Uk totally messed up - is anything good?

@Teentaxidriver

"Other than people who are disabled, everyone needs to work, pay tax, abide by the laws, etc. If you are a NEET for instance then life should be made harder for you and the alternatives to work made less palatable."

Well if you do that then you will suddenly find that very large numbers of the NEETS become long term sick , disabled mentally or physically or become full time carers for others that are (or claim to be).

Don’t you mean some voters to get less stuff? I mean those who take out more than they contribute? Other than people who are disabled, everyone needs to work, pay tax, abide by the laws, etc. If you are a NEET for instance then life should be made harder for you and the alternatives to work made less palatable.

This I absolutely agree with.

The quote by Alexander Tytler in the early 1800s has always stuck with me:

"A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy"

The UK and other Western democracies are basically in managed slow decline and the blame largely lies with the voters who will consistently vote for whichever political party promises them more stuff that they don't have to pay for.

This inevitably leads to higher debt (which cuts into Government spending), leading to higher taxes to pay for it leading to lower economic growth and repeat.

The voters then blame the "other side" for causing this mess without acknowledging that their side stuffed up as well.

Unfortunately the solution is for voters to get less stuff but in a democracy no one is going to vote for that so the managed slow economic decline loop just continues.

Yeah there are issues and life is shit for millions

BUT

It isn't the winter of discontent

It isn't 1914-8 or 1939-45

There's no plague, no cardboard city, no 3 million unemployed, globally one of the highest GDPs per capita and life expectancy.

We just like complaining.

^

Here we go again

Race to the bottom

Yes it's not the bloody blitz but Christ alive, homes should be affordable, daycare should be subsided, education should be better and the NHS needs reforming!

And that's just the basics. What's about heavier taxes on second home owners, and the bloody landed gentry who we all still bend the knee to??

God help us

Labour seem to be intent on lowering business confidence so that won't help

The Tories ruined the country by austerity, then destroyed the economy with Truss and Brexit, and then record migration. Yes it’s a bloody disaster, how many of us recognise how very very expensive it will be to get back all we have lost? I don’t think we can fathom it. The UK looks poor, dirty and shabby. It’s neglected along with most of its people. I hope we can pull together and deliver something better.

We're the boiling frog aren't we. A long slow decline so that people have forgotten that things used to work.

Well you can thank the Tories for that can't you, like it or not the fact is Blair was probably the best thing that happened to the UK in generations. I think he was pimped over the gulf war and he should never have got involved and he should have nationalised the railways, water and power....but other than that he changed Britain for the better....just a pitty the Tories and the lib dems wrecked it

it really isn’t.

For the people that live here, that have lived here all their life, if they sit and actually think about it. Go for a walk (especially outside the SE), look around, look at the state of most places. Look at the infrastructure crumbling (literally), try and get a doctors appointment, go and have a look at your local state school (likely it too will be crumbling).

Then go to Spain, France, or Netherlands, even Poland… And do the same… While they have problems, they are not anywhere near the same level of decline.

Northern England has productivity levels that are equal to OLD east Germany! But we seem to just accept it. If we all stopped, and actually looked, and thought about it. We’d see we are declining. We are getting poorer each year, we have no real GDP growth, yet we have net migration of nearly 1 million… That means only 1 thing…. Each and every one of us is getting poorer every year. And by a considerable sum.

If we think that this must stop at some point, that it’s just a cycle, we are in for a rude awakening. Before WWI, Argentina was one of the richest nations on earth, 70 years later it wasn’t even in the top 50. To think it cannot happen to us is arrogance.

It is happening to us, we’re not looking.

Well again I agree with you there too, but the point I was making was that it makes very difference whether we have a tory or a labour government now. Whomever is in power is following the dictat of the relevant civil servant - and which dictat the civil servant follows depends on the issue, and whether foreign policy or domestic policy. Either way, the policies of the last twenty years and backwards have been disastrous for most people. Why? That is the question. What is root cause of the diabolical policies?

The whole 2 party thing is a distraction - more time is taken up trying to win votes than to resolve problems effectively.

Maybe we should be voting for individual ministers, and also for policies on a regular basis, not for parties. Or have parties for ideological reasons, but form acting governments in a different way. If there were more expertise at ministerial level, and some sort of fixed term for each minister, there would be less chance of blindly following dictats. For example, if foreign ministers were required some expertise in history/geopolitics at a far deeper level than they have now so they don't simply blindly follow civil servants with dubious influences; education secretary required to have some academic expertise as well as managerial expertise; same in relation to health - some expertise in real life; and so on. So maybe have a pool of peer elected ministers and change how ministers are voted in from that pool - so change requirements in relation to what qualifications they need for each role, what expertise they need, and also fix longevity of post - eg make the standard appointment for five years, so giving a decent amount of time is necessary to make decent changes. This would increase competence. People having a say in policies would be more effective democracy than just voting in a party. Make commons a time for constructive debate to resolve problems rather than childish tory vs labour spats - making childish personal attacks against the rules for a start.

And significantly increase understanding in the general population in relation to the issues and constraints of governance. Not sure how people can vote if they have no idea what governance involves.

There'll always have to be a lot of "common ground" in the middle, because as coined by Tony Blair with his "Mondeo Man", it's the centre where elections are won and last, i.e. the floating voter. It's no good appealing to the lifelong Labour or Tory voters because it takes a juggernaut to get them to change their voting habits which needs something very special to make happen. It's those in the middle who are the ones who'll change from one party to another so that is where any political party genuinely wanting to win an election has to concentrate their efforts. You can't go too far to the right or left because then you alienate the floating voters!

i agree from the point of view of domestic policy. PFI might have been started under Thatcher but took off and perhaps in a different direction under Blair. Because of the mismatch in negotiation skills it became in some respects and immoral waste of public money.

But I was talking about foreign policy. Which is a tad different. In terms of how much choice your average PM would have.

But even a venn diagram of tory vs labour domestic policy, i think there'd be a lot of overlap in the middle, and not because of shared ideology.

My point was that IF people are taking their health more seriously, they'd make more effort not to be obese!

Obesity is a pandemic. My point was that people in UK seem to be taking their health in general more seriously than they did 40 yrs ago. I did also mention the govt does not properly regulate the food industry, but there are many factors that contribute to the global obesity crisis.

I note also that there is big issue about the quality of who goes into politics. Look at the Labour candidate for Rochdale who spouts an actual conspiracy theory to his colleagues on Israel permitting a massacre of its own people for political purposes.

I am a leftie but I am totally repelled by this idiot and that he should have been chosen above many others to represent Rochdale; why him? Not only does he does he say something antisemitic, he says in a political meeting, and it's a conspiracy theory.

What kind of confidence would anyone have in such s man to represent of the UK and all his constituents. For me it would be zero. And the Labour Party unlike the Conservatives has many people to choose from. They could easily do better but have chosen this contemptible idiot. Clearly he is incompetent.

@AndThatWasNY absolutely agree-

The obesity epidemic suggests otherwise.

Funnily enough I’m listening to an item on Nom Doms and Labour potentially changing the policy

Ha no surprise there. Just the terrible VAT one to go

The impact of the super wealthy leaving the UK is thought to not be that significant. It is used to beat fear into politicians but it's different times than the 70s. Most of the super wealthy money is saved and spent abroad. They wouldn't leave their business interests if profitable and these are predominantly global. House prices may take a bit of a tumble on mansions but that would be only to the detriment of the wealthy. Direct and indirect employees would suffer (usually estimated around 15,000 people). But it would be worth it financially as most people in a higher tax bracket would not leave. Also ignoring the super rich, many of whom don't pay tax properly anyway (hello Rishi and your dodgy non Dom status), many wealthy folk are happy to pay more tax.
I personally am happy for them to leave and reduce their income decision makers who are swayed to protect the rich so that they keep donating to the political parties, or giving them freebies. Johnson was absolutely renowned for accepting basic bribes in holidays and free accommodation.

@Noicant I'm left of centre but agree with that- having lived in Copenhagen for almost 2 years 2020 to 2022 I will say it could very well be a bit more like that but to be frank everyone would have to pay considerably more tax and there would have to be a£14 an hour minimum wage. It had much higher wages generally, high tax, no NI, great pensions, no council tax and childcare at £260 a month- most couples worked full time too or as near as- it's a different mentality- I actually saw very few mums out with small kids in the week - certainly beyond a year old. There didn't seem this idea of let's do 12 hours a week and claim - even with single parents. Not saying it's right or wrong just different- but they certainly appear wealthier and stuff works!!

Everything here. Well said.
I’m not sure why it’s difficult for folks to admit BOJO, Farage & their ilk got us here but he, BOJO is writing for the lying dailymail that sold the country the BREXIT lies & earning so much money.
it’s unbelievable. I sometimes wonder if this truly is the UK or some third world country.