Britons urged to 'be decent'

2007-06-02 13:57

London - Britain could be made great again if more people helped old ladies across the road and television characters stopped bed-hopping and killing each other, Prime Minister Tony Blair's "respect" chief said on Saturday.

Bringing politeness back to the streets of a kingdom fabled for its manners would make Britain a much better place to live, Louise Casey told The Daily Telegraph newspaper.

Her Majesty's subjects should try to do a good deed every day, said Casey, the head of the Respect Task Force.

"It's important to help old ladies across the road," she insisted.

"The greatest pleasure you can give yourself is to help somebody else.

"We need a greater sense that it's OK to be decent, you're not the nerd if you don't throw your rubbish on the floor - you're the person who's making Britain the country we all want to live in."

She attacked television soap operas for portraying Britain as a gloomy country filled with anti-social yobs.

"I hate the fact that everything is gloomy, everybody is sleeping with each other, everybody is killing each other, everybody is committing anti-social behaviour all the time when Britain doesn't look so awful in real life," she said.

Casey reckoned Britons were yearning for a restoration of order.

'We need to queue'

"We're a nation that wants to keep our heads down and be polite, we don't have a culture of being over-confrontational in shops, we need to queue at the bus stop," she said.

"With our reticence comes our need for some structures that mean we can fit in."

She suggested a decline in church-going, neighbourliness and two-parent families were factors in dwindling politeness.

Public services like schools and the police had a duty to encourage polite behaviour, while the government should invest in improving manners, she said.

"If there's a problem on an estate, rather than spending money on the building, let's spend money on the behaviour," Casey said.

"We've lost the ability to reproach people politely. We think if we keep praising people they'll stop behaving badly and that isn't true. The mood music should be a sense of rightness, respect, consideration.

"I'd love London buses to have announcements telling passengers to give up their seats to pregnant women.

"There's a public service responsibility to try to uphold certain standards of decency."

- AFP