Which countries specifically do you think/feel/know to be better governed than the UK?

[EffortlessDesmond]

Lots of posters pile on to threads to condemn the UK, and apart from Scandinavian countries with generally much smaller populations and larger land masses, dont actually make constructive comments. I already know that Brexit has not improved anything. So please, can someone tell me where public policy is actively improving the quality of life for the population?

People are risking their lives in small boats to get away from that shithole.
Wonder where they’re trying to get to?
😉😁😁

It's the fact that people still hear and believe UK is like pre 2010. Work, you live well etc.
I have encountered this abroad. People talking about how UK is great, how good for me to live there that everyone has good life and if you work hard, you have really good life. We all know it's mot that great anymore...

I'm afraid we do. Try filling in any official forms, try refusing "treatment"for your child in Victoria. Try playing in a women's football team and you'll get your thigh broken by men like Hannah Mouncey.

Well said SqueakyDinosaur

I'm sorry, but if you think it's just online nonsense then you aren't looking very hard. The case that SqeakyDinosaur mentioned is a woman in Sydney being sued for sex discrimination by a man who was excluded from her female only app. This biological man 'transitioned' a few years ago, and now has a female birth certificate because you can change those in NSW....so legally he's a woman. That's not just 'online nonsense'.
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5048961-australian-case-asking-what-is-a-woman

Or how about Senator Claire Chandler talking about gender affirming care (i.e. puberty blockers) that is happening in Australia - https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4953324-senator-claire-chandler-again-and-again-and-again

Several Australian states have also introduced Gender Self Identification, meaning a person can change their legal gender (or sex) without any medical procedure. If you think this won't harm woman and girls you are wrong.

Here's Claire Chandler again speaking about putting violent male offenders in women's prisons - she talks first about the problem in Scotland, but from about 2 minutes in she talks about it happening in Australia:
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4738709-in-australia-senator-claire-chandler

@Riapia because they have been fed a load of bullshit nonsense by gangs looking to make money off them- some are based here and France and of their own 'ilk' - some are just gangs of dodgy British geezers - the type ironically that are totally anti immigration etc- unless they are making dosh on the back of it. Getting the education out there that it is most definitely not a land of milk and honey , having logical ways for legal application, quick and sensible processing and getting to grips with these gangs is vital for Yvette cooper if she is in at the home office

Vienna is a city, not a country.

My friend has lived in France for 3 years, but comes back to the UK several times a year. She stays with me when she's here.

Every time she comes back she's a bit more horrified by the state of our public services and the cost of everything. She lives somewhere very rural, and says that even the minor roads there are in far better nick than main roads here, she can get a doctor or a dental appointment promptly, most things are cheaper and that you can eat well for much less.

She does miss the lack of trains though, I think their nearest station is about 30 miles away or something.

In France, the long-distance trains are operated competitively on privately-developed tracks without subsidiaries. The regional trains meanwhile are run by the regions themselves, and are run at a loss. The small towns therefore really do get left behind. On the other hand, the system as a whole works far more efficiently.

Same thing if you look at public transportation within cities in France and similar countries like the Netherlands. The tendency is to run an optimized number of services that are fast and efficient, focusing very clearly on cities because that is where there is the greatest need to get people out of cars to clear congestion and generate economic productivity. Someone living in a village in the Netherlands or France is a lot less likely to get a “village bus service” than a villager in the UK, believe it or not. If you were to protest and say “Oh, but how unfair,” you’d probably get a blank stare and a response that “If you can’t drive, don’t live in the countryside then.”

In the UK, there is more of a tendency to try to reach everywhere via public transport, and there is a really strong cultural tendency to protest about anything that looks like a “postcode lottery” or “leaving small towns behind.” This kind of mentality suggests a kind of social solidarity and has its positive points. On the other hand, it makes UK productivity a lot lower than it would otherwise be.

Since devolution, Scotland has had proportional representation of a sort. We had labour, a liberal labour coalition, an SNP and until a few days ago a SNP green coalition. In the early sessions it was successful, even arguably in the initial SNP era. It is currently a clusterfuck - gender recognition, late running ferry delivery and massively over budget due to lack of contract negotiation and design interference, named adult scheme for children, a bottle deposit scheme etc.
I'm still in favour of proportion representation, but and aware it also restricts a party with dynamic policies from emerging.

The Scandinavian concept of a better benefit system sounds GG oodles. I understand that they do insist on more state involvement with benefit recipients - not Get a job Work Sets You Free, but more of a "you are getting money from the state - what can we do to get you back into the market?".

I noticed that countries which were colonised due to vast mineral wealth or valuable crops and gained independence which with the remaining mineral or crop wealth and the sense of freedom from foreign governance are conspicuous by their absence. Surely young, dynamic newly free counties should be top of the list?

All nice and idealistic but it ignores all the countries where it leads to unstable government. Or extremists holding the balance of power.

So please tell us in what ways the Scottish Parliament has provided all the advantages you cite.

By the way, we always have a coalition government at Westminster. First Past The Post encourages broad-church parties which are effectively coalitions. The strength of our system is that you get to see the form of the coalition before you vote, not whatever gets cobbled together afterwards which may include extremists and deplorables to make up the numbers but who get to exert influence disproportionate to their share of the vote.

But that's not the real problem. Here's the real issue with PR: Why do we vote? Partly to appoint governments. But also, more importantly, to dismiss governments. And that's the problem with PR.

Under FPTP, relatively small changes in voter patterns lead to significant changes in the outcome. It's much easier to kick politicians out of office. Whereas, under PR you get several main parties each of whom can reliably count on 15-40% of the vote and you get decades of deadlocked stasis. For the senior 'List' politicians it's a job for life. That's not democracy - it's actually patronage. They owe nothing to the voters because they aren't tied to constituencies. And yet you want an elected House of Lords. Why? Because you object to patronage? You just want to replace one form of patronage with another!

The only thing that's displaced entrenched PR governments in recent years is the rise of populist parties in Europe which have been born out of voter frustration that voting doesn't change anything. And the populists haven't solved anything.

Britain is less openly racist, not less racist.

You make good points. I’m not entirely against PR but an interesting post

What countries would you suggest are less racist than Britain? What is your personal experience of racism in Britain or are you just quoting the media?

I have personal experience, I am mixed race. I find France more superficially racist than Britain but less deeply (I am fluent in French and spend a lot of time in France, so I'm not just coming to this from a tourist's perspective. I'm not sure what you mean 'just quoting the media' but I can assure you I am talking from my own experience, not anyone else's.

That's interesting to know, though obviously not good for you. The reason I mentioned the media is that there's so much talked about racism on websites such as the BBC but I always feel that organisations like that are ticking diversity boxes rather than expressing any genuine concern

Gosh, I started this thread a year ago and for it suddenly to kick back into life at 0300 is something I hadn't planned for.

I don't think I have anything new to add, yet. I asked which countries people thought were better governed. For the record, my personal opinion is that while the UK is a very long way from ideal, and the present government leaves much to be desired, it is still a very much better place for most people, most of the time, than most of the world. It's not Scandinavia, because the uk's population size is 10x or 20x larger. But nearly 700,000 new arrivals came here in the last 18 months or so, so clearly a great many people see the UK as more appealing than their country of origin. I'm sure a lot of it is because English is the most widely used second language in the world.

Yes try the Grauniad for a really well balanced view!

The World Bank produces data on "Worldwide Governance Indicators" that score countries on things like Voice & Accountability, Political Stability, Government Effectiveness, Regulatory Quality, Rule of Law, Control of Corruption.

The UK scores well on most criteria - comparable to countries like Germany and Netherlands. It scores above Belgium on most categories, and noticeably above France and Spain on them all. Countries that noticeably outscore UK are Finland and Switzerland.

It's quite a complex data set, and the latest data is 2022, but if you are interested see:
https://www.worldbank.org/en/publication/worldwide-governance-indicators/interactive-data-access

Not the real world experience of people who live in the UK, things like accountability mean little if you cannot get a dentist or support for your child or your mum dies waiting for an ambulance/in AE

@GPTec1 absolutely- no doubt the US and Australia etc would score highly too - but they are all hard without lots of cash -that's why in the US it's all constantly about making a dollar and tips etc-

Yes and also the things with these data sets is that people are having such different lives within these countries. So when I lived in the U.K., my experience with the NHS was brilliant. I got Gp appts the same day, the one time we needed the hospital it was quick and fantastic. But my FIL suffered with an awful food poisoning for weeks because he couldn’t get an appointment for antibiotics (or even to find out if he needed them), and of course the data suggests people are waiting weeks.

Same in Aus. Here in Sydney it’s easy to get a Dr and our public services are top notch, but it may be a different story if you ask people in Far North Qld or remote Northern Territory.

Agree about the importance of the English language. As some official in the port of Calais said when asked why so many migrants want to get to Britain ' most of them have a second language and it isn't French'.

It seems whenever I listen to Radio 4 there's some academic or historian or Melvyn Bragg celebrating the triumph of the Uber language which dominates the world and is Britain's greatest asset.

How bizarre that Cork is now the second largest English speaking city in the EU.