I live in a European country and have done for twenty years.
After one to three years' maternity leave (paid by the state, not the employer), which can be taken by either parent, nursery care is free from the age of one until the start of school.
University is free and all who graduate high school are admitted. Child benefit (non-means-tested) is paid until the child is 27 as long as they are in education.
I can always see the GP the same day. I can self refer to 8 different specialists per year and often get an appointment within a week or two and sometimes the same or next day (for more than 8, the GP can refer). Dentists (and for children, orthodontists) are included. If you have a chronic health condition, you can be prescribed a spa stay of three weeks to a specialised centre to help you manage your condition. Medical-grade breast pumps are prescribed to new mothers. There is no concept of a waiting list for operations or treatment. Sick pay is paid by the health system, as is carer's leave when your kids are sick. Disability benefits are permanent where the disability is unlikely to improve; no revaluation needed. IVF is free for four cycles per child and you can have as many children as you would have wanted had you not had fertility problems (guess what, most people stop at two).
Social housing is plentiful and no private landlords are involved in the system at all. For families with children with average incomes, the waiting lists are short. In the private property market, there is rent control and a lot of protection for tenants, so people can feel that a rented house is a home. Property speculation is disincentivised so house prices are fair. The state offers interest free loans to improve the basic amenities of your home, such as heating.
Unemployment insurance pays 80% of your last wage (to a cap of approx. 2.5% of the average income). For the first 7 months you are not obliged to take a job that pays less than your previous one or that is not in your field; after that you have to jump through a few hoops but nothing like the jobcentre. If you lose your eligibility for unemployment and have no income, you get emergency money of approx. £700 per month for as long as it takes. Despite it being very easy to stay on benefits, unemployment is low and recent years have seen periods of full employment.
Every four years, if your employer agrees, you can take a one year educational sabbatical anywhere in the world and the state pays 80% of your salary. I got my Oxford graduate degree for free. My job was protected until I went back.
Public transport is faster than driving as services are so frequent. A full annual all zones pass in the capital city costs less than £1 a day. An annual pass covering all public transport in the whole country, unlimited, is approx. £950. The rail system is state owned and tickets are based on a per kilometre price, rather than being pushed up by market forces.
Crime is low. Kids walk to school alone from a young age and women walk home alone at night at 3am.
When I earned exactly the average income (then £12,000 p.a.) I paid almost zero tax. Now I earn a lot more, so pay a lot of tax, but from my net income I can still comfortably save 50% as the cost of living is low even in the capital. The economy is fairly buoyant in general and most people would count as prosperous in the UK.
There's no nanny state or increased governmental control (in fact, the UK exerts much more control over its citizens). There's just a general lack of anxiety about the trials of life such as unemployment or disability.
It's no utopia, and the people are so used to some of these provisions that they take them totally for granted.
The UK could have this, and to be honest, I think we'd do it better and appreciate it more. Hearing people ridicule magical money trees while living in a real system like this is heartbreaking.
Voting Conservative today will take us further from a country like this than ever before.