British Teens the Worst Behaved in Europe

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Naturally the Anglo-Saxon model of laissez-faire capitalism, extreme inequality, and full State support of the owning class without any recognition of the other 98% of the population will tend to alienate the majority of working-class youth, who have nothing to hope for under this system but a life of unremitting toil and serious scarcity. 

The Continental model, of course, encourages a sense that these youth 'belong' in society by giving them a minor political voice, through real center-left parties, and a higher degree of economic equality and hope for future improvement.

Congratulations on demonstrating your complete and utter ignorance of how the British economy and welfare systems are structured (I won't go into your amusing assertion about a mythical "Continental model"...).

Stop thinking in mindless stereotypes and stupid assumptions and maybe, just maybe, people will actually debate seriously with you for a change.

(Btw, if you had just mentioned quite how rigid the class system is in Britain and claimed that that was the reason, I wouldn't mind. In this case it would be innaccurate (the rich get pissed as often as the working class), but it is at the root of most social ills in this country. Class barriers are not as strong as they were before 1945, but they are still strong).

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As to the survey thing; no suprise. The problem is entirely due to the binge drinking culture... it's always been there, but it had kind of faded away from the First World War onwards, only to re-emerge in recent decades.

Some government minister (forget who) recently proposed increasing duties on alcohol, btw.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

But in a nutshell, I think it has a lot to do with economic- and social policies of the last 25 years, rewarding a form of materialism which then inadvertently leads to a blind hedonism that has completely alleviated any sense of social cohesion.

I would say that economic and social policies carried out over only a few years in the early '80's (especially the sacrifice of the manufacturing industries on the altar of voodoo economics) are at least responsible for triggering off the problem. Most social policies pursued since then haven't been especially harmful, while the extremely damaging economic policies of the late '80's and early '90's are very unlikely to have had much of an effect on this sort of thing (they had a nasty impact on public trust in politics though).
The important thing to remember is that this drinking culture was only just below the surface of society anyway; there was always a threat of it re-emerging at some point.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

While I agree with Al's sentiments; to end the 'timeline' just as Labour achieves power neglects Labour's own record. It has to be remembered that a 15 year old youth with an ASBO was 6 when Labour came to power and the escalation of youth crime while not the direct fault of any single government has not been dealt with effecvtively by the current adminstration.

Actually I ended it c. 1993 or so

The record of both the Major and Blair governments in this area have been poor; Major didn't seem to be aware that there was a problem, while Blair has gone down completely the wrong road in trying to deal with it. What could be called the ASBO approach hasn't (contrary to liberal thinking) made things any worse, but it's not really made things much better either. As a short-term measure, ASBO's are not really a bad idea (if a little on the authoritarian end of things for my taste), but a short-term measure is not an effective subsitute for a solution to a solvable problem. But that's Blair (at his worst) all over for you.
O/c none of the other parties have much to offer in this area; Cameron has come out with a load of PR hot air (the real purpose of which seems to be to steal away LibDem votes in affluent areas; and it seems to be working very well), while all you get from the LibDems is a load of hand-wringing liberal nonsense. Oh and "tough liberalism" from Mark Oaten. Ahem. Ahem. Ahem.

This is also, unusually, an area that the Labour Left (in all it's ever diverse forms) has avoided like the plauge... the assumption seems to be that it's the territory of the Labour Right and as such should be avoided, something that is IMO foolish... yeah, I can criticize my side as well

The general lack of ideas on this subject is quite strange.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

No one has mentioned the erosion of religion, but I will point this out as a great cause of these troubles.

The dates don't fit. The final decline of orthodox religion here was, more or less, complete by the late 1970's (and probably a little earlier). Binge drinking started to boom (if that's the correct word) from the mid 1980's or so.

Besides, Anglicanism has never had any problems with alcoholism... at the height of alcohol abuse in Britain (18th and early 19th centuries. You think we're bad today? Jesus...), England was far more Anglican in it's culture and so on than it is today.
Nonconformity did (and does) have it's issues with alcohol, but it's great decline (as an organised force) was in the early half of the twentieth century.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Something else to remember is that only a minority are as bad as all this.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Marwick knew a lot about excessive drinking

Good historian though

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Obviously the British system is as I said it is, relatively speaking.

No it isn't actually. Please do some research before making wild claims.

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Do you even know what you're talking about here? The welfare systems of those countries are, usually, nothing like each other at all and the principles that set them up are frequently very different.

Btw, the overall welfare state in the U.K has a great deal of public support and has done since it was create. We grumble about it, but like it really.