‘Broken Britain’ is a description Conservative leader David Cameron regularly used during his term in opposition to describe a nation that has been brought to its knees by a Labour government that could not stop wasting public funds or interfering with our lives in almost every conceivable way. The term had originally been coined by the Centre for Social Justice a think tank conceived by the former conservative leader Ian Duncan Smith with Tim Montgomerie and Philippa Stroud but since then it has fallen into everyday parlance.
While they went on their massive spending spree Labour failed to do anything, other than talk, about what it proposed to do to halt the serious social decline that has been seriously undermining our country. Views may differ and you may or may not agree that Britain is broken; although the evidence overwhelmingly should convince even the staunchest disbelievers that Britain can no longer proudly proclaim to be the Great nation it once was. Opinions will depend largely on individual circumstances but a point of view is more likely to be influenced by a person’s ethnicity and socio-economic position. The financially secure will, in the main, be cosseted from the worst effects of civil depravation but an increasing number are falling into poverty and are coming into regular contact with the fragmented and less savoury aspects of a society that is failing their needs. Unless you have already been a victim of violent crime; your house has been broken into or you have voluntarily chosen to enter the world of the vulnerable poor, you are unlikely to understand the lifestyles they are forced to endure. Those struggling at the lower end of society will always suffer from the ineptitude, neglect and darker sides a society that is embarrassed by poverty. As a nation we are a people that generously will donate millions of pounds to natural disasters across the globe but we largely choose to ignore our own poor and walk past a homeless person as if they were not there. Charity should begin at home but although the government donates considerable sums of money in overseas aid they fail to meet the daily needs of so many in our own country. I am not suggesting we should cease giving aid to poorer nations, just that matters should be considered in perspective.
