Gary Numan Bashes Broken Britain

Electro pioneer Gary Numan vowed to quit Britain for America this week after his wife and three young children were intimidated by a pack of youths in the surprisingly upmarket village of Wealden, Surrey.

Describing how the ’12 to 14 year old kids’ snarled sexual innuendoes and abuse at his glamorous wife Gemma as she walked down the usually sedate High Street, the 80s legend told the Daily Mail he’s had enough.

“'When I'm touring, I get to see what life's like in different towns and cities. It's almost impossible to go anywhere now without encountering that thuggish element, people hanging around in the street shouting abuse,” said Gary.

'There's an undercurrent of violence and aggression and it seems to be fuelled by a binge-drinking culture which I don't see in other countries. The riots showed we have an ever-decreasing degree of compassion and care for other people. There's a greedy mentality based on self-gratification at any cost,” he complained. (Mail: http://bit.ly/nCjHvP )

His assessment broadly matched the conclusions of a much more disturbing article published by US magazine Newsweek this week which spoke of council estates (projects) in London ‘so badly infested with vermin that toddlers treat cockroaches as pets’. And gangs, Newsweek warned, continue to present a significant and growing threat, with many motivated by the greed and criminality of Britain’s ruling classes.

“You think we don’t know about the banks? That Murdoch devil-man tapping everyone’s phones? They think that we don’t look at these things. And that’s what drives the people to do what they do,” 24 year old ‘former gang member’ Pee from Stockwell (South London) told the journal.

“The only people who didn’t loot were the people who had reached a certain level in life where they didn’t want to get caught doing it. Some people pissed on things. Everybody broke the law to their limit,” he claimed. (Newsweek/ Daily Beast:http://bit.ly/nsAAPn )

In related news, a new study of 13,000 people in 12 countries found that 27% of Brits in the 40s were ‘particularly prone to despair and depression’ compared to 17% internationally. Brits, the survey showed, were also fatter and heavier smokers, findings top Brit psychotherapist Phillip Hodson suggested were caused by inequality.

"Brits probably have more individual fun but we don't have the same social bond and social care that comforts others,” Dr Hodson told the BBC.

"We are more socially mobile and our envy is greater too. We see how wealthy the wealthy are, and it is depressing to fail to match up,’ he said. (BBC: http://bbc.in/n8ASGj )

Jonty Skrufff: http://listn.to/JontySkrufff