Leo McKinstry

Less alcohol, fewer drugs: how the British seem to be shedding their harmful habits

Contrary to popular belief, Britons’ harmful habits seem to be on the wane

Gripped by his habitual despair, the French novelist Gustave Flaubert wrote to a friend in 1872, ‘I am appalled at the state of society. I’m filled with the sadness that must have affected the Romans of the 4th century. I feel irredeemable barbarism rising from the bowels of the earth.’

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