Are the English pestered by anything like “political correctness”? (In case any English Dopers aren’t familiar with the term, it’s a bit difficult to describe. Suffice it to say that in America [and don’t get me wrong, I love my country], it is almost impossible to voice any declarative sentence on television or radio or in a newspaper without offending 14 different minority groups, 3 different “watchdog” agencies, and getting protest letters from every religious group, gay rights group, and race relations group in all 50 states, Puerto Rico, and Guam; terms such as “black” and “American Indian” have been replaced by “African-American” and “Native American” because the predecessors were considered offensive, and to imply that Islam may have played a part in the September 11 attacks will be met with fierce opposition, and while I’m gay myself the terms “homophobic” and “gaybashing” are thrown around so frequently that when actual incidents of racism or homophobia or religious intolerance appear they’re overlooked.)
Do English cities have a major problem with homelessness? How prevalent are recreational drugs in England? (Just out of curiosity, since gasoline and fast-food are higher in England, I wonder if marijuana and Ecstacy are proportionately higher?)
And do English people realize that Jude Law is the sexiest human being who ever lived in any time, place, or realm of existence or is it a case of “prophet in his own land”?
“Political correctness” … the Labour Party was genuinely embarrassed in the mid-1980s by extremely silly behaviour in local government. Beyond that the only times you really hear the term bandied around are by newspapers like the Daily Mail, which puts a nice label of “PC” on any story that appears to show one group in society being given preferential treatment (the facts are usually very different, of course). Apologies if this strays into GD; I really believe that in the UK there’s a decent level of common sense.
Homelessness is a problem, particularly in London. In my limited experience it’s definitely getting worse. Shelter is the main organisation dealing with homelessness in the UK; this link is to a PDF file on street homelessness in Britain.
Recreational drugs are very, very prevalent, and there is solid pressure for relaxation of regulations around cannabis (which has had some success this year).
Some stats from the BBC, admittedly from a 1999 story:
Jude Law? Uh, okay. I’m sure you’re not the only one who thinks that!
mods, i hope this isn’t out of line.
sampiro, about the drugs…
the going rate is about
£35 ($45) for 1/2 ounce of hash, £3 ($5) for an E.
and over a million people in the UK are estimated to take E every weekend.
among the 16-30 age group the club culture is much more evident than the US.
almost everyone spends friday or saturday night dancing, wasted on something.
(and did you know jude law’s baby daughter almost swallowed an E which was left lying around at a party thrown by Gaz Coombs from Supergrass?)
Related to drugs, its much more prevalent/acceptable for younger people (14+) to drink and smoke in the UK. I have some friends in Glasgow and Belfast that are around my age (18) and they have had no problem getting into bars or clubs for the last few years, not even being carded.
Also from what I have noticed in brief trips over there is there are very very few numbers of SUV’s (4x4) in England. Minivans aren’t as prevalent either.
It all depends on where in England you visit. I used to live in Nottingham and it was just a typical city. Malls, ice-rinks, miltiplex cinemas, prostitutes hanging around on street corners, a great mixture of different peoples and dress(I really miss that), drug and violence problems, street lights and traffic galore. Just a regluar city.
I live in Cornwall now. We’ve got beaches all over, farms, my local cinema is oh, so old but has about 6 screens I think, colleges and schools dotted all over the place, clostest ice rink is 50 miles away and it sucks! It’s in a ‘L’ shape for crying out loud! No malls down here but lots of shops and high streets etc. It’s not uncommon to see a tractor trudging up the highstreet or for that matter pick up trucks. There’s quite a few down here.
I’ve never encountered any ‘class’ issues either. You get people with more money or less money but there’s not really any snobby, grey-suit-wearing, speaking the Queen’s English, tea and crumpets nonsence around. I don’t personally think tea is England’s most popular drink either. It’s pretty much a toss-up between that and coffee. We don’t have loads of different types of coffee either. Generally you just order…well…a coffee or a cappachino 
Although there are now some new places with expresso, late, mocha etc. Not that I have any idea what they are. 
But hey! I found a Starbucks in Peterborough a while ago! Didn’t get to go in and have a coffee though. Typical.
Oh, and one other thing. Most people in England say ‘grass’ as it’s spelled. It’s only really around London where they say ‘gr-aahh-ss’.
There are so many different accents in England that when people ask how to do an English accent you’ve got to ask…‘well, what kind of English accent? Northern? Southern? Liverpudlian? Brummy? Geordie? Yorkshire? Cornish? Cockney?’…the list goes on.
I’m going to go away now.
… Isn’t Wal-Mart, Woolworths over here?
Okay, now I’m going
No!!! Woolworths in an American company too and AFAIK unconnected with Wal-Mart.
Biscuits!
Cite? Bet you can’t find one as there is absolutely no way of convincingly supporting this figure.
Cite? I suspect any comparitive figures you could produce would make it obvious that this statement is wrong.
Woolworths in the UK is not American owned and has not been for many years. Up till last year it was part of the Kingfisher Group which included B&Q , Suprdrug and Comet. Now Woolworths and Superdrug have been hived off into a seperate company after ( I think ) a management buy -out.