The problem is that these are subjects that are discussed more in the papers but are they worse than before.
Every one has a political correctness story that has happened to someone else not them.
More aggressive youth, I don't think they are any more aggressive than when I was there age.
Rowdy and noisy I agree but so were we.
And most youth are still polite, its easy to paint them all with the same brush.
There are more immigrants that I will agree. My Mums local pub is full of Poles and Russians.
As for Ken Livingstone he has always been mealy mouthed, he was a IRA supporter in the 70s/80s when we were fighting them.
We have a problem with drugs, although I don't think its a problem since those who went to raves and dropped pills were not so violent, in fact drug taking is dropping and drinking is on the up.
Thats the new problem binge drinking and the violence that goes with it.
As an aside when I was serving in West Germany, I saw the green book American soldiers were issued with, and they were warned about the drunken aggressive and violent nature of the British sqaddy and this was in the early 80s.
Where did you go unie.
I went to school there through Boston Univ which had (probably is still there) a small outpost they ran out of a brownstone in Kensington, near the Glouster St stop.
Following classes, students had an internship. I had mine with IBM at their South Bank office. The group I worked with sold into the petrochem industry and many of their clients were US energy firms: esso, texaco, etc. The IBM lads were invited to participate in their clients' softball league (it's like baseball) and as the only American on the team most of my interneship was spent teaching them how to play.
I remember telling people all day, "No, running after you hit the ball is NOT optional!" or "No, you can't bounce the ball towards the batter!" or "Take of those silly Jumpers!".