In my corner of Bristol, alongside drug dealers, shoplifters and street drinkers, we now have our very own pyromaniac. They started small \u2013 an abandoned office chair, a clothing bank and an old telephone box \u2013 before moving on to bigger things. Half a dozen cars have been torched over the past few months, including two on my road, and, most recently, a derelict pub.<\/p>\n
The other Saturday, hearing a commotion outside, my wife jumped out of bed and flung open the curtains. The scene that greeted us was apocalyptic. In daylight, on a narrow suburban street, the arsonist had set fire to three motorbikes parked in a row, which in turn had set alight a car and a hedge. It was pandemonium. People were wandering around in their nightclothes, some barefoot, having been advised by the police to leave their homes.<\/p>\n
The bikes and car were engulfed in flames, and thick clouds of black smoke billowed over the houses. The fire brigade arrived quickly and soon had things under control, but the resulting carnage was like West Belfast circa the 1970s after a mortar attack.<\/p>\n
Setting vehicles alight is a serious criminal offence, not to mention incredibly dangerous, yet the police response was sluggish. For weeks, charred motorbike frames and the blackened shells of cars sat on melted tarmac. Wandering the area felt like disaster tourism.<\/p>\n
Eventually, after mounting complaints, a meeting was called with councillors and police in attendance. However, what was meant to be a discussion about the fires quickly turned into a free-for-all on rising crime. It was a comically British affair \u2013 lots of blustering and cries of: \u2018Do speak up, we can\u2019t hear you at the back!\u2019 There also seemed to be a few budding local sleuths who\u2019d uncovered some quite extraordinary goings-on that the police were unaware of.<\/p>\n
Notwithstanding our resident Miss Marples, if we\u2019d gone looking for reassurance, we didn\u2019t get any. Although we were told we could report incidents online and expect a response within 72 hours. Amazing. You\u2019d hope the issue would be resolved by then. Still, there were tea and biscuits \u2013 so that was all right.<\/p>\n
In effect, the mostly middle-class crowd came away with the impression that it was down to them to manage the situation: \u2018You can apply for a council grant to install CCTV at your house, or buy one of those camera doorbell thingies.\u2019 The police, it seems, don\u2019t have the time or resources.<\/p>\n
One thing we were promised was increased patrols, but our local \u2018cop shop\u2019 is only open a few hours a week, and I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve seen a policeman on foot in the 20-odd years I\u2019ve been here. You do see the occasional PCSO, but they engender about as much confidence as a Boy Scout left in charge of an anti-aircraft battery.<\/p>\n
\nFor weeks, charred motorbike frames and the blackened shells of cars sat on melted tarmac on our narrow suburban street. Wandering the area felt like disaster tourism<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Thankfully, I recently escaped to Menorca for a week. There\u2019s very little crime, no graffiti, no litter, and the sea \u2013 a major draw \u2013 is crystal clear. The overall impression is of a laid-back, prosperous, well-run place that the inhabitants are proud of. Coming back to the UK was a kick in the Balearics due to the stark contrast. It felt like returning home to find the front door bashed in, the house ransacked and someone cooking crystal meth on the stove. Within hours, we\u2019d seen drug deals, masked youths speeding about on electric motorbikes and drunks stumbling in the road. The usual dope smoke<\/a>, graffiti tagging and filthy streets completed the picture.<\/p>\n
If we lived in a more affluent part of Bristol, or some rural idyll, perhaps the return wouldn\u2019t have hit quite so hard. But I still wouldn\u2019t have been able to escape the headlines: water company bosses pocketing millions while pumping effluent into rivers and seas; polls suggesting almost half of the public think Britain is becoming lawless; a justice system in crisis; dire public finances; a government desperate to avoid another summer of rioting. The sense \u2013 to borrow one of the Prime Minister\u2019s favourite phrases \u2013 is of a country in managed decline. Except the decline isn\u2019t being managed very well.<\/p>\n
Yes, Menorca is small and sparsely populated \u2013 easier to keep pristine. And yes, coming home from holiday is always a downer. However, the overwhelming impression was of returning to a country that had lost its way.<\/p>\n
A 16-year-old boy was recently arrested in connection with the pub fire. Dozens of cars have since had their tyres slashed, and someone took a machete to a row of saplings \u2013 so, irrespective of whether or not he\u2019s the arsonist, we\u2019re not out of the woods yet. Although, thanks to the idiot with the machete, there won\u2019t now be a wood \u2013 or even a copse.<\/p>\n
In Richard II, John of Gaunt laments:\u00a0 \u2018That England, that was wont to conquer others, Hath made a shameful conquest of itself.\u2019 Hasn\u2019t it just? And, as Abraham Lincoln observed: \u2018A house divided against itself cannot stand.\u2019 So, while tea and biscuits may long have been a social lubricant in Britain, there are times when cohesion is so frayed, we need more than that \u2013 and I\u2019m afraid this is one of them.<\/p>\n
To be honest, though, you\u2019d probably get bored with Menorca after a while. All that sand \u2013\u00a0 it\u2019s a bastard to get out of your shoes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In my corner of Bristol, alongside drug dealers, shoplifters and street drinkers, we now have our very own…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":297677,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5018,3,4],"tags":[381,748,188,393,4884,1144,712,4678,16,15,1764],"class_list":{"0":"post-297676","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-britain","8":"category-uk","9":"category-united-kingdom","10":"tag-bristol","11":"tag-britain","12":"tag-crime","13":"tag-england","14":"tag-great-britain","15":"tag-northern-ireland","16":"tag-scotland","17":"tag-society","18":"tag-uk","19":"tag-united-kingdom","20":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114929168838538402","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297676","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=297676"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297676\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/297677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=297676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=297676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=297676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}