A survey of British voters finds the majority "deeply pessimistic about the state of Britain today, believing that society is broken and heading in the wrong direction" with almost 60% saying "that they hardly recognise the country they are living in, while 42 per cent say they would emigrate if they could." This is interesting: I was reading an article in this week's Economist (sorry, that line reeks of "I'll take 'Things Douchebags Say' for $1000, Alex") on "Broken Britain" which reported that, actually, things aren't that bad.
The heightened fears are a puzzle to criminologists, who point out that over the past 15 years Britain has experienced a steady, deep fall in crime. The statistics are notoriously hard to interpret, but according to the British Crime Survey, the Home Office's most reliable measure though still far from perfect, crime overall has dropped by 45% since its peak in 1995. A big chunk of that fall is owing to reductions in vehicle theft and domestic burglary, for which alarm manufacturers and increased householder vigilance probably deserve as much credit as the police. But violent crime has fallen too. It is now almost half what it was in 1995, and no higher than in 1981.
The article goes on to note that while "the number of murders involving 'sharp instruments' (bottles as well as knives) has risen slightly," gun murders have not risen and homicides are at their lowest level in 19 years.
So why the huge discrepancy between perception and reality? One theory holds that Britons are a bunch of miserable cunts who always see the worst in everything. The Economist suggests rising expectations in the state's ability to curtail crime results in disappointment when people still see yobs in hoodies hanging out on corners. And, of course, stories like this one or this one-"The dramatic increase will fuel fears about the growing underclass of teen yobs terrorising communities across Britain."-can't help.
Maybe they're just really upset that you keep referring to their home as "Knifecrime Island".
You should hear all the bitchy voicemails I get from Prince Charles.
Can you start an anti-immigration group aimed at Brits? Maybe the Crumpet Party? Because I sure don't want them coming to this side of the Atlantic.
Hey hey, let's leave crumpets out of this. Crumpets never hurt nobody man!
Unless you're trying to get a hot one one out of the toaster. Burn!
"I was reading an article in this week's Economist..."
Rang through my head and then the article crushed me with a moment of clarity. How dare you force me to recognize my own shortcomings!
Conservatives pimp fear. It's no coincidence that this conversation, and the articles about debauchery and libertine lifestyle, follows on the heels of Gordon Brown's election. Same old, same old.
Um....
Everyone needs to just calm the fuck down and have a drink.
Everything is so expensive over there. I think it's just displaced "aggro" because of impossibility of achieving decent standard of living. Kind of like here.
Let's blame Muslims!
One theory holds that Britons are a bunch of miserable cunts who always see the worst in everything
Of course we are. How do you think we produced Morrissey?
Mitosis?
There is something to the miserable cunt theory and the cycle it engenders. Cunts making people miserable and being miserable making people cunts.
That said there is a lot to be miserable, and a cunt, about in Britain. One thing whose consequences are not fully appreciated is the sheer ugliness of the place. The people are ugly, the buildings are ugly, the sky is ugly. I mean the sky is the sky, it should look pretty much the same wherever you go, but no, for some reason the sky in Britain is shit. It's not anything to do with smog or anything like that either. Its as if nature itself is snarling at us, that the cosmos is using the sky as a means to communicate its contempt for Britain and all those who do not live but rather fester on it as maggots on a corpse do.
Look at council estates. Just look at them. Even doing that brings a certain leadenness to the spirit. I cant even imagine how I would feel if I had to live in one of those shitholes. Honestly, if that is your experience of society it is no wodnder you despise it.
To me it is no coincidence that crime and anti-social behaviour started shooting up in the 60's when the technocrats began vomiting concrete all about the place. It is no great surprise that an ugly and corrode envoronment molds a an ugly and corroded people. I say rip out everything that is grey and square and watch crime rates fall back to the 10 per 1000 of the 1940's from the 90+ it is now.
Gee, Scum. You would really hate Los Angeles, then. And it's true we have a lot of crime here! I mean England is a total paradise, greenery-wise, compared to most of the U.S. But don't you think it's poverty more than ugliness that makes people go crazy and start doing ultraviolence?
I'm thinking the winter has got you down. Come on! A lot of Britain is very beautiful. Freely admit the winter is discouraging. Dark when you get up, dark when you get home. But then it is spring! And so magnificent and flowers and whatnot?
I'm entirely unapologetic about reading the Economist. I think that paper's readership is mostly comprised of people who have no problem being taught that they don't know jack about the world they live in, on a weekly basis.
The people who write letters to the editor though, wow. Those people are DICKS.
@Scum - you've stopped taking your medication, haven't you?
@Balk: So why the huge discrepancy between perception and reality? The Daily Mail. The Daily Express. The Sun. The Daily Telegraph. Simple. Next question.
This exact thing happened in the USA in the 90s. Crime reached historic lows, FEARS of crime reached historic highs. See Barry Glassner's "Culture Of Fear" for more.