The death of common decency

Britain is a country where a nurse being punched, a bus driver being spat on, or a shop worker being threatened with acid are fast becoming normal events. Last week, the Institute of Customer Service reported that the rise in abuse directed at public-facing employees has been so great that many are considering leaving their jobs altogether.

Shop workers collectively endure more than a thousand incidents of abuse every single day. Similarly, the Royal College of Nursing reports that violence against A&E staff has surged by 91 per cent since 2019. These grim statistics demonstrate a truth that can no longer be dismissed as ‘moral panic’. Ours is a society coming apart.

In England, assaults on A&E staff have nearly doubled in just six years. They rose from 2,122 incidents in 2019 to 4,054 in 2024. Nurses have been punched, pinned against walls, threatened with guns and acid, and even knocked unconscious by frustrated patients reacting to long wait times. Hospitals such as Southmead in Bristol and Manchester Royal Infirmary have endured especially steep increases in violence.

Ambulance workers deal with similar hostility. Across the UK, they faced 22,536 recorded incidents of violence, aggression or abuse between 2024 and 2025 – a 15  per cent rise from the previous year. That’s an average of 433 attacks per week, including physical, sexual and verbal assaults. Female paramedics are among the most targeted.

In Scotland, the death of bus driver Keith Rollinson – fatally assaulted by a drunk teenager – has exposed a growing crisis. A Unite survey found that over 90 per cent of Scottish bus drivers have experienced abuse and many report feeling unsafe at work.

Public-facing workers once commanded recognition and respect within their communities. An emergency nurse was a figure of care. A bus driver, a steady community presence. To be rude or aggressive to waiters, bar staff or shop assistants was considered shameful. But such moral codes appear to be withering. Today, public-service employees are treated as faceless representatives of ‘the system’ to be abused at will.

‘Lawless Britain’ isn’t just gangs and knife crime. It also refers to the normalisation of everyday antagonism. The erosion of civility. It illustrates a country where the very idea of public service is under siege – and the people who keep it functioning are treated as punching bags.

Perhaps what makes today’s situation especially toxic is the dominance of therapy culture. Our obsession with self-esteem and ‘emotional honesty’ creates infantilised, emotionally incontinent adults. Generations have been socialised into believing that no authority should ever constrain their individual desires. We have hollowed out the civic habits that once curbed impulsive, aggressive behaviour.

This comes from the top. Recently, when Welsh shopkeeper Rob Davies placed a note on his shop window referring to thieves as ‘scumbags’, local police scolded him for ‘offensive’ language. The message was clear: policing the way people express concern about rising crime is more important than policing actual crime.

Sociologists like Émile Durkheim warned of the dangers of allowing social solidarity to decay. Indeed, violence against frontline staff harms more than the individual victims – it jeopardises the entire social contract which binds us together. We must heed their maltreatment as an urgent warning sign.

We do not have to live in Lawless Britain. But if common decency is not defended, it will continue to disappear. It’s time we developed the courage to call out bad behaviour for what it is.

Neil Davenport is a writer based in London. He is speaking at the session, ‘Lawless Britain?’, at the Battle of Ideas festival in London on Sunday 19 October. Get tickets here.