The United Thugdom

Posted on 2004/04/04 15:23:22 (April 2004) by john.

Are we a nation of uncultured binge drinking agressive thugs?

More and more recently I've been coming to the conclusion that Britain is no longer, or perhaps never really was, the land of gentlemen, ladies and good manners that I always liked to think of it as. I wonder, if you asked some of our European cousins to draw a caricature of their stereotypical image of an English person, what would it be like? Would it be a well turned out gentleman in a pin stripe suit with a bowler hat and a copy of the financial times under one arm on his way to work... or would it be a drunken yob with short hair and a football shirt, threatening the owner of his local kebab shop...? Don't get me wrong, this isn't a class issue - if their typical image turned out to be a rosy cheeked yorkshire miner inviting you into his home for a cup of tea with his family I'd be pleased as punch. The bits I'm really worried about are that I think increasingly the rest of the world sees us as a nation of uncultured thugs and drunkards. Worse still, I'm concerned that this stereotype isn't really that far from the truth.

In other countries people go out in the evening to socialise, feel like they're part of a community, meet new people, have enlightening conversations and generally broaden their horizons. In Britain, going out seems to be some kind of ape-like ritual of territorialism. Your average bloke defines a good night out as one where he either pulls or has a fight at the end. People hardly ever talk to people they don't already know, unless they want something out of them (typically a shag or a fight, possibly both). Consideration for others is a concept that isn't even understood, let alone adhered to. Alcohol is consumed to rediculous excesses, which would be fine if it made people more friendly and open minded. However, as seems to be the case, it simply amplifies whatever mood you were in to start with, and it appears the average English bloke has a baseline of aggressiveness and downright stupidity, that is only the more evident when he's drunk and in a social situation he's not emotionally mature enough to deal with like the civilised human being he ought to be but isn't.

It would be easy to say it's a recent phenomenon, but it isn't true - look back in history and you'll find Britain has always had this uncultured thuggish underclass. The rest of Europe has always considered us as one of the more aggressive nations - boxing, for example, has always been far more popular here than in the rest of Europe. My grandmother says the problem is more accute now because "we haven't had a good war for a while". This seems a little extreme, but there is something to be said for the fact that the most pleasant decades of the last century were typically those following big wars. The thug underclass being usually the first people to sign up to go abroad and commit large scale acts of violence under the thinly veiled excuse of national pride, a sentiment that is easily translated to the sorts of people for whom territorialism is still a guiding principle.

I don't want to be a total downer on Britain. There are a lot of things I like about the country, and there are a lot of really great human beings here as well as the not so great ones. It just seems like we've got more than our fair share of the sorts of people that simply haven't evolved at the rate they should have done.

You better shuddup, Hawkins or we'll put your windows in.

Posted by Rob Lang at 2004/04/05 24:16:51.

Yes.

Posted by Karl at 2004/04/06 12:52:50.

(You started with British then went on to English).

I don't think your being totally fair. The majority of people aren't thugs (apart from Northern Monkeys). Go anywhere in Europe and you will find boarish behaviour. Besides, Reading is full of kittens compared to Iraq at the moment.

Just 'cause you are always on the piss somewhere (usually big towns), you get to see the local 'chest-beaters' more often than say your normal family.

All my time on the piss, and I'm nearly 40 now, I've only seen a hand full of the 'hand bags' stuff.

Friday nights out is not indicative of your average Brit I say. Now I've tempted fate, I'm bound to get a right kickin'!

Incidentally, are you, like my self, offended at the idea that it is perfectly OK to wear (baseball) hats indoors? Have you noticed how common it is these days? Not too long ago it was considered a really rude thing to do.

Posted by Boomer at 2004/04/06 01:16:14.

Don't drink in thuggy places, then.

Posted by Jimmy at 2004/04/06 24:29:16.

Good point, Jimmy. Like that thuggy Pangbourne.

Posted by Rob Lang at 2004/04/06 16:16:08.

John: How would you define your behaviour? I don't recall ever having been in trouble with the police for drunken behaviour.

Posted by dsp at 2004/04/06 17:37:05.

Yeah, John - you're always drunk! Cor, what a lout! You wouldn't catch me getting pissed, would ya?!

Posted by Jimmy at 2004/04/07 24:37:03.

Your last sentence gives the clue; evolution. It's all about natural selection.

Where did the British come from? The original picts, celts etc had to be wild & crazy or desperate to cross miles of cold rough sea in coracles. Then you had your saxon and viking raiders raping and pillaging, no genteel stay-at-home genes there. The romans came and beat us up, and left their aggressive genes too. Then the normans, who were viking stock anyway. See what kind of a gene pool we're building?

For a while, the nastiest of us tended to move on and become Americans and Australians, or die in wars as you say. But now? Pubs and football matches is all we've got left, innit?

I say "we" but I write from the safety of the Wild West, in Arizona. (Got them nasty restless genes...)

Dave B

Posted by Dave B at 2004/04/07 13:10:53.

Dave B, you could probably argue that Iceland started WW2! Fab.

John, have you ever got drunk and been a vandal? Like, for example (pulled at random out of the air) running over people's cars?

Posted by Rob Lang at 2004/04/07 13:36:00.

Dsp.... you're clearly forgetting the time John got in trouble for running over cars....

Posted by tom at 2004/04/07 21:17:28.

Dave B: I am of Viking extraction (if you back, *way* back). Bring it on weaklings! ;-)

Posted by tom at 2004/04/07 21:18:52.

It's totally different. I have never been aggressive, threatening or violent when drunk. Yes I have been stupid and a bit wreckless, but I think even vandalism is too strong a word there - I've never set out to cause any damage to other people's property, and have never, to my knowledge, ever done any lasting damage.

There are people, in this country particularly, who seem to actively enjoy causing other people pain and injury for no other reason, presumably, than it gives them some kind of sense of superiority. If none of you have experienced any of this kind of behaviour in this country then I'm really pleased for you. I personally have on several occasions. Enough, I think, to make me think I can say with some authority that this is a significant problem facing Britain.

Posted by John at 2004/04/08 09:02:13.

You're a magnet for violence.

I don't think it's any different anywhere else, it's just you've only seen it here. If you'd seen it in France, then that would be seen as violent. There has always been thugs and there will always be thugs. Perhaps there is a social change but it is slight.

I don't think football thuggery is going to affect the British stereotype as much as our foreign policy.

Posted by Rob Lang at 2004/04/08 09:29:08.

Why is it then, that when I've wandered the streets of France, Italy, Belgium and Japan late at night I've felt much safer than I would have done in almost any town or city in Britain...?

I'm not saying Britain is utterly violent and thuggish, and nowhere else is at all. Clearly every country has its problems.

What I'm saying is that this country has a proportionately higher violent element than other countries. I'm frankly amazed that I seem to be alone in this perception.

Posted by John at 2004/04/08 09:52:12.

As John made the statement “What I'm saying is that this country has a proportionately higher violent element than other countries.” I thought I would look up the stats on Interpol. The figures for England & Wales do not make you feel proud but put in context with other countries give some idea were we are on the international scale of thuggery.

All the figures are per 100,000 people for the year 2002

Murder:
Belgium - 5.97
France - 4.07
Italy - 3.81
Germany - 3.23
England & Wales - 2.01
Japan - 1.1

Serious Assault:
Belgium – 552.99
France – 211.26
Germany – 153.97
Italy – 49.71
England & Wales - 34.33
Japan – 28.5

The really disturbing one - Rape:
England & Wales – 23.6
Belgium – 18.82
France – 17.63
Germany – 10.45
Japan – 1.85
Italy – None given

Incidentally we are by far and away the biggest group of thieving bastards in this sample.

Where we are for 2003/4 I don’t know but I expect the ratios to be similar, obviously some countries like Iraq and Afghanistan would be experiencing a bit of a peak at the moment.

Sadly Interpol’s sister organisation Interhat gave no figures for baseball cap wearing in pubs.

Posted by Mike at 2004/04/08 13:56:50.

I wish I hadn't brought up Belgium.

Posted by John at 2004/04/08 14:40:03.

In other countries...you say. Have you been to the US? Don't be so quick to claim the title of "uncultured binge drinking agressive thugs". I haven't been to the UK (but should be soon) and find that it would be difficult to beat us out for this title.

Posted by Travis at 2004/04/08 17:39:21.

Mike’s stats are amazing, I had no idea that le thuggisme francais et belge was so high compared to UK. Here in the US of A, comparable figures (per 100,000 in 2002) are: murder 5.5, “aggravated assault” 370, rape 38 – so the Yanks are up there with the Belgians and far worse than the Brits!

Posted by dave b at 2004/04/11 05:34:21.

If I was good at beating people up I probably wouldn't find thuggery a problem.

Posted by Karl at 2004/04/13 23:55:40.

Belgium's stats are stunning... or are they a bunch of pussies that go running to mummy when someone so much as farts!

I went to Belgium once and they were so laid back they were horizontal.

I take John’s point about the feeling uneasy compared to abroad, but I suspect our drinking laws contribute a lot to it, as with our sex laws and rape stats.

Posted by Karl at 2004/04/14 12:05:14.

The other thing with stats is that people in the UK probably don't bother reporting crime as 'old bill' is too busy tearing about 'nicking' motorists (of which there are many).

Posted by Karl at 2004/04/14 12:08:19.

Karl is right the figures were only for cases known to the police, so we could have many unreported occurrences of us Brits bleeding in the gutter because “they didn’t want to make a fuss” Like Tequila you have to take them with a pinch of salt (not too sure about the lemon). Weird, I now have the image in my head of totally confused statisticians having a night of slammin’ until the point their hypothalamuses have to take over for survival reasons.

Posted by Mike at 2004/04/14 14:07:41.

I've been on holiday, and missed-out on much of this lively debate. I've been to France- Paris, in fact. The recommendation in the tourist-guides is "Don't use the tube after 11pm ... it gets a bit nasty". Owzat for thuggery?

Posted by Jimmy at 2004/04/19 13:41:20.

Karl ... I'm interested in your point about "Sex laws". I can see your point about binge-drinking caused by stupidy early pub-closing-times - but sex laws? If you apply the same logic, I can only conclude that you're suggesting that we would all have more sex if only the govermnent would stop interfering. If you're not complaining about them interfering, then perhaps you mean they should be offering active assistance? If there were (say) a government-run "Sex for all" scheme (or such) then I believe you're saying that there would be fewer rapes. Or am I confused? And how do I sign-up for this scheme?

Posted by Jimmy at 2004/04/19 13:46:46.

Brothels... there 'arn't any legal ones.

They would save the hastle of chatting up a 'lemon curd' all night, pay for her to get in to an (expensive) disco, pay for her a taxi home, only to be told 'sorry I'm on'

With brothels you could go and get a 'jump', get cleaned up and still be in the pub before 19:30.

Posted by Karl at 2004/05/01 01:10:10.

you cheeky little twat how do you think you are

Posted by ian at 2006/01/11 21:40:58.

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