What has the UK become?

[mexico1970]

So are you saying that none of those factors could apply in a country with a larger population?

I'm saying make the comparison more realistic, you could compare the UK to France and Germany I wonder what the difference is between them?

 

[Saddleworth2]

I'm saying make the comparison more realistic, you could compare the UK to France and Germany

no thanks mate. That wasn’t the purpose of my original post. I simply described some attributes that ‘happy countries have’ on the basis there might be something we could aspire to. You don’t seem to think them applicable to the UK which is fair enough.

 

[The Future’s Blue!]

no thanks mate. That wasn’t the purpose of my original post. I simply described some attributes that ‘happy countries have’ on the basis there might be something we could aspire to. You don’t seem to think them applicable to the UK which is fair enough.

Or something to aspire to.

 

[mexico1970]

Or something to aspire to.

But it's like asking for someone to aspire to something that isn't possible, a country twice the size of ours with only 5 million people compared to a place the size of just London with 10 million people living in it.

The only way we could possibly achieve it is to deport 68 million people.

 

[bluethrunthru]

so sad tonight - neighbours lad went out yesterday afternoon and won't be coming back. Local news and views site confirms the worst this evening. WTF is going on my eldest is only a decade older and had to navigate the issues around coming out - I despair what the last few years have done to our youth

 

[The Future’s Blue!]

But it's like asking for someone to aspire to something that isn't possible, a country twice the size of ours with only 5 million people compared to a place the size of just London with 10 million people living in it.

The only way we could possibly achieve it is to deport 68 million people.

Always an option. Can we start with the Rags, Tories and Reform.

 

[Alan Harper's Tash]

Always an option. Can we start with the Rags, Tories and Reform.

Funny thing about these types of poll is that people will moan like fuck about how shit the country is, but when asked, they’d vote their country is the best and how happy they are in it.

Then, if someone else dare criticise their country, they “aren’t patriotic and hate the west.”

 

[inbetween]

When you look at the factors that make the population of a country ‘happy’ like Finland for example, the factors include; insignificant wealth inequality, trust between people and government and vice versa (considered a big one). Efficient and comprehensive social services, affinity with the countryside, a kind society.

Sounds just like us eh? Why are we such miserable buggers?

I travel to Germany and the Munich area a lot and I'd absolutely love to move there. The transport is great, efficient and cheap. The roads are well maintained and Munich airport is one of the nicest airports I've been to. The towns are beautiful, everybody cycles, there are nice restaurants and it's extremely relaxed.... You get the picture.

The biggest problem with the UK is it's extremely poorly regionalised. If you goto London then you see something that somewhat resembles the picture above but go elsewhere beyond the M25 and it can be almost 3rd world. The UK is actually a poor country but by statistics we're a rich country due to the concentration of wealth in the south. That doesn't mean everybody is rich in the south, it just means that's where our wealth as a country comes from.

To show the regionalisation problem, Manchester's GDP is £80bn which is absolute peanuts and less than 5% of total UK GDP but remember that Manchester is the 3rd biggest city in the UK! Manchester could be removed from the UK economy and it would make no difference. Pretty much every German city is doing far better than this, often double better.

However, look at London which has a GDP of over £700bn, this massively outpaces every European city by a huge margin. What we have in the UK is the most powerful city in the world whilst the rest of the country is far below average in comparison to the rest of Europe. This is pretty much why all of our infrastructure spend goes to London.

The rest of the country is built upon what came before, we have still have WW2 roads and railways but we don't have a WW2 era sized population... And we're drowning because of it.

 

[JOGAMIGMOG]

Always an option. Can we start with the Rags, Tories and Reform.

I’ll raise you Dippers, Arse and Leeds.

 

[threespires]

so sad tonight - neighbours lad went out yesterday afternoon and won't be coming back. Local news and views site confirms the worst this evening. WTF is going on my eldest is only a decade older and had to navigate the issues around coming out - I despair what the last few years have done to our youth

Working on the assumption that our youth haven't suddenly biologically devolved into less resilient people in a generation you have to presume that older generations have created the conditions for this crisis to occur but then mostly seem to have abdicated responsibility for addressing it. Little from the major parties about how we should be tackling this crisis; Lib Dems have mentioned it but Labour just muttered a few platitudes when Poulter crossed the floor, but little of substance. It's a major health and economic time bomb that should be a significant area of focus.
We used to be a country where generations laid down their lives for their children and their children's children. Now we seem to be happy to piss away their resources and opportunities and then call them snowflakes. There's always been generational misalignment in outlook but there was also an underlying tacit social contract that the majority were working at least in part to improve the lot of those to come. But that was when there was such a thing as 'society'.