The unbroken society

The Economist this week is not convinced about the Tory arguments for a broken society.

In its leader it says that it has become fashionable to say that British society is in a mess and getting worse.

But the facts say otherwise

It would be idiotic to claim that Britain is perfect. The vomitous binge-drinking mainly by the young, the drug abuse and teenage pregnancy that are still higher than in most west European countries and the large proportion of single-parent families all tell a tale. But the story of broad decline is simply untrue Stepping back from the glare of the latest appalling tale, it is clear that by most measures things have been getting better for a good decade and a half. In suggesting that the rot runs right through society, the Tories fail to pinpoint the areas where genuine crises persist. The broken-Britain myth is worse than scaremongering—it glosses over those who need help most.

An older work force, a recession and a boom in Blu-ray disc sales.

Three things that won't be happening next year if you believe or should I say,don't believe the Economists World in 2009.

Looking back to 2008 according to the New York Times

“About 2008: sorry,” reads a note from the issue’s editor, Daniel Franklin, in the prediction edition for 2009. Who would have seen the financial crisis coming, Mr. Franklin asked? “Not us. The World in 2008 failed to predict any of this,” he said.

As well as getting it wrong on Russian military policy,Italian governments and Hillary whom the magazine thought would by now be getting ready for the 20th Jan

Three reasons why Britain is less well placed to weather the economic storm

The picture of a £10 sinking amid the waves on the front of this week's Economist makes its clear what the magazine thinks of the prospects for the British economy.

Its leader makes it clear that despite the problems being global in nature,there are three reasons why Britain in particular is badly placed.

1.That the country has seen rampant property price inflation

2.that Britain's households are the most indebted in the G8 and and

the tide of cheap credit that caused the housing and consumer-spending booms has ebbed particularly fast in Britain.

3.that the growth came on the back of a flamboyant City thus

An economy that came to rely as heavily as Britain’s did on finance is clearly vulnerable to an extended banking crisis.

So nect time Gordon Brown or his chancellor tell us that we are better placed than most to ride the storm perhaps they should think of this

What the weeklies are saying

The Economist looks at Jack Straw's white paper on constitutional reform,

tinkering with its ancient and inscrutable constitution might not strike outsiders as a particular priority.

the bill is described as

Timid. A proposal that Parliament must vote on whether troops are committed to war is hardly radical: Mr Blair held a vote before the Iraq war and it would be politically difficult to go to war without one in future. Mr Straw held out the prospect of giving MPs greater say over public appointments and the date of general elections, but details are yet to emerge. Other ideas, such as restoring the right to protest outside Parliament and allowing the Union flag to be flown on government buildings at any time, are mostly symbolic.

Over at the Spectator,Alan Milburn gives his first interview since Gordon Brown moved into No 10

I thought the most helpful thing would be for me to keep quiet,’ ‘But now, I feel I’ve earned my passage. Let’s face it, there have been plenty of opportunities to rock the boat during the last few months

He agrees that Brown,although maybe too late has become a Blairite but

What Gordon needs to do when he talks about this “new politics” that places power in the hands of people, is to announce a policy that gives that huge symbolic lift.’

and his answer

by dramatically cutting the size of Whitehall. I would slash it over and above what is being done by a quarter.’

The New Statesman asks is Boris a fake?.Brian Cathcart tells us

a man with a lurid history of verbal incontinence is playing the 21st-century election game, with all its gaffe-traps and correctness tripwires - and he is winning.

Meanwhile at the Spectator David Selbourne writes

Britain has lost its identity and its sense of nation, The citizen is treated as a mere ‘consumer’, liberty reduced to the ‘freedom to choose’, politicians held in contempt and hostile forces such as Islamism appeased. The stakes could scarcely be higher.

In a must read article he says

A lot of this is owed to ‘Blairism’ and its corruptions of the body politic; much, too, to the previous Conservative period in office. The main parties, reduced in organisation and membership and with their inherited principles in dissolution, have themselves paid a high price in public recoil for what they have done to the country. Yet, compounding their misjudgments, each seeks the same chimerical ‘centre ground’ where stand the idols of Empowerment, Opportunity, Aspiration, Competition, Modernisation, Choice and so forth. It is the ground not of a Normandy beach but of a quagmire in Notting Hill.

What the weeklies are saying about politics

In this week's spectator Irwin Stelzer writes of a flaw in the government's energy policy.Specifically the building of new nuclear power stations

ignores the billion-dollar question: will the private sector provide the capital to finance this replacement-and-then-some of the nation’s nuclear plants?

and adds

there is the small matter of whether these massive, capital-intensive stations will be economic, without government subsidies

. given that

if we know anything about nuclear power plants, it is that their cost always exceeds estimates.

The Economist is rather scathing of the Chancellor

IT TAKES special ineptitude to cheapen a principle without getting anything much in return. But this week, in a do-nothing budget devoted to plastic bags and cavity-wall insulation (see article), Alistair Darling, Britain's hapless chancellor of the exchequer, showed he is equal to the task

And he fares no better in the Spectator,Fraser Nelson saying

for all the Chancellor’s advertised dullness, he has adopted a strategy of deception which his predecessor would be proud of (and probably authored). It can best be compared to the technique of professional magicians. Before any trick, they perform what is called ‘the pledge’ — whereby the audience is shown something normal: a pack of cards, which someone will inspect to check it’s normal. Of course, it is not. Once a fake backdrop is established, a magic trick is fairly easy to engineer.

In the New Statesman, Donald Hirsch asks For ten years, Labour has been shifting resources to the least well off. Why are the poor still with us?

Ten Budgets, one Chancellor and three New Statesman editors later, I am still writing about Labour's efforts to divert resources to poor families. The continuity of this underlying theme is remarkable, backed by a main delivery method introduced in 1998. This is to give tax credits to selected low-income groups, at a favourable rate compared to money spent on benefits.

Bagehot in the Economist says

Three different kinds of inequality have survived or arisen under Labour; more than fiscal abstractions, these three inequalities are shaping public perceptions of the government's economic record.

Finally the New Statesman's leader believes that Europe could give Labour a new sense of purpose

Britain has to reassert its position within Europe, embracing the benefits it could win for British people - from protection of workers to the upholding of universal human rights. Such a purpose could provide the bold and optimistic vision that Labour so desperately needs