Elegy for England?

At the start of the twentieth century Edward Elgar composed his second symphony and, for those who are moved by his music, it is a sombre, lyrical and poignant commentary on Edwardian England – an England on the brink of the social upheaval that was the First World War.

I make no apology for a third consecutive blog about England... about the kind of nation we have been, we are and what we want to be.

John Major spoke of creating a country “at ease with itself”

David Cameron rightly highlights the need to fix our broken society – one where schools will introduce metal detectors to find knives, 17 teenagers have been murdered in London in a year going about their daily lives, where the UNICEF 2007 children’s report placed the UK as worst amongst developed economies for children’s well-being, where a recent IPPR study showed British youth to be amongst the most badly behaved in Europe on measures such as drug use, violence and binge drinking.

Low level vandalism and disorder is not fully under control in our village in “leafy Solihull” - and part of the traditional working class town in which I grew up, and where crime was once very rare, has been terrorised by a gang which the police appear to have found it difficult to deal with – criminal activity which can’t be blamed on illegal asylum seekers or any other group of outsiders who might be used to distract attention from the breakdown of decent behaviour across English society as a whole.

All of this would have been unthinkable even 20 years ago but those who say so are dismissed as being nostalgic for a golden age. But I for one will not accept that label or allow Elgar’s England to be a symbol of a “land of lost content”.

Tackling crime and low level disorder at its basic level – with families taking responsibility – would do much to preserve the cohesion of our society and allow us to face the challenges of the twenty-first century from the secure foundation of a stable society.