Where have we gone wrong....

biglouis

Britain was a white country in the 1950s where people knew their place and respected authority figures. It was still possible to rise via the education system or through hard work. People (who were capable of work) but who lounged about on benefit were looked down on and judged. Rightly so.

There was none of this "I cant work more than 16 hours because it will affect my universal credit".

Absolutely this 💯 %

Lets blame Mrs Thatcher for everything. The Black Death, the rise of Communism, The apotheosis of Donald Trump.

For heavens sake start thinking outside the envelope. Mrs Thatcher was the end product of everything that went before. She was elected by the ordinary people of this country, who were themselves the end product of 21 - 100 years. It was what happened before Mrs Thatcher - that led to a government with her at the top being elected in 1979 and being re-elected twice after that.

I suspect the reasons we are as we are goes back to my generation in the 1960s, all peace, flowers, sex (great for the men, not so good for women) and drugs. The whole culture that put self and selfishness ahead of everything else. We were going to bring in world peace and an age of peace and prosperity and happy smoking marijuana and moving on the heroine and LSD. Who cared how these soporifics were produced and transported as long as we were happy.

We have gone on since, we drift in and out of relationships and to hell with the children, let them suffer, then we expect that when these children grow up they will be models of good conduct.

The Daily Mail ran a couple of articles first on SKY (Spending the Kids Inheritaance) older people, essentially saying 'Sod our children let them suffer we are going on another world cruise' and the next day their resentful kids saying that they were skiving plutocrats spending all the money they wanted.

It never occurred to the SKY parents that they were the ones who brought up these resentful greedy children and that they were the result of cause and effect.

I’ve never heard of sky parents before

Sorry, should have been SKI parents.

Ridiculous to blame Thatcher. I didn’t agree with her policies at the time but now I can see that society was changing, jobs were changing, and life would change. She was right, the future wasn’t in coal and manufacturing. We’re into clean fuel now, not coal. We can’t manufacture things as cheaply as the Far East and China. It was obvious the world was moving on and we had to move with it. Blair was actually into moving Britain forward but the Iraq debacle and then Afghanistan finished him. The last few years have been a disaster, but much of what has gone wrong is nothing to do with politics. It’s to do with people, and what they value. Old fashioned manners are often lacking, respect for one another often gone, knife crime and other crimes are daily events, shop lifting not prosecuted, prison sentences ridiculously short, breakdown of family relationships, social media used to bully and influence negatively.

And yet there is more opportunity than ever before to study, improve yourself, work and earn a living. So many benefits to life in the 2020s in actual fact.

I forgot to mention the explosion of drug use, across every strata of society.

Lack of control by The Church? ( love it or loath it)

I'm afraid that I very much think Thatcher and her [politics are to blame.

Old people have complained about the licentiousness and irresponsibility of the 'younger generation' throughout recorded history, so I don't think that the emergence of 'the teenager' in the 1950s and 60s was such a significant phenomenon.

Thatcher destroyed the post war consensus on the welfare state and moves towards economic equality. Destroying our manufacturing base was not a far seeing move to combat climate change, it was a device to destroy union power. She had little interest in any strategy to replace the industries she destroyed, being confident that 'the market' would do the job.

She was intent on destroying the welfare state, pouring scorn on 'the nanny state', talking up individual enterprise and self reliance and bent on privatising as much of our nationalised industry and services as she possibly could.

While the Blair and Brown governments were a welcome relief they followed much the same economic dogma, belief in private enterprise and the efficiency of 'the markets', but tempered with investment in public services, such as the NHS and education. Once they were out of the way the tories continued the Thatcher mission with massive cutbacks to public services and tight control of local authorities and the unions.

It may be that some people think the state the UK is in now is absolutely fine, but I think that abandoning the social welfare of the population and allowing the privatised industries to prioritise profit and shareholder dividends over providing an effective service has led to many of the problems we are having now; both socially and economically.

Maddyone so you don't think cuts to police numbers and police stations are anything to do with shop lifters not being prosecuted? You don't think that prisoners get lighter sentences because the prisons are overcrowded, out of date and there's nowhere to put those given a custodial sentence? These are political decisions and can be changed if there is the will to do so.

Don’t I Greyisnotmycolour?
Well I mustn’t, because you’ve just told me I don’t!

M0nica

"Lets blame Mrs Thatcher for everything. The Black Death, the rise of Communism, The apotheosis of Donald Trump."

Now you're just being silly.

At least those of who smoked dope sat around in peoples' flats, gradually getting stoned. We weren't out getting legless with booze like many of today's young people and getting into fights or vomiting in the street.

I doubt that many of the older generations are spending their kids' inheritance. Sadly for those children, most of them will have to wait until they are middle aged before getting their inheritance.

I remember hearing many of the generation before me saying that they were saving in order to leave their children (baby boomers) something and depriving themselves in the process. And what did those beneficiaries do? Buy a second home, or a new car or go on a cruise. And their parents went without a holiday or a car.

maddyone

Thatcher deprived local authorities of the means to build new council houses. She deprived those areas that used to have coal mines and steel works of the means of earning a wage when their source of employment disappeared. I understand that some of those areas are still deprived. Maybe they should have followed Tebbit's "advice to get on their bikes"

This is a quote from the Wikipedia essay on Thacherism

"Thatcherism represents a systematic, decisive rejection and reversal of the post-war consensus inside Great Britain in terms of governance, whereby the major political parties largely agreed on the central themes of Keynesianism, the welfare state, nationalised industry, and close regulation of the British economy before Thatcher's rise to prominence. Under her administration, there was one major exception to Thatcherite changes: the National Health Service (NHS), which was widely popular with the British public.[3] In 1982, Thatcher promised that the NHS was "safe in our hands".[4]

In fact, privatising the NHS was one of the first things that Thatcher wanted to do but she was dissuaded from it by her ministers who could see that it would be an extremely unpopular measure.

The reasons for the current state of the nation are primarily political due to the austerity imposed by the Tory party since
the GE in 2010

Thatcher

Unbridled capitalism and the myth that we could all own our own homes

The media

Building an economy based on the constant growth in house prices causing investment in homes for profit and not for living in, creating a shortage of cheap housing stock and making concessions to unscrupulous property developers.

The media

Lack of investment in education and the myth that buying children stuff because other kids got stuff and so can't do without stuff instead of just occassionally saying no.

The media

Cheap stuff manufactured overseas from expoited labour which meant we could all buy what we wanted to make our homes look like everyone elses.

The media

Lack of investment in industry, farming, and the public sector and the creative arts making us all prisoners of reality tv where the cult of celebrity becomes something for our children to aspire to instead of working in industry, agriculture, or the caring professions because we can now all be famous instead.

The media

The media

The media, media, media, media media and the media

at least those of us who smoked dope

Says it all really.
I’ve never taken an illegal drug in my life.
I obviously have different values.
And no, I don’t blame Thatcher for everything.

Good post keepingquiet.
Life is never as simple as one, long dead politician.
I wouldn’t mind, but I didn’t even like her, but when everything that’s gone wrong in the last forty years is blamed on her politics, really!

A Conservative government never wants to spend money unless it has to; something I hold against it. It didn't bother to maintain the railways, believing the car was the future. The Waterways are a disgrace because of years of neglect. God knows what the state of the sewers is like. All to save money to be able to lower taxes (so the legend goes) to grab the vote of a basically mean public.
A staunch Conservative voter will claim "But Labour spend your money". So what?

That one dead politician fomented ideas in many peoples minds that have not gone away.

maddyone what has smoking dope got to do with peoples' values? Back in the 60s selling dope was not the large scale business that it is now. In fact it was possible to obtain tincture of cannabis legally back then. Rolling tobacco was soaked in the tincture and then made into joints.

A staunch Conservative voter will claim "But Labour spend your money".

We'd be in a fine pickle if the government didn't spend 'our money'.

No roads, no schools, no courts, no benefits of any kind, no army, navy, air force, no hospitals, no jobs for a large proportion of the population, no checks on safe food and consumer goods, and no much more besides.

I think"unwisely" is the missing word! It's where your values lie in how you vote. Labour hate what they believe is the big money going to the "top" whereas your average Tory voter believes money to be wasted on the "bottom" strata of society.
I think we tend to support the tribe we feel we belong to.

Dinahmo

Are there any of you who think that our generation (baby boomers) are partly responsible?

We don't have children but I remember how our friends would stop all conversation because a baby gurgled or a toddler wanted something.

My generation was brought up differently. I sometimes think that perhaps our parents were too strict and that may be my generation rebelled against but went too far.

My parents weren't strict although they did expect good behaviour and manners.
I don't think I brought up my children differently but there has been a sea change where adults in authority, eg teachers, are afraid to discipline children because belligerent, aggressive parents will then go in and threaten them. This has been going on for some years, friends retired early from teaching because other were stressed and in some cases scared.

There seems to be a lot of anger and consequently fear in society now.
If someone is disgruntled with politicians they threaten them with violence; teachers are threatened.
Children say they carry knives for self-defence. Really? The number of stabbings now is alarming.
Misogyny is increasing.

Drugs? The internet? Family breakdowns?
I don't know if there is just one cause or multiple.

maddyone

^at least those of us who smoked dope^

Says it all really.
I’ve never taken an illegal drug in my life.
I obviously have different values.
And no, I don’t blame Thatcher for everything.

Yes, it says a lot!

I’ve never taken an illegal drug in my life.
Me neither but I do know the effect it has on people's brains long-term and know about the crime that can result from drug addiction too.

Good grief ! Very briefly saw the start of this thread and there were only two comments on, from biglouis and ilovecheese. Agreed with both their posts but didn't get the chance to respond as visitors arrived. Can see now the reporting buttons are in full swing, no surprises

Yes the snitches are alive and doing well. So much for free speech in this so called democracy.

I want to know what they said!!

I have never taken illegal drugs either. Nor been tempted to.

It all comes down to lack of discipline and especially self discipline, so many of us don’t respect others. On mainstream TV we are fed a diet of violence and conflict, on cable TV extreme violence and sex is common, it’s hardly surprising that the younger generation are emulating that behavior.

Society (that’s us) has allowed standards to deteriorate so much, we don’t respect police or teachers, even parents have no authority. How much worse is it going to get because so many don’t care.

The middle aged are in power in the Uk.
Not meaning just in Westminster[though they hardly appear to be shining examples]. At the top of most sections of Uk power.

Older people tend to believe in God more. In the Uk. Thankfully, there are some younger people here, who do too.
There is a distinct lack generally in the Uk, of the middle aged who are interested.

People at the top of organisations, wield much power and influence.