Perhaps Cameron should tell us who broke Britain? Where did this mass unemployment come from? When did these communities start being torn to shreds? Who was it who gloated ‘if it isn’t hurting, it isn’t working’? Who was it that cavalry charged the miners when they tried to save their jobs and communities? Who was it who presided over a decade of decay in our inner cities whilst the ‘City’ was lauded over? Who was it that introduced the ‘couples penalty’ in the benefits system?

A couple of weeks ago we saw, on this very blog, we had the nauseating sight Tory deny that his party had anything to with the migration from unemployment benefit to incapacity benefit. That either betrays a certain amount of remorse (unlikely) or an inability to admit to wrongdoings.

I don’t blame Cameron for continuing to use this meme; it works for him. The fact that he goes unchallenged, well folks, I am afraid that is down to us.

This lazy tarring of whole communities with one (negative) brush is something politicians and the media are often guilty of. Neil Robertson has written a great post on this, as part of our week discussing the way poverty is portrayed in the media http://www.community-links.org/linksuk/?p=1378

Hear hear to Jim@1, spot on mate!

Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t the point of the Broken Britain meme partially that some children were being allowed to roam out of control. If so, the meme does work here.

I don’t think the point was that everyone was broken, which seems to be the spin those attacking Mr Cameron were using, but rather that the way things like Social Services and the Police had to work was failing parts of our society. Of course, it is easier to just claim it was a general statement that everyone around Doncaster is ‘broken’, but that is not what was said.

Personally I think it is a rather silly way of describing problems, as Britain is clearly not broken (broke now, well…) and most societies function fine. I would have preferred to see a leader standing up against the violent, the bullies and the thugs, who are the ones who ruin this country. But I don’t think that alliterates as well…

The broken Britain meme as you coin it was not limited to the narrow band of children roaming about, Cameron’s use of it was an overreach and an effort to show a social recession during Labour’s time in power.

Hence the piece here.

Watchman,

Your mob created the idea that there is no society. It is a complete joke for them to then claim that society is broken. How can something that doesn’t exist be broken?

6
right-on

douglas clark,

My mob? I’m not even a made man… I come here because I enjoy the debate, not because I’m a masochistic member of the Conservative party (a statement that is incorrect in every sense).

As to there is no such thing as society, the context of that quote is quite useful – Mrs Thatcher was responding to being told (I think rhetorically) that ‘society wants’ or ‘society needs’. She was saying society is not a coherent thing, but rather an abstract. But the isolated quote has been jumped on and span ever since.

And you would need to find Mr Cameron stating he agreed with the quote before your line of argument can be used. Or do you think that Mr Brown leads a party that will ‘arm the workers if necessary’ (A. Blair, c. 1982) in order to bring about the socialist revolution?

To repeat:

The broken Britain meme as you coin it was not limited to the narrow band of children roaming about, Cameron’s use of it was an overreach and an effort to show a social recession during Labour’s time in power.

Hence the piece here.

Am i the only one that finds it ironic considering it was blair that started the moral panic in the early 90s over a very similar case?