A couple of weeks ago the Economist attempted to defy its science's reputation for dismalness by scotching claims that Britain is "broken."
"It has become fashionable to say that British society is in a mess and getting worse," the magazine's leader said, "It's not." It claimed that on many social issues - and most notably crime - statistics show a marked improvement over the past fifteen years.
Of course, the Economist's raison d'être is the principle that, given the correct liberal reforms, living standards will improve, give or take the odd hiccup. The present Labour government, and the Conservative government before it, were relatively liberal (give or take the odd hiccup, again). They broke the post-war consensus, privatising national industries, bringing market "solutions" to public services, and attempted to introduce the principles of choice and competition to the same services, which were previously administrated by a monolithic and often Soviet-style state.
They have also made the UK one of the west's most open economies, making London once again the capital of international finance, even if British communities built around manufacturing have been decimated.
So, it must follow that things have improved, even if the tabloids believe otherwise. One can understand why the Economist finds the narrative of ever-improving Britain so attractive, even if its findings baffled many of its readers.
Today comes news, however, that rather than violent crime levels falling under Labour, they've actually soared - up 44 percent since 1998, thanks to a new study which subjected current figures to the standards applied to stats prior to 2002, when Labour changed how crime statistics were recorded. (Ed West questions more of the Economist's figures here)
As one might expect, the government disputes the figures. It is probably true that burglary is down, for example: The falling prices of household electronics such as DVD players means that they are barely worth filching. On the other hand, portable items such as laptops, iPods and mobile phones have become more attractive to opportunistic thieves, particularly youngsters who prey on other children. Crimes committed by children under 16 do not appear in the survey figures, yet the common experience of one's child returning from school having had his iPod stolen by thugs has added enormously to the widespread sense of spiraling crime rates.
The Economist has carved an enviable niche for itself as a challenger to received wisdom on left and right. It attacks the knee-jerk responses of social conservatives as much as it defends the machinations of globalisation against the criticism of leftists. The downside of this is that it can be a good predictor of what that banker you've just met is going to think about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or the Rise of China: The magazine is all-too-often a primer for busy financial sector workers on acceptable opinions on international news.
It's on shakier ground on its own territory, when readers can measure their own experiences against the government-approved statistics it brandishes. To coin a phrase, what am I goin' to believe: What the government tells me, or my own lyin' eyes?
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