A recent survey has published that 169 countries in the world are less pleasurable to reside than good old Blighty, and so, I feel a tinge of excitement that Britain has done something right. I wasn’t asked to throw in my two pennies worth, but if I was asked, I would say:- “It comes down to patriotism and the evolving door of foreign nationals that has diluted the raw burst of British pride that made Britain ‘Great.”

Family members have often, perhaps too often told me about the ‘gruff bulldog spirit’ that supposedly walked these shores on a ‘full english breakfast’ with grit and purpose like soldiers and workhorses fighting for the same cause. No time for tea breaks and just about enough time to roll-up a woodbine. This is all I can recount before I nod off, usually.

Those were the days when sweat and toil determined whether you could go home or not; compared to the soft-handed, computer hugger, British worker who barely loses any moisture from hard graft, since the days of Douglas Hurd’s Mister Whippy haircut was fashionable. What has shaped our British cities has been the over sized lobes of the financial sector in London, leaving the huge manufacturing cities such as Sheffield, Hull, Bradford, Newcastle, Leeds, Chatham, inferior to the deep pockets of London’s clammy palmed leeches. Investment is not an option for these century old corporations who practically invented the word ‘sweat’ and ‘toil’ and ‘bread winner’. The most recent demise of ‘Corus’ is heart shattering; Teeside, has lost a major recruiter and source of income for nearly two thousand employees. Social clubs and small businesses will go under due to the Corus plant closure. It wasn’t anything to do with having no clients, or taking the manufacturing material overseas, it was all to do with ‘greed’, the filthy rich CEO’s who saw pound signs.

The unions were powerless, even after pleas from the unions to Westminster,they were abandoned, like a fighting fit, middle aged cat, sent to China, never to be seen again. Teeside, has a huge void to fill, a chasm more to the point. You can’t make ‘Steel Makers’ into ‘Financial, ‘Yes men, pen pushers!’ They’re too honest and use to real graft and real ale, not like what you get down ‘t South’, where all is not what it seems; like ‘Pukka pies,’ more air than proper meat. No wonder the South has gone ‘veggie.’

Broadband and the internet to these social groups, are a means to an end while the lass popped off ‘t Bingo’ on a Thursday night. These groups aren’t wagering up financial portfolio’s, scratching their heads, deciding whether to buy shares in Chelsea hotels, where Mr. Terry would play away, or be finding loopholes in avoiding 3rd property inheritance tax, but will be finding interesting facts about ‘Milky Mandy’ assets.

In Britain, we have a fundamental problem when it comes to lifestyle priorities across the spectrum. It is evident, that Philip Woolas the ‘immigration secretary’ may sound like a true Northern lad, who wears a string vest on his day off, even if it is freezing, acts to the contrary. He left the ‘Newcastle Brown Ale’ for ‘gerbil drainage’ and herewith forgot his roots, that is why all the illegal migrants have invaded the Midlands from Birmingham upwards. They cannot reside in Slough anymore, because the Polish have occupied all the bed sits, at 6 to a room. When you’ve got ‘migrant town,’ adjacent to Calais, all looking for a lorry to hop on, carrying ‘gerbil drainage’ to London, the average Briton realises, that the only way to stop illegal migrants is to stop drinking, ‘bottled beverages’ transported by dozy Greek drivers, who are evading tax, and can’t be bothered to search their mountain sized vehicles at regular intervals. Mr Woolas, your demeanor is of a field mouse on valium, wake up and get writing to all the Northern Breweries and build up our Northern trade. If I’m ignored and find your asleep, I’ll send Miss Lumley round, that’ll wake you up, that’s for sure.

Amusingly, I’ve written on subject titles several times via ‘TV programmes’ on the serious lack of inner city infrastructure investment; whereby affluent members of society try to make a difference to the most needy; except it is much bigger than just choosing areas of interest and social groups, then systematically throw money at the problem. This is a trend that Westminster has frequently tried to solve, yet still money gets squandered along the way. Cash is haemorrhaging without a plan of action, even if it has been injected into these inner city areas. It sounds very familiar doesn’t it? It is in all areas of government, it is a disease. First the diagnosis of the disease has to be resolved before any investment is made. Liverpool is now a more stable city on the outside, after the well publicised inner city problems, had spilled out of the local broadsheets. It got worse before it got better. Its Infrastructure is still an impending project. I fear that it is bound to revert back to organised crime and ride-by shootings; too many groups are within throwing distances away for sustainable compromises.

In a magazine, called ‘International Living,’ Blighty has dropped to a record 25th position. Does this suggest that Brits are overwhelmingly uncomfortable with the multi-culture, that the government has spelled out as a great success? I can denote that France came out on top, thanks mainly to their own strict laws on French-ness and foreign integration into the French lifestyle - ‘la conformación al estilo de vida francés’. In comparison, ol Blighty, is run by two Scotsman. Their idea of englishness is to ban the ‘chip butty’, due to obesity. Rundown all the British public houses’ till there are none left, thanks to the supermarket alcohol unit prices, and make a feminist a ‘Deputy Leader’. The Scots must be laughing their heads off.

When it comes down to British cities and the quality of life in them, there is a deluded understanding; that prosperity leads to bigger expectations. Many Parliamentarians have echoed this phrase. I feel that most cities collectively in Britain, haven’t seen lengthy prosperity. The people residing in them, are slaves to their mortgages and even the retired are now feeling the pinch, when it comes down to interest rates. Now we’ve been inundated with supposed foreign nationals and rising Islamic groups transcending into our British cities like a phoenix in the fire, Britain is potentially a sitting duck and incapable of doing anything about these groups without being called the unmentionable. These groups are paid for by the taxpayer, the same taxpayer who is being alienated by the same groups.

No poll has been implemented to see how big the divide is, concerning all groups in the cities,and the inner cities. In this climate of eager ‘knee jerk’ racist quips, and in an increasingly uneven playing field, due to living in a state overtly imbalanced; a poll will never be published. The fear is too great, the slander far too fierce. So we Brits hope for a honest valid balanced city society; our city life qualities have diminished with every piece of bureaucratic ‘red tape,’ that deciphers higher living costs, poor community spirit, and sponging from a tired British taxpayer, claiming it is part of living in a democracy, when it is plainly not.