THE ENCHANTED FOREST.
Labour’s failure to turn this into social cohesion is their biggest failure, and the Conservatives biggest opportunity. This is the “broken society” agenda – Cameron’s most powerful weapon. And Brown will never follow this, because he will never accept British society is broken.A combination of the Thatcher reforms and the decade-long Blair–Brown duumvirate has achieved what was once deemed impossible:
During the Blair–Brown decade social concerns — what kind of society we have become — have gradually replaced economic worries. People fear that we have become an increasingly fragmented, boorish, more violent society. The new barbarism of the Broken Society stalks not just the dilapidated parts of our inner cities but the high streets of once placid market towns.
Of course, the social trends which are now defining us started long before Mr Blair entered
Britain may or may not be blighted by a feral media but many people are in no doubt, as this week’s survey from Barnardo’s reveals, that we are blighted by a feral youth, often financed and fuelled by drugs, which is out of control and beyond the law. Every day brings fresh horror stories from the frontline of the Broken Society: teenagers are shot in their beds in gangland tit-for-tat killings; a youth is chased through the streets of
That the underclass exists cannot now be doubted by those with eyes to see, though some fashionable opinion-formers still try to wish it away. Nor is it necessarily poor: quite often the underclass is reasonably cash-rich, thanks to welfare benefits, crime and the black economy; but it is increasingly severed, in attitude and cultural values, from the rest of society. And (another popular misconception) it has very little in common with even the most deprived of the old working class: the underclass does not form brass bands, go to night school or strive to find the best state schools for their children.
So far our response to a growing underclass has been containment: it has been herded into reservations we call sink estates, where the rest of us hope it will stay out of sight and out of mind. Its members speak their own variants of English (now well enough recognised for comedians to mock), wear their own style of clothes (which middle-class kids sometimes copy) and have no respect for the police or the laws that bind the rest of us. Nor do they have much regard for the world of work or educational achievement: traditional values such as thrift, endeavour and marriage are alien.
Most children of the underclass are born out of wedlock; relationships are fleeting and unstable (which ensures that what is born into the underclass stays in the underclass). This is a world in which there are almost no worthwhile male role models, which is a disaster when boys turn to youths. Single mums struggle to cope as best they can — and usually lose control of their kids, especially if they are boys, when they become teenagers. With sad, depressing predictability, the children of today’s underclass become tomorrow’s criminals and dropouts.
Congratulations Mr Blair, the Oxbridge conspiracy and to the Tories you have won the next election by a landslide. 14 points in the lead in the last opinion view in the independent. You have ousted the first non Oxbridge partnership as Chancellor and PM since WW2. It took a few weeks of hysteria. We have all learnt who runs the country. The English people have spoken they are subservient to you. And you will get your people, and your people only back into office again and again and again. You must be proud.
Somehow you managed to blame Northern Rock on labour. Yes a private bank going out of business is all the fault of the government, despite the fact that economic growth is still strong. Your hysteria has worked.
Then Mr Blair's army buddies gave a death blow to the government. The same army bosses who never even squeaked Blair was in office decided it was time to say what a terrible government we had. Thanks for that Mr Blair. Thanks for killing our government. Oh we soooooo Miss you. You petty vindictive man.
Well done you tories have won the government is dead. You have won. Most of you bloggers didn't go to oxbridge. so you are looked on with the same contempt this present government is looked on by the establishment of Oxbridge big business conspirators. Why do you love the establishment so much?
Do you think they will give you something?
Poor misguided idealistic fools I pity you.
Well done you have won. Your utopia that the tories will bring is just around the corner.
Bloody hell mate, get a grip, will you? Next you'll be telling us that Cherie Blair-Booth, that hghly paid working class, barrister QC woman from working class Bury, a hundred million miles away from twee Oxbridge, kidnapped the bloody Boswell aliens. Lar dee bloody dar.
Mind you perhaps there is some truth in this conspiracy theory business. If you read Cherie Booth's Wikpedia entry it states the following:
the fact that my ice-berg hasn't changed much.
It's called the 'Boo Ritson Appreciation Society'.
The one thing to do- T.S. Eliot
Is to do nothing. Wait.
...
You will find that you survive humiliation.
And that’s an experience of incalculable value.
Why are you laughing?
Crowd: Because you’re from Benidorm, that’s why.
Dickhead (me): Given the current climate with tension growing in relations with both radical Islamism ……….
I think it’s important to follow your instincts, gut feelings whatever you want to call them, like last night. I should NOT have attended the Freedom Association’s event, entitled, "The Munich Pact 1938: Was Appeasing Hitler Sensible?" My gut feeling was telling me to go home and watch my favourite soap,
At the event, after Graham had finished his talk, the floor was open to questions or comments. I stood up and tried to make a comparison with what Graham was talking about and relate it to some of my experiences in Hackney, where I have witnessed first hand Islamic fundamentalism, in my own classroom in fact. Some of the kids I teach have expressed anti-Semitic, anti-American, anti-British views and I have not really known how to deal with it. They don’t give you training on this at teacher training college. Some of the kids I teach have clearly been indoctrinated by fundamentalist parents, which makes you wonder why on earth their parents have sent them to a Church of England School.
My attempts at articulating my points on this issue were greeted with gales of laughter from the majority of people present, at the event, which I did not appreciate. So I asked them, ‘Why are you all laughing, it’s not funny?’ This was met with further out pours of laughter. I felt like a total dickhead.
I won’t be going back to any further events organised at the Old Bank. I wasn’t drunk and I wasn’t even that inarticulate, I thought I made reasonable and valid points, but everyone else clearly thought that what I was saying was pants.
So, I re-read the invitation I received and this is part of what it said
Our speaker will be Graham Stewart, history columnist on The Times and author of several books regarding historical political figures. Graham's subject will be "The
He will discuss both the diplomatic background and the military situation to assess whether Neville Chamberlain squandered an opportunity to defeat
Given the current climate with tension growing in relations with both radical Islamism and
So, I was right to talk about my experiences, they were relevant.
You know what, fuck the lot of them. I won't be going back, next time I'll stay at home and watch Coronation Street, it's safer that way.
I was just glad that the doctor turned up at the end. I was burning up inside with anger.
