to do with it.

Someone earlier mentioned those towns where everyone is on benefits. I worked in one, as a student mentor. Did we have kids from the benefit claiming householdreferred? Did we hell! What we got was little Johnny whose teacher parents thought he could do better but wasn'treally interested, or littleDebs who had crippling dyslexia so needed to find a direction that wasn't academic but which her parents coulda ccept as nice.

What we never ever saw was the kids who had potential but nothing else. Sadly. And that was because the teachers didn't send them.

Oh, for the glory days when life expectancy was 28, when children as young as 3 worked in the mills, when typhoid was rife, when women were denied the vote, when gin palaces were on every corner, when opium was legal, when thousands of fathers went off to fight foreign wars and never returned, when everyone bar the very wealthy were uneducated and illiterate...

Things aren't great for some folks in 2010 but for the vast, vast majority things are a bloody sight better now than they have been at any point in history.

Cameron is an idiot of the highest order.

Oh and DC

David Cameron: Putting the Harm in Charm

Sorry something else

Riv mentioned you wouldnt be brought home by the police

Well no you wouldnt onmy estate either (most of us) but neither did you have anywhere to go when your dad smacked you up or your parents were too out of their heads on whatever to cope. The wholefamily pride thing meant you didn't say anything, you kept it behind closed doors. Whens choolfound out my Mumwas beating me up, I asked them to keep quirt becuase I felt it would shame us. Fabulous. Shame people out of poverty and into hell, IME.

That's not genuine shame though, as I said in an earlier post. That's wanting to keep a false veneer of respectability.

There's nothing wrong with wanting people to feel genuine shame when it's appropriate. The parent who beats up a child should feel shame!

Right, in theory I agree with you, but I am not so sure one does occur without the other; I do think they feed each other sadly as notions.

My life as a 'forced'benefit claimant would be massively improved if everyone in the underclass was forced into work, made respectable, wahtever- it would certainly take the stick for beating me from a fewpeoples hands. I just don't think its that easy to solve, and comparing my life in a nice village with excellent educationalprovision etc with life on the estae- i just think yo truly get it you do need to have experienced it, its inbred and as reactive as it is defensive. Given that a great mahy solutions people suggest would damage the self respect that imo is the only escape key, it'sgoing to take some truly creative solution to change everything.

And of course,if we're asking people to get a education / job / whatever it is we define as personally respectable,can we make sure they exist as an option first please? There'sno point telling kids their education is everything when the entire school is in specialmeasures,or asking someone to get a job where there is none (living near one of the worst hit cities from this collapse I am uber conscious of that right now).

Noa ctually it was shame: shame that my mother could do that, that we couldn't be a 'normal'family (I didnt understand then that she was on MH drugs and strugglinG)... It was misdirected shame butabsolutrly it was shame,

Misdirected shame might as well be any emotion though, because the whole point is, it's not the appropriate emotion!

Genuine, properly directed shame has bog all to do with 'respectability' or 'keeping up appearances' - it's about realising that your actions are harmful to others and to yourself. And it's a great pity there isn't more of it about, felt by people who should feel it.

How does DC know it's broken? He doesn't KNOW any poor people. I know, let the old Etonian sort out the proles. What a jolly good idea, chaps!

violethill, by that definition, shame only happens when people do things you disapprove of. I'm sure that's not what you meant.

I think what Peachy felt was indeed shame, as she was yet to realise she had nothing to be ashamed of.

if you read charles Dickens you can see that Britain was never 'fixed'.
There are definite improvements from then though aren't there? If so many people didn't read and believe the complaining newspapers then they wouldn't feel so depressed. i also think the rolling news doesn't help. you just have to look around you.

I don't think we should hide from unpleasantness. It hasn't happened to me so it doesn't matter.. I don't think so.

I don't think we should be comparing ourselves to Dickensian living either. We are in a rather desperate state if we're thinking that at least it's better than the poorhouse.

"I don't think we should be comparing ourselves to Dickensian living either"

But the phrase 'Broken Britain' implies that it was previously intact... any idea when that was then, upandrunning?

I have just read this on another thread:

'As a professional working with criminals and knowing how drug dealers, in particular those dealing hard drugs work, I would be very wary of reporting a drug dealer to the police, or a house as a 'drugs den'. They would not forgive very easy, and with children i would worry about repercussions.'

I understand where the poster came from completely, but this is the kind of thing that needs to change.

Yes, because drugs are so harmless.

What a sad statement on society that post is, Prinnie!

Britain has never been "intact", surely: apparently there's always a "golden age" which people look back to and it's always forty years before the time one is at.

However it has been better than the Dickensian era for a long time: since then we have seen universal suffrage, the welfare state, universal free education, the national health service and so on. So to be reduced to comparing our condition to that is a sign of desperation, I think.

I haven't seen any "trouble" but I don't doubt that it's there, one can't hide away from it. That does seem a little bit I'm alright Jack, to say one shouldn't read the papers.

The problems localise themselves: for example, burglaries are not spread over random houses but are often repeat attacks in the same vulnerable areas. Average vulnerability, or one's own vulnerability, being "low" does not mean we can forget those who suffer appallingly because they are in the wrong place. I'm surprised at anyone on mn suggesting such a thing.

Yes, good point and I would add that once you have water and power that don't ever fail, and most people have even a half decent school to go to, one can quickly forget what it was like before.

It doesn't feel like we are moving forward at the moment though. It feels like we are moving towards ghettos sometimes. Life is pretty ok but there are subsections suffering so badly, and it's not just about money: money often doesn't seem to help. More about expectation, hope, social conscience, possibly?

I've never come across you before upandrunning....but have read what you've posted in the last few days and I agree with everything you say....

The only thing the tories have changed is their language - it used to be single mothers, now it's lone parents . Their attitude remains the same.

Dc uses the phrase broken Britain to win him votes and make Labour look bad. It's catchy so it's now bandied about.