Gary's views

Gary's weekly views

Each week an article by Gary has appeared in the Plympton Plymstock and Ivybridge News in South West Devon. The articles are published here

MOVING ABROAD

Last week we learnt that 54% 0f all Brits are considering moving abroad. In 2004, 98,000 of our fellow country folk went to live in Australia. Over 200,000 people will leave our shores this year – permanently. (Don’t get excited, well over twice that number will move in to take up their spare place in the traffic queues!)
Why is this net exodus happening on a scale not seen in recent times? It is not just the early retired setting up home in sunnier climes, but young families looking for fresh opportunities in countries like Australia, Canada and New Zealand. My parents spend much of the year in France. They tell me that it is because they don’t like what is happening to this country and I think they speak for many people.
What lies behind this desire to get up and go is the steady erosion of the system of values that make us British, or used to. Our fellow Commonwealth countries are much like Britain used to be 20 to 30 years ago, or so it is thought.

What does it look like? A stronger family backbone to society, more civil, more evidence of traditional values firmly in place; less politically correct, less loutish behaviour and less dilution of culture by negative influences. The issues affecting Britain, much of it due to technology and globalisation, are likely to catch up with other countries too, but some countries are better than others at protecting their own culture and values, not least the rural French.

Britain is still a great country with unparalleled opportunities for most people. And yet. Something is ebbing away, the life-blood of our heritage quietly draining away by the side of the road.

You would think that if the majority of the British people feel strongly enough about these issues to consider emigration these emotions could be harnessed by politicians to forge a new approach to some of these issues. In fact the opposite seems to be happening. Is it because these swirling pressures are so global that national politicians are powerless to control them, and people know that?

Nonetheless, think there is a gap in the political market, for an intelligent, modern, speak-it-like-it-is, leader to rise on the back of a vision of how we can better preserve traditional British values in a rapidly globalising world.
As I potter off to France to contemplate these things, I wish you all a happy holiday.

posted by Nigel on Friday, September 01, 2006