Is England In Its Death Throes?

Vinnie Jones has stated that England is "past its sell-by date".

He also said "It's not the country I grew up in. It's a European country now. If someone blindfolded you and put you on a plane in LA, and you landed at Heathrow and they took it off, you wouldn't have a clue where you were."

He also stated 'There's nothing to come back to here.'

At this point, I was thinking good, not you're a huge loss to the country or that anyone misses you; who cares what you think; you earned your fame by being a bully so, good riddance, LA is welcome to you (and your acting was rubbish as well).

Then I started to read the comments underneath the article and read this one:

I agree with most of his sentiment. The UK is a dump with little to no future for most. Everything is cut to the bone and we have an ever increasing under-class of citizen.

and it got 586 likes!

Do you think England is in its death throes or do you believe it can recover?


http://uk.news.yahoo.com/jones-stick...5.html#9H3uhiF

Re: Is England In Its Death Throes?

He never appeared to me to be particularly intelligent sadly, but no we are not in our death throws we are going through a period of adjustment and rethinking our place in the world. Hopefully we will come out of it with more sense of purpose and a little bit stronger in ourselves.

The underclass was encouraged by people like him who made being a violent yob something you were paid well to do. He played a part in the decline if that is what we have.

We have not got everything cut to the bone either, our council is resurfacing roads around the region, we have flower beds planted up and thriving, they are using wild flowers on some roundabouts this year which has been a delight, so much prettier than the usual garish bedding plants and virtually seems to have looked after it's self too.
People are going about their business as usual.

High streets are sadly declining and dying but that is not necessarily a bad thing IMO it just means how we shop is changing.

We don't have enough affordable housing but that would be simple IMO to fix if the government had the will to do it.

Jobs are hard to come by but we have weathered worse storms in the past I think and come through smiling.

Do we look more European ? possibly but I would suggest we look more multi cultural and that doesn't have to be bad, just needs to be managed right (keep labour out of office and we have a chance).

What Vinnie means IMO is he can't make money here and that is more to do with him aging out of sport and not being a very good actor. If he found something he was good at he might have more chance.

Re: Is England In Its Death Throes?

Another plus for forum life - having things put back into perspective; thank you Julie.

For some bizarre reason, I'm feeling a bit stressed about the state of our country today

Re: Is England In Its Death Throes?

I dont feel good about it, previous Governments have done nothing to halt the decline ......and I doubt future ones will be any better !

Re: Is England In Its Death Throes?

I suppose his comments are another dig at the number of 'foreigners' here now. Must admit Wales hasn't been too affected by this - at least where I live - but if like other areas of the UK we had a sudden influx of one particular nationality it would definitely feel very threatening, and I am pretty sure it would cause all sorts of social unrest problems too.

Re: Is England In Its Death Throes?

There's been an interesting poll done regarding UKIP and the very thing you've mentioned. Most (around 78%) of those changing to UKIP have stated the very reason you have given for their changing political parties; immigration and Europe didn't figure largely in their thinking but they were more concerned about the general decline of Britain over the past 20 years.

Re: Is England In Its Death Throes?

Understandable ......

Re: Is England In Its Death Throes?

I guess it also depends what sort of decline, a decline in behaviour has definitely taken place and I can't see that being turned round as people seem to like swearing and rudeness

Re: Is England In Its Death Throes?

Would improve if we had some decent role models .....
The lack of housing was due to one person who got the ball rolling there and then subsequent Governments did nothing to rectify the matter .... They must wear blinkers most of the time !

Re: Is England In Its Death Throes?

I know very little about this Vinnie Jones person but I don't think he is completely wrong. A couple of months ago our Norwegian neighbours went to London for a few days, something they have done frequently in past years, when they came back they said they had a nice time going to shows but they said they didn't feel they were in England, their words not mine.

It's possibly something like having children or pets, when you are with them all the time you don't notice their growth etc on a daily basis, but when you don't see them for a time you notice the difference. That's how it is with me. As an ex pat who visits UK, normally once a year, or every two years, I see a huge difference each time. Town centre shops closed down, markets that used to be busy and thriving cut down to a few stalls, gangs of youths hanging around, which I personally find quite intimidating, many areas beginning to look rundown and I'm not talking about cities, I'm talking the Peak District. Where my friend lives in Norfolk there is a pub where English people are told quite openly they are not welcome ! So yes, from my point of view, having been left UK for quite some years now, it has definitely changed a lot. Of course I can only speak of areas I visit.