Re: Anyone Moved Back to the UK and regretted it?
 

I can honestly say since Dianas death, I have never bought a newspaper since. I was so disgusted at the paparazzi behaviour, i vowed never to put money in their pockets again

Re: Anyone Moved Back to the UK and regretted it?
 

I must admit I have become thoroughly disenchanted with the whole thing and am switching from journalism into something else. Just got to work out what! :eek:

Re: Anyone Moved Back to the UK and regretted it?
 

Ah yes, good old Jade Goody, commonly described as thick, ugly, talentless, famous for nothing etc.
At an estimated worth of £4million, I would describe her as shrewd......

Re: Anyone Moved Back to the UK and regretted it?
 

I know! Look at how much cash Jordan has made. For what? A pair of fake tits! A very clever lady me thinks.

Re: Anyone Moved Back to the UK and regretted it?
 

...and as you quite rightly stated, their lifestyles are funded by the poeple who buy these magazines!!

Re: Anyone Moved Back to the UK and regretted it?
 

It's not just tabloids giving exaggerated and continued coverage to these things.

There was a recent article in the Guardian about (from memory) a 25% increase in crime committed by young teenage girls over a short period.

Had it been The Sun there would have been 'interviews' with troublemakers who would be bragging abut this that and the other. There might then be a case for saying coverage was over the top and maybe even taking comments with a pinch of salt.

But this was the Guardian so there were no attention grabbing headlines, no TV ads to boost sales of the paper with claims about 'shocking Britain' etc.

So I methodically read the calmly written item and then I think about it. And what I think is what the hell happens that causes such an increase in crime over such a short period among such a group of youngsters.

And it just seems to be the seemingly worsening trend of bad behaviour that so many people comment upon. And while the problem may not be exclusive to the UK, it just seems to be a whole lot worse there.

Re: Anyone Moved Back to the UK and regretted it?
 

But hasn't it always been that way, growing up is the South Wales Valleys i was always exposed to a violent culture. Friday night was always fight night..... There were no guns and stabbings were very infrequent, but still happened. young women used to mainly start the fights and let their BH's fight it out. Maybe it's just more widely available on the TV and Youtube now. Plus of course the garbage tabloids don't help....which i hate to say it, really are the scum of the earth.....i know from personal experience

Re: Anyone Moved Back to the UK and regretted it?
 

There's an element of that, certainly.

It's just that - in Bristol and probably other places - when I left, it had become every night of the week. And it featured not just fistfights but regular glassings and stabbings.

Where once one could pretty much avoid trouble, by not going to certain areas at certain times, one is as likely to become a victim of (usually drug related) crime in the middle of the afternoon in the shopping areas or car parks as 30 years ago in a time and place better avoided.

In the UK last New Year's eve there were a dozen or more murders...and that on a night of celebration.

Was it like that before?

Re: Anyone Moved Back to the UK and regretted it?
 

I'm not so sure it is far worse than other periods in history.
Go back to the mods and rockers era and stabbings were fairly commonplace. I think it is more a case of news coverage being more in our faces
Britain has a very long way to go to get to the state of Americas dreadful gang culture.

Re: Anyone Moved Back to the UK and regretted it?
 

On a slightly different note, but relevant to attitudes, here's Simon Hoggart from his Saturday column in the latest Guardian.
"It's funny how so many things in this country just don't work very well. Take the quiet coaches which many of the long-distance rail companies now have. You're not supposed to listen to music, which means iPods, and you're not supposed to use computers or anything electronic. And if your mobile phones rings, you're meant to clear off to another coach. Not that anyone does. A bloke sitting opposite me the other day had his earphones in: chunka, chunka, chunka. I pointed out the "quiet coach" sign, and said - politely - that there were half a dozen other coaches he could sit in. "No," he said, "I like to be in the front coach," as if that settled the matter. At least he turned the sound down a bit. But the guard never intervenes, because so many people in Britain today seem to assume that their personal convenience transcends any other consideration. The time may be coming when we need to equip ticket collectors with Tasers, and orders to use them."

Re: Anyone Moved Back to the UK and regretted it?
 

I think the key word is "seems", I mean for example this 25% increase in crime, what type of crime, shoplifting or assualt? Was is it a rise of 25 on 100 cases or 25,000 on 100,000. It shows how meaningless statistics can be.

Also violent crime in the UK encompases a punch in the mouth through to murder and everything in between. Naturally the vast majority of the crimes are fights or domestics, so what does a huge statistical rise in violent crime mean. Papers love throwing these figures around because the word violent and people automatically think stabbing or murder.

Lets move it over to Canada, there is half the population, so of course there will be half the crime, the poster I am qouting is from New Brunswick, it's not exactly a huge population centre and it's far away, from big cities, canada is vast, there won't be a lot of crime in Moncton.

Montreal is a different story, it's 4 million people, do I feel any safer on the street here as opposed to London UK, not really? I certainly feel less secure in my own home than I would in North London, home invasions are all the rage, one man has been killed in his own home, another brutally beaten, all crimes threatened with guns. On average it happens every week.

Re: Anyone Moved Back to the UK and regretted it?
 

Agreed about 'seems'...that's why I used it as I can't say for sure. However my experience and impression leads me to think I'm not inaccurate.

I trust the Guardian. If it wasn't a meaningful statistic I don't believe they'd have given it such prominence.

I found this from the website.

The number of crimes committed by girls has risen by a quarter in three years, a study revealed today.

According to figures in the Youth Justice Board's Annual Workload Data report, girls aged between 10 and 17 committed 59,236 crimes in 2006-07, up 25% from 47,358 in 2003-04.

The most common crimes committed by girls were theft, violent attacks, criminal damage and public order offences.

Around 16,000 girls were found guilty of violent attacks and nearly 20,000 of theft and handling stolen goods. A further 180 girls were convicted of arson.


I think that's enough to at least be concerned about.

It would be interesting to see how the number of 16,000 found guilty of violent attacks compared to the number from 3 years earlier.