BBC Breakfast this morning was doing a special programme from the British Museum, talking about the changing face of Britain. They had commissioned a survey that amongst other things highlighted that a large group of people thought that the UK was changing too quickly and also that another group of people thought that people coming in were undermining British tradition with new cultures. The BBC are asking people to vote for the word that best describes the British, a difficult decision based on the choice, and I thought I’d write my reasoning.

This has dropped into a general pot of related thoughts drawn from a number of sources. Firstly, I’ve been reading some of the blog entries on a planned move to Canada that our friends Carla and Garry are pondering. Their three blogs are linked from our page if you’d like to read further, but to summarise as a result of Garry having fared significantly worse than many in the current IT downturn, plus a general malaise with life in the UK, they are looking to move to Canada (back to Canada in the case of Carla). We’re also due to go down to Somerset at the weekend to meet up with Sheila, Beth’s step-Grandmother. She moved to Canada in her sixties to marry Beth’s Grandfather, them having met after he came to England following the death of Beth’s Grandmother. Prior to moving to Canada, she had lived all her life in Somerset, however with Beth’s Grandfather now having died she often talks like many ex-pats in that she regards England as home, but on her annual visits finds that the England she regards as home is no longer there. Both are seeing that Britain has become worse than it once was.

However, it has struck me that this is a general issue with emigrating, whereas living within a country change is a gradual process, when you emigrate, your impression of life in the country you’ve left stays as a snapshot of what it was like when you left. However much you try to maintain links, and keep up with news, invariably by not being immersed in the culture you loose track. Looking at some of the ex-pat forums, there are a significant number of people who end up flip-flopping between countries. They emigrate to another country, with high expectations of a better life (witness some of the people on Get a New Life on BBC, who in some cases haven’t even visited the places they go), and for one reason or another become disillusioned with their new life, and find themselves thinking that the life they left behind was better. However when they return, they then remember all the things that made them want to leave in the first place!

Being pragmatic, I really don’t think that there is a perfect place to live. The UK has its problems, but so does everywhere else, just not necessarily the same problems. In the same way on a personal level, some of the problems and issues facing you in one country may be solved by a move abroad, but equally some of those may follow you to the new country, and the ones that you get rid of may be replaced by a whole new set. (To quote a song that we were discussing with the youth group last night “I believe the grass is no more greener on the other side�) The choice as to which country we lived in when Beth and myself got together was relatively straightforward, not quite as random as one of the transatlantic couples in NY-LON, the current Channel 4 drama where they tossed a coin but pretty clear. Looking at the options, to stand a good chance of getting an IT job in Canada, it looked likely that we would have to live away from Alberta, whereas in the UK, my family live in the South-East, with many of the high technology companies close by. In Canada, the standard level of annual leave offered to employees is two to three weeks, whereas the three employers I have worked for in the UK have offered four or five weeks. If we lived in Canada we would probably have to take a plane or a long drive to see Beth’s family, and the same to see mine, and realistically we’d have three weeks to do that. In the UK, my family is close by, and we have five weeks to go visit Canada, which gives us a good amount of time to go to Canada, and still have time left over for a holiday. In addition, the last time we were in Canada, an official survey of the employment prospects of immigrants was published, which for me made pretty discouraging reading, and further backed up our decision. Firstly, thanks to the points system, the average immigrant was usually better educated than the average Canadian. However, immigrants found it harder to get a job than Canadian natives. Then when they did get a job, the chances would be high that the immigrant would be overqualified for the job, plus that a Canadian doing the same job would usually be paid more. For a country that still has an active immigration policy, trying to encourage highly educated immigrants it seemed a pretty bad piece of publicity. Whilst as a visitor, life in Canada appears cheap by comparison to the UK, once we were into the Canadian economy, and with me as a potential main breadwinner when we had children, it looks more than likely that my earning potential would be less than it would be in the UK. International surveys show that Canadians have a really good standard of living, and that it is the best place in the world to live, but is that just for native Canadians?

This leads me back to where I started, and BBC Breakfast and the changing face of the UK. As I said earlier, I think every country changes over time. In the case of the UK the current perceived state of society has been variously blamed on liberal sixties parents, Thatcherite attitudes from the eighties, the decline in Church attendance and so on. The British also seem to have a perceived attitude of how “things were better during the war�, or “things were better in the fifties�. I watched some of Michael Moore’s oscar winning film Bowling For Columbine again at the weekend, and one segment says that one of the reasons for the high levels of gun ownership in the US is due to fear, and then goes on to say that the fear is largely generated by the media – in one sequence Michael walks down a street in South Central LA, which if you believe the media, is a virtual war zone, but in reality is generally peaceful and safe. In the UK as well much of the media repeatedly tells us that the UK has a crime problem, and yet the figures show that crime is low. The media tells us that there is a problem with too many immigrants overrunning the country, and yet at the same time there are as many people leaving the UK, and many British are choosing not to have children causing a burgeoning problem with an ageing, shrinking population. During the hot summer last year we worried about global warming, and this year we complained about the rain. With the increasing media hours to fill that means all these things get a lot of attention, and register a lot more in the public consciousness.

I think on the basis of the above, the word that most closely matches the impression I’m giving of the British at the moment is pessimistic, that we as a country and a media choose to highlight negative aspects of life in the UK, which in turn generates more negative feelings. Having said I don’t think it matches with my opinion of the UK, which is somewhat more positive. So that now leaves me with another problem, am I answering what my attitude to the UK or what I think is the attitude of everybody else?

On Saturday morning we got a letter from the local council regarding trees and/or foliage that they “understood was on our property” that was obstructing a footway in the road that runs along the back of our house. Although according to the boundary plan we got with the house our boundary is exactly on the back fence, we do have a tree that has grown significantly over the past couple of years, and was overhanging the fence. The letter referred to the Highways Act 1980, which required us to correct the problem within 14 days of receiving the letter; otherwise the council would do it for us and bill us for the work. We duly went and cut back the tree as requested, however we then saw one of our neighbours, who has nothing in his back garden hanging over the fence cutting back the foliage from the verge between the fence and footpath, and from talking to him discovered that he had got a letter too. Later that day another neighbour came round with a similar letter, again saying that foliage was obstructing the footpath, and quoting the act. Aside from our tree, all the foliage highlighted was beyond our boundaries according to the plans, and in a narrow strip less than a metre wide between our fences and the footpath. Anyway, having a copy of the plan, and as we are still, after six months of waiting, without properly working streetlights, I wrote a letter to the Head of Environmental Services at the council, and also copied in our local councillor. Our next door neighbours’ mother also works for the council in a different department, and she said that she would go in and query the letters.

It is worth saying at this point that the reason why our streetlights have not been fixed is because at the moment, our road is not the responsibility of the council. When a new street is built it is initially private land, and then once the development is complete ownership is transferred to the council. For some reason, in our case, there was an administrative error and the transfer did not occur, as a result our street is still owned by George Wimpey, the house builder. The council is taking the line that they will not take over the street until the street lights are fixed, and are trying, it seems unsuccessfully to get George Wimpey to come back and sort out the problem.

Yesterday, our next door neighbour came around again, having heard back from her mother. Apparently the letters were “a mistake” and the council say that the narrow strip is owned by George Wimpey, and was deliberately retained to ensure that none of our houses adds a rear access onto the road behind (i.e. a council planning department stipulation). Now it may just be me being cynical, but under the Highways Act, the Council is required to cut back any foliage after the 14 day notice has been issued, and then reclaim the cost from the owner, so after six months of trying to sort out the street lights, which isnít a legal requirement to fix, they figured that George Wimpey wouldnít deal with the foliage either. So in that case they “accidentally” sent letters to all of the home owners in the hope that we would just obey the letters without questioning whether it was actually our responsibility in the first place. Anyway, is probably just me being cynical, but since the council’s argument over the streetlights is that they arenít going to waste tax payers’ money on them because they belong to George Wimpey, you have to wonder if they were trying to not waste tax payers money on the foliage either.

One final point to consider – with both problems it comes back to the development not having been transferred to council control. At the point when control should have been passed over, back in early 2002, the streetlamps were all working, and there wasnít a problem with the foliage, so the fixing of the lamps and the cutting back of the bushes would have cost the council money when they occured subsequent to the transfer. So as a result of an earlier administrative error the council hasnít had to spend money on maintenance that they otherwise would have had to spend. They have now spent six months arguing the point, for the benefit of their council tax payers. However arenít we, the residents left with faulty streetlights and overgrown foliage their council tax payers too?