To think the UK is in terminal decline

No abuse from me. You summarise perfectly why the UK is dysfuntional and in rapid decline. I can see a time within 10 years when all benefits will be abolished.

Did Labour want to and expect their policies would halve growth?

Part of the problem is that we are dominated by headlines from the USA - which has crazy stuff going on, problems but not the same as ours- they are a big rich country with oil,gas,coal and huge tech companies. We are completely different and if we concentrated on goings on here and in European countries the world would seem a better place.

@Ukisgaslit Thanks for your response, I'm very grateful. You make some good and valid points, particularly on the financial side although I must take issue with you regarding the Duchy of Cornwall which is a private estate and the Prince of Wales pays tax on it's profits. The further point you make is, I think, about the Sovereign Grant (previously the Civil List) which is provided by the Government from income from the Crown Estate to cover formal duties of the Monarch - the Head of State.

I think you skate over the points I make though about our decline and the lack of a work ethic, the victim culture and lack of personal responsibility. Interestingly, my daughter teaches in a state school. Her major complaint is there is almost no parental engagement; parent/teacher meetings are very lonely affairs for the teachers. There was a thread on here the other day where someone thought it unreasonable when a school phoned the parents because their beloved child needed their nappy changing! What have we become when children go to school in nappies, parents take no interest in their off-springs' education and offer violence to the teachers who criticise them? The notion that the country owes people a living and deciding not to work is a reasonable approach to life because the State will provide the necessary support are all part of the problem. I appreciate these are generalisations but, imo, certainly factors in our national decline.
Anyhow, thanks for the interaction, I appreciate it.

@MyObservations
I disagree strongly that we only have ourselves to blame
The economic injustices we see come from the top .They are structural
We accept how dystopian the UK is becoming or we pressure parliament to do something about it
The 2 % tax on millionaires would be a start .
People put their shoulder to the grindstone when they have a stake in the future . Many young people no longer have this .

I noted two financial transactions in the news last week which , taken together , spoke (depressing ) volumes about the state of the uk .
There had been revelations about the money Charles and William take from the nhs, schools and charities etc via the Duchies, despite already taking half a billion a year from the tax payer . There was no response from the Windsors to the suggestions that the Windsors repay our crippled public services .
Yet Charles was so concerned that Camilla may be disturbed by noise that he bought 3 million house near Camilla’s house , just in case .
Meanwhile Michael Sheen took £100000 of his own money to write off the debt of 900 individuals in his home town . These debts would have ballooned to 1 million due to the profits debt companies make from debtors

Yes the UK is in decline - and our decline is faster and steeper than that of many other countries .
OP I don’t want to derail - this will be my only post on your thread but thanks for the discussion

These numbers are only going one way, people should take a look at the forecasts for the next 10/20 years.

I can't quite see why this is a surprise. I know I'm about to set myself up for s raft of abusive responses, but you only have to look on here to understand why we are in " terminal decline" imo. It's does seem that a larger number if people want something for nothing (in many cases) and an expectation that the State will provide everything. We've had threads in here where people think it's fine to go to the cinema, swimming and other activities when they are supposed to be working from home. We have a generation that thinks it's okay not to work and rely on the State for income. And if or when something goes wrong, then it's always someone else's fault! The values and standards I was brought up with seem to have been replaced by a victim culture and a general lack of personal responsibility but increased personal rights. Yes, I think we are in terminal decline but we (generally) only have ourselves to blame.

Labour are never the answer. Done nothing for the country since the 1960s.

I don't think the Government realise that to get all these people off benefits they will need more DWP staff for Jobcentres to administer all the work coaching, benefit applications etc. They also say they want to cut down tax avoidance & fraud, HMRC have already got rid of so many staff & closed all local tax offices, who will be doing all the compliance work to bring in the money?

I feel sorry for ds generation, they will have next to no chance of ever owning their own home, getting social housing is getting so hard just for anyone in desperate need, let alone any young person who wants to leave home. The NHS is going down the plug hole, you can't get a doctor's appointment, A & E is on a par with a third world country with people dying on a trolley on corridors corridor, ambulances taking 8 hours even for urgent things like strokes & heart attacks, people are unable to work because they can't get a diagnosis, treatment or surgery. Social care is being cut to the bone, people are expected to manage with someone just going in, throwing a sandwich & their drugs at them & leaving, not getting them up & dressed until lunchtime & then being put to bed at teatime, only being allowed one bath or shower a fortnight, not getting equipment that would allow some independence. Councils aren't doing enough to enable anyone who is disabled to have suitable housing for their disabilities, they aren't making enough accommodation accessible, it can take 6 months to just get an assessment for aids & adaptations, then months to get the stuff installed if they actually agree to doing it.

The education system is failing so many kids, no SEN provision, kids are being set up to fail because there is no support for kids with special needs or who are less able, schools are just exam factories & statistics count for more than producing well rounded young people who are prepared to be in the world as adults, instead we have kids whose only knowledge is what they have drummed into them, nothing practical like how to write a letter, how to cook a meal, do simple repairs, manage finances etc. What use is algebra or knowing the King's & Queens of England when you need to apply for a mortgage or cook a meal?

I really had high hopes for Labour, thought they would put the country back together, but unfortunately we have ended up with Tory 2.0 & an even more broken Britain. I've ripped up my Labour membership card & will actively campaign for anyone who will get them out next election, I just hope we have a better choice than Reform.

You sound very passive in the decline you describe. Be the change you want to see.

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1C9jBRD76C/?mibextid=wwXIfr

The post war era of even wealth distribution ’was not normal ‘

JFC. Lots of raping and pillaging actually! Ever read a book?

I believe they did a good deal of pillaging, actually.

I think we has about 20 years in a western affluent bubble where it seemed we could buy what we wanted, eat what we wanted, holiday when we wanted, party when we wanted and we got spoiled. Whilst we were doing that the super rich were buying up all the assets and sitting on them getting richer. Now suddenly everything is unaffordable and we can’t we are noticing and life seems unfair.

The general population started being able to have hot showers in 1960. They only took foreign holidays for granted in the 1980s. Now we want it all. However we can’t have it all because whilst we were running around like kids in a sweet shop the super rich were squirreling away assets and now rentals have sky rocketed, there’s no housing for people to move to and they hold the power not the governments. That’s why Elon and Bezos have their feet up on the Whitehouse desk!
This is not a UK problem. It’s a global problem. Wake up everyone!

Then why is the same thing also happening all over western Europe as well?

Something needs to change and drastically. People are sick of working themselves to the bone and having nothing to show for it. While others do nothing productive all day and have everything paid for.

Totally agree.
Very arrogant of the poster to equate blue collar as being thick.

People think it's bad now. Wait until they find out the country has to find an extra £30-50bn per year to spend on pensions due to the aging population. The country is in a death spiral. Everything is being carved up and sold off and we're all having our pockets emptied to feed this pension black hole.

It might be a bit more manageable if the economy was growing. However the economy isn’t growing and this is due to a 15 year wage freeze and utilities sucking the life out of the economy. Everyone's wages are going on bills. The money that went to local businesses and paying vat to the government is now going to the energy companies.

We are fked until the government does something different and sacks off the fiscal rules that hold us back… not in the trussonomic view, but in the public investment view. Infrastructure projects, new technology, state owned utilities and energy, etc.

Loads of the people who migrate here don't work anyway, or operate cash only businesses with no benefit to the taxpayer.

It's just adding to the benefits bill more than boosting the economy.

Have a look at Gary's Ecomonics on insta / youtube - he explains whats happening in this country very well and is an interesting watch!

Not like domestic holidays are cheap though. Everything is so expensive in UK. Going abroad can be the cheaper option.

Hopefully foreign travel will become what it once was, a luxury. The days of retired people in their 60s going on multiple cruises or holidays abroad will cease. A retired bricklayer and secretary from Mansfield being able to own a second property in Spain are over. I see this as a good thing. What worries me is working couples not getting on the housing ladder or not being able to afford childcare. We need to protect our young working age population, they are our future.

What I want to know is how the NHS is the UK’s biggest employer and also the 5th biggest employer in the WORLD but people are still waiting (and dying) for years for treatment.

I think that sums up the state of the UK very succinctly.

People in the UK have long been discouraged from having children, (in general successive government policy and societal influence does not support women having children and large families are stigmatised) but we are also told we need more people so need to import them from abroad and change the very fabric of society, but infrastructure is not provided leading to the dog eat dog scenario we’re currently living in where there is a fight for services and underlying vibe of hostility which the government NEEDS to detract from their own deliberate incompetence.

I mean isn’t it a basic part of governance to FORECAST how many public services workers, additional infrastructure, housing units, etc, a country is going to require to meet it’s citizens needs and ensure that people are trained and funding is set aside to meet these needs?

I also don’t think there’s any other country in the world that has encouraged an internal self hatred its own people of ‘we’re all too lazy, fat, stupid, racist etc to work hard’. No wonder people give up. A lot of it is classism based - ‘elites’ know better than the plebs who they can’t be trusted to think for themselves, while the elites corrupt the country for their own ends.

Patriotism is basically a crime in the UK. How can you care about something you are not allowed to have any pride in and are primed to hate?

We might be moving towards a time where we don’t holiday abroad, eat basic food, don’t eat out, mend clothes rather than buy new ones etc. but that’s what my parents did when I was growing up. We’ve gotten used to having what we want when we want and we are just going back to those things being a luxury.

What classes as basic food?

And will this be for everyone or only certain generations?

No one protests or riots (not thousands of people anyway) like they did in the 80s or 90s. People can’t be arsed and just moan online now and think they have done their bit