Is Northwich, Cheshire the Worst Place in Britain?

and I'll go to bed at noon

My favourite part is "moan, moan, moan" - as opposed to what he's doing, obviously, which is just a concerned citizen expressing his opinion.

Chris

I couldn't agree more.

FF

I, for one, am grateful to Harry Simpson. He cheered up my day.

Nicholas

As long as people like you use predictable but scornful stereotyping like "Daily Mail letter" to dismiss the genuine discontent in this country it will continue to "progress" in all categories of being a shithole. If any of you journalists had any balls or integrity instead of continuing to run the political equivalent of "Hello" magazine and indulging in idle gossip about who's up and who's down amongst the super rich politico-celeb-media elite we might not be here.

Jon Stack

And the poor man also has to endure Northwich Victoria , the worst football club in Britain.

Jan Cosgrove

He could have shortened it for goodness sake - omit from "Vince Cable" to "Cabinet and". An old East End lady once said to me apropos moaners (I think he may be one) "Ah they're too bleedin' miserable to live. They should put themselves to bed with a shovel. Do us all a favour." Blunt but honest. Mr Simpson. Stop reading papers that depress you.

Nicholas

Jan Cosgrove, I fear it is not reading papers that depresses Mr Simpson but merely living in this shithole called Britain as it marches inexorably towards becoming East Germany Part 2.

Misery flows from the po-faced puritans of the Left in all their humourless, finger-wagging works of censure and censorship. We were once a nation of warm laughter (not the manufactured BBC lycra and cycle helmet kind), of healthy disrespect for authority, of fierce individual liberty and self-determination, aye, of smoking and drinking in pubs.

Don't blame the Daily Mail for providing a window onto what we are now.

cg

"And the poor man also has to endure Northwich Victoria , the worst football club in Britain."

He could be a fan of Witton Albion, Victoria's local rivals. Then again, he is probably too miserable to pay the entrance fee.

Rhoda Klapp

"But flippancy is the best of all. In the first place it is very economical. Only a clever human can make a real Joke about virtue, or indeed about anything else; any of them can be trained to talk as if virtue were funny. Among flippant people the Joke is always assumed to have been made. No one actually makes it; but every serious subject is discussed in a manner which implies that they have already found a ridiculous side to it. If prolonged, the habit of Flippancy builds up around a man the finest armour-plating against the Enemy that I know, and it is quite free from the dangers inherent in the other sources of laughter. It is a thousand miles away from joy; it deadens, instead of sharpening, the intellect; and it excites no affection between those who practice it"

Rhoda Klapp

It wouldn't go in one lump. it is from the Screwtape Letters, C S Lewis and was recently quoted at Pournelle's excellent blog. I think he describes what Alex does here, and it is getting wearisome. Mr Simpson is bothered by a lot of bothersome things which bother a lot of others people, Massie not excepted. But Massie is far too cool to agree with him without a nasty dig at him for the paper he reads and the class he belongs to. Massie winks at his fans (if he has any) and takes the flippant course. Tiresome. Cheap.

Axstane

Poor Harry Simpson should try moving to Scotland - Glasgow for example.

On a recent Sunday morning programme a young man claimed that independence would be great for Glasgow because under rule from Westminster Glasgow has the lowest life expectancy, greatest rate of obesity and the highest knife crime rate in the UK.

Rule from Edinburgh would cure all of those ills.

Tiberius

Neighbours of ours emigrated to Austalia a few years back, citing similar issues for their decision. But as we live in Shropshire they also cited, the hard water, Telford & Wrekin's secondary schools, next door's Freeview aerial, and (by extension) the M6 motorway and the Black Country accent. At least Mark Pritchard is now free to do something about those complaints.

Andy Carpark

1. People become journalists because they think their half-arsed opinions deserve more attention than those of the great unwashed. When they do not get the attention they think is their due, they have to differentiate themselves from the great unwashed in some other way, eg by referring to them as 'the saloon bar brigade' or as readers of the Daily Mail, a strategy which is largely self-fulfilling.

Andy Carpark

2. As the old joke goes, there are two sorts of people: those who divide the world into two sorts of people and those who don't.

Andy Carpark

3. The former sort - those who crave assurance at any price that they are above the common herd

Andy Carpark

(4) - merely betray their own extremely deep insecurity. They also tend to have stupid haircuts.

Andy Carpark

PS And the Spectator's posting machinery sucks even more donkey cock than ere it did.

Archie

I think that a not inconsiderable number of proper British people would agree wholeheartedly with this gentleman's concerns. I know that I do.

Fergus Pickering

I like Hugh Grant nd my pension, though smallish, is the first money I've ever had that comes without me having to do any work to get it. And global warming means the weather's gatting better.

John Savage

Well said Rhoda.