Review: the phrase “Broken Britain”
To prove he 'gives a shit' and is out 'fixing' Broken Britain, David Cameron likes having pictures of himself taken at schools. Luckily with plenty of cameras in tow to capture him fixing things.
Attention seeking media darling David Cameron’s favourite phrase is “Broken Britain”. So much so that if you type Broken Britain into Google two suggested results that include David Cameron in it come up before you even hit the search button. There is a vital flaw to this catch phrase though: Britain is not broken. In fact, as far as I can tell Britain is still pretty bloody brilliant. If you were to put us in a pile of smartphones, we’d be an iPhone. Yes we’ve been hit by a recession, but given it’s the ‘biggest recession known to man, god and other such deities’, I suddenly find myself practically looking forward to normal sized recessions in future. They’ll be a right old laugh! Yes we have large unemployment, yes our financial system is probably fucked for the foreseeable future, yes there is more reporting of crime in the press, yes we are now able to pick apart any minor failing of literally anyone using the internet and yes some people still think La Roux is nice to listen to. But you’re an absolute fool if you think we are broken. Compared to every other country in the world we’ve got it damn good. We’re so not broken that we’re having to build extensions to give us the impression we’re fixing something. Even if we all had our wages slashed in half and Ikea taken away from us, compared to a lot of countries we’d still be laughing. In terms of crime we’re leaps and bounds better than most countries – even compared to other developed countries we have less shootings and we’re the ones that no longer have the horrendous death penalty. Importantly, and I think this is the crux of the Broken Britain thinking, society in the UK is simply marvellous to live in. It’s stable, it’s progressive, we have the NHS and a good education system for all their faults, people are on the whole generally nice and for the ones that aren’t there are loads of nice people wanting to help make the not nice ones nicer. In fact, the more I write the more amazed I am that someone is allowed to go around lying that Britain is ‘broken’. This is my country and I’m really proud of the way it works and of the things that don’t quite work that we continue to try to improve – this makes Britain fun. So stop slagging off our fab country and naff off you old buffoon! The phrase “Broken Britain” is the only thing broken around here.
UPDATE: this article inspired – and it’s not coincidence AT ALL – The Economist to write about the same subject: How Broken is Britain?
