# Is Britain Broken? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 16, 2009, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-britain-broken/503213 "2009-07-16T12:53:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Declan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecae2f/32.png) [@Declan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Declan)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2009, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-britain-broken/503213/41 "2009-07-20T23:41:30Z")
> [@Walker\_in\_Eternity](#): > > In many respects things are better than they have ever been, better medical care and the like, but there seems to be something fundamentally wrong with our society, nobody has respect for anyone anymore, there is a general air of rudeness and an impression of every man for themselves. Im sorry but its 2009 , where have you been for the past twenty years. It is every man for him or herself, thats what we have tolerated from industry and finance, its been bred and now you reap the harvest. Thats what those lollypop chicks dont seem to understand, they are an obstacle. England and the rest of the developed world have traded a healthy society for healthy individuals, but a certain portion of your society has developed a fatalistic attitude, there is no reason for some of those kids to figure on having any sort of life outside that of a serf, and they know it. The question is does it burn out and turn out a generation of kids, that a britain in a hundred years will think this is a dark ages, or does it pan out more darwinian. Declan ---
**Author:** ![athelas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5e9695/32.png) [@athelas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/athelas)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2009, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-britain-broken/503213/42 "2009-07-21T00:44:38Z")
> [@Declan](#): > > Im sorry but its 2009 , where have you been for the past twenty years. It is every man for him or herself, thats what we have tolerated from industry and finance …not to mention the rise of moral relativism and the decline of public religion. Or do you only cite factors that support your preconceived political views? ---
**Author:** ![Declan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecae2f/32.png) [@Declan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Declan)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2009, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-britain-broken/503213/43 "2009-07-21T00:47:02Z")
> [@athelas](#): > > …not to mention the rise of moral relativism and the decline of public religion. Or do you only cite factors that support your preconceived political views? Sorry I dont follow the above. The OP’s question may refer to Blighty now , but its been pretty much voiced complaint in different parts of Canada that I have lived in, in otherwords , nothing new. Declan ---
**Author:** ![Walker\_in\_Eternity](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/46a35a/32.png) [@Walker\_in\_Eternity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walker_in_Eternity)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2009, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-britain-broken/503213/44 "2009-07-21T12:52:47Z")
> [@Declan](#): > > Im sorry but its 2009 , where have you been for the past twenty years. It is every man for him or herself, thats what we have tolerated from industry and finance, its been bred and now you reap the harvest. Thats what those lollypop chicks dont seem to understand, they are an obstacle. > > England and the rest of the developed world have traded a healthy society for healthy individuals, but a certain portion of your society has developed a fatalistic attitude, there is no reason for some of those kids to figure on having any sort of life outside that of a serf, and they know it. > > The question is does it burn out and turn out a generation of kids, that a britain in a hundred years will think this is a dark ages, or does it pan out more darwinian. > > Declan Was that a whoosh or are you being serious? ---
**Author:** ![An\_Gadai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@An\_Gadai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Gadai)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2009, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-britain-broken/503213/45 "2009-07-21T13:21:40Z")
> [@Lust4Life](#): > > At the ripe old age of fifty five I can remember that living on a rough council estate I could leave a bycycle anywhere without a lock and chain on it and find it still there hours later. > > We didn’t lock the doors of houses even when we were out,car owners left their cars unlocked,often with the keys in the ignition. > > Tradesmens payments were left pinned to the front door in an envelope when they were due but my mother had to go out,they were never stolen. > > Burgular alarms on private houses were almost unheard of. > > Teachers were virtually never verbally abused by pupils let alone physically attacked or even raped. > > If people chose to swear at police they took the consequences so it didn’t happen all that often. > People always trot out the old chestnuts,as in Biggus Dickus in two thousand B.C. made the same complaint,so as to make it appear that the perception of a sickening society today is merely the symptons of old age on the part of the speaker, rather then what actually is a real phenomonen. > > Britain today is a much more dangerous place to live for the ordinary person then at any time in the Britain of the previous hundred years IMO. > > A major cause of this is that children are not punished in any real sense of the word by either their parents or the education system for serious transgressions,assault,criminal damage or even to my knowledge,arson. > > You see the pitiful scene of parents trying to play the part of psychiatrists by reasoning with their offspring,and trying to discover some deep underlying motive for their childs bad behaviour rather then punishing them. > > Not letting a child play their video game for so many hours or grounding them is NOT a real punishment and acts as a deterrent to only the most spolit brat on this planet. > Most kids dont suffer from these denials but do in fact play the part of someone who really is hurting because as long as the parents think that its working they wont be issuing any REAL punishments. > > Unfortunately these non punishments have no,or at best a very negligible effect on modifying bad behaviour. > > And then the kids grow up… Have you watched Gran Turino yet? ---
**Author:** ![chappachula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d2c977/32.png) [@chappachula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chappachula)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2009, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-britain-broken/503213/46 "2009-07-21T18:13:19Z")
> [@Lust4Life](#): > > living on a **rough** council estate I could leave a bycycle anywhere without a lock and chain on it and find it still there hours later. > We **didn’t lock** the doors of houses So why do you call it a “Rough” council estate? It sounds pretty civilized to me… I am also your age, and as a child lived in a luxurious suburb of London (two families on my street owned a Rolls Royce). But I _always_ locked my bicycle when I rode down to the shops to buy Smarties and an ice lolly for a shilling. And we locked our doors. If Britain is broken today, maybe it always was…but nobody paid attention. School bullying is a serious problem today. It was when I was in school, too. But nobody was paying attention. My teachers proudly told us to read _Tom Brown’s Schooldays_ for moral guidance. (note for Americans: Tom Brown’s Schooldays is a classic British book that legitimatizes Dickensian social mores. It’s comparable to a teacher in Mississipi proudly telling his students about the glory of the Ku Klux Klan.) ---
**Author:** ![Mk\_VII](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Mk\_VII](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mk_VII)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2009, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-britain-broken/503213/47 "2009-07-21T21:41:52Z")
I can’t really see anyone reading _Tom Brown’s Schooldays_ willingly now. I’ve never got through all of it. But I can’t see how you class it as ‘Dickensian’. The sort of searing social satire which Dickens favoured is wholly absent. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2009, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-britain-broken/503213/48 "2009-07-22T00:50:59Z")
_God save the queen The fascist regime They made you a moron Potential H-bomb God save the queen She ain’t no human being There is no future In england’s dreaming… there’s no future no future no future for you_ - Mötorhead ---
**Author:** ![Declan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecae2f/32.png) [@Declan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Declan)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2009, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-britain-broken/503213/49 "2009-07-22T04:36:36Z")
> [@Walker\_in\_Eternity](#): > > Was that a whoosh or are you being serious? Sorry for the delayed response, I finally got my recall after being laid off for three months, but in ansewer to your question, yes I was being serious. Some of the things described in that BBC piece resonate with what some small town folks here describe when their little piece of Canadiana meets big city folks. The rudeness, speed of life, and disregard in general I suppose. This is not some active movement on the part of city dwellers, but a programing. The social behaviour on the part of folks mentioned, from the binge drinkers, underage drinkers, petty crime etc, is not all that different from our reservation natives, close enough that I would love to see an anthropologist do a study between the two. One thing I am curious about, folks from the UK tend to live quite close to their neighborhood bars, enough that walking is the done thing, where as in North America, the big cities will have their locals, yet the majority of the drinking population will be driving to and from the bar. Binge drinking and drinking and driving are problems, they tend to be far and between. So I mentioned exposure to North American pressures normally associated with working conditions, obviously a few people think not, so as a resident, what do you think changed, enough that it makes you want to emigrate. Declan ---
**Author:** ![What\_s\_That\_Smell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/3bc359/32.png) [@What\_s\_That\_Smell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_s_That_Smell)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2009, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-britain-broken/503213/50 "2009-07-22T04:46:45Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > _God save the queen > The fascist regime > They made you a moron > Potential H-bomb > God save the queen > She ain’t no human being > There is no future > In england’s dreaming… > there’s no future no future > no future for you_ > > - Mötorhead No. The Sex Pistols (Jones/Matlock/Cook/Rotten) ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2009, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-britain-broken/503213/51 "2009-07-23T13:56:34Z")
> [@What\_s\_That\_Smell](#): > > No. The Sex Pistols (Jones/Matlock/Cook/Rotten) Sorry, I like the Motorhead version. ---
**Author:** ![Lust4Life](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ecc23a/32.png) [@Lust4Life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lust4Life)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2009, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-britain-broken/503213/52 "2009-07-25T13:07:47Z")
> [@chappachula](#): > > So why do you call it a “Rough” council estate? It sounds pretty civilized to me… > > I am also your age, and as a child lived in a luxurious suburb of London (two families on my street owned a Rolls Royce). But I _always_ locked my bicycle when I rode down to the shops to buy Smarties and an ice lolly for a shilling. > And we locked our doors. I would think that people going out with the intention to steal would target wealthy areas,with that on their minds they’d be likely to take anything unlocked whether or not they really wanted it. Times have changed for the worse as far as anti social behaviour is concerned,this is reality however much people would like to bury their heads in the sand. Maybe you as an individual experienced a pretty hard time when you were young but that doesn’t necessarily reflect society as a whole as it was at the time. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2009, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-britain-broken/503213/53 "2009-07-25T13:48:27Z")
> [@Uosdwis\_R.Dewoh](#): > > They are a bunch of ladies whose agenda is to stop children from doing something, not sure what. Here’s a [picture](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/2a/SheilaGallagherLollipopLadyStPauls.jpg) of a typical lollipop lady with her protest placard outside St Paul’s Cathedral. I genuinely LOLed. ---
**Author:** ![An\_Gadai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@An\_Gadai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Gadai)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2009, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-britain-broken/503213/54 "2009-07-25T14:35:05Z")
> [@Lust4Life](#): > > I would think that people going out with the intention to steal would target wealthy areas,with that on their minds they’d be likely to take anything unlocked whether or not they really wanted it. As far as I know, this is incorrect. In Britain (and Ireland) you are more likely to be a victim of theft in a poor area rather than a wealthy one. ---
**Author:** ![Lust4Life](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ecc23a/32.png) [@Lust4Life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lust4Life)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2009, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-britain-broken/503213/55 "2009-07-25T15:52:25Z")
> [@An\_Gadai](#): > > As far as I know, this is incorrect. In Britain (and Ireland) you are more likely to be a victim of theft in a poor area rather than a wealthy one. Nowdays you are probably right, though if a thief considers that there isn’t going to be anything worth stealing in the premises then he/she isn’t going to waste his/her time and effort breaking in. ---
**Author:** ![Martiju](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e8c25b/32.png) [@Martiju](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martiju)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2009, 11:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-britain-broken/503213/56 "2009-07-27T11:34:24Z")
Well I for one still meet pleasant, friendly people every day, don’t always lock my doors (including my car), don’t feel in danger 99% of the time, don’t feel that the children who live near me (or with me!) are particularly disrespectful, etc. etc. So for me the short answer is no. Surprisingly, unless you read the Daily Mail chances are we’re not going to hell in a handbasket any more than we were 20, 50 or a hundred years ago. Nostalgia is a dangerous disease! ---
**Author:** ![Lust4Life](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ecc23a/32.png) [@Lust4Life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lust4Life)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2009, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-britain-broken/503213/57 "2009-08-01T18:21:19Z")
> [@Martiju](#): > > Well I for one still meet pleasant, friendly people every day, don’t always lock my doors (including my car), don’t feel in danger 99% of the time, don’t feel that the children who live near me (or with me!) are particularly disrespectful, etc. etc. > > So for me the short answer is no. Surprisingly, unless you read the Daily Mail chances are we’re not going to hell in a handbasket any more than we were 20, 50 or a hundred years ago. Nostalgia is a dangerous disease! I’d love to know where you live,I’m surprised that the rest of us poor mortals aren’t beating your doors down just to move into the area. ---
**Author:** ![An\_Gadai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@An\_Gadai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Gadai)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2009, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-britain-broken/503213/58 "2009-08-01T21:18:40Z")
> [@Lust4Life](#): > > Nowdays you are probably right, though if a thief considers that there isn’t going to be anything worth stealing in the premises then he/she isn’t going to waste his/her time and effort breaking in. But even in poor houses here at least, probably similar in the UK, you’ll get MP3 players, mobile phones, jewellery, flat screen tellies etc. maybe not as much ready cash lying around though. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-britain-broken/503213.md?page=2)