In the paper there was this article that refers back to the BBC's poll where loads of people said that society was better place to live in the 1980s. however on five the other night it was all about how the 1980s was an embarrasing decade.

 

so was life in Britain better 20 or so years ago?

 

Are you sure you prefer the eighties?

 

Kevin Sampson

Tuesday September 5, 2006

The Guardian

 

A poll for a new BBC series has claimed that 48% of the population believe the UK was a better place to live in the eighties. Really? Another survey - mine - concludes that this 48% must have been partial to unemployment, shoulder pads and sausages with 3% meat content. Quite simply, the eighties was the most hideous decade of recent times.

 

Today, for all that we supposedly live "under" the "constant" threat of terrorism, the UK is a relatively tolerant, multi-cultural society - relative to the eighties, that is, when at least three strains of fascism were popularly toted in the form of the National Front, the British Movement and Combat 18. And that's before you even glance at the record of the government of the day, Margaret Thatcher's blue and white army. Folk might justly claim dismay at the way Blair's new gold dream has begun to pale, but tarry! Who would we rather have: weedy Jack Straw or the Chingford Skin, Norman Tebbit? Tony Blair or Maggie Thatcher? In the years between her taking power in May 1979 and seeking re-election in 1987, unemployment soared from 1.4 million to more than 3 million. Industrial disputes involving the print unions and the miners were settled with intervention from the armed forces, while abuse of the Special Patrol Group's stop-and-search powers provoked mass insurrection as the streets of Brixton, Toxteth, St Paul's and Chapeltown burned. The 48% suggesting that the UK was "more stable" in the eighties need to take another look.

 

Just about everything was worse then. Women wore their hair in a chaste Diana Spencer flick; the hit parade was illuminated by pop giants such as The Dooleys, Bucks Fizz, Dollar and Darts; men with wet-look perms drove Escort XR3i's, clicking their fingers to the wholly $h!t sound of Shakatak; Dave Lee Travis was on the radio; and while John Foxx and Peter Gabriel retreated to the margins, Midge Ure and Phil Collins became the voices of Ultravox and Genesis respectively.

And, come on, what about the grub? There was no Tesco Finest or Simply M&S. Every single dessert was laced with aspartame and enough e-products to fuel a rave. The menu at your local Berni Inn would embrace a concept called Surf'n'Turf, and would inevitably be followed by puddings with names such as Suisse Delice or Baked Alaska - sugar cakes, fundamentally. The budget supermarket chain Kwik Save thrived, serving up the population's Toast Toppers, Cheddar Spread and Angel Delight by the trolley load. My own dear mum, suspicious to the last at Tesco opening one of these superstore things on the site of a former hospital, now pulls a face if her milk is not organic or her eggs are any other than barn-laid and corn-fed for a minimum of 12 months in a Wiltshire glade.

 

We still have our share of dead-heads and no-marks but I say Vote Today: It's Getting Better All the Time

I think you could make an arguement about every decade tbh, some would say the 70's was better others would say it was c**p. It depends how it affected you as an individual really.

People are just nostalgic... they confuse simpler times from their own life with simpler times in general.

I was only 5 when the '80s had finished, so I can't really comment on that. But from what I've seen of it I wouldn't want to have lived in that time. I don't think the Reagon/Thatcher/Stock Aitken Waterman/constant dull synth-pop bands years are anywhere near as rosy as people are making out now. The attitude seems to have been very "get rich quick" and pretentious. Obviously I don't know if that is true, but I'm kind of glad I wasn't really around to see it.

 

It's just the '80s turn to get the rose tinted spectacles treatment at the moment. In the '90s everyone seemed to loathe the '80s and love the '70s. Now all of a sudden the '80s is the golden age. I wouldn't be surprised if the '90s gets looked back as the golden age next decade.

 

 

I wasn't born until 1989, unfortunately.

I've always liked everything about the 80's though.

theres always been good and bad aspects about any decade in time... it wasnt better or worse, just different.