THANKING OUR LUCKY STARS

 

As the financial crisis rumbles on and the spectre of a new Great Depression is regularly invoked, people of my generation in Britain – those born during or not long after the war – should give heartfelt thanks that most of our lives, say the 60 years since 1951, have been years of more or less constant peace and prosperity. We have reaped generously where earlier generations have selflessly sown.

We have enjoyed peace. To be sure, there have been numerous conflicts, from Suez to Cyprus, from Malaya to Afghanistan and all military casualties are grievously mourned. Essentially however these conflicts have been on a small scale. In 10 years in Afghanistan Britain has lost 388 service personnel. In the 4 years and 3 months of the Great War, Britain is estimated to have lost killed and missing 1,017,000 people and in the Second World War, the total dead over 5 years and 8 months is put at 452,000 of whom 67,000 were civilians. Our generation has mercifully been saved from slaughter on anything like that scale.

Material living standards have improved out of all recognition. As Britain emerged out of post-war austerity, economic growth has been steady and sometimes spectacular, even if some other countries have performed better. We take for granted household appliances which earlier generations simply did not have, washing machines, dishwashers, central heating which make life so much easier. Communication via television, computer and mobile phone shrinks distances. Car ownership, once an impossible aspiration for many, has become a universal expectation. Foreign travel has become commonplace, even to the most exotic destinations.

It cannot yet be claimed that poverty has been abolished, but absolute poverty has been replaced by relative poverty – income substantially below the average. The Welfare State ushered in by an idealistic Labour government in the difficult post-war period has ensured, through a maze of benefits and allowances, that everyone gets at least some kind of income to live on. Subsidised housing has hugely helped the less affluent and although the system is expensive, it has surely been right to end the haunting financial insecurity of unemployment and family need.

Full employment has been an important target and although there have been some quite sharp recessionary years, generally Britain has provided decent working opportunities for the great majority. The workplace itself has been more relaxed, less hierarchical, more meritocratic and less exploitative. Working hours have been controlled, wage rates negotiated, a minimum wage introduced, casual labour restricted, health and safety measures enforced.

We and our children are much better educated than our parents and grandparents. The school-leaving age has been raised and often cherished small local schools have been closed to make way for larger establishments capable of offering a broad syllabus. The digital revolution has made the world of information easily accessible. The path to university education was eased by generous subsidy (ending economic reasons for leaving school too soon) and the opening of many new places of tertiary education. From the 1950s to the 1980s bright pupils from modest backgrounds could go free to college or university and receive a maintenance grant to live away from home. Maybe this system became unsustainably expensive, but millions benefited and the current prospect of students having to pay deferred fees of up to £9,000 per annum is worryingly retrograde. Although many school leavers have limited educational attainments and there is still a mountain to climb to improve standards, in Britain illiteracy is rare and diminishing, schools no longer dispense corporal punishment and the basic rights of children are recognised and protected.

We are much healthier and eat better than our forefathers. The National Health Service has been an enormous social advance, providing universal free healthcare. The undersized scrawny runts of yesteryear have disappeared and the pendulum has swung to the problems of obesity. The state cares for the populace from the cradle to the grave with no worries about doctors’ bills or the cost of medicine – a huge boon, despite the inevitable imperfections of the system. War-time rationing brought paradoxically improvements in diet and prosperity since has allowed us to eat a huge variety of good food.  How lucky we are!

The progress that really matters is not just the material things but also the change in our minds. Compared with 1951, our society is an open one. Class distinctions have withered for ever, women’s rights are fully recognised, racial discrimination is outlawed and homosexual equality won. Justice is mercifully dispensed, and in spite of populist outcry, the right of criminals after serving their sentence to start again with a clean sheet is recognised. An age of tolerance has been established - we are much the better for it and always need to defend it.

Our generation has thus been extremely fortunate but what legacy will we pass on? It is possible to be doom-laden, to write of unaffordable housing, high personal indebtedness, economic stagnation, tensions within Europe, high crime and excessive immigration. There are certainly daunting problems but every government faces the issues of its time. We can take some quiet pride that we built on the efforts of our predecessors with very large new social investment, making Britain more secure at home and abroad and created a broad consensus binding the people together in a prosperous, happy country with much to contribute to the 21^st century world.

SMD

19.11.11

Copyright Sidney Donald 2011