Image Source: (The Telegraph)

BY JIM FLINK

ANCHOR CHRISTINA HARTMAN

You're watching multisource world news analysis from Newsy.

A broken society.
Morality lost.
In the wake of days of deadly rioting -- and now arrests -- U-K Prime Minister David Cameron says Britain must retake its high moral ground -- saying there is no -- us and them -- only us.

Here’s his speech -- from the Telegraph.

CAMERON: “Irresponsibility. Selfishness. Behaving as if your choices have no consequences. Children without fathers. Schools without discipline. Reward without effort. Crime without punishment. Rights without responsibilities. Communities without control.... Some of the worst aspects of human nature tolerated, indulged - sometimes even incentivised - by a state and its agencies that in parts have become literally de-moralised."

The Prime Minister joins a long list of Brits -- fed up with the riots -- and the apparent lack of consequences.
The National Post writes...

“....when you read that a posh restaurant in Notting Hill was stormed by burgling hoodies who were only frightened off by a kitchen staff armed with rolling pins that you begin to realize that quintessential Englishness means never having to account for deranged displays of utter meaninglessness.”

And in those last few words from the prime minster -- about a state and its agencies indulging and even incentivizing poor behavior -- conservative critics like the blog WizBang offer a hearty “hear hear.”

“I strongly suggest a hard critical look at liberalism as the key to that country’s woes.  And I suggest that we in America learn from afar.”

But UK opposition leader Ed Miliband says -- looking at liberalism -- or liberals as the cause of self-centered behavior the destroys the collective -- would be short cited.  Sky News has that.

“It’s not the first time, I would note, that we’ve seen this kind of me-first take-what-you-can culture.  The bankers who took millions while destroying people’s savings.  Greedy, selfish and immoral.”

“People who talk about the sick behavior of those without power -- should start talking about the sick behavior of those with power as well.”

A blogger for the International Business Times says the problem however with morality is that it usually helps dictate what is wrong or right while not leaving much room for discussion and dialogue.

“While at the end of his speech Cameron insisted ‘There is no 'them' and 'us' - there is us’, clearly his speech defines a very clear line between the moral and immoral, the hardworking and the looters.”

And it is in -- defining the fix -- about what’s wrong, that may spell success or doom to Cameron’s wish to make over British society. The New Statesman notes, tough love through austerity measures, may not get it done.

“Cameron will struggle to make this argument while simultaneously rolling back state support for families. An unusual number of benefit cuts - the abolition of baby bonds, the three-year freeze in child benefit, the abolition of the health in maternity grant, the withdrawal of child tax credits from higher earners - hit families hardest.”

 

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