Dr. Dalrymple has a depressing essay on the current state of Britain:

One definition of decadence is the concentration on the gratifyingly imaginary to the disregard of the disconcertingly real. No one who knows Britain could doubt that it has very serious problems—economic, social, and cultural. Its public services—which already consume a vast proportion of the national wealth—are not only inefficient but completely beyond amelioration by the expenditure of yet more money. Its population is abysmally educated, to the extent that in a few more years Britain will not even have a well-educated elite. An often cynical and criminally minded population has been indoctrinated with shallow and gimcrack notions—for example, about social justice—that render it singularly unfit to compete in an increasingly competitive world. Not coincidentally, Britain has serious economic problems, even if the government has managed so far—in the eyes of the world, at least—to paper over the cracks. Unpleasant realities cannot be indefinitely disguised or conjured away, however.

Much of what is wrong with modern Britain is explained by "The Welfare State We're In" by James Bartholomew (I can't provide an Amazon.com link as the comments system rejects a sequence of characters in the URL). The associated blog is here.

It argues, with a wealth of detailed evidence, that the development of the welfare state has had a devastating effect on British culture, and created a number of interlocking vicious circles in which government intervention creates problems and then makes things even worse in its efforts to solve them.

If you are an American and you want to understand what's happened to Britain, or simply learn what mistakes to avoid, you should definitely read it.

Britain has serious economic, social, and cultural problems? Perhaps they're just competing with France?

Very sad! Once upon a time, even a Shropshire lad could quote from Pilgrim's Progress, Shakespeare, and a variety of English poets.

Is there a lesson for the U.S.A. here? I have a loose association with Wayne State University in Detroit. From what I see of students, I kind of think that it's already too late here. I speak not only of the Detroit masses, but also of students from affluent suburbs.