WARNING - Depressing reading, but ALL TRUE.
I'm fed up quite frankly. Every day I watch the news and we seem to be living in a country that is increasingly crap. Before I go on, let me first make my point. Read the list below (feel free to check out the links too if you like). Some of the links are getting a bit old now by web standards but many of them still stand true to this day and the cumulative effect of all these stories is what I want to talk about shortly.
1. Mistrust of ALL of society by the authorities
We are perhaps one of the most mistrusted societies in the West, constantly treated with suspicion and contempt by our authorities. The old CCTV debate has raged for years now - our image is captured approximately 200-300 times a day. ID cards still threaten to loom on the horizon. The "database state" is still in development storing all of our "digital footprints". And the latest is a new network of special cameras that record and log EVERY number plate of EVERY vehicle EVER day. In other words, our every move is now tracked, recorded, and stored as data for what? The prevention of crime? Yeah, my arse!
Latest news on this:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/whos_watching_you/8064333.stm
2. UK is the worst at EVERYTHING - officially!
Just look at this (far from complete) list:
Worst country for recycling electrical goods
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8063115.stm
Worst country for teenage pregnancy
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1566575/Britain-worst-for-teenage-pregnancy.html
Worst country for binge drinking and rowdy public behaviour
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/5031624.stm
Worst youths in Europe
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6108302.stm
Worst country for canabis-abusing school kids
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/lawandorder/4689444/Schoolchildren-in-the-UK-are-the-worst-in-Europe-for-cannabis-abuse-UN-report-finds.html
Worst overall country for drug abuse
http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Sky-News-Archive/Article/20080641261151
Worst at enforcing digital marketing laws
http://www.out-law.com/page-6737
Worst pensions anywhere
http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/pensions/article.html?in_article_id=426261&in_page_id=6
Worst employers and managers
http://www.personneltoday.com/articles/2005/04/04/29087/uk-managers-worst-in-europe-for-staff-communication.html
Worst forests in all of Europe
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk-forests-among-worst-in-europe-1157456.html
Worst cancer survival rates anywhere
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/health/article2296368.ece
Worst gender-based pay gap
http://www.lindermyers.co.uk/article.asp?id=225
Worst place for the protection of privacy (unsurprisingly)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2007/dec/31/uk.eu
Worst place for personal debt
http://www.onlyfinance.com/Debt-News/12750449-Personal-debt-in-UK-worst-in-Europe.aspx
Worst place for obesity (I think only America has us beat on this one)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/4361796/England-worst-in-Western-Europe-for-obesity-and-teenage-pregnancy.html
Oh, and has anyone mentioned our corrupt parliament pinching all our hard-earned tax pennies for their moats, home cinema systems, extra properties and duck ponds?
Then we get overcrowded prisons which cannot cope with the sheer volume of criminals, crappy roads full of holes even though we pay some of the highest road tax anywhere, some of the poorest working conditions in Europe generally, one of the worst-hit countries in the recession, and, of course, the weather!
I have a theory that there is a pattern here. We are constantly bombarded with news and views about how the UK is always the worst at something - just watch the news for one week and I'll bet there will be something new to make us all feel crap about being British. Perhaps next we'll have the worst population of drug-abusing pregnant teenage wasps, or an increasingly threatening gang-culture among our city pigeons. Who knows?
The pattern seems to be based on a constant drip-feeding of this type of ultra-negative reporting. What is behind it? Is the UK really, REALLY such a huge pile of crap? The worst at EVERYTHING? The worst exam results, infant health, smoking, easy target for immigrants, blah blah blah...
I remember a time when life wasn't like this, and when this nation had a sense of pride. It was before 1997. My theory is that it all started going wrong some time after New Labour took the reigns of the nation. Amid the New Labour philosophy and way-of-life was a new breed of politically-correct claptrap that was injected into the modern mindset to such an extent that it is now almost considered racist to have any level or degree of national pride, even at the most basic level. All throughout the New Labour era there was never any sense of fostering a proud sense of national identity unless it fitted the New Labour agenda. It has been allowed to progress and been nurtured by the PC-fraternity to the level where we are now forced to confront every crap quality of this doomed nation week after week after week, possibly until we can no longer stand it, because it has become the only thing that is "acceptable".
George Orwell once said that if you want a perfectly clear vision of the future, just imagine a human face being kicked by a big boot forever. This is, symbolically at least, very true.
I think it is a form of national torture perpetrated by an authority with an agenda. Keep us in fear, keep us angry and p***ed off, and you keep us all in check. Example: It is very telling how the last really major "uprising" by the British public was the Poll Tax riots of the 1980s. Brits showed grit, determination, spirit, and angry pride and they changed things. It was the true Bulldog Spirit. And now we have the MPs expenses scandal and us Brits are bloody furious about it. Only this time we're all expressing our anger quietly, in a well-behaved manner, hiding behind the Telegraph and posting our views on blogs and forums where we can be safe from prying CCTV cameras, speed traps, and drunken youth. Yes, the message is getting through but we've been sedated by the constant barrage of knowing how crap we all are at everything. The pressure on MPs isn't coming from "the people" like it did back in the 1980's, instead it is hitting the MPs via the streaming media and news culture. We're all just protesting by nodding in agreement at our keyboards.
I also think that being British (in particular being English) is a depressing proposition these days and our spirit has been crushed and our senses mangled over the last 10 years or so. Aside from all the crap that we are, we're also home to a constant terrorist threat, a dwindling and depressed economy, a national debt that our great great great great grandkids will still be paying off, an underfunded and under-appreciated military, and goodness knows what else.
Yes. I am fed up with it all. If our government AND our society get one thing right, it must be the returning of our national pride and sense of identity. We all feel very crushed and we don't even know it. Labour have pretty much blown it now, so hopefully after a general election (whenever that will be) a new government will relax a little, soften its views on PC dialogue, and start to foster the great British spirit once again. I think it will help with so many things, from boozing kids to underage pregnancy to health care to the economy to everything. All it takes is a little feeling of self-worth to vastly increase potential.
Finally, many are worried that parties such as the BNP can "do well" at any forthcoming elections because of the current political climate. Stop and think for a moment. Is it any surprise the BNP will do well? While they are a very unsavoury party of racists and nazi-loving madmen, they do at least project a type of "British pride" which no other party seems to and given the beating we've all had over the last 10 years it is no surprise that many proud Brits feel attracted to their message. I think it shows a far bigger problem at work - we Brits are feeling extraordinarily unloved and undervalued.
So there we have it. The UK is crap - and that is OFFICIAL.
