“Broken Britain” was a term used by the United Kingdom’s Conservative Party from 2007-2010 to describe what they perceived as a widespread moral decline in British society under the leadership of Prime Minister Gordon Brown of the Labor Party. During the 2010 general election, David Cameron pledged to fix “Broken Britain” by resolving the issues the Conservative Party saw as the root of the moral collapse. In a 2011 press conference with BBC News, Cameron cited these issues as including but not limited to “irresponsibility, selfishness, behaving as if your choices have no consequences, children without fathers, schools without discipline, reward without effort, crime without punishment,” and “rights without responsibilities.” Cameron was criticized by political opponents for seeking “superficial answers” instead of longer-lasting solutions—for example, increasing police presence in certain neighborhoods and establishing harsher sentencing laws do not ameliorate the economic disparities that lead people to engage in criminal activity in order to obtain resources necessary for their survival.

In Alderton’s memoir, she references “Broken Britain” when describing how she behaved as a teenager and young adult while out with her friends: “We were Broken Britain—in fact, we used to shout it as we walked to pubs” (14).