Peter Hitchens’ The Abolition of Britain is the history of the death of Britain between the deaths of Winston Churchill and Princess Diana — largely due to the occupation during the war:
The unspeakable truth was that by 1941 we were a defeated nation, whose conquerors had neglected to invade us. Impoverished, beaten in battle in Flanders and Malaya, condemned as it seemed to grey years of sacrifice with no certain end, we were invaded by our allies instead. [British traditions] simply could not compete with the vigorous, wealthy, well-fed, sheer success of the Americans.
The contrast between old Britain and new is a contrast between “feel bad” policies that worked — quite imperfectly — and “feel good” policies that do more harm than good:
The older cruelty, which took the ugly form of workhouses, shame and stigma, was hard to bear because it required active harshness from the state and from individuals. The new cruelty, which leaves hundreds of thousands of children without a proper family, is imposed through many acts of generosity by the state and by the taxpayers, and through the broad-minded tolerance of individuals and opinion-formers. It is therefore easier to bear in a society which has nationalized its conscience.
The rise in crime is quite shocking:
The Home Office had just revealed that 20,000 London homes had been broken into in 1964, compared with 5,500 in 1938. (The current total is something like 165,000 a year.)
Those snippets come from Foseti’s review.