Broken Britain?

[Spiritual_Beggar]

Well, what do you guys think;

Is Britain Broken?


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8150271.stm


Just read this article.

Found it quite an interesting read, and yet at the same time, very sobbering. It does not paint a pretty picture for the future of Britain if we continue at the same rate.

Are things really this bad? Do people notice difference between 'now' and 'then'? Is this just more BBC scaremongering or is there so truth behind this?

Does this also highlight how deluded, and detatched from society, Brown & Labour (and to an extent, the rest of the politicians) have become?



Your thoughts?

Edited by Spiritual_Beggar on Thursday 16th July 13:47

[FourWheelDrift]

True in so many ways, it's been allowed to fester because of health & safety, pointless regulations, changes of attitude to crime and punishment and the blame culture of modern Labour Britain.


And Brown keeps on with his blinkered fingers in his ears "nothing is wrong, la la la la la" ways. Repeating "We are the party of the many, you are the party of the few" to anything the opposition says. Although he is true in one respect, Labour are the party of the many mistakes and the conservatives are the party of the few, only the conservatives learn from their mistakes and fix them, not brush them under the carpet and say everything is fine.

[Rob_T]

journalists don't seem capable of reporting good news, or perhaps editors choose to ignore them as they feel good news won't sell.

i think if news editors were forced, for just one week, to report on good, positive, uplifting stories, they would be doing us all a favour. and who knows, perhaps their circulations might even increase!

[tinman0]

Rob_T said:

journalists don't seem capable of reporting good news, or perhaps editors choose to ignore them as they feel good news won't sell.

i think if news editors were forced, for just one week, to report on good, positive, uplifting stories, they would be doing us all a favour. and who knows, perhaps their circulations might even increase!

I hear North Korea is good for this!

[T89 Callan]

tinman0 said:

Rob_T said:

journalists don't seem capable of reporting good news, or perhaps editors choose to ignore them as they feel good news won't sell.

i think if news editors were forced, for just one week, to report on good, positive, uplifting stories, they would be doing us all a favour. and who knows, perhaps their circulations might even increase!

I hear North Korea is good for this!

Hmmmmm....

Kim Jong Il


Gordon Brown

[EDLT]

One thing really stood out in that barely disguised advert:

The article said:

deep cleavage

[DAVEVO9]

[Negative Creep]

I think there is a big problem with drink. Our entire culture is now based not on going out and having a good time, but on getting wrecked; this will inevitably filter down to younger generations. I've no idea of the solution though, but don't other European countries manage it?

[FourWheelDrift]

Also down to the limited drinking hours, people tend to drink quickly to get in as much as possible which is not good. Then if they go abroad or the hours are longer they still drink at the same rate.

[heebeegeetee]

FourWheelDrift said:

True in so many ways, it's been allowed to fester because of health & safety, pointless regulations, changes of attitude to crime and punishment and the blame culture of modern Labour Britain.


And Brown keeps on with his blinkered fingers in his ears "nothing is wrong, la la la la la" ways. Repeating "We are the party of the many, you are the party of the few" to anything the opposition says. Although he is true in one respect, Labour are the party of the many mistakes and the conservatives are the party of the few, only the conservatives learn from their mistakes and fix them, not brush them under the carpet and say everything is fine.

The first reply blames Gordon Brown and New Labour. Yet i can recall people saying this sort of stuff decades before anyone had heard of Gordon Brown and new Labour. In the '80s I was working for Pickfords moving people who were leaving Britain because they were sick of Thatchers Britain.

My mother who was 69 when she died 2 years ago used to tell me that all her life she heard people saying Britain was finished.

It is amazing to see/hear people who think history began in 1997.

[FourWheelDrift]

It was never this bad.

[heebeegeetee]

FourWheelDrift said:

It was never this bad.

Everybody has always said this too, always.

And i don't think it's a statement that bears scrutiny. I mean, you might decide a certain period was better, say the 1950's, but then think about what it might have been like to be black at that time, or homosexual, when you could be imprisoned over something you have no control over.

The further back you go the worse it gets.

[Colonial]

Bloody whingeing poms

[IforB]

heebeegeetee said:

FourWheelDrift said:

It was never this bad.

Everybody has always said this too, always.

And i don't think it's a statement that bears scrutiny. I mean, you might decide a certain period was better, say the 1950's, but then think about what it might have been like to be black at that time, or homosexual, when you could be imprisoned over something you have no control over.

The further back you go the worse it gets.

Yep. The old rose tinted specs aren't a new invention. In real terms, we are far better off as a society than at any time in history. (Apart from 2 years ago I suppose!)

We sure as hell don't live in utopia and there are many things wrong with the world today.

Most of the problems and frustrations people have can be laid squarely at the feet of the media. They excel at winding people up and convincing them that the world is about to implode under a sea of illegal immigrants, teenage mothers and chavs, whilst trying to convince us that the 50's and 60's were a utopian ideal, despite the small things like smog, polio, blatant racism, sexism, risk of nuclear war and worst of all, Cilla Black topping the charts.............Shudder.

Whilst I get increasingly concerned about the rise of the nanny state, the rise of the internet and the power it has given all of us, mitigates this. Information cannot be suppressed for long or even at all anymore and this is one of the biggest changes in society since Ug found out that rubbing two sticks together might be a useful trick.

As Macmillan said "You've never had it so good."

[thehawk]

I think the big problems with British society are :

-Political correctness
-Too much emphasis on 'human rights'
-Total lack of genuine respect for anyone or anything
-Too much sense of entitlement
-Lack of personal accountability and responsibility
-Too much focus on material wealth
-The celebrity culture
-No discipline shown
-Aspects of the drinking culture

[nonegreen]

thehawk said:

I think the big problems with British society are :

-Political correctness
-Too much emphasis on 'human rights'
-Total lack of genuine respect for anyone or anything
-Too much sense of entitlement
-Lack of personal accountability and responsibility
-Too much focus on material wealth
-The celebrity culture
-No discipline shown
-Aspects of the drinking culture

THis may well be the case PC ness is certainly a big problem. As for human rights, to me its more a case of drawing a line in the sand and saying " you cross the line, you lose your right to be treated as a human" For example the current knife crime trend could be cured in 2 weeks just by making a law "carry a knife, get flogged" simple, instant and effective.

THe total lack of respect starts with the top. The gummint have no respect for anything so niether do the people. In any case whats to respect when the Head of state is a benefit chav?

THere is definately a sense of too much sense of entitlement among the benfit class. Those who have paid for everything and are really entitled, eg motorists are persecuted, hence the resentment.

Most definately a lack of personal accountability. Hundreds of thousands of people working for quangos like the LSC and the FSA who have clearly failed completlely yet refuse to fall on their sword. These people are real scum and characterise everything wrong with our society. Is it any wonder with that as the public sector model that private individuals seek to decieve yet show no remorse when caught?

[thehawk]

nonegreen said:

thehawk said:

I think the big problems with British society are :

-Political correctness
-Too much emphasis on 'human rights'
-Total lack of genuine respect for anyone or anything
-Too much sense of entitlement
-Lack of personal accountability and responsibility
-Too much focus on material wealth
-The celebrity culture
-No discipline shown
-Aspects of the drinking culture

THis may well be the case PC ness is certainly a big problem. As for human rights, to me its more a case of drawing a line in the sand and saying " you cross the line, you lose your right to be treated as a human" For example the current knife crime trend could be cured in 2 weeks just by making a law "carry a knife, get flogged" simple, instant and effective.

THe total lack of respect starts with the top. The gummint have no respect for anything so niether do the people. In any case whats to respect when the Head of state is a benefit chav?

THere is definately a sense of too much sense of entitlement among the benfit class. Those who have paid for everything and are really entitled, eg motorists are persecuted, hence the resentment.

Most definately a lack of personal accountability. Hundreds of thousands of people working for quangos like the LSC and the FSA who have clearly failed completlely yet refuse to fall on their sword. These people are real scum and characterise everything wrong with our society. Is it any wonder with that as the public sector model that private individuals seek to decieve yet show no remorse when caught?

The chav is often used as a scapegoat, but they are really just the more visible thicker elements of society - I think the problems go across all sections from top to bottom.

Human Rights has just gone too far and started creating the opposite effect to what it should do. Himan Rights should cover the basics only, not whether prisoners need playstations or schoolkids being able to ignore teachers etc.

[heebeegeetee]

thehawk said:

I think the big problems with British society are :

-Political correctness
-Too much emphasis on 'human rights'
-Total lack of genuine respect for anyone or anything
-Too much sense of entitlement
-Lack of personal accountability and responsibility
-Too much focus on material wealth
-The celebrity culture
-No discipline shown
-Aspects of the drinking culture

I think this is absolutely right, but i think the people who suffer all these the most are our ruling/political/business class(es), hence why the UK has gone bust.

We now have a huge strata of important people who seem to feel they they should receive a bonus just for getting out of bed in the morning. The notion of simply doing the job one is remunerated for seems to have gone.

[rickybouy]

I think thehawk has summed it up in very well i would add one more bullet about tougher punishments. I live in the U.A.E where we have a harsh system for criminals and there are some problems with that but we have virtually no crime. It really does seem very simple to me on how to correct the problems, just needs the british people to say enough is enough!

[Mr POD]

Negative Creep said:

I think there is a big problem with drink. Our entire culture is now based not on going out and having a good time, but on getting wrecked; this will inevitably filter down to younger generations. I've no idea of the solution though, but don't other European countries manage it?

No it's not.

It always was like that for some, but for most it's a life of sober struggling.