INSIGHTS

ike Clockwork Orange

“WHAT'S THAT all about?" Lasked Grey Eyes’ sister.
We were, after all, not in New York or Los Angeles or
Miami but in England, where at one time you could feave a
car unlocked and criminals didn't go around cutting old

ladies’ throats.

As a recent visit showed, tings
ain’t wot they used (o be in tie
Sceptred Isle. Crime is still only a
fraction of what it is in the U.S.
But it’s bad enough, and Pam was
locking the driving wheel of her
car because automobile theft is
epidemic.

One inan had his car stolen
while he was filling up ata self:
serve gas station. He had left his
keys in the ignition and some guy
hopped in and drove off, leaving
the astonished chap standing there
with the nozzle in his hand.

The coilapse of the old stand-
ards is just as great in Britain as
here. When we left they were get-
ting ready to celebrate National
Condom Week — perhaps because
there is nothing else worth
celebrating, although some say the
economy is improving.

Crime prospers. A man catches
a slack-jawed youngster slashing
car tires. The man takes a hammer
in hand and tries to stop him.

He is stabbed to death for his
pains. Slack-jaw pleads self-
defence and is acquitted. The
public is outraged. But the public
doesn’t count for much,

One night after the pubs close a
man is asked for a light. He stops
to oblige. The two gents who
stopped him toss him over a
bridge. He drops 60 feet into a

‘ tidc marsh and is smashed up.
‘*What is the world coming to?”
he asks from his hospital bed.

No one seems to know.

Then there was the 100-year-
old lady battered to death by the
21-year-old ‘‘petty burglar.’’ In
an old folks’ home, no less.

And the headline, ‘‘Barmaid’s

_- killer had 123 past convictions.”
_ It’s just as if the do-gooders have
an international network.

These stcries and dozens of
others like them don’t mean
you’re going into a war zone if
you go to the U.K. They do mean
that the David Niven type of
Englishman is on the way out and
that the Clockwork Orange syn-
drome is on the way in. Has al-
ready arrived, in fact.

There, as here, the loonies are
in control. { nearly developed a

KEN BAXTER

ON THE OTHER HAND

slack jaw myself when I read
about the juvenile car thief who
was sent abroad for a holiday at
public expense.

No kidding. This 15-year-old
izJdo had stolen dozens of cars
and the dippy authorities decided
that the only way they could
“break his cycle of behavior’’ was
to send him on an 11-week
camping tour of Portugal! ata :
cost of about $3,500 a weck.
Accompanied by a socia! worker,
of course.

People are digusted. And on the
political front the sense of aliena-
tion caused the Tories to suffer
their biggest defeat of the century
in the Christchuch byelection that
took place while we were there.

It was a cry of rage.

Christchurch, near which I grew
up, had always voted Tory. But
the Major government is the least
Tory of any government anyone
can remember, just like ours.

It hasn’t yet got around to ad-
mitting Third World women as
“refugees”? when they claim hub-
by isn’t nice to them, but in most
respects the U.K. is running
Wimpland a close second.

There, as here, the parties know
better than the people. Thus Brits
were denied a referendum on the
Maastricht treaty with Europe and
have little say in anything else of
importance.

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The Furopean Economie Com-
munity (EEC) started out as a free
(rade agreement and has Curned
into a monster that often usurps
Westminster's role,

The European Court overturned
the U.K.’s Merchant Shipping Act
and foreign lishing Meets now
have access to what used to be
British fishing grounds.

Cornish fishermen, restricted to
80 days' fishing a year, stand on
the beach watching the French and
Spaniards take their fish. Why
they don’t march on London and
gaff the politicians is hard to un-
derstand.

Reportedly, hundreds of thou-
sands of jobs have been lost
because of the EEC, and the mass
of new regulations has led to ab-
surd situations.

Two hundred abattoirs have
been closed because they allegedly
didn’t meet EEC standards.
Which is not to say that the Euro-
peans meet EEC standards, but
only that British bureaucrats apply
the letter of the law while the
Spanish and French don’t.

In London, a well-known
boutique was facing prosecution
because it didn’t display prices in
its show windows. Elsewhere, a
woman had to sign a paper before
she could have a steak served to
her ‘‘rare."’

The restaurant owner was under
the impression that EEC regula-
tions demanded such action
because underdone steak was
unhealthful.

It turned out that they didn’t
and it isn’t, but he was afraid the
local health officer would close
him down if he didn’t play it safe.
So sign here, please.

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