Many reasons to be cheerful in our country

After reading Sid Anning’s letter titled ‘Appalled at state of our country’, I felt very sorry for him, because he is so unhappy with life in Britain today compared with the past.

He sees our streets full of gangs dealing drugs, well-paid public workers continually on strike for more money and protest marches taking place every weekend. The good news is that, if he wants to feel better, help is at hand. All he needs to do is to visit the website of the Office for National Statistics Measure of Well Being Dashboard. I’m not saying that Mr Anning’s concerns are not important but when it comes to the things which really matter in our lives, he will find on the website a much rosier, optimistic, picture.

For example, seven out of 10 of us feel ‘hopeful’ about our future and the same proportion of us who are in work say we are either ‘fairly’ or ‘very satisfied‘ with our main job. Things get even better when it comes to our social relationships, with 85% of us saying that we were ‘fairly’ or ‘very satisfied’ with those we have with family, friends, neighbours and other people we know. The same percentage of us say that we are satisfied with our accommodation, with 80% of us saying we we are satisfied with our local area as to place to live. We can all feel a bit safer when it comes to crime, with the year ending in March 2023 with an estimated 30 personal crimes per 1,000 of us and down from 53 per 1,000 in 2018. For me, there is one particular reason to be chuffed about life in Britain today. Given the fact that the internet has given us access to all the knowledge in the world, this year only 8% of us said that we had either not used the internet in the last six months or never used it, down from 13% in 2015.

The last thing I would like to say to cheer up Mr Anning is that we live in a country where the work of the NHS and the Covid vaccination programme saved many thousands in the pandemic. That certainly would have not been possible in the Britain he looks back to in the past. Reasons for us to be cheerful, indeed.