What do you think the U.K. will be like in 15-20 years?

[GoodnightAdeline]

Pondering this on the train this morning.

My personal view is Labour will win the election this year, and will be able to keep the country treading water for a little while, but we will continue to get poorer as a nation and the decline will continue. I think there will be an exodus of skilled and younger people and we will slide into second world country status, leaving a tiny workforce struggling to support an enormous number of dependants. Perhaps it will right itself eventually, but not before 2060 or so.

Am I being too pessimistic?

Where have you emigrated to? I'm interested in where you feel is doing g better.

It's a shit show now.

I think you've got that the wrong way around. We're in this mess now because of the last couple of generations, both in terms of voters and also politicians, not just in the UK but throughout Europe and the USA. Todays elderly people have pulled up the drawbridge behind them. Tomorrow's generation won't have it anywhere near so good, and it's not their fault - they've been screwed over by the Boomers etc. and they know it!

Quite a lot of people are emigrating to Australia and Canada if they want the "Western" lifestyle or to China/Far East if they don't. People with professions are in massive demand in those places.

100% this

A 2nd world country. Not enough people working, not enough people paying in. Many don’t have the inclination to change this as they think the money tree of the welfare state is endless. Whilst people have sat around happy to let someone else pay and the politicians have covered up the productivity issue and funding issue…the young and skilled are planning their out. Paying for things they will never see, home ownership, lifelong NHS, public pensions. The social contract had been broken for those <50. At the moment many are going East. Canada is popular for a western vibe.

Yes, but . . .

Do they know what a woman is?

Are they easily offended?

Can they even?

I'll probably be dead so one less old person dependant on the state, but i do hope it gets better for my dc & dgc generations. At the moment I feel like the planet would thrive again if the human race were wiped out like the dinosaurs.

Warmer, wetter and affected by global events more than by whomever is currently in government.

Demographics will shape everything in the next couple of decades. Most developed countries have too many old people and not enough kids at this point and the damage is irreversible in a lot of cases, what will matter most to the prosperity of a nation is how severe its aging population problem is and it's ability to manage it. Germany and Southern Europe will be in managed decline by 2060, France will be OK but there won't be any longing for EU membership by then. China will be a total shambles and won't be the world's manufacturing hub any more.

I think the UK and France will have largely detached from the rest of Europe and will have sought closer economic ties with North America. Mexico will be crucial in replacing some of the lost manufacturing capability after China's collapse, the main beneficiaries of that will be Canada and the USA and those three countries will have a somewhat walled-off but very prosperous economic system. The UK, France, Japan and one or two others will have to make do with being on the fringes of that North American system but the future will be much bleaker for most of Europe, China, Russia etc.

I’m genuinely worried for what the future holds for the U.K., for the first time in my adult life. The chasm between the social attitudes & values of political, cultural, academic & financial elites in London and a handful of other university cities and those of the vast majority of ordinary working people has become so enormous that it’s hard to see how this situation will end well.

Divisions based on age, class & education and on issues such as immigration, housing, identity politics, multiculturalism and inequality are only growing larger & these issues are only becoming more toxic & divisive.

My fear is that the Brexit referendum, which came so close to tearing this country apart, will seem like a polite disagreement if & when a genuinely charismatic & credible right-wing populist leader emerges.

I think that i climate change keeps ramping up globally some countries could become unlikeable and there will be heightened tension over land and resources - but doubt that would be in 15 to 20 years.

With current global tensions though who knows what the next 15 are like.

I do think the ops view of the UK is not correct.

15 to 20 years is nothing.

15 years ago was 2009 and we were in the after effects of the 2008 crash, thinking it would never recover. By 2018/19 there were stories reminiscing about it and mocking how pessimistic we had been.

While on an individual level there will be a lot of change in 15 years, on a societal level there will not be.

We’ll be back in the EU-just- and that will help us recover but I anticipate minimal growth between now and then and living standards lower than Eastern Europe.

We’ll join the euro and most people won’t be too fussed as the economic case for rejoining will be clear, there won’t be the option to join the EU without taking the euro, and people’s emotional connection to the pound will be weaker once we no longer use physical currency.

I won't be here thank God, the world now is an absolute shit show.

Why do you say that? My kids are great. Don't judge everyone else's by your own.

My teenage grandchildren are hardworking, rounded young people with great social consciences and a good understanding of how the world works.

They will be much better leaders than the shit show we have currently.

Don't make such sweeping statements, please.

A cess pit

Prefer not to say.
Hopefully I'll be back in my country of origin, Central Europe.

100%

Goodness that's a grim attitude.

I'm 61 and hope to live at least 30 more years.

I think that wealth inequality is going to get far worse, especially as AI makes more middle class computer-based jobs obsolete. There will be serious talk of a universal basic income, and the top 10% will pull away from the rest in a new asset-based economy. The bottom 90% will be locked out and will have a much poorer quality of life in general, because their income will not be enough to pay for much beyond basics like food and rented shelter. I don’t think this is limited to the UK, though. I think most of the world is in for a rough few decades of rampant rising inequality, and time bombs like climate change and the shifting demographic landscape will only exacerbate these inequalities.

@Hereyoume

Your comment is ridiculous.

People stating that their children/ grandchildren are actually great and you sneer?

How childish.

Worse than the current lot? I was interested in a recent comment by Charles Spencer, Princess Diana's brother. He said the abandonment of very young children by their parents into sadistic boarding schools had a very similar mental impact on them as abusive foster care has on boys raised in poverty. They end up equally incapable of developing any moral and emotional cores. Only the poor end up in prison and the rich end up running the country. Which he said is frightening, given they have had empathy burned out of them from early childhood. Very perceptive of his own kind.

I think that depends on where you were in terms of wealth at the time if the 2008 crash - we certainly weren't fondly reminiscing about unfounded pessimism ten years later. We were significantly affected by it at the time and it took many years to regain the ground.

Richer people weather instances like that, and Brexit, and the pandemic much more easily than those less well off.