Did the UK peak in 2012? Will Britain ever be great again?

[verdantverdure]

In 2012 I had a baby, things seemed optimistic, and I was proud of my country. I'd never even heard of "food banks"

Now everything in this country seems shit, and on a downward trajectory to get worse.

And I haven't even watched Wild Isles episode 6 yet.

What do you think?

Can we pull it back in this country or are we in terminal decline?

YABU Whatchoo talking' about Willis?! Everything is FANTASTIC! Never better.

YANBU We've never had it so bad, and it's probably up to us to make it better.

YABU

In 2012 the UK economy was in recession and we were two years in to austerity.

Were we? And yet things seemed so much better than they are now.

I asked Google and it said the UK was not in recession in 2012.

2008-9 and 2020 were the last two according to Wikipedia.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ListoffrecessionsinntheUnitedd_Kingdom

The economy did shrink in the last quarter of 2012 and there were fears of a recession.

I have often said how good 2012 was, particularly the summer.

Weren't there riots in summer 2012?

We Brits just can’t have nice things, we’re careless and don’t look after them.

Nope 2011, sorry!

The rivers have been polluted since before the Tories privatised the water companies. Many are not as bad, but we were promised privatisation would provide the investment needed for a clean up - as usual the actual picture is plenty of cash for Tories and nothing for the rivers and the sea. It didn't attract much interest in 2012 but the rivers were full of shit and pollution then.

You're right OP. A self-serving government and Brexit are mostly to blame.

Unless we ever get a decent government that's actually representative of the country things will never get any better for the ordinary people.

I think things will get a lot worse, and then eventually get better.

That was 2011. Early August. I remember particularly well because I was sitting in our ground floor bay window, pregnant, alone (DH was in the US for work) and holding a large stick, watching them come up the road after they'd looted a small retail park a couple of hundred yards down.

There was definitely a sense of pride optimism and hope back in 2012.

Years and years of tory rule has inevitably destroyed that.

History shows that prosperity and austerity fluctuates. I’ve already lived through several recessions - 1990, 2008, pandemic etc.

The 1990 recession was particularly tough. Until then, you had jobs for life. It wasn’t uncommon to stay in the same company for you entire career, and you worked your way up. It was the first time I recall people being redundant, rather than getting sacked, which was previous considered very serious.

Since then, job security never quite felt that secure, and now it’s more common for people to switch jobs. In fact, it s more unusual to stay in the same company for your entire career.

I think the Jubilee and Olympics masked the underlying problems we had at that time, and made us focus on something else.

I remember the early 1990s recession because interest rates went over 15% and most people had a variable mortgage so repossessions were happening all the time. My mum's friend and her kids came to live with us for a while when she was repossessed and three houses in our close were repossessed.

My parents say it's the worst time they've ever known. Until now.

@verdantverdure Not to mention negative equity. Lots of people got caught out.

Yeah, my parents were ok, but we knew loads of people who were in negative equity.

I'd never heard those terms before that time. I remember reading ab explanation in the newpaper.

They are the things are missing at the moment for me, pride and optimism.

We've been on a downward trajectory for so many years now it's going to take a lot to even get back to where we were. Let alone improve things.

2012 had the Olympics and in 2023 the shitty beaches are just emblematic of where we are as a country these days.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17836624

Although it is quite possible that those figures were later revised by the ONS as the decrease is pretty small.

Either way, I think a lot of these things are clouded by personal memory. For me, 2012 was far worse than now from a financial perspective. But that's just personal circumstances.

Incidentally, 2012 was the start of the rise in food bank use in the UK: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Food_parcels_2.png

It rained a lot in 2012! I remember because it was when dd was in year R at school and all the events kept being cancelled due to rain: Easter events/school fair/sports day/various activities. I remember because being the first year at school I was an over enthusiastic first-time parent and was gutted everything kept getting cancelled. The jubilee was a bit of a wash out too, or at least thick grey cloud and cold.

Isn't that weird @CandleInTheStorm I literally think of sunshine when I think of 2012

I agree with you.

I am inclined to think that our self serving, immoral, gaslighting government have set the tone for the British people.

Morals, decency, high standards gone. Little respect for others.

More excellent news for our country:

The UK is now set to perform worse than any other major economy this year, according to the IMF, with even sanctions-hit Russia set to do better.

How is that even possible?!

It pressed prior to that & no coming back now.

peaked not pressed!