We've never had it so good in Britain, despite our moaning

[oldironside]

"The war's 70th anniversary released a torrent of nostalgia, which should stop. Now

Those who lived in Britain in the 1950s often look back to a golden age of low crime, decency, respect, sobriety and national pride. What they tend to forget is that the postwar years were characterised by poverty and lack of choice. There was no crime because there was nothing to steal. There was no disorder because there was no money with which to go out on the razz. There was none of the shallowness of today's consumerism because there was nothing to buy and no money to buy it with. The food was terrible, the weather was worse, the heating was inadequate and the toilet paper was agony.

Yes, the divorce rate was massively lower – which was a disaster. Just imagine all those people trapped in loveless marriages. Just think of all those children having to watch their parents ripping into one another day in and day out. And teenagers didn't have sex – you had to get married first. Then, women weren't supposed to enjoy it – they couldn't anyway since men didn't know the whereabouts or even the existence of the clitoris.

We were more respectful of authority – because "authority" had a way of committing summary physical violence against you, or fitting you up if they didn't like the look of you, irrespective of any evidence or reference to human rights. And if you were a darkie or a paddy, or any kind of Johnny Foreigner, you could be sure that law would give you even shorter shrift. If you were really bad, the state would simply murder you."

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/tim-lott-weve-never-had-it-so-good-in-britain-despite-our-moaning-1782393.html

[non sociopath skin]

1. "The good old days are good and gone now ...

.. that's why they're good; because they're gone"

Loudon Wainwright III

Ah, nostalgia isn't what it used to be ....

The Skin

[fedsron2us]

2. When was the NHS created ?

When were the most slums cleared and council houses built ?

When were income differentials lowest between rich and poor ?

When was the greatest social mobility ?

When did the British people take to the streets and actually help stop its government waging an unjust war ?


People in the 1950s started out with bread rationing and a bombed out country yet achieved more of lasting value than their much more privileged successors

As for this articles panglossian view of contemporary Britain we shall soon find out how well its view of this country stand up now the luck and the money has finally run out.

[LeftishBrit]

3. I think the Attlee government was one of the best we've ever had..

However, most of the nostalgists are not looking back to Attlee and Nye Bevan, but to the days when gender roles were clear, the working classes Knew Their Place, there weren't so many of these bloody foreigners, none of this sexual immorality and permissiveness toward gays, and schoolchildren were disciplined and well-behaved (actually if you read accounts by people who were actually teachers in the 1950s, such as Edward Blishen's 'Roaring Boys and 'This Right Soft Lot', you will see that this last view comes through VERY rose-coloured spectacles!)