Well, that's another fine mess you've got us into.....Nanny State

How do I begin this one?
How do I write this post without fear of contradicting any previous entry?

Call it what you will, but it came to me like a bolt from the blue. Maybe I'm lagging behind the times but for me it was a revelation.

For a few years and more now, the population of the UK have had a bee in their bonnet surrounding the 'Nanny State' idea. Most of us at one time or another have thrown our arms up in the air and said something like 'just another barmy plan from the Nanny State'. Central government have taken it upon themselves to treat the population, at large, like children. We're warned about the dangers of this and prevented from doing that. For instance, all the little warnings we see on food, alcohol and tobacco (actually tobacco is no longer a little warning, it a graphic picture of the inside of a lung or lining of a throat), but the point is there. We are told how to behave, guided in our day to day existence by rules and regulation.

Many of these rules and regulations are restrictive in a social or health & safety arena, and as such, lend themselves to the idea of a nanny state as they remove the 'risk' of a certain individual making the wrong decision about his / her life. Some rules have become blended into legislation and so the line between nanny state and police state are blurred. Political correctness plays a part too.

Parents are scared to allow their children out of sight, especially at night, because of the risk of danger to the child firstly, but also a risk of themselves being caught up in legislation that might see them imprisoned for their childs' actions.

Responsible adults with children at home are in fear of having the smallest amount of alcohol incase they're viewed as being unfit parents.

CCTV cameras are posted EVERYWHERE to track our movements and keep an eye on what we're up to

Gov't agencies can consolidate information held about us on a variety of databases, to enable them to investigate individuals further than by using data held legitimately alone can do

The TV warns us to reduce / increase our GM, Salt, Sugar, Fat, Carbohydrates, Polyunsaturated Fat, Calories, Saturated Fats, Protein, Vitamins. Get your 5 a day.

An independent think tank, the Kings Fund, published a report in 2004 saying that most of the British public wanted a Nanny State. I say that is absolute rubbish. The report might be a representation of the 1000 people surveyed, but 1000 out of 60,000,000 is not representative in my view, not to any respectable proportion anyway.

The UK Gov't are acting like strict parents, telling us don't when what they should be doing is warning, providing information, giving us the tools to make informed decisions about our own lives.

What was the revelation then? What is all of this about?

I've spent a lot of time putting it in black and white, telling everyone I know, making the statements that everyone else spouts off, but the revelation I've had is that while the content of those statements is correct as far as I'm aware, it was the targetting that was incorrect.

It's is not the Government that are to blame.
The blame for the way this nation has become lies fairly and squarely at the door of every man and woman in the land. OK, more specifically, it is the fault of the 80s generation in particular, but the 70s and the 90s had their input too. Mainly it was my generation - the 80s school-leavers.

When I left school, the North East of England was a fairly depressing place. The region is a beautiful part of England, closer culturally to our Scot cousins than to our English brothers, and has so much to offer the world in ways too numerous to list here. The people are genuine, hospitable, hard-working. The countryside is beautiful, vast, varying and full of history. In 1982 when I left school and joined the RAF, the NE of England was an unemployed wasteland, closed down industry and depressed school-leavers. I wasn't the only one to leave the region for opportunities elsewhere.

All over the UK, people were in a migrating mood. The 1980s were a migration period for the British human species. Where before, most people were happy with living close to family because work was availalbe, following the collapse of industry, people were looking further afield for work. OK, that is not the fault of the people, but the natural course of events that followed most certainly is.

Let's take it back a couple of years, to my early 'teens, so we're talking 1976 onwards. 1976, the summer of heat, the drought, long hot days and water shortages. I have some great memories of that year, carefree, 11 years old, and I spent much of most of those summer days with my friends on our bikes, riding the 3 miles each way from our village to the coast, leaving our bikes on the beach while we swam in our jeans in the North Sea. Brrr!

Today, in 2009, I doubt this would be allowed.
Firstly, riding a push-bike along main roads, shared with cars, lorries, buses, would be unthinkable for an 11 year old today.
Then there's the unsupervised minors, on a beach, in the sea angle to look at, considering that every street corner and cubby is populated by child molesting wierdos, it would seem.
Of course, swimming without any life guard is an issue too. There were no lives to guard - it wasn't that kind of beach.
Swimming in the North Sea, just south of Newcastle, is not a recommended pursuit either, it's not exactly the Med.

All this shows is that opinions are vastly different today than they were 30 years ago. Those of us that are now into our 40s see the UK as a place where our freedoms have been curtailed, reduced, removed in some cases....

...and it is all our fault.

We grew up in a world where our parents had grown up, and their parents before them. Of course there was migration in the 60s, the 50s, the 40s and so on, industrial migration where whole families uprooted and moved county, or even country, to find work and accommodation in a new town, city or nation, but in the main, we grew up in our parents world, and they in theirs and so on. Because of this, traditions and cultural ways of life were passed down generation to generation. Tips for survival, if you like, were indoctrinated into us by the moral superiority of our elders. As we enter adulthood, we make our own way in the world, but still guided by the paternal instincts of our kin.

During the 80s, this process changed more than it had been affected at anytime hitherto. Speaking purely from the point of view of someone that grew up in NE England, but there seemed to be a huge shift in migration, and many young men, in particular, moved away to start elsewhere. Work, or lack of prospects more specifically, was the driver for this, but once it started, it seemed that it snowballed. Suddenly, there were a lot of people living outside of their comfort zone, having to truly fend for themselves with little or no parental guidance. As adults, we will like to depend on something.

The Government moved along too. New politicians came onto the scene, men and women who also had their roots in the 80s migration. Men and women who have seen the possible changes that can be made, and became involved in the political process themselves. The shift was complete.

Politicians spoke to us in our language, they courted us with the same emotions that had let us down, they began to replace the parental and community model that we had grown up with, but had left behind.

We allowed it to happen.
We allowed it to happen.

Freud said 'Tell me about your mother', and I used to laugh when I heard that. What has my mother to do with anything, I'd think. But it is so true. The guidance we would receive, be it good or bad, came from the family unit, and the extended family unit, then from interaction with friends and the rest of the human race in turn. By endorsing the mass individual migration of the 80s, we have destroyed the family unit and because of that, community is weaker, social interactions are fewer, social malpractice is on the rise.

Unfortunately, while recognising the errors of our ways, I can also see the path ahead, and it is not a pretty one. Things will become more restrictive, more prohibitive.

We are now seeing parents being sent to prison because a child has persistently avoided school. But parents are being unjustly accused of being unfit here. They are themselves a product of their world, and their world has not taught them the values that my world taught me. This is not the governments fault

We allowed it to happen.

Now, I'm not about to attempt to incite any kind of rioting here, and I am not a political antagonist, but I am a voice in my nation. We cannot allow this to happen any longer. Unfortunately, we cannot stop it by simply writing a blog, but my hope is that I can plant a seed, bring some emotion to the subject, start talking about it. We need to change direction.

I hate to think of the lost generation. They are the product of our mistakes, and that makes me feel absolutely heartbroken. There are too many broken promises living in their 20s, trying to make sense of a world from which they know nothing different, and it is not fair to them, nor to us, nor to the future generations that are to come.

Children abandoned by community have grown into adults that care nothing for community.

It is an alien concept to many

How do we begin? Oh dear,, I'm right back at the top again.
We begin by talking, reaching out, creating community.

But is that right? Community evolved over many generations. We destroyed it in one.
How can we put that right? Should we try? Is there any better way?

Humans are social animals. We need community. Let us make sure we generate the right kind of community, a physical, social and interactive human community and get our nation and our people, back on track.