Is the UK in a better or worse state than it was 50 years ago?

[AB Editor]

 

This poll is closed.

Is the UK in a better or worse state than it was 50 years ago?

• It's worse - 115 votes
• 57%
• It's better - 67 votes
• 33%
• I don't know - 15 votes
• 7%
• It's the same - 5 votes
• 2%

See final stats

Stats until: 08:51 Tue 14th May 2024 (Refreshed every 5 minutes)

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[Peter Pedant]

// Ed, why is this in DIY - is there a deep meaning to the choice of the category?//

Yes ! . ......... because to get out of the mess we are in,
we are going to have to do it ourselves ! ter daaah !

[Peter Pedant]

// One thing I presume was not there in the 1970's was loads of crusties throwing insults at each other on a daily basis//
well you presume..... wrong !

I was a techie ( yup the time I was at Porton Down) in 1969. - and the wages were enought to live on. £32/0/0 per month and lodgings were £7 / wk
easy - nope - there are four five-week-months in a year and so you cd just do it ....

One thing I presume was not there in the 1970's was loads of crusties throwing insults at each other on a daily basis

a fren' was supporting Bury who werent doing badly then ( cup winner 1909 which wasnt SO long ago) at Gigg Lane and walked the wrong way to the Other Side's Buses. He was philosphical about it - if you do that you have to expect to get kicked around.

Stop and search of white kids - oo Yah - IRA and all that - no many blacks in the IRA I can tell you.

The toffs? jackets and ties to leccies and you had to wear a gown

[Peter Pedant]

// Zacs master a very balanced and interesting reply.//

obviously inappropriate for AB and will probably be removed
(joke ter daah - one liner actually)

[Kromovaracun]

I wasn't alive in the late 60s, but I'm not sure it's a period I'd want to live through on balance.

Tea was apparently better I'm told and the property market was not as distorted as it is now. Finding work was considerably easier for an average person (albeit due to policies that were arguably unsustainable). . The quality of education was probably on the whole superior in comparison to today.

There was, however, considerably less tolerance for people who weren't heterosexual or white. Plus constant blackouts/heating failures from constant strikes. I'm not sure I entirely believe claims that the 60s/70s was as low crime an era as people who were around say it was - but I can believe that people 'felt' safer because it predates the 24 hour news cycle (which does reliably cause people to feel more afraid about their surroundings) and was still within the era of old fashioned beat policing (which was arguably more effective).

[dannyk13]

Khandro //the era of old fashioned beat policing (which was arguably more effective).//
No argument about it, it was by far a better system than that of today.

[bainbrig]

My sisters knitted little. They bought their clothes from all sorts of places (as did us geezers) but NONE of us were conned into paying absurd prices for clothes where the sole distinguishing feature was the name of some ‘star’ attached.

We all knew, sisters and brothers, that our common enemy was capitalism; a shame today’s generation have apparently forgotten this.

[bainbrig]

Kromo. “I wasn't alive in the late 60s, but I'm not sure it's a period I'd want to live through on balance. ...

Plus constant blackouts/heating failures from constant strikes. “

What comics did you read that rubbish in?

I was there, and apart from Ted Heath’s attempt to impose national blackouts (the three day week) as a stick to beat the miners (he failed) there weren’t any more power cuts than today.

How history is re-written!

[mallyh]

I felt safer then ,there was respect for police and teachers .

[ummmm]

I think there still is respect for police and teachers.

[dannyk13]

ummmm, not according to all the news reports that we regularly see.

[ummmm]

Like mentioned earlier we didn't have 24/7 news.

[Mamyalynne]

There has always been sections of the population who were anti authority - protests in the sixties and seventies abounded - whether that percentage is higher or not or we are just fed a constant stream of reports on it, I don't know.

If it is worse now, then a large part must be down to some of us who brought these dissenters up.

[ummmm]

Lots of crimes committed in the 70s/80s didn't make national news. Now they have to fill the time or just repeat everything.

[dannyk13]

I don't think all the blame can be attributed to how parents bring up their children.Some of the blame must lay with the many left leaning teachers and university lecturers.

[dannyk13]

Ummmm, there are far more public order offences and knife crimes than there were in the 50's/60's.

[Mamyalynne]

Well Danny, my brood didn't get left leaning education nor are their children getting it - I hear this thrown out regularly.

Maybe it happened to yours and others.

[dannyk13]

Not as much as it happens nowadays. I came across when I was doing a Mature Student Course and it was quite blatant.

[ummmm]

Didn't happen to mine either, Mamy.

danny...I grew in a pub, I seen a lot of violence.

[ToraToraTora]

// Zacs master a very balanced and interesting reply.// - I want it framed!