Why is it worse in the U.K.

[Thatsaturdayfeeling]

I’m British but not in the U.K. at the moment. Where I am, we also have food price increases and petrol was v high for a while, but it’s all not to the extent as the U.K…why is the U.K. in such dire straits compared to other places?

@scaredoff for all its faults, in many parts of the US property prices are lower.

I suspect that once multiple factors are considered such as wages, energy, housing, food, fuel, healthcare, education, inflation, taxes, there will be variations between western countries in specific factions, but in the end when all are combined, it's a wash and no one country really stands out above the others.

*factions = factors

But even if you ignore difference of total GDP (which you can't, really) that doesn't take account of inequality, which is real and measurable and make a huge difference to peoples' lives.

If you have two countries with similar GDP per capita and one has had long term policies designed to ensure enough of that GDP goes to most people to allow a decent living, while the other has had policies designed to allow the richest and most powerful to grab as much of it as they can while not caring that otherse thereby don't have a decent living, then the living standards of those who are not rich and powerful will be materially worse in the second case.

We know which of these the UK is.

I work for a foreign company and tbh, colleagues report similar things - high energy costs, expensive food, high inflation.

However, their governments are more redistributive & there are more nationalised things so they have cheaper rail services & childcare, and better council/municipality run public facilities like decent swimming pools. They pay more tax though.

This

This.
Times are hard everywhere but the UK is now an international joke.

I am so sick of reading this as an excuse to keep the Tories in. For one, it was a fucking joke and for another, the international banking crisis had recently happened (another thing Tory supporters love to blame on Labour). If you can make excuses for the financial crisis because of Covid, then you should realise that Labour were in precisely the same situation.

Brexit.

Years of incompetence in government.

And you are right, most places aren't doing amazing, the western world isn't in a great place at the moment, but it definitely seems worse here (I have close relatives in arious European countries, and also follow the news in some).

If it’s so crap here why does everyone want to come here, thousands every week in dingys from France for example!

Everyone doesn't. Some people do.

Some people want to join their families. Like the woman and kids who drowned trying to reunite with their husband/father.

Because we have a pack of lying, self serving, racist, capitalist b*tards running the country who don’t give a sht about people starving, freezing and living in squalor. Kids dying from mouldy accommodation, lack of NHS and nursing home staff because certain parts of the UK were taken in by other lying racist b**tards and ‘they’ve’ been sent back to their ‘own’ countries leaving nobody to pick up the slack. Doctors and nurses leaving the profession because of the crap working conditions. And that’s only the tip of the iceberg.

And can the kindly welcoming people magic up homes for all the people who would like to come to the UK to live? There is already a massive shortage of decent affordable rented accommodation. What is available is mostly rubbish. Locally, in Cornwall, the shortfall is equal to the size of the whole Air BnB sector. It may be parochial of me, but I'd rather the people who were born here could find homes.

@samyeagar

utter nonsense
the UK is in the biggest mess

Because we are a bunch of fucking moaners. Oh wait, that’s not just us.

There's already a massive shortage of decent, affordable, rented accommodation.

That is not the fault of asylum seekers or economically necessary immigrants. It the fault of the incompetent bunch of Tory fuckwits that have been running the UK for the last 12 years.

Locally, in Cornwall, the shortfall is equal to the size of the whole Air BnB sector. It may be parochial of me, but I'd rather the people who were born here could find homes.

I would think that the invasion of Airbnb /holiday home owners is what must have happened all over the Med in say the 1950s - All those little fishing villages changed forever.
Not that that helps people in Cornwall but it is what it is.

That is not the fault of asylum seekers or economically necessary immigrants. It the fault of the incompetent bunch of Tory fuckwits that have been running the UK for the last 12 years.

Funnily enough, I think the Conservatives somewhat capitulated on the greedy landlords narrative (which is prevalent on here). Or saw it as an easy tax raid.

They've made it less and less attractive to own a rental property. We've been looking at buying one in London (to move into ourselves down the line) and, after the extra stamp duty and other things, we'd have made a loss each year, even with a sizeable deposit when interest rates were lower. My friends who are landlords bend over backwards to keep their tenants happy and make their profit if property prices rise, not from the rental income.

The reality is that many landlords have sold up, it reduces the supply and prices have shot up. The reverse of what people wanted to happen. An estate agent in central London told me they typically have 80 odd properties available to rent on their books and they have one and rents have gone up by 30-40%.

The theory is that property prices should fall, helping first time buyers but that hasn't happened either. Not everyone wants to buy, particularly given the cost of stamp duty if you're only planning to live there for a few years. Add in the new eviction legislation and the rental market is likely to get worse.

I would think they have exceptionally little in common, as they quite rapidly built enormous hotel complexes and entire new cities all over the Med from the 1950s, they didn’t create mass package holidays just for tourists to stay in the fishermen’s cottages and they didn’t have Air BnB.

If your government doesn’t invest in infrastructure or future proof (and so many governments don’t), you’re screwed. You have to vote for the people who actually give an iota of a shit about humanity. I don’t know if those candidates exist anywhere… maybe locally in the Netherlands. Although imperfect, the Dutch come close. If you read the history of how they became a cycling country and an agricultural one (they’re pretty much living in a swamp and yet!), it is by far the most innovative place on the planet, imo. Bhutan is another example.
If the Dutch and Bhutanese could please step this way and save us from ourselves, that would be great. We’re drowning in corruption, greed, and fucked up, divide and conquer ideology. But what else is new?

And can the kindly welcoming people magic up homes for all the people who would like to come to the UK to live?

Yes.

Studies have consistently shown that immigration, as a whole, is a net contributor to public finances. That is (obviously notwithstanding variations in individual cases), immigrants on average pay more in taxes than they use in public services. There are various reasons for this but one of the most obvious ones is that most immigrants come to the country when they're already of working age, so haven't had the long childhood period of not working but getting free education, healthcare etc, where native-born people are massive net recipients.

Both Tony Blair and David Cameron understood this which is why they knew immigration was a key tool in addressing the problems of aging population. But that was before the whole debate got taken over by emotive racists who managed to convince people to only look at one side of the balance sheet.

With all that additional net tax money, any government that genuinely wanted to address the housing crisis could easily build enough social housing to accommodate the steady or slightly rising population. Of course that doesn't mean that a government that wants to keep the house prices of its voter base artificially high and the economic position (and thus employee bargaining power) of the poor artificially weak, necessarily would.

No magic required, just basic economics. Whisper it - because the entire political trajectory of the UK over the last decade has been predicated on pretending the opposite - but immigration is good for the economy.

The upside of your message is that in the US, most people know there's no safety net so when an opportunity presents, people grab it to clamber the ladder. I don't want to argue party politics because I dont believe there's a "right" answer. Life is tough for the plebs (your word, not mine) but working regularly is the only way to improve your life.

Net migration is up. You can control what type of skills come in based on need. I’m used to the Aus system where it’s less emotive and points are used to benefit the country.

We do have many working visas for U.K. so it is set up too

I understand that we may need the skills and labour. I'd just like to know where they are going to live. There aren't any properties available to rent.