You have some points right, others are very rose-tinted.
I've been living in England for 16 years (after several long trips over the previous 15); I've seen plenty of people getting smashed in pubs as well as in clubs, never "out of sight" from anyone.
Beer consumption has gone down because of shifting consumer taste (alcopops didn't even exist in your '70s workers' paradise). The smoking ban absolutely did hit traditional pubs, basically turning them into waiter-less restaurants, but to be fair they were already being hit hard by chain consolidation and shifting consumer habits.
Supermarket sales of alcohol have gone up not because of opening times, but because of 1) price and 2) supermarkets getting bigger and less 'local', which means the woman at the till doesn't know you and will likely not stare at you like you're a child molester when you buy three six-packs (as it used to happen with local coops even in the early '90s).
Regarding the impact of immigration on "social housing" -- that's nothing compared to the impact of "right to buy" schemes. Traditional communities were disrupted because families bought out their council houses and flipped them on the market to cash in and move out. They didn't like living in working-class council-build areas, so they moved out and left those areas to the next wave of indigents. In fact, "social housing" is disappearing as a concept, and soon it won't matter who is or is not in a council house, because there won't be any council house left.
The hard truth is that the working class is made of individuals, who make individualistic choices. People like cheap Tescos, nice houses, and not getting lung cancer because they work in a pub. There is no need to romanticize the past.
My "70s workers' paradise"? Please don't put words in my mouth, I made no such claim.
I was referring to traditional local pubs, not the town-centre "vertical drinking establishments" which replaced them.
"Right-to-buy" schemes weren't the problem - my in-laws live in an ex-Council House which they bought. This was actually a good thing in that one of the problems with large out-of-town Council Estates was that they ended up containing a monoculture lacking in good visible role models for the children growing up on them. Private purchases on those estates improved that situation.
The problem wasn't "Right to Buy", it was "Right to Build" - Councils should have been allowed (and encouraged) to use the money raised from Sales to build replacement housing.
I find it interesting that you describe my pointing out mistakes that have been made as "romanticising the past". On the contrary, if you want to improve things then the very first thing you have to acknowledge is when and where things have gone wrong.
I've been living in England for 16 years (after several long trips over the previous 15); I've seen plenty of people getting smashed in pubs as well as in clubs, never "out of sight" from anyone.
Beer consumption has gone down because of shifting consumer taste (alcopops didn't even exist in your '70s workers' paradise). The smoking ban absolutely did hit traditional pubs, basically turning them into waiter-less restaurants, but to be fair they were already being hit hard by chain consolidation and shifting consumer habits.
Supermarket sales of alcohol have gone up not because of opening times, but because of 1) price and 2) supermarkets getting bigger and less 'local', which means the woman at the till doesn't know you and will likely not stare at you like you're a child molester when you buy three six-packs (as it used to happen with local coops even in the early '90s).
Regarding the impact of immigration on "social housing" -- that's nothing compared to the impact of "right to buy" schemes. Traditional communities were disrupted because families bought out their council houses and flipped them on the market to cash in and move out. They didn't like living in working-class council-build areas, so they moved out and left those areas to the next wave of indigents. In fact, "social housing" is disappearing as a concept, and soon it won't matter who is or is not in a council house, because there won't be any council house left.
The hard truth is that the working class is made of individuals, who make individualistic choices. People like cheap Tescos, nice houses, and not getting lung cancer because they work in a pub. There is no need to romanticize the past.