What has the UK become?

bluethrunthru said:
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

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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'.
 
The problem is, if you want to live in a civilised country you have to pay for it. And it ain't cheap.

People would sooner have an extra £5 a week to spend on their phone or whatever.

England hasn't really changed from the 15th Century in many ways except in those days it was:

1. We want endless war with France until we conquer it. Anyone who wants peace is a traitor.
and
2. Despite (1) we don't want to pay any tax. Anyone who wants more tax is a traitor.

You simply cannot square these circles, unless you find a huge gold mine in Bacup or a vast oil field under Lincolnshire. And then we'd probably spend the extra money on tax cuts for the rich, like Thatcher did.
 
BrianW said:
The problem is, if you want to live in a civilised country you have to pay for it. And it ain't cheap.

People would sooner have an extra £5 a week to spend on their phone or whatever.

England hasn't really changed from the 15th Century in many ways except in those days it was:

1. We want endless war with France until we conquer it. Anyone who wants peace is a traitor.
and
2. Despite (1) we don't want to pay any tax. Anyone who wants more tax is a traitor.

You simply cannot square these circles, unless you find a huge gold mine in Bacup or a vast oil field under Lincolnshire. And then we'd probably spend the extra money on tax cuts for the rich, like Thatcher did.
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The UK is ranked 20th on the great places to live index, we are above all the wester developing nations barr Australia.

Obviously the only gold we are going to find in bacup is gold plated on the necks and wrists of barbarians drinking pints out of the skulls of lambs.
 
These 'indexes' are all a tad unscientific, no? It depends on what criteria you use and who answers.

This country has visibly declined in terms of its public services in my lifetime. And I am not one of those dewey-eyed romantic elders who think everything was better in 'my day' because I know it wasn't.

Everything from prisons to schools to the NHS is falling apart at the seams. As for the quality of governance - fuck me, it makes me yearn for the days of Margaret Thatcher. I didn't like her, but at least she was competent and not a total lying ass, and she respected the rule of law.

I dare say if you are a multi-millionaire living on the fringes of Chipping Sodbury then it's OK, because the shit hasn't hit you - yet.
 
BrianW said:
These 'indexes' are all a tad unscientific, no? It depends on what criteria you use and who answers.

This country has visibly declined in terms of its public services in my lifetime. And I am not one of those dewey-eyed romantic elders who think everything was better in 'my day' because I know it wasn't.

Everything from prisons to schools to the NHS is falling apart at the seams. As for the quality of governance - fuck me, it makes me yearn for the days of Margaret Thatcher. I didn't like her, but at least she was competent and not a total lying ass, and she respected the rule of law.

I dare say if you are a multi-millionaire living on the fringes of Chipping Sodbury then it's OK, because the shit hasn't hit you - yet.
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My answers have been in reply to someone holding up Finland as an example by using the same Index that ranks the UK as 20th.

You can't please everyone but if people are agreeing with Finland being numero uno then they have to agree to the 20th for the UK, not bad considering it's a shithole in inner cities.
 
inbetween said:
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.
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So true sadly. Ww2? Try Victorian infrastructure with insufficient investment since. I really think we are entering 1984 territory that so many still cannot see how utterly fucked most things are.
I agree with you about regionalisation. If it were done properly and honestly it would radically improve things as long as it went hand in hand with a massive reduction in inequality.
Unfortunately when Labour get in we will get another set of beige policies that will paper over a few cracks but achieve nothing that would finally turn this country round.
 
Mr Kobayashi said:
Have you considered that you might make a good candidate to apply for a position in an extraterritorial police station? :)
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What is that? UK's extraterritorial police station? Sorry sir I can't get it. I don't know what does it mean...
 
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