to ask how different you think the UK will look in 15-20 years?

[evilcherub]

It's changed so much since the turn of the century. How different do you think the UK will look in 15-20 years? Any radical changes? Do you think it will be better or worse for those currently living here?

Paid work will move away from "monthly salary" and cash payments, towards people earning income vouchers and discounts online.
You will get parts of earnings as vouchers to spend in certain places, tying you in to shopping at a particular supermarket who has the contract with your employer

FUCKED

I think sometime within the next 25 years there will be a hard left government. Some of the very rich will move to their houses abroad, the rest will be less rich as they will have been taxed very heavily.
Private schools will be more or less gone as their fees will have hugely increased and there won't be enough people who can afford it and anyway, the left wing government will make it hard for them to continue.

The Yellowstone super volcano is supposed to be rumbling and will probably blow within the next ten years. The entire Western Hemisphere will be plunged into an ice age or something because the sun will be blocked out due to all the ash.

We're not planning on getting any solar panels.

hiddenhome I'll buy shares in oil and gas then.

I think another ice age would mean that all bets are off
certainly stock market shares wont be much help when civilization breaks down due to a volcanic ash induced nuclear winter

Just place marking for later

I'm intrigued by the comments on this thread but it's quite depressing. Do people feel like they have no control over what the country will be like in 15 years? I know it doesn't always feel like a choice but we can consider how we vote and think about the little things that (collectively) make a difference...recycling, being active in our local communities, making ethical choices about what we buy. I'm not usually overly idealistic but isn't it worth a go?

The only people that can live in London will be

The very rich and people who have a council home

Democratic choice is an illusion Wilde

I think we're going to have a war. I think that will probably sort out much of the gap between rich and poor too as it will mean money is needed to be got moving around the economy for a war effort rather than sitting in obscenely wealthy people's bank accounts and the financial houses will lose quite a bit of power as their kind of false electronic money becomes less relevant compared to buying arms and keeping the populations alive.

I think, even if we win, Europe and the U.S. will be weakened. I think Europe will probably remain racially diverse but not multicultural if that happens as those who take our side will be more subsumed in the west and those who don't aren't welcome any more. I think that the East of Europe will turn back to Russia and the EU cease to exist. I think we would start as a society to start to think much more about the duty of people to contribute to society to allow for things like taking care of the sick, education and health, rather than just seeing it as the duty of the state to provide and the citizen to demand.

If we lost a war I think if we were lucky we would be dominated by Russia (China won't be interested, they've never been much interested in power outside Asia). If we're unlucky we could be under the Saudi spread rule of Wahabism or possibly worse and in a miserable state.

I think there will be war fuelled by religion and the fact that the west have exploited the third world. We will be expected to pay a fair price for imports like cotton, coffee, tea or far eastern electronics. The world's population will soar and fight for resources like oil. We will have large arrays of solar panels covering much of the Sahara desert or Australia. There will be a fight for land. Displaced black peoples will be radicalised by Islamic state.

I think WW3 will be over. They won't have used nukes.

Women will have lost most of their rights.

Hopefully we won't have to pay the tv licence anymore.

Everyone will be fighting to live on higher ground to avoid massive regular flooding. Lowlying towns will be under water.

Can someone please shed some light on women losing rights? Lots of you have posted this and I'm worried now! What rights do you think we will lose? Thanks in advance

All good and experienced teachers will have left the profession...

Women will lose rights due to cultural shift with mass immigration and islamification. London will become even more controlled by 'immigrants' both wealthy and poor (see news today less than half those in London are British).

Islamification due to high immigration and high birthrate amongst Muslims (much higher than indigenous population). Halal meat will become the norm. Sharia courts more prevalent than currently.

Benefits will be cut, if people can't/won't move to find work they will struggle/be poor, the rich will get richer and use whatever cheap labour they can source, either footloose British/immigrants.

Mothers will have few employment options. Property will become even more valuable and more people will rent, as well as more people living in smaller properties with higher occupancy than currently, eg family of four in two bed flat.

Womens rights are being eroded by transwomen and Islam.

I wish I'd never clicked on this thread
I think the NHS will be gone. It won't be able to cope with the ageing population and the increasing population as a result ( plus increase migration). This will coincide with antibiotics being less effective and an increase in deaths due to simple infections.
Schools won't be able to cope with the numbers of children.
I worry about civil war.

Actually to be more accurate women's rights have been eroded by the Tory Maria Miller only taking evidence from one group and not considering the implications on another. The west interfering in ME politics/EU taking in only those who can undertake a difficult expensive journey thus abandoning the vulnerable.

We will still be fighting wars in Syria/Afghanistan/ outlying Iraq. Low deaths from terrorism will still be happening.

The major cities in Britain will continue gentrifying, more starbuckification. More restaurants, fewer actual shops, more bars and coffee shops. Even more clean, tidy, safe as it is now.

It's very clean tidy and safe now compared to the late 80's - I can't see much difference between 2000 and 2015 - too small an era.

WiFi everywhere - you will automatically be connected to 4/5G - and you will have to pay to block adds from the wi fi providers.

If the gap between rich and poor continues to widen (the middle class isn't going anywhere but it may shrink slightly) then we will see more social problems.

This will lead to an increase in money being spent on security systems like bars for the windows/steel doors - the vast majority of ground floor flats you see at the moment don't have them so that could be a growing area for the economy.

The birth rate will continue to fall. Our needs for employable adults met by the immigration we need.

As an island we have easier borders to defend than mainland Europe. We may start to do that. We barely police the seas around Britain, another area of possible growth in employment and for the economy.

The Channel Tunnel will be much better policed. It's very British at the moment - we've not moved on far from a handshake, a cup of tea, and 'gosh that looks like a long walk' . If it needs to be policed it will be. Ditto the ferries and freight.

I disagree with losing police officers, they keep cutting the numbers. I suspect that whichever govt is in place in 15 years will recruit more as the perception of more crime will rise.

We will be on the verge of assisted suicide by then (like Dignitas) in Britain. The nhs will continue to improve in some areas (like it has) and get worse in others - it's a massive entity.

Love your post ShowMeTheWonder and I really hope you're right about all of it!

ShowMe. So many flaws in your predictions!
I think that people will realise how damaging this Tory government is and there will be a big swing to the left next general election. There will be some irreversible damage done to the welfare state, education and the NHS by them but they won't have managed to decimate them entirely and we'll move back towards a more fair and just society. There's no chance of a swing to the left by the next election. Jeremy Corbyn is very unpopular (see latest polls), so unless the Labour Party find a more credible leader very quickly Labour will still be a dead duck in 2020.

The gender furore will settle down. I think it will go a bit extreme for a while with a swing to reinforce gender roles rigidly and identify young children as trans if they don't conform to stereotype but this will create a backlash that will ultimately lead to the end of gendered toys altogether and people will be happy to accept that boys and girls can play with and wear whatever they like and this will feed through society and end up being a great step forwards for feminism. if only! Far too many people from all walks of life are quite happy to continue with gender roles as they are, so I doubt we will achieve full male / female equality in 20 years. See also the response to some in the western world to the disgusting sexual assaults at new year - women should stay away to be safe.

New developments in treatment of obesity will emerge and people will start to be healthier. Also they will find better strategies to counteract antibiotic resistance - just this morning there is a piece in the Guardian about research into something in breastmilk that may be used to treat disease. there's already a very effective treatment for obesity, it's called eating less

The world will continue to move towards greater civilisation, greater social justice and better health and standard of living for all. There will be bumps in the road, some of them terrible and catastrophic and some that will seem like regressive steps and the end of the world. But ultimately, they will get better. never going to happen. Human nature is inherently selfish as a survival mechanism. It is only when a country is doing well that enough people start to think about improving standards for all. Looks like the world is about to go back into recession so,things will start going backwards

I'm am optimist with faith in the human race. I will acknowledge the possibility of a meteor strike blowing us all to dust at some point, but so long as we keep Bruce Willis on speed dial so he can get up there and blast any oncoming space rocks to dust, we should totally be fine