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Well, for example, in response to the riots and the 'gang problem' in London and other cities, the government has drafted in an American 'Supercop' to advise them. Seems a reasonable idea in principle, after all, he's had to deal with major gang problems in the US. But the US gang problem is not the same as the UK gang problem. The gangs are not the same, they've taken a different form. And policing here is different. The range of strategies on offer is different. The problems, though similar in some respects are different. But the Conservatives, and even the last Labour government, have such a love affair with American political solutions and philosophies that they just try and transplant it right across, ignoring calls from the police to draw from more culturally similar situations (as in with the gangs in some European cities).
They did the same with the education system. The Labour government brought in a bunch of ideas drawn from American educationalists to solve problems in our schools. Not that there's anything wrong with seeking expertise from American educationalists, or other professionals, just that they seem to be wedded to American solutions above all else, even where it is not appropriate.
Most of the attempts to bring in free market mechanics to the NHS, along with ideas like 'welfare to work' programmes and a bunch of other stuff were based on US strategies and programmes running during the 90s, often involving US firms in assisting in both devising and delivering them. Most of the prominent politicians in recent years have voiced their admiration for US economic and political philosophers.
The political elite have had a love affair with US thinking and strategy for two generations, and it's the first place they look for ideas. The problem is they don;t seem to hold those ideas to the same level of scrutiny as ideas from other places. They just take it as a good thing because it's what worked in the States. Sometimes they're right, and what they've done is adopt best practice as it appears in the US, but often they've just adopted the knee-jerk responses of the US political system as their own and the solution fails.
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