Maintaining and upgrading basic infrastructure like schools, hospitals, roads, bridges etc is basic governance.
That should have been 4% of GDP like other developed countries.
The UK made a mistake in the 90s when they reduced that to 3% But what has been criminal was the reduction since 2010 to 2%.
The constant short-termism that is crippling the country is a byproduct of dozens of raids on basic spending in order to pay for the bungs of the various beneficiaries (bankers, OAPs, NIMBYs etc)
England is failing now because of the constant "kicking the can down the road" while reducing critical spending on infrastructure, while giving political bungs has hit the proverbial wall.
It will take decades to fix this. And its also the number one driver of why our productivity is so shit.
People still don't understand the scale of the problem. We are talking about £200B+ of work needed just to get our existing infrastructure up to a basic standard.
People call me ageist on here for telling OAPs we cannot afford their triple lock when the infrastructure around them is crumbling.
And here we are. The buildings are now starting to crumble and this is just the tip of a very large problem going back 30+ years.
And yes, it will absolutely start killing people. Just a matter of time.