Country in denial

I know this will not make happy reading, but the woes of our country are piling up.

First, of course, our economic problems are now enormous. The City has been a major contributor to the exchequer in recent years, but the economist Ruth Lea has written, ‘in the wake of the current crisis, this sector is not expected to be a major source of growth — on the contrary it is likely to contract’. Then there is the loss of manufacturing. The French President has described Britain as a country that doesn’t manufacture anything. In fact, manufacturing still accounts for 13% of GDP, but, with the recession, companies are closing. The steel producer Corus is under pressure. Then there is the depletion of our oil and gas reserves.

But our decline is not just economic. Our prisons are running at full capacity, with more needing to be built. According to a study last year, 45% of marriages in Britain will end in divorce. Despite record spending on the NHS, our hospitals struggle to keep clean and scandals about the mistreatment of patients, especially the elderly, have become regular news stories. When it comes to education, many people believe that standards have plummeted in the last 30 years and it certainly seems that anti-social behaviour from young people has increased in our schools and on the streets. The police often remind us that terrorist plots are being hatched against our citizens.