The problems we face as a nation are not unique to the UK. There are housing crises and cost of living crises across the developed world. There is also conflict in the world currently, and climate factors behind mass migration.
Significant growth is a pipe dream unless the serious underlying problems are addressed.
There is a demographic time bomb in the UK, which politicians have been addressing for years now, by plugging the gaps with immigrant labour - a sticking plaster approach that means they didn’t have to address the structural problems with our economy that is making family life unaffordable for people already settled here. Conservatives and Labour’s actions historically are both to blame.
No policial party wanted to be the one to stop the house price boom via legislation / taxation, piss off the city / international financiers with vested interests in UK property and lose the votes of boomer voters already on the housing ladder.
Consequently, people of an age to have a family are spending a massive chunk of their pay on keeping a roof over their heads. And a huge amount on utilities because they were privatised. Our rail, water, electricity grid, are hollowing out household and UK business finances, whilst making a lot of profit for foreign government shareholders. The profits leave the UK rather than being reinvested to improve the infrastructure.
Venture capital investment has hiked the prices on all sorts of other essentials, from dental care to veterinary care, to food. The sell offs of public services and lack of long term investment have come home to roost, to make it worse for the UK. This should make you angry - we have all been ripped off.
One answer offered is that wages increase, so we can afford to pay more for the essentials, but this would result in further price hikes and even higher profits for these vampire companies. Increasing wages without addressing infrastructure ownership is like giving a blood transfusion to someone with a gushing wound instead of closing the wound.
A lack of skills in the workforce due to poor education policies, ageing power, water and transport infrastructure, Brexit, force business leaders and entreprepreneurs to look at generating value and jobs elsewhere if they are younger, or just pulling the capital out and having a nice retirement. There are just too many additional factors that make running an enterprise too hard a work. Reluctantly, because despite all the problems there is still a lot to love about the UK.
And Reform are definitely not the answer to all this. They genuinely dont have the skills to grapple with these major problems, and are funded by the big finance that caused the problems in the first place. They couldn’t give a toss about your need for housing or a dentist for your kids. A Reform led governent will create more of the instability, that value creating businesses hate. Also more hatred and division.
Much as I dislike Labour at the moment, we are stuck with them for now so we need to hold them accountable. Tell your MP what needs to change so that your family can thrive rather than survive. There is still a big bank of knowledge and skills amongst the main political parties, but they have to be held properly accountable.