Is Britain Really In Decline, or just Adjusting...?!?
There would seem to be a dominant narrative around that Britain is in decline and that only a RADICAL shake up can shift the nation's downward trajectory, but could it be that all of this sometimes almost apocalyptic talk of decline overestimates public terror whilst distracting us away from the genuine work that's needed to turn things around...?
And maybe we don't need to change that much after all...?
Reform UK is loving it...
A couple of decades of the UK flatlining on the back of successive global crisees (which are the norm BTW) has meant BOTH main parties have had a nice run at FAILING to IMPROVE the life chances of MOST people.
The tories failed, and now Labour is failing too, it seems that middle of the road politics is not up to the job of turning the UK's fortunes around...
And along come Reform UK and offer us the solution we need to sort things out... basically stopping migration and then tax cuts combined with improving public services.
That's clearly nonsense!
Is life in Britain really that bad...?!?
Granted we've got our challenges... immigration, rising welfare costs, an ageing population, the struggle to pay the national debt, and the fact that the government's got very little wiggle room in terms of increasing taxes.....
But MAYBE for the most part, the challenges the UK faces can be met by determined reform, and NOT the actual REFORM UK "(GENIUS branding on their part mind there!)
But what could we do....?
Being honest with people would be a start.... we need a government with a properly global outlook.... our two main challenges - inward migration and climate change are not isolated. We need to think and have policy that is MORE not less global, and not just focused on trade either.
Stopping immigration ISN'T going to turn Britain's fortunes around. Granted we need to be more in control of it, but that's also a global issue, but even if we stopped ALL migrants on small boats and all other illegal entries, we'd still be struggling!
Here's my big idea... make people WORK for benefits...(unless obvs if their on top-up and also working) as a friend of mine says, they've got eyeball tech now, so even someone in an iron lung can do SOMETHING!
Rebalancing taxation - I think we need to lift the minimum tax threshold by a few grand, and also introduced a radical inheritance tax, children don't deserve the fruits of their parents' labour, simple as that.
I'm pretty happy with our tax regime otherwise.
Tighten up public private contracts is something else - too many private companies have been extracting from our taxes. It's not that hard to do this!
Also massive infrastructure investment on the back of this.
Anyway, just thinking out loud!
I think tackling problems such as immigration and climate change needs worldwide collaboration, rather than isolationist approaches.
It's hard to say, but when the government arrests people for tweets that may be a harbinger of worse things to come.
Seems you guys have same issue as we Germans - everyone is saying we do bad, we lose all, life is hit - but honestly, still way better as in other countries - while I know Germans love to complain in general it is too much now
Glass half full you Germans!
The UK is in decline and it is very noticeable being away and returning after many years. Migration is a very big problem especially when it is being dominated by one specific religion as this is going to change the UK society and culture permanently. I would not be returning to the UK if it was not for visiting my sick mother and that is sad as I love my home land. So much needs to change because the systems currently in place are being played and have been for more than 20 years now. Change has to happen sooner rather than later because I fear this is already too late. The damage has already been done and this is not the same England I knew and left in 2004.
You have to ask yourself who can fix this and it cannot be Labour or Conservatives because they let it happen. I do not like Farage, but who else is there?
It's a tough one.... no one has any answers!
Did he share notes with the US president?
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I think the current policies are driving the UK into decline - the main one is business rates which destroys local and small businesses and the fact that the central government in London reduced funding to local councils by historically high amounts so that now local services that are already paid for by taxation are agressively used as income streams by councils to get by. Thinking parking, waste services etc.
Very surprised to hear you happy with the current taxation levels, it sounded like "Im happy with my slavery"... The tax rise from £50,270 - to £50,271 is insane for example!
How to check the health of a country:
The UK ticks all the boxes..
Granted maybe taxes could have more bins!
Agree with you that we need a more global outlook and a more progressive approach to climate change. I think we will still need some immigration, even with everyone working, there's some mismatch between skills available and skills required, and as other commenters have said, there's a collapsed birthrate.
I laughed at this: have you met some of the people unable to work? I wouldn't wish them on any employer, sure fire way to drain the will to live from anyone. And even for people who could work (and pretty much all of them, regardless of capacity, do want to work), there is a big skills gap. That's pretty much how come they're unemployed in the first place, following years of deprivation.
There were some interesting experiments in the 1980s - was it called the community programme where people worked for three days a week in a community project and received an allowance - I think it was for something like 18 months - 2 years. Another one was the Enterprise programme, where people had to show evidence of having access to £1,000 start up money and received something like £40 a week for a year.
By work I was thinking pretty simple stuff... cleaning and so forth.
The death knell of a thousand community enterprises, closely followed by painting and decorating 😂
The country needs a reset, the toolmakers son, rachel from accounts, and the lying cheating thief rayner, sillyband with his headlong drive into carbon neutral oblivion (drill baby drill) along with their co neo marxists are fucking up this country. Can't trust the posh tory twats, Lib dem wets? seriously? the (guffaw guffaw) fruit loops of the green party oh dear not even in the mix.
Then arrives our Knight in shining armour, radical policies that will change the landscape for the better, unless of course the left wing biased judiciary and bed wetting civil servants do their utmost to prevent it.
Bring back BoJo and Dominic Cummings
Well I'd yr well off enough you can benefit from a bit of disruption!
Something must be going right when thousands are willing to risk drowning in order to live illegally in the UK rather than France.
What's going wrong is not so easy to fix. The core problem is that most of the country is left behind while the globalized services sector in London is on top of the world. A tale of two cities that have little in common. They have opposing interests for each of the solutions you suggests.
I'm all for a high inheritance tax, but that's easy to evade. In any case, the inheritance that matters is getting into a public school and getting a job at Daddy's firm.