I think it's been about 15 years. 2008 seemed to be the start of the downturn, everything was looking fairly good until that point, it felt like the UK was ahead of many European countries in progress. Since then though it seemed like all the "Austerity" stuff has just been an excuse to cut back and strip back and sell bits off until it's barely functioning and the slightest hitch causes a huge catastrophic domino effect. And the UK stood still and then eventually started to implode while the rest of Europe has just been steadily plodding on and 15 years later, the situation is reversed where the UK is way behind everyone else. It's absolutely unbelievable the difference. I moved away 10 years ago and it is so strange. (I'm sure that also skews my perspective).
I don't know if anyone here plays management games like Dwarf Fortress or Theme Hospital or Prison Architect etc - you set up systems and then deal with steadily higher demands over time.
If you set everything up so it's perfectly efficient and just about running with no excess and no wiggle room, everything works fine as long as everything is fine. But you'll find that one small hitch will have a domino effect into everything else, and before very long you'll have a total disaster situation where everyone is rioting, there is vomit all over the floor, people are dying left right and centre and you lose the game.
Whereas, if you set it up with a bit of wiggle room, it might seem extravagant or wasteful but it means that when one thing gets held up everything else can simply keep moving and the held up thing will recover and then get back to work again without anything more than a slight bit of mess to clear up.
But once you're in the survival state where nothing is working and all the systems are creaking on right at breaking point it's really hard to get things moving as they should again. You can do it but you normally need to go and look at strategy guides if you don't want to simply start over.
I know, obviously, that a game is nothing like real life and not what the politicians are dealing with. But I do remember reading some articles about the whole idea of austerity being a scam because it was being spun as the sensible thing to do, like a household budget, if you're lean on money then you tighten your belts and reduce outgoings, so duh, the country can do the same and we'll get some spare money back. The articles pointed out that that isn't how it works - when you're managing something like a country, much like in those management games, you have to invest some excess into each system to allow for some flex and flow and in the short term this means spending more, but it returns so much in the long run.
I don't know if that article was right. But I do know that considering we've had 15 years of austerity-like measures, I mean surely we should have built back that surplus again by now? We ought to be rolling in piles of money according to the "tighten our belts" presentation. Yet, apparently not. Everything still seems to exist as though we're scrabbling for pennies at the bottom of the sofa still. And it seems that it's getting close to (if not already at) the point where one service breaking is creating a spillover effect into other services and before you know it multiple things are collapsing and it's all a big disaster, and that seems incredibly worrying.
Levels of trust in government, healthcare, police, social services etc just seem to be getting lower and lower, and that's dangerous because it lets in cults and scammers to fill the gaps.