Uk totally messed up - is anything good?

We can't easily chose to live elsewhere since a load of people voted for brexit

If it’s such a bad country why do so many people risk their lives to come here?

I love my country and wouldn’t leave. If people don’t like living here they can choose to live elsewhere or at least travel and see a bit of other countries and experience other cultures. I’ve lived a number of years abroad and always come back to the UK.

That's gonna be some costly and protracted court battles! Whoever's in government next we must look forward. We've been distracted far too long by Brexit/Covid/Wars.

I guess but the terms were so good it doesn't seem fair now

What would happen if maybe we made this totally inept & corrupt government get back some of the billions paid out on Track&Trace/PPE contracts/ fraudulent furlough/Rawanda plus all the other ways they have totally rinsed the country.

There isn't any actual gold plated final salary pension

However there are still final salary pensions - where people paid into them on an understanding that they would get something back

It's like you pay for a car or building works or your dinner - you expect to get what you paid for and if someone changes the offer after you have paid it's pretty obviously wrong

Oh you paid for a new kitchen. But we can't afford it anymore so get stuffed

What would happen if we just stopped paying for the gold plated final salary pensions and said nope, actually you can have one the country can afford?

I'm afraid all the chickens have come home to roost all at once- started with Thatchers sell off of public service and social housing, and the last 14 years there has been no joined up thinking, we have Brexit when the country really could have done without a £300 billion cost and vast numbers of useful workers upping and leaving- we have doctors and dentists and such leaving in droves now they can access some pension money in their 50s , we have massively increased rents due to people getting out of renting property for all kinds of quite logical reasons, all compounded by covid and an unstable international situation- much of this is poor planning and poor priorities and in my opinion a gvt disinterested in quality public services - however some is for reasons beyond any gvts control- and I say this as a non Tory.

I don’t think it’s actually true that the Tories have ever really inherited a dire economic situation history shows the opposite.

I think my point was that ministers - including Blair - generally have to follow the dictat of senior civil servants and various interest groups - or one dominating interest group sometimes - whether for domestic or foreign policy. The interest groups generally shove towards economic not social interests. I think in relation to major policy shifts it matters not whether we have tory or labour ministers.

That is why Labour has failed.

What might make a difference is to change how and for how long ministers are appointed. Longer tenures and tougher entry requirements, higher requirements in terms of competence. At the moment ministers have little choice but to follow dictats in relation to foreign policy (or things such as covid) as they often do not have the expertiseor understanding themselves direct policy. They also spend too much time arguing like primary school children in commons.

Also to look again at how policy is formed - we don't have basic levels to meet needs, whether in relation to education or health or anything else.

I’m happy to be here. I’m going with countries a bit more removed from volatility

Tbh I don't think it will get better for a few years yet. I don't see much quality or vision in any of our elected representatives. Starmer is nice enough but he is no leader, he's risk averse and I haven't really seen any vision/passion/zeal from him. But equally I can't for the life of me see why anyone with any talent would want to go into politics.
I don't see any true leadership in the world just senile, sick old men desperately clinging to power be it in Africa or America.
Things will change but not for a few years.

I'd rather live in the UK than the US, Lat Am, Pretty much all the countries on the African continent, certainly Russia, Middle East, most of Eastern Europe, Southern Europe, Austrasia.

Japan and Austria might be OK at a push. or Canada.

On that basis, I think the UK's OK.

@Grantanow

Labour will inherit a terrible economic situation.

Makes a change, it's usually the Tories who inherit a terrible economic situation!

Neither main party has the capability to "cure" the UK. We're being dragged down by the widespread decline of the Western Developed World, due to the increasing richness of the oil producing Arab countries and the Manufacturing powerhouse of the World, China.

The best we can do is a long term managed decline.

Labour governments usually end in a terrible economic situation.

I would dread to see how they fare when they start in a terrible economic situation (assuming they win, of course).

I personally think Brexit is the single biggest burden on this country. It massively discouraged international investment and completely suffocated the government for about 4 years trying to 'get it done' at the expense of everything else. It's consistent growth that improves peoples lives which is impossible without the investment and policy focus.

It's true that the BOE did a lot of quantative easing (money printing) to get us through Covid but that inself is inflationary as it's increasing money flow into the monetry system and privite markets. They thought it would be transitory, whoops. (Though admittedly Russia/Ukraine and the supply chain disruptions added to it).

It's true aroundtheworldin100days that Blair was not perfect but he was right about investing in education. Despite being attacked by the Left he won his third General Election post-Iraq with a hefty majority which, in my view, shows voters are far more concerned about domestic issues. Starmer shouldn't waste time on foreign policy when there is so much wrong at home.

The way the Tories have wrecked the UK for ordinary folk is a scandal. We have seen the worst run of Prime Ministers for years and years. Now there is a rumour that Sunak wants to bring BoJo into the Cabinet. I assume he'd have to become a peer, maybe Lord Buffoon of Brexit-under-Water. Labour will inherit a terrible economic situation.

I agree that Thatcher's influence was extremely insidious and created huge changes. But then came Blair.. and Iraq... so what happened there?
No Bennite solutions mooted anymore, for sure.

It makes no difference now who is in Government. It has been gradually leading thus since the end of the 2nd ww as we became dependent on other nations, but there have been persistent gradual fundamental changes.

Imagine if the wrecking of the UK, our language, our culture, our youth has in fact been someone's long term agenda - like something out of a film.... they keep creating mini crises so that everyone is too busy arguing with each other to recognise the real antagonist... Imagine, huh...

Trans rights have improved!

/sarcasm.

I would propose that we completely reform some of the unsustainable drains on public spending that I set out above and use a large chunk of the proceeds to triple or quadruple the education budget: halve class sizes, require much higher standards, provide a much wider choice of state schools focused on different subjects to suit various children, at least double SEN funding. That we develop the talents of our people. That we develop a system more similar to the grammar school one for secondary schools again where those who are academic can get an education of equivalent quality to that enjoyed by the people who currently attend private schools, but based on academic merit not parental wealth. And that alongside this we develop a genuinely equally valuable route to skilled professions/ trades/ technical expertise via high quality real apprenticeships like are provided in the Mittelstand in Germany and elsewhere, also fostering our small to medium-sized businesses that are the backbone of the British economy and our main growth potential by doing so and linking education to skills valuable to employers and not forcing children with practical skills to do academic studies to 18 and out of frustration disrupt that for everyone who is suited to it. Also fund adult education properly/ upskilling/ retraining in skills shortage/ strategically significant industries with growth potential. My proposition is that we use tax revenue on things that actually work and that we don't^^ have a poorly educated electorate in perpetuity. All of that should have been done decades ago alongside reforms to healthcare, infrastructure, tax, childcare, pensions, energy and food security...

One word, Thatcher. She "sold off the family silver ", a phrase used by Harold MacMillan to describe her reckless policies. MacMillan was not an opposition MP but an ex Tory Prime Minister and distinguished grandee of the party.

Thatcher sold everything that wasn't nailed down for knock down rates to investors who cared only about a quick buck and who didn't give a flying fuck about the country.

She ruthlessly destroyed hard working communities who had helped to make Britain a wealthy powerhouse and encouraged the nation, with hysterical fervour, to ridicule and denegrate them.

She created "Care in the Community" for the mentally ill. I leave you to be the judge of that.

Ever wondered why there is no viable social housing? Once again I give you Thatcher.

Anyone who believes the Tory party care about anything other than keeping the wealthy and the old order in place should read some history books. You don't even have to go back that far.

It might help if they weren't hugely penalised by the tax system, particularly single parents. But again, politicians know this and won't change it. A single parent with two young children has to earn over £150,000 to have the same income after tax, benefits and childcare as a couple who both earn average salaries. Even parents in couples who need less childcare are discouraged from working full time by the compounding effects of withdrawal of child benefit, the withdrawal of the personal allowance and the withdrawal of childcare funding at earnings thresholds that have not been uprated for well over a decade. Any chancellor with a brain who wanted growth, more tax revenue for services and rising living standards would scrap all of the above. There is robust economic research showing this would increase tax revenue, to scrap these withdrawals. But have they done it? Of course not. If they won't even do the obvious things which are completely within their power to fix instantly, for which there is irrefutable evidence, and which should not be remotely controversial because they are a) manifestly illogical and unfair to the individuals penalised by them, but also; b) beneficial to everyone to get rid of because they will result in more tax revenue and higher productivity (the only way to raise living standards sustainably) then there really is no hope. Neither the current Government nor the opposition have committed to scrap these ridiculous policies, the like of which exist in no other country, even though they know that the evidence for doing so is irrefutable. And are voters questioning them on why they don't do this?

Tumbleweed.

Not a chance of them addressing the more complex and long-term issues if they can't even be bothered to fix things like this that they could sort out in a single day and nobody with half a brain cell would object to.