A bog load of books have been printed recently claiming Britain is a failed state (Torsten Bell, Ian Dunt and James O’Brien are the chief doom merchants). In a way of course they are right – the big state could do with a trim, new personnel and a wholesale reduction in activities. But in the most important way, these books are all spectacularly wrong. In terms of daily pleasures, Britain is brilliant at tonnes of stuff. So today, while we are all feeling gloomy after the Spanish victory on Sunday, I decided to conduct a poll (ask my chums) about what makes this country great:
1 Amazon deliveries and other utilities. School shorts, a violin string, a present for an aunt, a flower delivery, a Pharoah’s costume, dog food – just some of the orders made on Amazon in the last couple of days. All of them served to get out of a scrape. It was my son who remembered that, when younger, he thought Amazon was a utility much like electricity, gas and water that “just came to the house” whenever you needed it. And in a way Amazon is a utility; a miracle of logistics. So, let’s applaud all those chaps who maintain our gas pipes, drive the Amazon vans, sit puzzled in front of the BT broadband boxes, for most of Britain hums along pretty smoothly. (And if you start grumbling about sewage, I remember having to wait until the water stopped running brown before drinking in the 1980s, which is possibly why I am never ill.)
2 Coffee shops. Like vets and garden centres, coffee shops are always busy. The coffee is mostly frothy and strong and on these bitter July days, they are warm inside. Britain does a divine coffee shop. It is the biggest regret of my life I didn’t open one in 1996 instead of going to university. My friends and I mooned around together saying, “I wish there was a coffee shop like the one in Neighbours” – our local market town instead had one greasy spoon and about six tearooms. If we had done so in 1996 we would have stolen a thunder on Starbucks which opened its first U.K. store in 1998. Silly, silly me, but what a brilliant thing for our country.
3 Aldi, Lidl, Costco etc. During lockdown we planted potatoes, a dreary activity that brought no pleasure. The day we harvested our crop, a half wheelbarrow worth, I went to Aldi and saw the same amount of potatoes for sale for 45p. It was a warning about the importance of industrial farming and also a reminder that budget supermarkets do more than any Government initiative in supporting those on limited budgets. In Aldi today, you can buy a 1kg bag of white rice for 52p, a 1kg bag of porridge for 90p and 1kg of carrots for 65p.
4 Children’s sports clubs. Across the country there are hundreds of thousands of volunteers who organise a network of terrific sports clubs for millions of children: football, rugby, gym, cricket. Men in tracksuits and hangovers on a Sunday morning clapping their hands and encouraging excitable children. Women with timers and clipboard at the netball courts or athletics tracks organising teams and races and lift shares. Seed funding may once have come from a Government pot but for the most part these worthwhile sports clubs are run on a shoe string with subs, charity events, summer sizzler raffles and heaps of goodwill.
5 Clothes. They are now beautiful and reasonably priced. It’s possible to buy 100% cotton Oxford shirts in Primark for £8.99 and a pair of chinos for £9.99. It’s all very well moaning about fast fashion, but thank goodness the days of women wearing only tweed skirts and twin sets are over. It’s possible to dress beautifully from shopping with the lovely Indian chap on the market and in the supermarket clothes aisle.
6 The English Wine Industry. While drinking recently in the Raimes Wine Barn with a senior civil servant he observed that the English Wine Industry had sprung up without any Government initiative or strategy. “And thank goodness for that, if we’d got involved we’d have ballsed the whole thing up and made them plant vines in the North for purposes of levelling up.” There are now nearly 1,000 vineyards across Britain – and how very beautiful they are. Well done everyone involved. And let this be a lesson to Government: don’t try to pick winners because it turns out the Great British public (apart from me and the coffee shop business) is brilliant at running things very well on their own.
Joanna Gray is a writer and confidence mentor.
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Scrapping the barrel Joanna, love.
In most respects that matter Britain is sliding down the pan, fast.
Talking of sliding down the pan and ballsing things up, our Government is adept at creating or invoking new regulations, even EU directives, without thinking things through. The modern train toilet is a necessary evil and vaguely works, provided it is correctly maintained. After a century of basic flap in the floor, the noo loo was introduced to comply with some EU Environment Edict on banning flying poo and accessibility for wheelchairs. Unfortunately when they are not maintained or develop a fault, they backfire like volcano, making the walls run brown, or unexpectedly open the gigantic highly accessible doors when one’s trousers are down. And as for installing windmills every acre…
Mmm, I tend to agree, but for different reasons. ”…what makes this country great.” Then proceeds to list companies and things that you can get in every other country. Amazon are all over, as are Aldi and Lidl. So are coffee shops. I mean, how many different ways are there to make an Americano? Primark? Another shop that can be found all round the world, and it doesn’t exactly scream ”English!” if it’s made in Bangladesh. Sports clubs? How is that what makes Britain great? They’re everywhere!
No offence, Joanna, but this piece sounds like something you completed on the toilet or when you were waiting for the train to arrive. I’m sure we in the comments can cobble together things that actually do make Britain great because they’re not available the world over.
Personally, I really used to enjoy Bonfire Night and I miss it now I’m abroad. Especially enjoyable when you’ve got kids. I also miss flea markets and car boot sales. Also quiz nights, though they do exist here too, just not as popular. I won’t start on the food I miss or I’ll be here all night…
P.S The huz really misses cask ales. Real ale just isn’t a thing here, despite the NL and the two bordering countries basically being Beer World.
I agree 100%! If this piece was meant to persuade me that the UK isn’t a failed state, it has had exactly the opposite effect – I went into it feeling upbeat and ended up at the other end of the spectrum. Britain not a failed state because of Amazon and Lidl?! I mean, even if Joanna had said garden centres and Wetherspoons I would have given her a fair hearing….
Yes, I’m not such a fan, to be honest. It’s a shame when the DS team feel they’ve nothing better to offer than some banal, inconsequential ‘filler’ of an ‘article’ ( if you can even call it that ), that comes across like the author rushed it out while they were waiting for the kettle to boil. There’s surely more relevant and interesting things than writing a few paragraphs that bare no significance to the title. Poor, very poor show.
I would add Gregg’s to your list btw.
Scraping!
Sorry, phone keyboards and all that!
Joanne may need to get out more. When did she last visit our decaying inner cities and industrial wasteland towns. She sounds like our political class who rarely come across people other than their own mid/high income groups.
7. Live amateur music. Whether it is open-mike, community choirs, pop choir clubs, choral societies, stage-musical groups, folk clubs or church choirs, everybody is singing, albeit to different standards. There are numerous orchestral societies and smaller groups. On the other hand music teaching in schools seems to have withered in way, especially teaching musical instruments and solo singing. While there is no shortage of teenagers learning a few chords and songs and getting by at open-mike evenings, and even some who aim at musical theatre, there is generally a shortage of accompanists, keyboard players, male singers (especially tenors). The days of the BBC Regional Orchestras and large choral societies everywhere may be well behind us, but karaoke is all around.
The state has failed spectacularly, the rest of us are just about managing. They’ll destroy anything good that is left with nut zero.
Amazon. – never use them.
Coffee shops – never use them.
Supermarkets – necessary evil.
Children’s Sports – ok.
Clothes – yes. Love a bit of Primarni.
English Wine – yes.
Amazon never
Independent coffee shops yes
Supermarkets unavoidable sadly
Children’s sports, yes but kids need to actually play on their own more
Clothes quality is now dire, anyone with clothes 20 years old will notice a massive difference in quality
English beer for me
Buggered Britain.
I had to phone the surgery today – “after 12” – for some test results.
All clear but as I explained to the health care telephonist, or whatever they call themselves, that which is ailing me hasn’t gone away so I need an appointment with a doctor.
“6th August is the earliest.”
I might be dead by then.
“Well out of hours or try 111.”
Out of hours is a waste of time so 111. She gave me an appointment this afternoon at my surgery.
Appointment – nice young Doctor but couldn’t establish what’s wrong with me so booked me for an x-ray, anytime 8 am to 8pm.
Arrived across town at 7:30.
“Sorry, no x-ray. The hospital is short of staff so we had to send them all down there at four o’clock. Phone tomorrow to check if we are able to offer the service.”
And Britain is not a failed state?
Failed by design Hux. Inbuilt obsolescence, keep the Prols buying again and again.
I’m old enough to remember when things were built to last!
Thanks Kevin. Failed by design and malevolence.
Surgery’s may be another department of the “depopulation” agenda you often highlight.
Britain is a population of State dependent parasites living off each other, where the number in wealth creating productive activity are increasingly a minority.
In that sense, it is a failed Socialist State which has squandered the legacy for which our ancestors worked hard and gave so much.
But, unfortunately, many of the ancestors (the quite recent ones) threw the hard won legacy away by going on strike so much amd demanding such high wages that British industry essentially collapsed. Those same ancestors got hooked on a welfare state that they demanded became so large that it strangles business and awards more disposal income to non workers than actual workers. They voted foe charlatans and people who thieve money from workers pockets to pay off lazy people. We did it to ourselves. We are also fast becoming a thick nation. Mediocre people now get management and leadership roles. Doom is closing fast.
And that’s the same reason car companies like Leyland had such bad build quality and reliability. I bought an old series three Jag as a project, left me freezing on the roadside in the depths of winter between Brecon & Hereford.
I’m not feeling gloomy because of “the football” but because 86% of my fellow voters chose big state woke socialist parties who support lockdowns and net zero
I get the impression that life is better here than in many places but it’s home for me so I would say that. I do think it could be so much better, that it’s getting worse and it’s tragic because we’re throwing away this precious jewel through wickedness, sloth and stupidity. It doesn’t have to be like this.
A reason to be cheerful is that there is a growing number of people who are waking up.
“there is a growing number of people who are waking up”
Someone beside me at a conference in 2018 was enthusiastically making the same comment. What happened during the intervening years seems to indicate the number is inconsequential and following the recent election, it still is for any number of bland reasons.
Indeed fairly inconsequential
Ummm – “it’s home for me”. Unfortunately, my home town is no longer home for me. In a general sense England is still home, but I fear not for much longer. Sometimes I think I would be more at home in Russia.
Well I left my home town (London) as I felt increasingly out of place, but lots of England still feels like England.
I agree, but here in the home counties, London is really rolling over us fast.
I’m in the home counties but coming from London it probably still feels like rural England to me. I’m one of the Londoners rolling over you! (Sorry…).
I doubt you are the sort of “Londoner” Geoff means
Possibly not. White British I suppose, but in some ways an ex metro middle class liberal, and certainly doing my bit to push local house prices up by having overpriced property to sell in London.
I guess all your friends around Notting Hill agreed? Or did you poll also in North London (inside the M25, of course).
Don’t be too harsh, an optimism piece, just there aren’t many straws to clutch at.
I thought the same sitting in Caffe a few weeks ago, seeing all these middle class, probably wealthy people thinking to myself, they probably support all these economy destroying policies like Agenda 21/30. Jordan Peterson did a good summery on the state of the West, the state of the Airports. I think he said something along the lines of “Government get the f**k out of my life”. Are you forgetting there is a Reset underway or are you as Dellingpole said to you on GBN, a useful idiot.
You will own nothing…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQUer0G3aXY
Off-T, but sort-of isn’t.
Some of you may have seen it but here’s a recent Jordan Peterson interview with Tommy Robinson. A heartfelt, and to my mind, honest exposure of the islamist organisations and two-tier justice system he’s been jailed for trying to expose. What a load of cr ap he’s been through. Our establishment, in collusion with the captured media, are not just clowns but downright malevolent.
Although he’s been villified repeatedly and his name is mud in many circles, more and more people see him as basically truthful about what’s happening and it’s not so easy to keep quiet anymore. He’s trying to organise something large and public in London on the 27th July.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnhwBoFxaDI
His pseudonym might be mud in many circles.
Yes, he briefly mentioned it in the interview.
Yes on GBN after the attempt on Trump they were saying how people like Farage have been a victim of attacks from people and the media for years. But no mention of Tommy who has by far been on the receiving end of the most politically based attacks in recent history.
Small domestic conveniences don’t make an economy.
Exactly, I can’t remember another article title that promised so much and the article disappointed so much.
This is all classically women’s shit. A real country measures its economic power and greatness by the energy and productivity of its industry, educational system and reliability of what goes on in the country. The reliability and consistency of what goes on is starting to fail because of the rise of the mediocrats and mediocrity in general. The NHS is almost garbage and highly inefficient. Welfare is broken and millions sit on their backsides whilst we taxpayers pay for it. And immigrants with few skills and even less brains are forced on us to drag the country, eventually, down to the economic and intellectual level of the places they left.
Amazon is indeed great. But it is a private company. Coffee Shops sell you something for 2 or 3 quid that you could make at home for 10p. Cheap T shirts are probably made in sweat shops in poor countries and it is funny how you think cheap T shirts are great but not cheap coffee. Aldi, Lidl etc are once again private companies (German). Sports clubs are fine but clearly not quite doing enough as we saw on Sunday Night and for the last 58 years. Then “Vineyards”. I would not get too excited about that as Miliband will soon have solar farms all over that land. ——–If this is the best you can do is to highlight a few things that are mostly private endeavours that you seem to think makes up for the Politically Correct, the wokery, the soft justice, the open borders, the green tyranny, the welfare clutter, the cultural changes mostly for the worse, the education system that teaches kids what to think instead of how to think, so as to brainwash the next generation into the same absurdity as the past one then you need to try again. —-sorry. I am sure you mean well.
Sorry Joanna, this is just middle class retail and fringe stuff. Genuine daily pleasures are found all round the world encouracging socialisation
1 Amazon deliveries and other utilities. On principle, I have never purchased a product through Amazon. It is a vehicle for depressing prices and sucking margins out of UK, provides support for 15 minute cities replacing human interaction, a wider range of niche products The battered deivery vans driven by immigrants in my area who are under huge time pressure to complete their rounds do not replace this.
2 Coffee shops. I avoid them. Coffees have doubled and trebled in real terms in a couple of decades by minor style variations. All too insipid for me.
3 Aldi, Lidl, Costco etc. While I use Lidl for some basics Costco is out for me after their tyrrany over masks in lockdown and Aldi ( Albrechts Diskont ) benefits the von der Leyen family.
4 Children’s sports clubs. Whats new ?
5 Clothes. They are now beautiful and reasonably priced. Of course they are when they are ‘designed’ in UK but produced by some 3rd world swCshop.
6 The English Wine Industry. Lidl etc do not sell it.
What about Manufacturing Industry, leading non-miltary technology – we have hardly anything of scale left.
Ursula von der Leyen’s father Ernst Albrecht was in no way related to the Albrecht brothers who founded Aldi and whose descendants are now the beneficaries of the two Aldi companies.
“Amazon deliveries and other utilities”
Hmmm. I suggest reading Shoshana Zuboff’s “Surveillance Capitalism”, and then maybe you will do what I did – delete my Amazon account as soon as all my outstanding orders were fulfilled.
https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/03/harvard-professor-says-surveillance-capitalism-is-undermining-democracy/
Not to mention the horror stories from people who worked in Amazon Warehouses.
But doesn’t Amazon save a heck of a lot of CO2 emissions since we don’t have to get the car out and hunt around various town centres for just about every bit of stuff you can imagine that they provide the very next day? I am sure Miliband would approve.
I presume this is meant to be funny. What on earth is “brilliant” about these:
Yes the big blue chips like Costa & Greggs are pushing out local Caffes. I try to buy from a local if I can in the rare event I’m in a strange place looking for lunch. I asked a mates 8yo boy what’s your favourite food, he said Greggs sausage roll….I though to myself dear dear!
Amazon, American company pays little to zero tax in the UK, meanwhile highstreet shops employing uk people, paying taxes, keeping the high street alive are sacrificed.
Coffee shops ok, but not a producer of anything we can export, and with the cost of living increasing its a luxury for many, not an everyday thing.
Aldi, Lidl, Costco once again all foreign owned companies,
Cheap clothing produced in sweatshops in India, china, etc again doing nothing for the UK
What we need in this country is the ability to compete against the sweatshops, and the makers of steel, heavy industry. But we cannot because both Tory and Labour Governments who are slaves to Net Zero, who have sold out our industries to the billionaires through high taxes on our small to medium businesses, red tape, safetyism, and of course the forced shutting down of our small shops during Lockdown, whilst allowing the big guys like Amazon, McDonalds, the Aldi’s keep open and scoop up all the cash.
The things described as being good above are whipped cream, they depend upon people spending money, and when there are only service based jobs, but the population is so hampered by Government taxes, Government penalising through the pocket the cost to heat, and cook,and transport, there is diminishing money to visit or buy from those service industries, which means the whipped cream is about to go sour, and the cake which was never made by us is no longer available,
High streets were mostly built 100 or more years ago when there were no cars. They started to die long before Amazon existed because big retailers moved to retail parks and malls as there was not enough room around old fashioned high streets for all their customers cars. Amazon may play some role in the high street demise. But to be honest I don’t want to drive 8 miles to a high street somewhere for some minor product that I can get tomorrow and leave the car in the drive. If business is about providing goods and services that people want, then Amazon certainly do that.
I agree with many here that this is the most pointless and frankly pathetic article I’ve ever read in DS.
I hope this is written tongue in cheek. If Amazon and coffee shops (probably including the likes of globalist Starbucks and Cafe Nero) are what make Britain great I think I’ll have to book a trip to Dignitas.
So having foreign companies selling us food, sweatshops producing cheap clothing, Amazon delivering stuff made all over the place is what makes Britain great? Surely this article is tongue in cheek?
We tend to forget how bad life was for many just 100 years ago and how far we have come as a society. I was doing genealogy yesterday for a grand uncle, Albert Webster born in 1897 in Birmingham. He was one of the thousands of British children (Home Children) who were given up by their parents or taken from their parents in many cases and sent to the colonies because of abject poverty or loss of parent. He arrived in Halifax, NS, Canada in June 1910 at the age of 12 on board the SS Monrovian with several hundred other children some as young as 4. He was indentured to a family for room and board. Over 100,000 children ended up in this program that only ended after the 2nd WW. People tend to remember the good things like the influence and power that Britain wielded for many years but forget it was not for everyone. It was a very unfair society. Things have vastly improved since then.
Many would still say it’s “unfair”. Whatever “unfair” means. Isn’t life “unfair”? Surely the main thing that has changed is that everyone is more prosperous due to human innovation?
A point Starkey often drives home. We Brits who were not the Gentry had it bad too, not just the slaves and colonies.
Aldi (Albrecht Discount) and Lidl are German supermarket chains.
I believe there are two Aldis – the brothers had a dispute about selling cigarettes. They divided up Germany and the world between them. I think they still have some links but are essentially separate firms. Is that right?
Yes. Aldi Nord (north) and Aldi Süd (south), the one in Britain is Süd.
Didn’t the Adidas and Puma brothers fall out too?
I don’t know. I only know that Adolf Dassler founded Adidas (Adi being a southern German short form of Adolf) and his brother Puma. But both companies have long since been turnt into merely resellers of “branded stuff made in China”.
Amazon is a US company. Recently Macron mentioned how he was investing in France by spending a couple of EUR billion on Amazon and Microsoft, no doubt for all their lovely ‘cloud’ offerings. The ‘UK; government seems equally enthralled to place all it’s data on US owned computers that will be physically anywhere in the World.