Economist says this "broken Britain" malarky is bollocks

[SerenityNowakaBleh]

here and here Obviously", they didn't word it in that way, but that's the gist of it.
The murder rate has dropped
The rate of teenage pregnancies has dropped
The crime rate has dropped
Alcoholism is dropping
Drug use is dropping
Fewer people smoke
There is a decrease in domestic violence ("Her partner will probably not marry her and he is less likely to stick with her than were men in previous generations, but he is also a lot less likely to beat her.")

So, David Cameron. Not that hot on sticking to facts, is he?

yes prospect magazine says the same. our grandmothers where more like to have kids as teenagers than our children. tis all tory handwringing.

Typical nasty conservative scaremongering and sadly lots of people will fall in the trap and throw a vote their way and we will end up in the same mess we did the last time they were in.

MUCH more money in schools than there ever was

I knew it! But I honestly think that some people almost WANT this country to be on its knees, like they thrive on it!
Some people will believe Mr Smug and his cronies no matter what the stats say!

This whole "broken Britain" thing really annoys me. It's so defeatist and just comes across as whiny and brat like. If you compare the UK's problems to some other country's, Sudan for example, it brings everything into sharp relief, and all of a sudden things don't look so bad.

Typical Tory manipulation - i will never ever vote for smug (i remember the havoc they created last time)

There's a piece on this in the telegraph I find interesting [http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/edwest/100025395/economist-uses-dodgy-statistics-to-dismiss-broke n-britain/]

All figures can be misleading (just look at global warming), you can't really say the country is 'better' now than it was in the 70's or 80's or even the 90's because values, attitudes and life prospects are different.

I agree Britain is broken, i'm just not sure any party will be able to fix it, attitudes have gone to far the wrong way. How many generations of the same family have never worked and rely on handouts? (and yes lets all hear the 'it's Maggies fault', but labour have had 12 years to fix the problem and haven't bothered).

I grew up in the 70's and was a teen in the 80's and I don't remember gangs of armed youths on the streets, kids as young as 10 terrorising neighbourhoods. I had no fear of walking home from a night out alone.

We had a great community spirit on my housing estate, people helped each other out, we left our doors unlocked and even open in the better weather and neighbours popped in and out all day. The OAP's could pop their heads out the door and ask anyone to get them a pint of milk and some bread.

We knew everyone in the blocks by first name and welcomed new neighbours (somewhat nosily sometimes)people watched each others kids from their balconies as they played together on the community grass or playground.

We had estate parties on the lawns with big makeshift tables ( usually a sitting room door propped up on grates)and people cooking
cakes and jam sandwiches and christmas and new year parties that everyone could just walk into (no invite required). In the summer we dived into piles of grass cuttings followed by a water fight, in the autumn it was leaves and the winter we had snow fights ( all as a community).

Estate coach trips to such far flung places as Margate and Southend where we all shared our packed lunches and vomited happily after the pleasure beach rides, singing on the way home in the coach.

The 70's and 80's was a great time to be a child, we may not have had nintendo wii and computers in our bedrooms but we had a childhood.

So I would say Britain is Broken and it's only getting worse.

I agree with the Economist article. I don't see society getting worse - just different problems. For example, the decline of the local pubs is due partly to fathers coming home to be with their families rather heading out to the local for a drink. That has to be a good thing. I have been in the process of choosing a school and even in the less desirable schools what is on offer is much better than I had 30 years ago.

This always reminds me of my favourite Biblical quote - a mere 3,000 years old.

"Do not ask 'Oh why were some things so much better in the olden days?' It is not an intelligent question" Ecclesiates, 7:10

Personally I prefer the older relgions that were much wiser including this from native american ;

""If you take the Christian Bible and put it out in the wind and the rain, soon the paper on which the words are printed will disintegrate and the words will be gone. Our bible IS the wind and the rain."

Or in relation to the Labour party they should have remembered ;

"Do what ye will, an it harm none"

I think part of the issue is that, in the past, the media (such as it was) hadn't refined it's ability to fill a paper with 101 variants of "OMG URE GOIN TO DIEE!!!!111!!" seven days a week, and did still produce actual news...

bloomin' heck atlantis

well i remember it somewhat differently - gangs of skinheads and punks, inner cities on fire, our car getting keyed if we ever ventured onto my nan's estate to visit her, and a fair few pervs out on the streets for good measure.

and the clothes were crap

I grew up in the 60s and 70s, atlantis, and we had none of that community spirit you wax so eloquent about.

"I grew up in the 60s and 70s, atlantis, and we had none of that community spirit you wax so eloquent about. "

Well I don't know where you grew up but I was raised on an estate in north London.

I'm not saying it was all rosey. I remember the riots, ( but when haven't the peasants been revolting and who can blame us?). I remember the winter of discontent, shit piling up in the streets, power cuts after tea. I remember the miners strike ( collection buckets and tins of food gratefully received outside our local sainsbury's ).

"and a fair few pervs out on the streets for good measure."

I remember flashers, whatever happened to them (am I just too old to be flashed nowadays or did they all disappear?).

But I do remember the community had a spirit, we did look out for each other, we took care of our own.

"and the clothes were crap "

Yes, yes, the clothes were pretty bad, but i'm sure the kids of the 00's and the 10's will be saying the same in 30-40 years.

marking page for later

just read about half the first article, v interesting

"I grew up in the 70's and was a teen in the 80's and I don't remember gangs of armed youths on the streets, kids as young as 10 terrorising neighbourhoods. I had no fear of walking home from a night out alone."-

I live in an urban community today, about a mile from where I was living in the 80s and I feel no more at risk now than I did then. Still walk home in the evenings. Some people seem more afraid now: have been told that there is a street you should never walk through: but I walk through it every day and have done for the last 16 years: the teens move aside politely.

"We had a great community spirit on my housing estate, people helped each other out, we left our doors unlocked and even open in the better weather and neighbours popped in and out all day. The OAP's could pop their heads out the door and ask anyone to get them a pint of milk and some bread."-

we still help each other here: I think one thing about remembering the helpful spirit of when we were children is that we need to realise that now we are grown-up, we are the ones who have to take the initiative to find out if the neighbours need help and pitch in

"We knew everyone in the blocks by first name and welcomed new neighbours (somewhat nosily sometimes)people watched each others kids from their balconies as they played together on the community grass or playground."

Not much difference there. And anyway, isn't it up to you, or all of us who are adults now, to make sure that new neighbours are welcomed and people are given help when they need it?

"We had estate parties on the lawns with big makeshift tables ( usually a sitting room door propped up on grates)and people cooking
cakes and jam sandwiches and christmas and new year parties that everyone could just walk into (no invite required). In the summer we dived into piles of grass cuttings followed by a water fight, in the autumn it was leaves and the winter we had snow fights ( all as a community)."

Everybody still rushes out into the street to play when there is a snowfall

"Estate coach trips to such far flung places as Margate and Southend where we all shared our packed lunches and vomited happily after the pleasure beach rides, singing on the way home in the coach."

no experience of this one, so have to pass on that

"The 70's and 80's was a great time to be a child, we may not have had nintendo wii and computers in our bedrooms but we had a childhood."

When I last looked, my children were having a childhood. Ds plays out in the street on his bike with the other kids- which is something his dad was never allowed to do as the roads were too dangerous in his part of London.

I certainly feel safer now than I did when living in the red light district during part of the 80s, but about the same as when I lived in similar area to this during rest of the decade. It's all anecdotal evidence, isn't it? Except for the bits that are our own responsibility.

But why should it make a difference where I grew up, atlantis? You were making a blanket generalisation that things were better in the 70s/80s because of the strong community spirit that existed.

It may have done for you in your circumstances, but it didn't exist in mine.

And I grew up in suburban North Leeds, in an estate of 50s semis - where we all locked our doors and cars (if we had them) at night. Down the road from us (c. 200 yards) was a modern council estate, where petty crim was not unusual.

That will be crime, not crim!

Oh, and I wasn't trying to make the link between us feeling unsafe and the council estate down the road, btw, although I realise that the way I wrote my post does make it sound like that!

Things weren't really better in the 70s and 80s if you were black, or gay though were they? (Not speaking from experience though, not being either black, gay or born in the 70s ).

well quite bumperlicious

or if you had a wheelchair....

or were a single parent

or a bit poor

when I grew up it was normal for the "wives and children" not to eat meat so that their husband would have a nice bit of a meat for his dinner - seems so bizarre now, was that just my experience?!

"But why should it make a difference where I grew up, atlantis? You were making a blanket generalisation that things were better in the 70s/80s because of the strong community spirit that existed."

Actually I said this first;

"All figures can be misleading (just look at global warming), you can't really say the country is 'better' now than it was in the 70's or 80's or even the 90's because values, attitudes and life prospects are different."

Then I went on to say about my childhood and how I believed community spirit was better then.

There has always been a north south divide (my cousins all live in Notty ash and there the quality of life was different to mine, but there was still community spirit. Although my parents could afford to buy a house they choose to stay on the estate because of the quality of life.

I also believe that life on the council estates was different to life for those living in the houses that surrounded us ( they never joined in and stayed behind closed doors with the children playing in the garden ) ( too good to play with the poorer children perhaps?).

In my personal view the quality of communities changed when people started buying their council homes, which led to displacement of families, the upwardly mobile generation scattered to the four winds ( should I blame Maggie for this? maybe).

Well I grew up in the 80's when the Tories were in power and it was bloody awful.

My stepfather was violent to my mum and they would scream and bellow as they knocked each other up and down the house. There was no way our neighbours couldn't hear them. Did they help with their burgeoning community spirit? Did they buggery!

Turns out everyone knew how awful he was to her, but they "didn't know what to do to help" as I later found out from an old school friend.

I recently did an OU course about people's perceptions of crime, and the fact is that crime is significantly lower than it was back in the "good ol days". What you have to do us actually analyse the data. Reporting of domestic violence has gone up, but as far as I'm concerned that's a very good thing. Ditto child abuse and sexual assaults. It's not that they're increasing, it's reporting of crimes that is changing. Reporting of petty crimes against property have gone up since the 50's because insurance claims require police reports etc.

The Tory fearmongering is just that, it doesn't reflect reality.

The lack of social cohesion has a lot more to do with job insecurity in the new exciting world of more free market in our economy thanks to Thatcher/Major/Blair/Brown. The next Tory government will make that problem worse IMO.

That is true Dittany

When I was young child abuse was pretty common I'm sure, we used to talk about stuff at school but it didn't have 'a name'. Our school priest slept with some of the boys at school when they were 15/16 - he was just asked to leave the area. The police were told but they left it to the church to deal with! He moved away!

Ah the good old days

"That is true Dittany"

dizietsma, but thanks anyway