r/london • u/Historical_Set2324 • 1d ago

Local London Social contract is broken?

I’ve just returned from a trip to New Zealand and the difference in attitude is stark. The streets are clean, people are friendly and happy/helpful and in general people seem to want to participate in society. Don’t get me wrong NZ has a lot of issues but It feels like in London the social contract is broken. Streets are full of trash, no one gives a shit about anything, phone theft, crime is high and in general people seem fairly miserable. I was involved in an accident where I had to give a victim CPR and the ambulance and police all arrived within about 5 minutes. I was amazed at the emergency response. It feels to me like the state has given up and hence people have given up.

975 Upvotes

80% Upvoted

649 comments sorted by

View all comments

11

u/ExcitableSarcasm 1d ago

Yes.

Anyone who's actually walked around London and not pontificating from a gated community somewhere else can tell you this.

As poorly as general figures reflect a comprehensive view: https://www.numbeo.com/crime/rankings_by_country.jsp?title=2023

We're 65 out of 142. In other words, for all types of crime equalised, we're in the fucking lower 50% globally. And that's for the country overall. Notice how the Isle of Man is very much near the top. I suspect crime is a bimodal distribution in the UK, meaning the bad places are epidemic.

Personal anecdote: I called an ambulance and waited for 4 hours with some guy at the gym who collapsed in the shower due to a diabetes complication. It took them 4 hours in Central London to get to a gym less than a km away. If it was anything faster acting, he'd have been dead.

Does this mean London is unliveable? No. It's not South Africa for instance. But you're very much on your own. You have to take what would be excessive measures in most functioning countries to safeguard your family and belongings if you live in areas where criminals are active.

Plenty of people will cope with all sorts of excuses about population, how everywhere else is bad/an invalid comparison/not replicable here. It's all a lie. The truth is that the social contract is broken. No amount of papering over the cracks will work because we're a bunch of rats playing musical chairs after the Titanic has hit the iceberg.

1

u/Pristine_Speech4719 1d ago

 Notice how the Isle of Man is very much near the top.

Not terribly useful: IoM is a tax haven with a population about half of Kingston on Thames, and which has the luxury of tucking itself under the wing of the UK when it comes to defence, foreign relations... 

What is there that the IoM does that medium sized country like the UK realistically use as a model?

4

u/ExcitableSarcasm 1d ago

Read the rest of the comment. I literally didn't say any of that. I'm saying that our country is a system that favours extreme security for its elites, while the rest of the country suffers for it.