The Worst Place To Live

It's official...we have moved to The Worst Place To Live In Britain...according to someone on the telly! I wonder how accurate these surveys actually are. It's true that there is a lot of crime in the centre of town, that there are people who are jobless, homeless, penniless, etc, etc, etc. There are also plenty of thugs about who have decided to spoil this area for the rest of us. Instead of labelling Middlesbrough as such a horrible place, though, why isn't something done about it?

I get really annoyed at some of the stories in the news. I was listening to the radio last week and heard that vicars have been advised not to wear their dog collars in public when not on official duty to prevent being attacked. Apparantly vicars are being attacked on trains, in supermarkets, on the street, etc. So, some bright spark has decided that the victim is at fault, and that he/she should stop aggravating the thugs by wearing the one thing that identifies them as a religious figure.

I watched a TV programme the other night in which a man had been "egged" in his car and stopped some passing policemen. Did the policemen immediately follow the accused? No, the victim was arrested for being too loud, angry and abusive! Of course the man was upset and a little hopping mad, but he certainly wasn't a threat.

A few days later, I was reading an item in the newspaper about a woman walking her dog in a park when some teenagers fired a pellet gun at her. She reported it to the police, who advised she walk her dog somewhere else to prevent being attacked in the future. Again, the victim is to blame!

Is it just me, or is this country going mad? Why aren't the attackers/thugs/morons/whatever you want to call them being moved on/warned/arrested/jailed. Who decided that the ordinary bloke-next-door-type of person was in the wrong? Who decided that the thugs should be given the right to rule the country? When is someone going to realise that, if something isn't done about these kind of matters, this country isn't going to be a safe place to live at all? If I want to sit on a train, I should be able to wear whatever I like, safe in the knowledge that, if someone did approach me, I could call the police and something would be done about it. I should be able to walk through a park, down the road, around town and know that the streets were being kept safe. What is happening?