Re: Moved: Proud to be British....
 

But the first line says "Between 2005 and 2006 there were approximately 2,349,000 violent incidences in England and Wales, according to the British Crime Survey (BCS). "

That doesn't sound like a figure to be proud of, get out yer Union Jack flag and start playing Rule Britannia to me! Nearly 2.5 million violent incidents!

And then it says that only 45% of violent crime gets reported!!! So its really much worse!!!!!!!

And plus tha chart on which you base your 43% decline actually shows an overall upward trend - it was just that the year 1995 was one of the peaks. Its increased steadily over time. See picture below.

So you say things about the UK like "its former glory that everybody but me seems to remember" and yet your previous post you describe a horrific pattern of violence and yobishness that you yourself say you experienced. So, with respect, what the **** are you talking about?

Re: Moved: Proud to be British....
 

I’d like to point out that a better read of the article may help with your case

Between 2005 and 2006 there were approximately 2,349,000 violent incidences in England and Wales

In the same period, the number of violent crimes reported to the police stood at 1,056,000

indicating that approximately only 45 per cent of violent crime gets reported

However your response would indicate you’d prefer the sensationalism of the daily mail than that dealing with an independent body’s assessment of the state of affairs

I think that 2,349,000 violent instances in a population of 60,587,000 for a G8 nation isn’t bad, assuming that each incident was for a different person each time you have a 3.8% chance of being involved
In reality we know that the more likely case is that many of these will involve the same people so the exposure rate is much lower
Now I'll admit when I looked at that chart is seems to me to be trending back to the 1981 level or at least showing a consistent drop since the peak in 1995

Re: Moved: Proud to be British....
 

Thats a bit of a generalization isn't it? I'm a mental health nurse and know that my clients would be appalled by that persons behavior.

I would suggest you research what exactly mental illness consists of before you express your narrow minded views:curse:.

Re: Moved: Proud to be British....
 

When did nurses start having clients? My parents were both nurses (my dad was a CPN) and they only ever had patients.

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What a disgusting act, whats wrong with these people. I hope he gets a long sentence, although I fear it will be some short sentence probably end up 3 months. Make you sick.:(

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The general tone of your "UK gone to the dogs, look what terrible thing happened there now" I find to be gloating. Why else would you trouble to point out bad things happening there? The only other explanation that occurs to me is that it's about reassurance, if you cashed in your equity you can't go back and maybe you need to feel that you wouldn't want to. Either way picking at problems in the UK seems pointless, if you want to move on just move on.

Re: Moved: Proud to be British....
 

Radiographers have clients too. Women who come for breast screening arent ill so they arent patients. Spinal injury people dont consider themselves ill and so dont like to be called patients

Re: Moved: Proud to be British....
 

what aload of crap... i can tell you without reservation violent cirme is going up. the difference is now the police and government know how to cook the books to make the figures lower..

i know this to be fact as we were trained how to do it in the police.

for example, if we see a fight outsde a pub. we lock them up, but neither of them are making a complaint against the other we would normally just charge them with sec 4 of the public order act, which is fear of violence.

now if we did that would be classed as a violent crime, so the bosses would not allow that. and the way they got round this was saying if they had been drinking we must use drunk and disorderly as the charge instead.. and guess what, drunk and disorderly is not a violent crime..

so potentially this could happen 10 to 15 times or more every weekend night. none of which make it to the violent crime figures. and the way they do it is using alcohol as an excuse to behave badly!!! now this is a small city i worked in. multiply by 4 for bigger cities!

if you dont believe me, apply to the police for figures of people arrested for a violent crime then not charged with one!!!!

in other words, dont believe what you read with crime figures, they are all manipulated to suit.

Re: Moved: Proud to be British....
 

And you are one of the believers of the mis guided, juggled, shuffled and adjusted statistics/surveys that are available for us to read?:confused:

Re: Moved: Proud to be British....
 

correct me if i'm wrong Kitty Kerr, was this because simply put the resources and back up further along simply would not hold up anyway and therefore all crimes are being put down/having to be dealt with as less serious so that they might just get some penalty for what they did?

It s the whole damn system that is failing:curse:

maybe if there weren't so many hands tied, there would be more positive results and therefore more deterrent. It only moves down from the top - not the other way round.............

sorry folks, hate this whole subject/situation, it makes me feel sick to the stomach, all i think of is my two boys and what it would be like in another 10 years time.:(

deep breath :)

Re: Moved: Proud to be British....
 

partly so yes, however a lot of it is purely down to surveys like that. the public like to think that violent crime is falling, its the sort of crime that worries people the most. so the government give them what they want to hear, and make the violent crime figures lower...

another example is section 5 public order is classed as violent crime. but the rules have changed so police officers themselves cannot be the victim of this crime. (basically swearing and typical bad behaviour)
the reason why police can no longer be victims is we used it too much. and this adds to the violent crime figures, and we wouldnt want a true picture of what's happening would we???


now the reason why we used it a lot was its better to arrest someone who is trying to cause trouble BEFORE they manage to actually do so. but now we cant unless we can find some member of the public to complain about the persons behaviour.

so in essence this means the ones stirring the trouble get away with it, until the violence actually starts. by that time some innocent person has probably been assaulted!!! things like this are the main reason why i left the UK police. the system is a failure. that and the fact the government are too interested in making the police satisfy surveys by reams of paperwork.

as you say there is no deterrant. like the 3 burglaries, minimum 3 year sentence! yeh right, i have known people with 20 convictions for burglary who havnt spent a day inside!!

Re: Moved: Proud to be British....
 

I thought I'd enliven this thread with a tale of Canadians gang raping a fourteen year old. Country gone to dogs, rot in the schools, yadda, yadda, perhaps I should move to the UK so to give any future children a better life.

http://www.thestar.com/News/GTA/article/258597

Re: Moved: Proud to be British....
 

Whatever makes you more comfortable, everyone has individual reasons for their actions and thoughts. Sometimes people have the luxury of ignorance is bliss, some no longer have that. I think if you have lost all faith in the whole system there is only limited solutions - do something about it ( impossible!), get out and try to make things better for your family unit.
You could sit here all day finding and posting examples from each and every country in the world. It all depends if you, personally, can justify things to yourself and comfortably live with whats going around you in whatever country you chose to live in. If you get that ignorance is bliss for 5 /10 years in a new country, well i am happy to give that a try and if i get it for even longer then great! At least i've done something about it, not just sat moaning and groaning.

:)

Re: Moved: Proud to be British....
 

It's interesting to read that many of the posters who have negatively commented on NSPaul's 'message' behind the thread are already in Canada. To still be here in the UK and to experience these things is a reality.

Compare the size of Canada with the UK and the overall statistical information on crime rates and I'm pretty sure the the UK can win hands down. Sadly many of the victims are either young or old, both ends of the age spectrum are the easy targets and those who try to defend property or people from perpetrators of these crimes often become victims themselves.

'Happy slapping' is de rigeur and I absolutely dread picking my 13 year old daughter up from school because even though we live in a nice, wealthy town many teenagers are very very disrespectful. You only have to drive behind the school bus to see how they treat each other never mind anyone else.

My OH is a firefighter and the amount of abuse they suffer each and every night is apalling from teenagers and drunks.

Crime is everywhere, there's no doubting that but much crime here is a result of lighter treatment by schools (you get a C1, C2, C3 then a C4 and if you're really naughty a lunch-time detention!), the lack of 'on the street' bobbies, parents afraid of touching or shouting at their kids because they will be accused of child abuse and a country full of people afraid of saying anything, which may be construed as racist or lible.

I am proud to be British in many ways, it is a nation with a long historical notebook of achievements but to be proud to be British and want to live in Britain are very different things.

Re: Moved: Proud to be British....
 

A reality. Another reality is to be among the violence, crime, dirt, begging and air pollution in Canada. Life is shit for the poor in either country (by the standards of the west). It's not somehow more valid to compare them because you're sitting in one and not the other.

I do like the idea of enjoying five years of ignorance, I see the sense in that.

Re: Moved: Proud to be British....
 

Crime isn't about being poor!

Especially the type of incidents, which were highlighted by NSPaul's original thread.

I've been pretty darn poor for the majority of my life. I was brought up on a council estate in the 70s and 80s when factories were closing and there was high unemployment.

Crime wasn't like it is now, it's now more about the grim and morbid satisfaction of doing the crime and getting away with it than stealing because you're hungry or fighting to protect your children.

Re: Moved: Proud to be British....
 

http://www.thechronicleherald.ca/Metro/897476.html

http://www.thechronicleherald.ca/Metro/897449.html

http://www.thechronicleherald.ca/Nov...a/9004197.html

http://www.thechronicleherald.ca/NovaScotia/897480.html

Good job you moved to a crimeless place then..............NOT!!!!
DBD33 was right, your post does have undertones of gloating.
just what was the point of this post? we all know the good and bad points of both the UK and Canada so what has this post proved/pointed out that we haven't had in another dozen posts of this type?

Re: Moved: Proud to be British....
 

Just out of interest, these are the top 15 countries in which residents experience serious crime, per capita. Interestingly, to go back to my point about it not being necessarily a poor thing, note that some of the richest countries in the world have some of the highest crime rates.

There were 60 countries in total so both the Uk and Canada feature quite high in the statistical "hit" parade!


#1 Dominica: 113.822 per 1,000 people
#2 New Zealand: 105.881 per 1,000 people
#3 Finland: 101.526 per 1,000 people
#4 Denmark: 92.8277 per 1,000 people
#5 Chile: 88.226 per 1,000 people
#6 United Kingdom: 85.5517 per 1,000 people
#7 Montserrat: 80.3982 per 1,000 people
#8 United States: 80.0645 per 1,000 people
#9 Netherlands: 79.5779 per 1,000 people
#10 South Africa: 77.1862 per 1,000 people
#11 Germany: 75.9996 per 1,000 people
#12 Canada: 75.4921 per 1,000 people
#13 Norway: 71.8639 per 1,000 people
#14 France: 62.1843 per 1,000 people
#15 Seychelles: 52.9265 per 1,000 people

Re: Moved: Proud to be British....
 

Statistics again though. All these sort of comparative studies are fatally flawed as in general all the statistics are provided by government sources, and violent crime will be defined very differently from place to place.

In a similar vein, do you really believe Cuba is among the best healthcare providers in the world?...the UN does, but guess where they get the stats from to prove it....

Re: Moved: Proud to be British....
 

Yes, I know how unreliable they are. I maintain statistics myself and know how easily they can be tinkered with.

It's just interesting to see that according to the global statistical information collected, that the UK is higher than Canada. How else can information be gathered if it isn't by statistical data?

I think it's probably a case of the richer countries probably have better recording methods, Best Value paperchases and all that crap. Though India came out top as the murder capital of the world with over 37,170 murders!

Re: Moved: Proud to be British....
 

Im not arguing that statistics are invalid, just that a LOT of care has to go into taking comparisons and tables at face value.... Something like murder is pretty clear cut, you are either dead or you arent...violent crime or antisocial behaviour is much harder to pin down in a uniform way.

Re: Moved: Proud to be British....
 

The first part ("UK gone to the dogs, look what terrible thing happened there now") is fairly accurate. The second part about it being gloating is total rubbish. Why would anyone, myself included, see this as something to glad about. Its a disgraceful thing to have happened, it does point to a general breakdown of decency and social order that is going on in the Uk a the moment (as other posts on this thread confirm) and it is equally shameful regardless of whether you are still living in the UK or not. The fact that I have moved to Canada is irrelevant, I still have friends and relatives living in the UK (a number of friends near that area in particular).

I think you are looking too deep. There does not have to be a "hidden message" to every thread. This is a discussion forum after all. All day long people discuss things - both good and bad. Moreover it is a discussion forum for British Expats so significant news from the UK is always going to be a recurring topic.

When we read threads such as "dbd versus chickens" (just to pick a random example) nobody asked "what was the point of this thread?". We didn't look for a hidden message such as you trying to overcome your guilt after slaughtering innocent chickens and aiming to find reassurance in humourising said topic for example.

Re: Moved: Proud to be British....
 

Utter b****cks. Thanks to the collapse of the Pound I could probably go back with substantially more than I came with if I did want to. But I really don't want to. I'm not just trying to fool myslef here - I really don't! Almost every aspect of live is better for me and my family in Canada. You are deluded if you think the average british expat secretly wants to return to the UK but can't because the can't afford to! The majority of people who move to Canada really love their new life. I'm sorry if you don't.

Re: Moved: Proud to be British....
 

As the originator of that thread, you may have a point. Up until a year ago, I had eaten a vegetarian diet for 22 years and just last summer decided to eat meat again. Obviously, I have subconsciously expressed my "chicken-guilt" vicariously through farmy antics of dbd.

I'm now reading 'The Maple Leaf' with a whole new perspective!

Re: Moved: Proud to be British....
 

I love my life in canada, but I suspect that dbd is right, the relative cost of property in the two nations would make a return to the UK a very serious financial proposition for the majority of those expats looking to return. I suspect that very few of them would be quids in on the deal, and most would have to return substantially further down the property ladder than they left. The exception perhaps would be those enjoying the boom in Alberta.

There does seem to be rather too much analysis of the motives of this thread in my opinion, My head is still spinning that someone would actually do this, but I hope it doesn't reflect on me as a Brit personally. I gave up being proud of being british a long time ago I suspect anyway. Im not ashamed either, just ambivalent I guess.

Re: Moved: Proud to be British....
 

Currently it is hovering around the $2 mark. when we arrived 2.5 yrs ago it was at a high of $2.25 and has since been as low as $1.99, hardly a collapse and it isn't a weak GBP anyway, it's a strong $cdn.
As for the point of this thread, DBD33's thread on chickens was different, love it or hate it but it was different. This thread is just another "lets bash the UK" thread. I for one have seen enough and as i said in my last post, i know how bad (and good) the UK can be, the same goes for Canada. Why is your post any different from the many other threads on the same lines?
if you are so happy here, why you so concerned enough to trawl through the Brit papers and dig up whatever dirt you can find?
I notice you didn't comment on the Halifax/NS crimes, i got them from a 2 minute search on the Chronicle herald website and i'm sure i can find more (and worse) crimes given more time. having said that, Halifax is the safest city i have ever visited so it just goes to show how one incident and/or statistics can be manipulated to suit the author!!!

Re: Moved: Proud to be British....
 

Living in a high crime area is a function of being poor. Do you think the residents of Anacostia, Rexdale, Liverpool and so on chose to move there from Georgetown, Richmond Hill and London?

Re: Moved: Proud to be British....
 

If the UK has in fact gone to dogs in the manner you describe, is it improper of me to leave my parents there on the Costa Geriatrica?

I imagine phoning my mother:

Self "I understand that you're beset by marauding hooligans and are no longer safe there. How about moving to Canada?"

Aged mother "You wot love?"

Self "England's dangerous, you might want to get out"

AM "Have you been drinking?"

Self "Of course, but aren't you scared there?"

AM "I'm not following you, is there another war? Ask yer father"

Self "Dad, I hear it's dangerous over there how about emigrating?"

AF "Driving's dangerous, 'cause of all us old people, but everyone over there drives like an old person. We'd be bored in Canada and it's cold. We'll stay here thanks. It's safe enough if you walk on the pavement and use the lights to cross the road". <tries to hang up but doesn't> "That American's been messing him up again, what's this drug they're all on now, oxyicillin?"

Re: Moved: Proud to be British....
 

Don't you ever read something and it outrages you SO much that you feel the need to draw other people's attention to it? That was why I posted it. I don't agree that people should only be allowed to make "nice" posts. 90% of my posts are helpful and respond to peoples questions. Some are just daft. And a few have "dark" content. I think that's healthy.

But even I am starting to wish I hadn't posted it. It seems like there are lots of people out there who, having lived in Canada for a few years, have now started to look back on Britain with gentle fondness as though it is some sort of idyllic land out of a Beatrix Potter story, and do not wish to face up to reality. I'm sorry to disappoint but that isn't what Britain is really like. Nor does the Easter bunny really exist. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

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I think the problem is taking an isolated extreme event like this and transposing that on to the whole country to say look how bad britain is now.

Obviously, some parts are grim, but on the other hand large parts are not.


It might be indicative though of a certain disenfranchised underclass that seems to be there now that didnt behave in this sort of blatantly antisocial way before.

Re: Moved: Proud to be British....
 

Indeed - and a point I made a few pages ago.

Re: Moved: Proud to be British....
 

an "extreme" event granted but not an "isolated" one. 2.4 million violent incidents per year remember (that the police are aware of)

Re: Moved: Proud to be British....
 

And no doubt all 2 400 000 involve someone pissing on a defenceless person while their friends video it for youtube:rolleyes:

Who are you kidding, of course this was as isolated as it was extreme. If this sort of thing happened all the time it would not have been nearly as newsworthy and sensational, and you would not have felt the need to draw our attention to it.

Canada has violent incidents too dont forget. Every frigging hockey game is littered with them, and they all (well, nearly all) go unreported. We all seem to have conveniently overlooked the fact that HWP posted a link to a similar sort of pissing incident in Calgary a while back.

Re: Moved: Proud to be British....
 

Please dont take part of my posts and then use them to back up your argument. It implies I agree with your views.

Re: Moved: Proud to be British....
 

We've had this discussion many times before. (I know it may be new to many posters and so worth repeating). You cant compare crime rates from one country to another as it depends on how crime is recorded a point very well illustrated by Kitty.

The behaviour was appalling by any societies standards. NSPaul was trying to use my post to back up his idea that this behaviour is typical of Britain but a point in Britains favour is that the poor woman was found by passers by who then called an ambulance etc. So you cant tar everyone with the same brush.

I do agree that the atmosphere in small town Britain is more intimidating and scary than it is here. The kids are better behaved and have more manners. I see this at work when I am x-raying people, I see it at the college I am at.

I was shocked by the violence seen on the news from Toronto, now that seems much worse than I used to hear about London. Maybe its a feature of what happens to humans when we are all crowded in together???

Re: Moved: Proud to be British....
 

Indeed. Out in the country we have no people to beat up and so have to choke our chickens.

Re: Moved: Proud to be British....
 

If your over-riding reason for wanting to leave the UK is because you’re fed up with rising crime, disintegrating respect, and freeloading immigrants… well, I’ve got just the place for you. Forget Canada, the US, Australia and NZ, because they’re more or less the same as the UK. How about this…

A country which is virtually free of petty crime?
Where respect for family and the elderly is a deeply held part of the culture?
Where citizens get free medical treatment and education?
Where citizens are assured of jobs that pay enough to support your family?
Where working hours for citizens are very relaxed?
Where immigrants are tolerated but strictly controlled, and not allowed to force their religion on the good citizens?
Where the weather is usually hot and sunny?
Where petrol is cheaper than water?

What do you mean, sounds too good to be true?

All together now, “O Saudi Arabia, our spiritual home and land!.....”

Re: Moved: Proud to be British....
 

No, you missunderstood me - I wasn't implying you agreed or dissagreed with me, just that the phrase in your post ("Whats even more alarming/upseting is that his friends watched and videoed it, according to the Sunderland Echo some women arrived as well and they all laughed") had already answered the question that was being asked. It would be up to reader to decide whether it supported my argument or not, I wasn't claiming that.

Re: Moved: Proud to be British....
 

then refer back to the original article and quote that. I repeat, dont quote out of context to support your views.