Uk totally messed up - is anything good?

[tallcurvey]

The UK is an utter mess.
i can’t think of a single thing that is better than a decade ago.

when will people wake up and see brexit and the current government have ruined the country?

is their anything that’s better?

Labour governments usually end in a terrible economic situation.

I would dread to see how they fare when they start in a terrible economic situation (assuming they win, of course).

@Grantanow

Labour will inherit a terrible economic situation.

Makes a change, it's usually the Tories who inherit a terrible economic situation!

Neither main party has the capability to "cure" the UK. We're being dragged down by the widespread decline of the Western Developed World, due to the increasing richness of the oil producing Arab countries and the Manufacturing powerhouse of the World, China.

The best we can do is a long term managed decline.

I'd rather live in the UK than the US, Lat Am, Pretty much all the countries on the African continent, certainly Russia, Middle East, most of Eastern Europe, Southern Europe, Austrasia.

Japan and Austria might be OK at a push. or Canada.

On that basis, I think the UK's OK.

Tbh I don't think it will get better for a few years yet. I don't see much quality or vision in any of our elected representatives. Starmer is nice enough but he is no leader, he's risk averse and I haven't really seen any vision/passion/zeal from him. But equally I can't for the life of me see why anyone with any talent would want to go into politics.
I don't see any true leadership in the world just senile, sick old men desperately clinging to power be it in Africa or America.
Things will change but not for a few years.

I’m happy to be here. I’m going with countries a bit more removed from volatility

I think my point was that ministers - including Blair - generally have to follow the dictat of senior civil servants and various interest groups - or one dominating interest group sometimes - whether for domestic or foreign policy. The interest groups generally shove towards economic not social interests. I think in relation to major policy shifts it matters not whether we have tory or labour ministers.

That is why Labour has failed.

What might make a difference is to change how and for how long ministers are appointed. Longer tenures and tougher entry requirements, higher requirements in terms of competence. At the moment ministers have little choice but to follow dictats in relation to foreign policy (or things such as covid) as they often do not have the expertiseor understanding themselves direct policy. They also spend too much time arguing like primary school children in commons.

Also to look again at how policy is formed - we don't have basic levels to meet needs, whether in relation to education or health or anything else.

I don’t think it’s actually true that the Tories have ever really inherited a dire economic situation history shows the opposite.

I'm afraid all the chickens have come home to roost all at once- started with Thatchers sell off of public service and social housing, and the last 14 years there has been no joined up thinking, we have Brexit when the country really could have done without a £300 billion cost and vast numbers of useful workers upping and leaving- we have doctors and dentists and such leaving in droves now they can access some pension money in their 50s , we have massively increased rents due to people getting out of renting property for all kinds of quite logical reasons, all compounded by covid and an unstable international situation- much of this is poor planning and poor priorities and in my opinion a gvt disinterested in quality public services - however some is for reasons beyond any gvts control- and I say this as a non Tory.

What would happen if we just stopped paying for the gold plated final salary pensions and said nope, actually you can have one the country can afford?

There isn't any actual gold plated final salary pension

However there are still final salary pensions - where people paid into them on an understanding that they would get something back

It's like you pay for a car or building works or your dinner - you expect to get what you paid for and if someone changes the offer after you have paid it's pretty obviously wrong

Oh you paid for a new kitchen. But we can't afford it anymore so get stuffed

What would happen if maybe we made this totally inept & corrupt government get back some of the billions paid out on Track&Trace/PPE contracts/ fraudulent furlough/Rawanda plus all the other ways they have totally rinsed the country.

I guess but the terms were so good it doesn't seem fair now

That's gonna be some costly and protracted court battles! Whoever's in government next we must look forward. We've been distracted far too long by Brexit/Covid/Wars.

If it’s such a bad country why do so many people risk their lives to come here?

I love my country and wouldn’t leave. If people don’t like living here they can choose to live elsewhere or at least travel and see a bit of other countries and experience other cultures. I’ve lived a number of years abroad and always come back to the UK.

We can't easily chose to live elsewhere since a load of people voted for brexit

No. Except the fact this is overwhelmingly like to be an election year and one that delivers a different government.

I love living here but everything has gone to pot lately.

Thankfully, we still have decent libraries, wonderful parks and good leisure facilities in our area. The whole country needs that back.

Free education is rubbish with struggling schools and teachers that burn out.

Health care and dentistry? Abysmal

Crime? Awful. The police are stretched.

Workers are underpaid, the young can't find jobs or make enough to pay for housing and everything else they need.

Those are the things that need to be looked. Without investment in those things, our society will continue to go downhill.

We should take more action as pp have said.

Would have made no difference if every younger person voted in the last election. The Boomers demographically are way ahead and are far more right leaning than the Gen Z/millennial cohort (as a majority).

There is a generation of us in the middle...Gen X. I think we are the ones the Tories underestimate. They seem to think that all those of us in our 50's think like the majority of the boomers, but they are wrong. We are seeing our children being squeezed out of the housing market, paying a fortune for childcare, our GC's education being shafted, lack of support in roles as unpaid carers, the destruction of the health service that a lot of us may need to use more in the coming years, etc. If the generations below us start exercising their right to vote in greater numbers then it will make a difference.

I had to highlight the part I wanted to respond to as, for some reason, the quote function seems to have disappeared.

@Talkamongstyourselves isn't the world currently run by Gen X?
Many of the leaders in industry and politics seem to be in that age range.

One of the worst things about Brexit was Johnson kicking out any even vaguely sane Tory, your Ken Clarkes and your Rory Stewarts, and replaced them with Ukip-lite nutters like Mad Nads and JRM. Lee Anderson and Jonathan Gullis are cartoon characters.

It was some of the public that voted for brexit same with the govt, if they want better leadership then they need to choose differently

@Meadowfinch

you didn’t say why I was wrong.
so the fact you don’t agree is at the best only amusing.

@CroftonWillow

you are right.
they uk will be back in the EEA at the versus least in a decade or the place will fall to bits.

They were quoted an amount that the amount they paid cannot fund. If they continue to demand it despite it being completely unrealistic then the outcome is that the organisation they contracted with (in this case, the country) goes bankrupt.

People refer to it as "gold plated" because the contributions made cone nowhere close to covering the cost. For most people with DB schemes who have retired in the last couple of decades they'd have had to pay in 4-8 times what they did to cover the costs of the payments they expect to receive. Therefore others are being forced to cover this for them so they can retire in their 50s/ early 60s while the people paying for it struggle to afford mortgages/ rent, student loans, huge tax bills, huge childcare bills etc that the generation retiring early and had huge salary growth through large periods of their working lives never had to pay. While being told "we deserve it! We paid in!", as if nobody working now is paying in, actually far greater proportions of their incomes and having a far lower disposable percentage. And simultaneously being told "pay our pensions" but also "save for your own! You can't expect one from taxpayers".