# British Dopers, are things in the UK as bad as this Harper's article says they are? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 24, 2011, 6:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/british-dopers-are-things-in-the-uk-as-bad-as-this-harpers-article-says-they-are/600610 "2011-10-24T06:56:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![NDP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ndp/32/55_2.png) [@NDP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NDP)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2011, 6:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/british-dopers-are-things-in-the-uk-as-bad-as-this-harpers-article-says-they-are/600610/1 "2011-10-24T06:56:35Z")
The [“Broken Britain” cover story](http://www.harpers.org/archive/2011/11/page/0036) in the November 2011 of _Harper’s_ states that the overall condition of the UK in terms of socio-economics, infrastructure, personal freedoms, and general quality of life has deteriorated so much that the country is nearly unlivable. Granted, this is one author’s opinion but, as an ignorant Yank, I was under the impression that at least until the current recession, living standards in Britain were at least better than they were 30 years ago. Is it really this bad? ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2011, 7:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/british-dopers-are-things-in-the-uk-as-bad-as-this-harpers-article-says-they-are/600610/2 "2011-10-24T07:01:23Z")
Need to be a subscriber to read it. The standard of living is pretty high. Quality of life, which is subjective, I would argue is pretty low. But I would say that: I left. ---
**Author:** ![NDP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ndp/32/55_2.png) [@NDP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NDP)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2011, 8:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/british-dopers-are-things-in-the-uk-as-bad-as-this-harpers-article-says-they-are/600610/3 "2011-10-24T08:13:09Z")
Sorry about the linked article only being available to subscribers. Here are some noteworthy passages from it. > [@](#): > > Visitors to the United Kingdom may get a hint of this general decomposition upon arrival at London. Heathrow, the grottiest principal airport in the developed world, described by the chief executive of the business group London First, Baroness Jo Valentine, in a damning report in 2008, as having “been turned from a silk purse to a sow’s ear”—an institution so inept that it had to close for four days in December 2010 after a modest snowfall caused it to run out of deicing equipment. > [@](#): > > The state of modern Britain was molded in large part by the Blair years. In 2007, a decade into REPORT 39 the New Labour enterprise, a UNICEF report placed Britain last among twenty-one developed countries for the well-being of children. British children were last in “subjective well-being,” last in the quality of family and peer relationships, but first overall for “risk behaviors,” including drug use, bullying, and drinking—a national phenomenon that turns the centers of British cities into a bedlam of vomiting and fighting every Saturday night. The government’s response was characteristically bereft of concern: “In many cases the data used is several years old and does not reflect more recent improvement s,” said a spokeswoman, in that sneering language of self-assured pique to which > we have become accustomed. Meanwhile, on the material side of things, by October 2007 chief executives in the FTSE 100 (the U.K.’s most highly capitalized companies listed on the London Stock Exchange) had in six years doubled their earnings to an annual average of £3.17 million ($4.9 million). By May 2009, after ten years of Blair’s Labour government (and two years of Gordon Brown’s), the gap between the rich and the poor in Britain was larger than at any time since record-keeping began in the early 1960s. Economic inequality rose for a third successive year, according to the Department for Work and Pensions. The government had not managed to reduce the number of impoverished children and pensioners, despite increases in both categories in 2008. These are just a few of the figures—but the state of affairs is better conveyed by the tone of government, in remarks like that of Blair’s closest adviser, minister without portfolio, and architect of government by“spin,” Peter (now Lord) Mandelson, when he said that he felt “intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich.” > [@](#): > > The cost [of privatization of British Rail] was soon measured in terms of safety as well as higher fares and higher-than-ever government subsidies to bodies maintaining the infrastructure, which was initially run by a company called > Railtrack and then by a “not-forprofit” private entity called Network Rail. Following fatal accidents at Southall, west of London, in 1997 and Ladbroke Grove, in the city’s heart, in 1999, four more people were killed and 102 injured at Hatfield in October 2000 because of cracked lines, after which Railtrack was found guilty of breaching safety laws and construction giant Balfour Beatty was charged with manslaughter. In May 2002, a highspeed train derailed at Potters Bar because of a switch failure, killing seven and injuring seventy-six. In May of this year, Network Rail was fined £3 million ($4.7 million) for safety failures at Potters Bar, after the Jarvis maintenance company accepted responsibility for its part in the accident. The everyday result of rail privatization is manifest to anyone trying to travel around Britain:Europe’s most expensive rail network is certainly its worst. It > costs Britain 40 percent more to operate our private railways than it costs Germany, France, and the Netherlands to run their public ones, though our fares are 30 percent higher. > [@](#): > > [W]hile citizens of Paris, Madrid, Berlin, Vienna, and Stockholm whiz around on cheap, publicly owned, quiet and well-run subways, Londoners lurch around the capital at exorbitant expense to a clamor of pointless loudspeaker announcements. Figures published in June 2011 show that each passenger spends three working days per year delayed on the Tube, our combined journeys lasting twenty hours a year longer than they are scheduled to take by Transport for London. > [@](#): > > The fact that the British people are seen by their own leaders as (often willing) wallets from which to extract cash, and are largely and increasingly uncared for, does not mean that they are out of sight or mind. Quite the reverse: they are very carefully watched. Britain has the most closed-circuit television cameras per capita of any country in the world. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2011, 8:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/british-dopers-are-things-in-the-uk-as-bad-as-this-harpers-article-says-they-are/600610/4 "2011-10-24T08:46:42Z")
Everything above is true. Heathrow is an embarrassment. I’ve said this for years on the SDMB too. Seriously shoddy. Public transport is hellishly expensive - my girlfriend needs to travel from Heathrow to Gatwick in a few months. A one-way ticket on a coach for a journey of less than 1 hour between the two major airports in the capital city costs £25 (US$40)! The last point is not necessarily a bad thing per UK citizens, however. We’ve got used to the CCTV and many people like it due both to crime prevention and to identify perpetrators. But there’s a pettiness now that drives me nuts. Significant avoidance of risk, not necessarily because of the dreaded Health and Safety, but liability risk, like removing an unlit candle from an office where I worked a few years ago because it was a ‘fire risk’. The attitude is summed up in a book I’m reading at the moment - _Lights out in Wonderland_ by DBC Pierre, written last year. It’s satire but it’s right on the money - corporate entities with the decision-makers five or ten layers removed from the people who have to enforce the rules, but without the service culture of the US. It leaves the consumer feeling powerless and frustrated. Edited passage: > [@](#): > > “Single to London please,” I say to the ticket clerk. > He looks up: “Forty-eight pounds thirty, that’ll be.” > “For a single? That’s a pound a minute. And first class?” > “Fifty-five.” > “I’ll have a first-class single, then.” > The clerk stares up through the top of his glasses. “I can do an Advance Saver for thirty-two, if it’s a specified service you want.” > “Then yes, please, the next service.” > He squints at his screen: “That’ll be the twenty-one thirty-six. Departing in ten minutes.” > The train arrives on time, but as I go to board, a platform attendant comes to inspect my ticket. > “This isn’t your service, I’m afraid.” She points at the ticket. > “What? But it’s nine thirty-six.” As I say it, a passing officer slows his patrol, glancing over to weigh the odds of a stabbing. > “That service is cancelled I’m afraid. This is the late-running twenty-one twelve. You’ll have to wait and catch the next service. Terms and conditions of the Saver fare are that in the event of cancellation you catch the next service. Which will be the twenty-one fifty-nine, though it’s not due now till twenty-two twenty.” > “And how can I get on this train?” > “New ticket, I’m afraid - you’d have to purchase a full flexible fare on board.” > “And can I cancel this ticket?” > “I’m afraid the terms and conditions of the Saver fare -” > “But I only bought it ten minutes ago.” > “I’m afraid the service was only cancelled just now. You can ask for a form in the office and write to Customer Services. You see the Terms and Conditions -” ---
**Author:** ![Asympotically\_fat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e47c2d/32.png) [@Asympotically\_fat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asympotically_fat)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2011, 9:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/british-dopers-are-things-in-the-uk-as-bad-as-this-harpers-article-says-they-are/600610/5 "2011-10-24T09:12:35Z")
I would say the article seems to be politcally motivated. “Broken Britain” was a term used by the right wing in Britain during the Brown and Blair years, though this seems to be fairly left-leaning. There’s a few slightly misleading aspects in the quoted sections of the article, though the situation is complicated Network Rail is essentially, if not technically, a public body and Transport for London is a local governmental body. The Potter’s Bar accident occurred whilst Railtrack were still responsible for Brtiain’s railways, Network Rail inherited the liabilty for the accident from Railtrack. From the quoted sections of the article I would not say that it is particularly an accurate picture. Many of the problems quoted in IMO don’tamount to a hill of beans against rising unemployment and poor growth which is a problem most countries in the West are facing at the current time. ---
**Author:** ![Wallenstein](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/b5a626/32.png) [@Wallenstein](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wallenstein)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2011, 9:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/british-dopers-are-things-in-the-uk-as-bad-as-this-harpers-article-says-they-are/600610/6 "2011-10-24T09:33:49Z")
Britain’s not broken, far from it. Most of the complaints come from wanky London-based journalists, but London’s not representative of the rest of the UK (and journalists are not representative of the rest of humanity). I think you should view London almost as a state-within-a-state, and treat complaints about the Tube, or Heathrow (or house prices) in isolation. Most Brits don’t have to cope with Heathrow or London transport on a daily basis. Yes, there are CCTV cameras around but it doesn’t stop me doing anything I don’t want to do. House prices are expensive in some parts of the UK, but there are plenty of places where they are affordable. Where I live buses are cheap and frequent, there are plenty of houses to buy, and the economy in the local area (West Midlands) is very healthy. We have nice shops, good schools, green spaces and a decent cultural life. We have many of the same problems any modern, post-industrial society has, but the French, Spaniards and Germans have just as many issues to work through. ---
**Author:** ![amanset](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8dc957/32.png) [@amanset](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amanset)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2011, 10:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/british-dopers-are-things-in-the-uk-as-bad-as-this-harpers-article-says-they-are/600610/7 "2011-10-24T10:01:37Z")
Airports in general in the UK are hideous. I get depressed when I land at Birmingham International (my Parents live a mere 15 minute drive from there). Everything is dirty and nothing seems to work. Regarding mainline trains, I haven’t met a single Brit that wouldn’t agree that the railways privatisation was an idiotic idea and a poster boy for how privatisation should not be performed (if it should be performed at all). A bit harsh on the Underground. It was the world’s first underground rail system. They compare it to Stockholm’s, but the first line for that opened in 1950! Stockholm’s also has only three lines and one hundred stations, compared to eleven lines and two hundred and seventy stations for London’s. One would hope that Stockholm’s would be better designed and easier to maintain. Such is the price of being a pioneer. Anyway, single tickets are priced quite similarly in Stockholm (and Oyster single trips are significantly cheaper than the Stockholm equivalent). The big difference is the cost of season tickets, but London is a metric fucktonne bigger than Stockholm anyway. ---
**Author:** ![amanset](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8dc957/32.png) [@amanset](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amanset)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2011, 10:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/british-dopers-are-things-in-the-uk-as-bad-as-this-harpers-article-says-they-are/600610/8 "2011-10-24T10:03:41Z")
> [@Wallenstein](#): > > House prices are expensive in some parts of the UK, but there are plenty of places where they are affordable. Where I live buses are cheap and frequent, there are plenty of houses to buy, and the economy in the local area (West Midlands) is very healthy. We have nice shops, good schools, green spaces and a decent cultural life. It is all relative. I compare to the UK a lot through talking with friends and family. From what I can work out, here in Sweden we pay a LOT less for housing, but everything else is a lot more expensive. Food for example, three quid for a loaf of bread? So in the end, it all balances out but if one wants to make a point it is very easy to be selective about what you compare to make somewhere look better/worse. ---
**Author:** ![Candyman74](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ad7895/32.png) [@Candyman74](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Candyman74)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2011, 10:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/british-dopers-are-things-in-the-uk-as-bad-as-this-harpers-article-says-they-are/600610/9 "2011-10-24T10:24:06Z")
Like large swathes of the Western World at the moment, the UK has its problems and is part of the sweeping recession that’s affecting everyone. But “quality of life has deteriorated so much that the country is nearly unlivable”? That’s just silly. I’m not sure an airport being a bit grotty, a train accident 15 years ago, and announcements on the Underground qualify as making an entire country “unlivable”. Harper’s Magazine? I’ve never seen it, but Wikipedia tells me it’s a far-left American magazine. Possibly there’s some agenda there; dunno. But I find it just fine. ---
**Author:** ![SanVito](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sanvito/32/2805_2.png) [@SanVito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanVito)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2011, 10:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/british-dopers-are-things-in-the-uk-as-bad-as-this-harpers-article-says-they-are/600610/10 "2011-10-24T10:26:03Z")
Interestingly, I heard an interview with this journalist on BBC London radio a few weeks ago – the interviewer was basically miffed at the article and invited him to explain himself (for Londoners listening, the interviewer was Vanessa Feltz - don’t look at me like that, she’s brill on the radio). He’s American and had been in the country a mere three weeks (even though he talks about ‘we’ as if he’s a local), visited a couple of sink estates and dragged up a few ancient quotes to support his argument. He spluttered his way through the interview, backtracked repeatedly, tried to excuse himself by saying that Britain’s problems are universal in the western world and he was just using the UK as an example (something he didn’t put in the article) and admitted that he loves London, thinks it’s an amazingly vibrant city and is really looking forward to living here during his posting. Funny, I thought you just wrote that our country was ‘unliveable’. I haven’t read the article but don’t particularly feel inclined to after that interview. He sounded like he didn’t know what he was talking about. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2011, 10:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/british-dopers-are-things-in-the-uk-as-bad-as-this-harpers-article-says-they-are/600610/11 "2011-10-24T10:54:12Z")
Maybe I’m misremembering, but… isn’t Heathrow in the hands of one of those Spanish public-turned-private companies? The ones which combine the worst of both worlds? _manages to come up with the right google terms_ Ah, no, it’s Ferrovial - not quite as bad but still used to “my balls are bigger than your balls” as SOP. Those people would try to turn a sow into chorizos and end up with pasta salad. I returned from the UK a year and a half ago, after two years in Scotland (one in Glasgow, one in Edinburgh): the Spaniards in my team found housing cheaper than in Spain, although we came from places which occupy very diverse spots in our own housing market. The banking system was also… nicer may be the right word (I’ve got no idea how they are about giving you a loan bigger than a CC or if you manage to default on payments). They didn’t give us half as many problems about needing to operate with the office with which our accounts were originally associated as Spanish banks do and their procedures were quite clear, even with the horrid English some of us had. The state of the older parts of the London subway is similar to the older parts of Madrid’s or Barcelona’s, which I actually think is good since London’s happens to be older - Bilbao’s is nicer, but it’s also tiny and still has parts of the packaging ribbon hanging from the wagons. ---
**Author:** ![DragonAsh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/db5fbb/32.png) [@DragonAsh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DragonAsh)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2011, 10:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/british-dopers-are-things-in-the-uk-as-bad-as-this-harpers-article-says-they-are/600610/12 "2011-10-24T10:59:48Z")
I’ve lived in NY (Manhattan) for 10 years, Tokyo for 10, Hong Kong for four. Several years each in Minneapolis, San Francisco, Chicago and Houston. I’ve now lived in London for three years, and am just starting to feel comfortable having a general opinion of ‘how things are’. I was both poor and better-off in NY, Hong Kong, Tokyo, so I have a decent idea of how different lifestyles get on in those cities. I haven’t been a student or under-employed etc. in London, and have only lived in one area of London since I moved here, so I am pretty sure my view of the city is one-sided. And all is not perfect, of course. Taxes are hellaciously high. Rents are ridiculous. Thankfully we don’t have to go to the NHS that often, but when we do service can be very much hit-and-miss. Food culture isn’t all that great (particularly compared to Hong Kong or Tokyo). Still, London is easily the ‘nicest’ big city I’ve lived in. I would probably want to be in NY if I were younger and/or single, but at my age and with a family & small kids, London is ideal. Both my wife and I love it here, and hope to stay as long as we can. ---
**Author:** ![Candyman74](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ad7895/32.png) [@Candyman74](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Candyman74)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2011, 11:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/british-dopers-are-things-in-the-uk-as-bad-as-this-harpers-article-says-they-are/600610/13 "2011-10-24T11:18:42Z")
> [@DragonAsh](#): > > I haven’t been a student or under-employed etc. in London, and have only lived in one area of London since I moved here, so I am pretty sure my view of the city is one-sided. In addition, of course, London is not the UK (not to mention that different parts of just London are vastly different to each other). ---
**Author:** ![Stanislaus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stanislaus/32/3391_2.png) [@Stanislaus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stanislaus)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2011, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/british-dopers-are-things-in-the-uk-as-bad-as-this-harpers-article-says-they-are/600610/14 "2011-10-24T12:32:25Z")
Yeah, this article is highly tendentious and consists mainly of cherry-picking bad incidents and then blowing them out of proportion. There are kernels of truth, particularly in terms of the effects of rail privatisation and income inequality but this is in no way a coherent overview of life in the modern UK. Although it pains me to say it, the quote from Peter Mandelson is a deceitful misquote. What he said was “we’re intensely relaxed about people becoming filthy rich, provided they pay their taxes”. The last clause is almost always dropped from this quote in order to paint Mandelson in an even worse light than he deserves - a commitment to journalistic integrity that Alisdair Campbell would be proud of. Oh, and when he quotes the government spokesman as saying that the European childhood study was out of date, he should really take the time to point out that the European childhood study was in fact out of date. IIRC, by at least 5 years. ---
**Author:** ![Wallenstein](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/b5a626/32.png) [@Wallenstein](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wallenstein)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2011, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/british-dopers-are-things-in-the-uk-as-bad-as-this-harpers-article-says-they-are/600610/15 "2011-10-24T12:52:22Z")
> [@Stanislaus](#): > > Although it pains me to say it, the quote from Peter Mandelson is a deceitful misquote. What he said was “we’re intensely relaxed about people becoming filthy rich, provided they pay their taxes”. The last clause is almost always dropped from this quote in order to paint Mandelson in an even worse light than he deserves - a commitment to journalistic integrity that Alisdair Campbell would be proud of. Labour didn’t do much to ensure the filthy rich actually paid the same rates of tax as the rest of us though. Plenty of stories\* of CEOs paying less tax than their office cleaners. \*although I’m sure there’s more to it ---
**Author:** ![ruadh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d2c977/32.png) [@ruadh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ruadh)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2011, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/british-dopers-are-things-in-the-uk-as-bad-as-this-harpers-article-says-they-are/600610/16 "2011-10-24T13:58:18Z")
> [@Candyman74](#): > > Harper’s Magazine? I’ve never seen it, but Wikipedia tells me it’s a far-left American magazine. It’s “far left” in the way the Guardian is “far left”. ---
**Author:** ![Stanislaus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stanislaus/32/3391_2.png) [@Stanislaus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stanislaus)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2011, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/british-dopers-are-things-in-the-uk-as-bad-as-this-harpers-article-says-they-are/600610/17 "2011-10-24T14:03:46Z")
> [@Wallenstein](#): > > Labour didn’t do much to ensure the filthy rich actually paid the same rates of tax as the rest of us though. Plenty of stories\* of CEOs paying less tax than their office cleaners. > > \*although I’m sure there’s more to it I know. Like I said, I don’t enjoy finding myself defending Mandleson, but it is a pretty egregious piece of quote manipulation. And the point can be well made without resorting to cheap tactics like that. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2011, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/british-dopers-are-things-in-the-uk-as-bad-as-this-harpers-article-says-they-are/600610/18 "2011-10-24T17:23:16Z")
I’ll try to read the article when I have a chance to go to the library. However, I do know there are conservative and libertarian sources with a similar attitude towards developments in modern Britain, though with a different focus. [For instance](http://www.theamericanconservative.com/article/2006/may/08/00016/): > [@](#): > > We have a Civil Contingencies Act that, once an emergency has been declared, gives the government the power to cancel existing laws, to order citizens to move or to stay where they are, in short, to act like a dictatorship. We have a succession of Terrorism Acts that give police officers enormous arbitrary authority they never had before, a power they have already begun to abuse. During a recent convention of the governing Labour Party in the seaside town of Brighton, this law was used dozens of times against people doing such dangerous things as wearing T-shirts bearing anti-government slogans. Notoriously, the police gave it as their excuse for helping to eject an elderly protestor from the convention hall after he heckled a member of the government. > … > While these changes proceed, the government also presses fiercely ahead with a scheme to compel all British citizens to register for identity cards. Officially, this is voluntary, but from 2008 anyone who renews a passport will be placed on the register and compelled to have his eyeballs scanned, his fingerprints taken, and his personal details compulsorily recorded—a fate hitherto reserved mainly for convicted sexual offenders and cattle. He will then, at great personal expense, be presented with an identity card for which he has not asked, though for an unspecified period the issue of the actual card will be optional. Registration will be increasingly inescapable. In a small country where most people take holidays abroad quite frequently, this will rapidly compel millions to take part in the allegedly non-compulsory scheme. Once this has happened, general compulsion and an obligation to carry this breathing license at all times will probably follow. Challenged to justify this measure, the government has claimed in turn that it will fight crime, terrorism, and identity theft. But these arguments have been repeatedly slashed to pieces in both Houses of Parliament. There is no good evidence that such cards will achieve anything of the kind and much evidence that they will increase official interference in private lives, as well as undermining the fundamental principle of free societies—that the state must justify itself to the citizenry rather than the other way round. > … > Meanwhile a measure passed in 1986 in a panicky attempt to curb bad behavior at soccer matches, the Public Order Act, is increasingly being used to prosecute people whose public statements are thought by police officers to be likely to cause offense to others. In several cases, objectors to homosexual equality laws have been prosecuted or threatened, in one case after a broadcaster on the BBC voiced criticisms of laws allowing homosexual couples to adopt children. Even Tony Blair has been investigated over published allegations that he was once rude about the people of Wales in an entirely private context. [And this:](http://reason.com/archives/2007/08/01/rant-tony-the-nanny) > [@](#): > > The cameras are everywhere, and they are getting cleverer all the time. Some come with automatic number plate recognition, facial recognition, even suspicious behavior recognition-internal software that analyzes clusters and movements of pixels in CCTV footage in search of “behavioral oddities.” British scientists, backed by a £500,000 government grant, are currently developing cameras with “gait recognition.” These are supposed to alert a human operator when people are walking suspiciously. Think of it as a Ministry of Unsilly Walks. > … > These schemes are part of the government’s drive against “anti-social behavior.” Eight years ago New Labour introduced Anti-Social Behavior Orders (ASBOs), written decrees which tell specific individuals how they must behave. A local authority can issue an ASBO forbidding an individual from walking down a certain street, using bad language in public, or even wearing a hooded sweatshirt, without having to prove in a court of law that the individual is guilty of anything. ASBOs are dished out on the whim of local officials and on the basis of hearsay rather than hard evidence of misdemeanor. ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2011, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/british-dopers-are-things-in-the-uk-as-bad-as-this-harpers-article-says-they-are/600610/19 "2011-10-24T17:40:23Z")
As a Brit who’s been living in the states for a while (but gets back pretty regularly), I’d say its mainly exaggeration, or rather ridiculous extrapolation (Britains broken because the airports shutdown in the snow, since when has Britain NOT shut down in the snow ?). In particular I’d say there is no where in Britain (or indeed the “western” world) that is as “broken” as the “broken” bits of the US. I’ve lived in some sketchy bits of the UK (Longsight in Manchester. and Bermondsey in London), and there is _nothing_ to compare to some of the blighted urban areas of the US (Bits of Oakland, the Tenderloin region of the San Fran, or downtown LA come to mind). ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2011, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/british-dopers-are-things-in-the-uk-as-bad-as-this-harpers-article-says-they-are/600610/20 "2011-10-24T18:31:39Z")
> [@Wallenstein](#): > > Britain’s not broken, far from it. Most of the complaints come from wanky London-based journalists, but London’s not representative of the rest of the UK (and journalists are not representative of the rest of humanity). Actually, they’re the best representatives-of-humanity you’ll ever find anywhere. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/british-dopers-are-things-in-the-uk-as-bad-as-this-harpers-article-says-they-are/600610.md?page=2)