Tough choice, let's see... 1970's / Now.
One wage could support a household with a couple of kids / Two wage earners plus overtime required.
Full Employment. Out one job in morning, new one in the afternoon / Hire and fire. No job security for first 2 years. Zero Hours Contricks
Social solidarity / Dog eat dog, devil take the hindmost, "no such thing as society" society.
Pint of Beer < 25p / God knows - can't afford.
Free education. Maintenance grants. / Potential 30 years of debt.
Affordable housing - Average house price 4xAverage Income. Rent controls and protected tenancies. Houses were to live in. / Housing market failure.
Youngsters priced out of owning homes. Average house price 11xAverage Income. Ideologically inspired limits on new social housing. Poor quality private rentals. Buy to let boom fed by housing benefit. Houses seen as an "investment".
Sitting in the boozer 10 minutes before K.O. and still in time to see the lads run out at THE VICTORIA GROUND / Route march to a soulless freezer on top of a hill.
Vinyl / Compressed shit.
Children had a real childhood and freedom to develop. / Kids are supervised to fuck with little real freedom. Endless homework and constant testing now required to produce the wage slaves of tomorrow. Poor buggers. Children are just another market to be exploited by capitalism.
Easily treatable STD's / HIV, Aids, Multiple drug resistant shit and God knows what else.
Harold Wilson kept us out of the Vietnam quagmire* - one of the best foreign policy decisions of the last century. / Tony Blair was led by the nose into the Iraq quagmire - one of the worst foreign policy decisions ever, and we are still paying for it.
Idealism and the confidence of a young baby boom generation / Cynicism and selfishness of an ageing baby boom generation.
Modernism / The cretinism of Post-Modernism.
Not so obvious that our species was destroying the environment / Toss up whether our species destroys itself or the planet first.
A quality Rock Festival at Leycett / A shitty Pop Festival at Betley
Only 3 TV channels but plenty of quality broadcasting. eg Fawlty Towers, World at War(ITV produced), Civilisation, Beckett and Pinter on prime time. / 550 channels of brain rotting, dumbed down and largely recycled dreck. The Kardashians, whatever that is.
The worst experience you might have with religious fanatics was accidentally wandering into a meeting of the Moonies and coming out married. / Death cult lunatics alienated from life, hijacking a religion to use atrocity in order to start WW3 and bring about the apocalypse.
And finally,
Chicken Shack live at the George Hotel on a Sunday night / The X-Factor
Tough? Really? I'd much prefer the '60's but I'd settle for the very worst time in the '70s (probably January '76 for most of us ). I'd even buy 20 copies of "Frampton Comes Alive" if that would help!
*Actually this was the late '60s but what the hell.