Nightfall In Britain

Official British government advice on what to do when an old woman is being beaten to a pulp by a young thug on the street: Jumping up and down to distract the criminal might just do the trick.

I really wish I was making that up. But I'm not.

Mr Vine goes on with his vivid picture of life on the mean streets of Britain: the aggressive-looking young man is hitting the elderly woman, and the police still haven't turned up. What do you do then?

Mr McNulty is now reversing away at full speed from the Government's advice to take action rather than moan. What should you do about the woman being beaten up by the thug? "The same, the same, you must always." What? Wait for the authorities? In desperation, the minister advocates what most of us, in fact, do end up doing under such horrifying circumstances: you must "get back to the police". That is, ring them up again and again, reporting the worsening agony you are witnessing only to be told that they (a) haven't got a car in the area, (b) don't have the manpower to deal with small incidents, (c) will get there as soon as they can (which turns out to be anything from an hour to a day later).

But the minister does have some ideas about what you might helpfully do while the poor woman is being beaten senseless and you are waiting that interminable length of time for the police to show up to do their sympathetic but hugely ineffectual counselling. You can "try some distractive [sic] activities". Such as? Mr Vine offers, presumably not without a hint of sarcasm, "jump up and down", and Mr McNulty replies in the best Blairite demotic style: "I would say you know sometimes that that may well work." And while you are jumping up and down, and repeatedly ringing the police from the position where you have retreated, a safe distance from the thug who is ruining the quality of life in your community, you may wish to contemplate what an absurd mess we are in. When a society is helplessly bullied by its own juveniles, it can only be because that society has chosen to abdicate its responsibilities. It has been the rightful business of grown-ups to control and instruct the young for as long as human beings have lived in organised communities.

I have a few British folks who read this blog and occasionally we correspond by email. Lord, I really feel sorry for you folks. You're in real trouble over there.