MAIL ONLINE: Britain is beset by seven social evils that undermine all the good brought by prosperity, one of the country's leading research groups said yesterday.
Greed, collapsing moral values and the decline of old-fashioned virtues such as honesty and tolerance were named as blights on the lives of millions.
The abuse of drink and drugs, the permanence of poverty, the failure of political institutions and the breakdown of the family are also scourges that deeply worry most of the population, the group said.
The report was produced by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation - whose work is closely studied by Labour leaders - after consultation with 3,500 people.
It comes more than a century after the group's founder, a Quaker and chocolate maker from York, called for efforts to 'search out the underlying causes of weakness or evil in the community', and identified seven of his own.
The group said that while many of today's problems can be solved, social evils run deeper and are 'something more complex, menacing and indefinable'.
They 'imply a degree of scepticism, realism or despair over whether any remedy can be found', the report added.
It said some evils, such as alcohol abuse, are the same as those familiar when Joseph Rowntree set up the Foundation in 1904.
Others are a more modern phenomenon, in particular the concern about family breakdown and its impact on the way children are brought up. >>> By Steve Doughty | Thursday, June 11, 2009
