It’s the Broken Society, stupid

27 June 2007

British politics used to be dominated by the country’s relentless economic decline. Long before James Carville’s mantra for Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential election bid — ‘It’s the economy, stupid’ — it was the economy which determined British general elections and alternative economic policies which most divided the parties.

I spent most of my early career as a journalist chronicling this economic decline and commenting on it. I travelled to Germany, Scandinavia, even Italy to bring back stories of how Continental companies were more efficient, their bosses more impressive, their unions more reasonable, their products, from cars to fridges, far superior. Most of the serious media did this sort of thing: the aim was to shame Britain into upping its game; but for a long while it seemed as if we were wasting our time.

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Jonathan Wenn

May 5th, 2009 3:07pm Report this comment

Yes Mr Neil. So what is YOUR solution? It is very easy for journalists to sit on the sidelines and critisize because they do not actually have to do anything positive to help. When you point your finger and Messrs Brown, Cameron etc you have four fingers pointing at yourself. If you want to make a difference, try doing something positive instead of just carping.