As Britain mops up after four nights of riots, the one thing that comes to mind is that this sorry spectacle would not have happened had Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher been in power. So where are Britain’s leaders?

Back in 1983, Thatcher made no bones about promoting Victorian values to ensure the vigor of Britain. Virtues of courage, self-reliance, industry, honesty and sacrifice coincided precisely with an era heralding Britain’s ascent into greatness.

These values equipped Britain to transition through the mighty technological changes of the Industrial Revolution and embrace progress without social disintegration.

Yet when Thatcher hailed these values decades later, Britain’s elites — from Oxford to the Guardian to the cafe sophisticates — scoffed and sniggered.

Those values are precisely what’s lacking in Britain 21 years after Thatcher left office. Society has gone through a vast technological transition with the Internet, cellphones and social networking — but no values to anchor it and no leaders willing to speak out for it.

Supposedly conservative Prime Minister David Cameron, after hesitating to interrupt his vacation in Italy as London burned, tried to talk tough. But rather than take a moral lead, his dilemma seemed to be over whether police should turn on water cannons against looters.

His vow to punish rioters was equally laughable, given that U.K. prisons only coddle criminals. Now he says he wants gang-control advice from the U.S. to fix it all.

None of these attempts to lead touches the root of what’s really wrong.

Having always lived off the public dole, in council (public) housing, and in partaking of “free” health care and education, these rioters have lost all connection between effort and reward.

Naturally, a sort of jack-Marxism based on class warfare flourishes. This state-financed leisure class thinks its “poverty” is somehow the result of others being rich.

“We’re just showing the rich people we can do what we want,” a young female lout told YouTube. Her twisted values reflect not only her own moral degradation, but also the incompetence of the state that raised her.

The worse their behavior, the better their rewards from the state. They’re continuously showered with resources and hear excuses made for them. It comes at the expense of the decent, who feel only the wrath of the state if they try to defend themselves from such criminals — or speak up for traditional British values.

Worse still, the welfare state is fed by unchecked immigration as the native population declines. That’s added to the cultural muddle as denizens of the world’s most hostile Muslim states fill their ranks.

That’s led to the state’s most malevolent invention, multiculturalism.

Instead of Victorian values, the British state now preaches with all its power that no culture is superior to another. It offers only apologies for Britain’s past success and denounces the empire.

Young Brits spit on their flag and wear it on the seat of their pants, ignorant of its history or meaning .

In such an atmosphere, it’s little wonder that Britain has become a nation full of rioters who believe little more than the world owes them a TV set.

And rioting is only one symptom of the cultural rot — with no signs of change from its leaders.

It seems related to the fact that Britain’s military is a shambles, its science has been corrupted, its National Health Service is substandard, its artists are decadent, and even the heir to the British throne — Prince Charles — seems to embody in his statements all of these slovenly junk-science values.

The one thing the riots illustrate is that civilization is a fragile thing, not an endless supply of coal to fire the welfare state. Perhaps these riots will shock Britain out of its complacency and lead it once again to embrace Victorian values. Where is Britain’s next Thatcher?

Source: Investors.com