Only one in seven Brits is happy with the way society is at present and nearly seven out of ten (68%) want it to be more neighbourly, according to new research published today by Theos, the public theology think tank. Only 16% of people want to live in a more patriotic society.
If there is one thing guaranteed to animate people more than a debate about religion, it is a debate about housing and immigration.
If Oscar Wilde was right and a cynic is someone who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing, we might be living through the most cynical age in history.
‘It’s in the public’s interest.’
The bloody face of an unknown 94 year-old woman dominated the news in January 2002. Six months later it was the unperturbed gaze of a mass-murdering GP which transfixed the cameras. In between Rose Addis and Harold Shipman, the public heard about patients dying on trolleys in hospital corridors, foreign nurses being imported and British patients being exported. Stories of incompetence, malpractice, under funding and low morale were legion. Terms such as ‘bedblocking’ and ‘postcode lottery’ passed into common parlance. Despite Gordon Brown’s pledge of an extra £40 billion, 2002 has been a bruising year for the NHS.
Few things are guaranteed to provoke British wrath more than daring to question our right to travel where we like, when we like and how we like. Mobility is an incontestable right. It is the foundation on which Western wealth has been built. It is the pre-requisite of our much-cherished liberty and individualism. It is no less than an axiom of modern, civilised life.