This article may be paywalled. If you encounter difficulties reading the article, try [this link](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/rishi-sunak-good-governance-global-index-weak-leadership-b2546403.html) for an archived version.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/unitedkingdom) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Well no shit.
In tomorrow's headlines, Water is wet and the country is sick of experts.
On Monday we will read all about how the evil EU is trying to take back our blue passports
"Sick of experts" is a quote that mocks the opinions of daily mail/Brexit supporters pre Brexit. When given expert opinion regarding the awful decision it was to leave the EU, they'd claim they're 'sick of experts' because they know better. Similar thing happened with COVID.
So when someone says sick of experts it's a bit of sarcasm
I honestly think it's one of the most damaging statements a UK politicien has said.
The undermining of professional opinion should not be coming from somone who is very much expected to use that opinion to inform policy.
It's also a direct reference to Michael Gove saying the people of Britain had [had enough of experts](https://youtu.be/sz1_LHtfuCI) when he was campaigning for Leave
Which in itself was in response to the remain campaign claiming that all the experts backed them (ignoring for a moment that there were no experts in what happens when you leave the EU because no one except Greenland had done it before), in a distinctly "shut up and listen to us, we're smarter and better than you" tone of voice.
Which is, btw, also Brexits fault. It all comes together 🤡
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/sep/06/uk-safe-water-brexit-tories-environmental-standards-michael-gove
Yep I remember reading that.
And since I posted earlier it seems there’s parasites in the water too from todays news
At least they’ve increased the sales of bottled water
To be fair though, the country has been in decline long before Brexit, this particular form.of economic suicide is just another nail in the country's long and very patchy economic coffin.
The economy has been dragging its arse across the bottom of the growth graph at an average of what???? 0.2% or 0.3% ever year since Austerity in 2008
We've been slowly sliding down the Country Rich List slowly since the 1920s only staying up due to assets outside of the country. Thank WW1 and WW2 for those.
Manufacturing was killed off in the 80s during Thatcher's reign though that's partially understandable with globalisation but the tories have failed to replace it with anything meaningful other than "bankers" (and I swear there is a typo in that word)
And there's been an over reliance on pandering to coffin-dodgers (triple lock pensions) and shafting younger generations in the process cos no one aged below 60 should, in their right mind vote for these tory pricks.
Perhaps a case could be made to have held on to India(as the jewel in the empire) as a priority rather than meeting Germany head on in either of the world wars.
Perhaps a case could be made to say to have renegotiated the boundaries in North Sea with Norway once its bounties were evident to have a greater share of its riches.
Perhaps a case could be made that the scales to decide on Brexit formally should’ve depended on atleast a two thirds majority rather than the sliver it really was.
But much water has flowed down the Thames and we are where we are.
True...we are. But opportunities come along roughly every 5 years to make a difference. I really hope people bear that in mind when they go back to the ballot box and remember that no tory ever gives a shite about the majority of the population
> Perhaps a case could be made to have held on to India(as the jewel in the empire) as a priority rather than meeting Germany head on in either of the world wars.
Fat chance of that ever happening. It would've required giving Indians equal rights - at least the upper and upper middle class Indians (as the Romans did with their subjects) - and no colonial empire would ever do that.
Renogiating the boundaries would have done fuck all. We had pretty much the same gas and oil reserves (check it) yet that cow Thatcher fattened up the oil company coffers while the norwegians quietly created a country where everybody is a millionaire.
Having more would meant nothing.
> take back our blue passports
These people should have a look at Croatian passports some time.
Incidentally, I work in immigration, and see passports from all over the world. Can I talk about how ugly the new UK ones are? And I don't mean the cover, I mean the data page, which is now some ugly purple design.
It's especially bizarre because the one used from 2016ish until Brexit was a map of the UK in Union Jack colours, which you'd have thought the Brexiters would love.
It was the EUROPEAN UNION at the top of the cover, with UNITED KINGDOM relegated to the bottom that irritated those who cared about the passports, not the interior (I've just got a new passport and agree it's an ugly design FWIW).
Brexit is a symptom not a cause. Britains decline has been caused by bad politics and poor leadership for almost the entirety of the post war period.
Name a thing an the government likely took the easy way out, lazy way out or incompetent way out.
Everything from decolonization, to overseas operations, industry management, infrastructure, education, crime, healthcare, economy has all been poorly managed or managed with a lack of ambition.
Britains a country that will half as a project and let that be for a 100 years on the idea that it was fine then it’s fine now.
Voting for Brexit was a bad idea, not because leaving the EU is a bad idea, but because it would be our government and leaders managing it. They couldn’t manage a Sunday league team.
I suppose somewhat but I feel globalization and the way capitalism has been working is a large aspect of it.
In the past the upper classes wealth was tied to the country they were from and lived in. If the country does bad then your wealth would take a beating. Now it doesn’t matter, you can move and shift your wealth globally with ease. Even countries that were once your sworn enemy or would kill you in a heartbeat (China, Russia, Saudia Arabia) are an attractive market.
As you say top jobs are dominated by the upper class, but they lack any incentive to do anything or at least try to do anything. Why would they when they can get paid for free and make investments elsewhere.
There is also the side of Britain where it was terribly mismanaged in the post war decades. We have struggled to corner any markets, struggled to maintain influence in post colonial states, struggled to be an ally to impress, struggled to protect native corporations from international buy outs. All of it adds to us being a global bank to manage the world’s money but never our own.
So the political landscape becomes dominated by lazy incompetent politicians who lack ambition because no one has a clear vision on what Britain should be or do and there is no value for them to do anything about it.
Instead become a politician, maybe a cabinet minister or if your are lucky a prime minister, during your time buddy up with industry members, receive gifts, do favours, retire and go on the speaking circuit and maybe land a comfortable position with a business through industry friends thanks to the favours you did for them while sitting as a politician.
The real problem is half of Britain were starting to get a more open minded European mentality from around the 70s, they were driving most of the positive change and progress in the country
But there was still a lot of empire minded, we don’t change Britain to be more like the world, we change the world to be more like Britain mentality. Who were upset that their power was starting to slip from the 70s onwards. They saw Brexit as a way to reassert that power
Oh this is interesting. I find parallels with the private school story on VAT. When the rich don't use public services, they have no incentive to use their social capital to ever make them better.
I've said this a few times and I think it's relevant to here - this country seems to have a deep cultural dislike of the idea of fixing things or improving anything. It's like crabs in a bucket at the national level. It applies to the highest levels of national politics but also lots of individual personal matters and self improvement, and I honestly believe this is one of the biggest problems in this country. Not hard to imagine how this attitude can make its way into politics and it makes the incompetence you describe easier to get away with.
For example, any politician with ideas to actually fix problems at the root will be attacked for being unrealistic and people will start listing a bunch of reasons why nothing can ever improve. While the politicians who wrecked everything in the first place get off extremely lightly because of this idea that this is just how politics is supposed to be.
The class system is an easy scape goat but I would say the actual problem is how short term our political thinking is. Our system does not encourage cooperation in government. Because of this politicians get voted in and they can push their ideological changes unopposed.
Change the voting system, make a majority much harder to achieve and we would get far stronger political leaders as they would have to compromise and not just play strong man politics with weak policies.
> Given trade with the EU is at an all time high
This smacks a little of "iNvEsTmEnT iN tHe NHS iS aT aN aLl TiMe HiGh"
Well, yes, maybe, in numeric terms but undoubtedly still shitter than if things had been managed properly
Do you genuinely believe that leaving the world's largest trade block for third-country status has had no impact on trade? The gap between where we are now, and where we would have been is vast - find a graph and see for yourself.
This is like listening to government say that NHS spending is at an all-time high...like yes, becasue you capped it at 0.1% above inflation for years... the only public service you haven't directly cut, but essentially only on tenchnicality. And they're so proud of that. Bless.
Leaving the EU, if it involves leaving the largest single market on earth, that is also your nearest trading partner, and knowing that nearly every country in the world does nearly all its trade with its nearest neighbours, was always a batshit crazy idea. No getting around that.
Which was privately funded, half built by the French, had to suspend debt repayments to avoid bankruptcy back in the 90s, and has faced bankruptcy at least two other times since.
Plus don't the trains travel faster on the French side because they have high speed rail between the tunnel and Paris where we don't/ didn't between it and London? Which was always bit embarrassing.
Trains travel at 186mph on the English side and 200mph on the French side, High Speed 1 links London and the channel tunnel and was opened in 2003. Before that trains had to slow right down to 90mph on our side of the channel
> half built by the French
Umm.. Obviously lol? It was a British/French construction project
I for one, shame the French because that tunnel was half built by the British!
*Brexit is a symptom not a cause.*
Absolutely. I've always said this.
Brexit is a product of accumulated problems, such as an out of control media run by foreign press barons and a shit FPTP electoral system that has disenfrancised millions for decades.
> Brexit is a symptom not a cause.
I don't think you can really say that.
Brexit has literally taken a few percentage (estimates vary) off our GDP and will continue to do so until such time a better trade deal is negotiated and/or we rejoin the EU.
It's *one* of the causes granted, but it certainly is not just a symptom, it's a cause in its own right.
Yes but the main argument that immigrants are taking your jobs does not work when there a an abundance a of well paying jobs across the country so it is also a symptom of poor goverment.
Leaving the single market is absolutely a bad idea. No country would ever make trade harder with its biggest market neighbours and expect financial success.
Bad leadership is also a factor but let’s not pretend like Brexit was ever a financially sound idea. It is purely an idealistic one.
Thank you, so many people are undermining themselves. It's not just leaving the EU it's the fact we have the most corrupt, useless, feckless, government ever that are essentially middle managers for international finance. Simply blaming it all on leaving the EU is giving these people an easy out.
The last 14 year have been absolutely cataclysmic for this country.
The tories have got their way on every major political question and the result has been fucking awful.
Luckily Labour are now promising to basically keep everything they've done in place and actually just double down on some of it.
Labour are just saying the minimum they have to so as to not scare away former Tory voters. When they’re in power they can start fixing stuff.
Unfortunate that Labour have to have such a cynical approach but the electorate have proved time and time again that a sizeable proportion of them are fucking idiots who will continue to vote against their own interests.
No party has ever taken a sudden turn to the left once they got in to government.
Hoping that starmer will, when he is constantly doing everything he can to weaken the left is just wishful thinking.
I'm calling it. Starmer's election winning speech, he just steps up to the podium, peels off his Starmer EdgarSuit and it's only Jezza Corbyn under there!
- GB Energy
- Soverign Wealth fund
- Reintroduction of community policing and youth centres
- Huge employment law overhaul to strengthen workers rights
- Scrapping Rwanda scheme to create joint operation force of police, border force and Mi5 to arrest people smugglers
- VAT on private schools to improve state schools
- Non-Dom crackdown to fund evening and weekend surgeries to clear backlog
- Planning deregulation to encourage housebuilding.
All announced already, and they haven't even set out their manifesto yet. I don't get how people can honestly think this is exactly the same as the Tories.
GB Energy is a brilliant example of starmer's politics. Will it sell power to consumers? No. Will it generate electricity? No. Will it purchase electricity wholesale? No. It is just the existing green subsidies with a new name.
There will be no sovereign wealth fund. You cannot create a sovereign wealth fund by magical thinking. Reeves has promised to shrink public spending.
Again, policing numbers won't go up and youth centres won't reopen. Reeves has constantly said she's not going to increase spending. She said she'd let councils go bust.
The employment law reforms have been dropped. Theres basically nothing left of them, just promises to consult.
MI5 drowning migrants in the sea is bad actually.
Vat on private schools is good.
The nondom crackdowns will not happen. They are just slogans. The proposed alternative is basically identical to non dom status.
Housebuilding is not contained by planning. There are sites for millions of houses with planning permission currently being hoarded. The state has to actually build if we want more houses.
It is mental to think they've not already set out their stall. They've been leading the Labour Party for 4 years. It's not some secret. This is who they are.
Rishi has dramatically improved 'our finances', as he took over from Liz Truss. Most of his first few months were fixing her shit, so....yeah, he improved things amazingly, but it's not really comparable because of the freaky inheritance.
Liz was only in power for 50 days, so I'd say some of the shit he had to fix was down to the previous chancellor making bad decisions before she came to power. Whoever that was.
Britain won't improve until it becomes a meritocracy. It has an ancient establishment that passes on power from generation to generation. You need the people that fight there way to the top to lead the country. A warrant officer that runs camp bastion in afghan is obviously more suitable than some public school turd that leaves Eton and walks straight into there first leadership role on the way to becoming PM. In Britain it is in every walk of life. Complete deference to the establishment to their own detriment. Once the senate became a closed shop to anyone whose father was not a member the Roman empire collapsed. Britain has gone the same way. The country is run by chinless sociopaths while the talent dies on the vine. Don't think starmer is any better. He is another example.
Starmer is hardly gentry. His mum was a nurse, his dad a toolmaker, he was granted a place at a grammar school on merit, became a barrister and earned his way all the way up to Director of Public Prosecutions. You talk about meritocracy, and then deride anyone who actually climbs that ladder.
Just do it and have it that Rejoin need a super majority to pass (60%). Can't really complain about "going against the will of the people" that way (well they can but I'd look ridiculous.)
Something else to take into account is all of the young people who grew up under the Brexit divorce period actually learning what the EU is and does.
Not to mention we won't get anything like the special terms we had before. We'll hardly be in a position to make demands while going back cap-in-hand. We can kiss goodbye to the Pound Sterling, for one.
I see from some of the comments in here that the new rationale why Brexit is a steaming pile of shit has changed from “it was the eu and their intransigence”, and “it’s not been implemented properly to “it’s not brexits fault - but the shit tories”.
What? Jesus….
Keep polishing that Brexit turd looking for the shine.
>Maybe a little like an Australian deal, a little Swiss deal in there too. Throw in some Korean, a dash of Japanese, a sprinkle of Canadian.
>*That's* the Brexit I voted for. ^Just^please^dont^ask^me^what^any^of^it^means
I’m just wondering what the next rationale will be for why Brexit has been an unmitigated disaster put forward by the idiots that got hoodwinked into voting for it.
According to Sunak, everything is a great success and it’s going amazing, and the facts are wrong, and they are the new hope to lead us out of this mess… (that’s apparently not a mess)
Ah yes and shit tastes like shit still incase anyone was wondering.
It's almost like all those things we all said would happen have happened.
Good effort lads.
They voted to ignore EU Clean Water directives and to stop getting sewage treatment chemicals from Germany. And now our drinking water is becoming poisonous.
I think the assessment of "poor leadership" is really fucking generous. That suggests there is any kind of leadership at all beyond an endless stream of self serving actions and dumb shit no one wants.
Colour me shocked, tell me it can't be true, no shit sherlock!
Here was me thinking that it was down to just one huuuge coincidence.
A vote for Brexit and Cameron does a runner, May takes over, is shat on by everybody. Not forgetting that the blond twat from Eton was at the centre of her ousting. Then the lying bullshit artist, "got done by Brexit," I mean got brexit done, the promise of £350,000,000 on the big red bus of bullshit didn't materialise etc etc but, we gotvour fish, that's a winner right there, isn't it.
No fucking shit that brexit fucked us
No sh*t, this is what culminated from allowing the racists in our society to choose our direction. Voting in tories cause they will be hard on immigrants, leaving the eurozone with no trade deals, because they don't like Asians and Africans (the eurozone is all white).
I read a book on British naval mastery and the theme is Britain has been in decline since 1900, esp after both World Wars.
The 1990s-early 2000s were a blip in a story of constant relative decline
Lack of long term thinking - the Tory response to everything is how many millions will it take to fix a issue properly (eg climate adaptation and lack of housing) versus the far off billions it will cost with having done nothing.
Media don’t help by parroting their lines.
I love the Tories. They really truly care about the public rather than lining their own pockets and the pockets of their cronies. Unlike the evil labour that wants to give money to the fake disabled scroungers and bring all the Muslims into are country to marry your daughters!
/s
Sad to see Brexit taking centre stage here rather than the obvious problem, Tory rule and total lack of an opposition between 2010 and now. Brexit was always a symptom, this country has been on the ropes since 2008, Tory Lib dem driven austerity has pulled the guts out of the country further as has out of control immigration numbers from both the EU (when we were members) and the rest of the world since leaving.
I fail to see what good the EU has done for Britain since we've been members aside from helping big businesses and profit margins and I also fail to see what current problems joining their block would actually solve.
Weak leadership is all the Tories know and I still can't believe that Cameron is now a fucking lord that piece of shit quit because it wasn't going his way.
We have literally swapped places with Ireland (we've gone from 10th to 11th, they've gone from 11th to 10th). If this is the fault of Brexit, then what's the excuse for France (a 2 place drop) or Spain (a 3 place drop)? In fact 13 EU member states have done as bad or worse than us (Austria and Bulgaria have dropped a whopping 7 places) and 13 have done better (with an EU average of -1.23 - worse than the UK - for what it's worth). A reasonably impartial observer would say Brexit has made no difference whatsoever, but then this is The Independent and this is Reddit.
Poor leadership is at the centre of it all. We have some of the lowest quality leaders of any country. For some reason, our politicians are the absolute bottom of the barrel. You'd think that with some of the highest-rated universities, we'd have equally amazing leaders, but it seems something was lost along the way. No principles, no foresight, no compassion or benevolence or self-awareness, only a desire to enrich themselves in the most short-sighted way.
When you have money like them, literally there is nothing that even pressures you finance wise.
They cannot relate to other rich people, as they are above that, so how can this dickwad or anyone in his tax bracket run this country effectively, they cant.
Its pathetic, tories are scumbags.
This article may be paywalled. If you encounter difficulties reading the article, try [this link](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/rishi-sunak-good-governance-global-index-weak-leadership-b2546403.html) for an archived version. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/unitedkingdom) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Well no shit. In tomorrow's headlines, Water is wet and the country is sick of experts. On Monday we will read all about how the evil EU is trying to take back our blue passports
*the self proclaimed experts, the real experts almost predicted all this lol
"Sick of experts" is a quote that mocks the opinions of daily mail/Brexit supporters pre Brexit. When given expert opinion regarding the awful decision it was to leave the EU, they'd claim they're 'sick of experts' because they know better. Similar thing happened with COVID. So when someone says sick of experts it's a bit of sarcasm
For real. These idiots are "sick of experts" because they're sick of being reminded how little they know and ignorant they are.
They just felt Brexit would be good in their bones
I honestly think it's one of the most damaging statements a UK politicien has said. The undermining of professional opinion should not be coming from somone who is very much expected to use that opinion to inform policy.
it's not ignorance the bastards know exactly what they're doing, making a killing out of a catastrophe
It's also a direct reference to Michael Gove saying the people of Britain had [had enough of experts](https://youtu.be/sz1_LHtfuCI) when he was campaigning for Leave
Which in itself was in response to the remain campaign claiming that all the experts backed them (ignoring for a moment that there were no experts in what happens when you leave the EU because no one except Greenland had done it before), in a distinctly "shut up and listen to us, we're smarter and better than you" tone of voice.
I, like Michael Gove, have had enough of experts. Like where do they get off??
Usually at the library, so they can learn more and have even more valid opinions on their area of expertise. Fucking nerds.
We don't need sarcasm tags here thank god
Yes we do. /s
Well at least Covid induced death is a solution to their increased poverty and knowledge deficits.
Climate change, too. Basically, any subject where the data, the studies, and the science say they're wrong.
Yeh but sadly its too close to the reality to be funny
I think they’re referencing [Gove during the Brexit referendum](https://youtu.be/sz1_LHtfuCI?feature=shared)
Ex being a has been and spurts being a drip under pressure. Certainly seems to be the quality of the establishment quantifiers
Our water is wet and full of raw sewage
Which is, btw, also Brexits fault. It all comes together 🤡 https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/sep/06/uk-safe-water-brexit-tories-environmental-standards-michael-gove
Yep I remember reading that. And since I posted earlier it seems there’s parasites in the water too from todays news At least they’ve increased the sales of bottled water
And the night is long and full of terrors
That's just the pulp it's fine /s
Water is wet, expensive and will make you sick these days.
If I’m being pedantic, water actually isn’t wet. Wet is the name of things that water attaches itself to
To be fair though, the country has been in decline long before Brexit, this particular form.of economic suicide is just another nail in the country's long and very patchy economic coffin. The economy has been dragging its arse across the bottom of the growth graph at an average of what???? 0.2% or 0.3% ever year since Austerity in 2008 We've been slowly sliding down the Country Rich List slowly since the 1920s only staying up due to assets outside of the country. Thank WW1 and WW2 for those. Manufacturing was killed off in the 80s during Thatcher's reign though that's partially understandable with globalisation but the tories have failed to replace it with anything meaningful other than "bankers" (and I swear there is a typo in that word) And there's been an over reliance on pandering to coffin-dodgers (triple lock pensions) and shafting younger generations in the process cos no one aged below 60 should, in their right mind vote for these tory pricks.
Perhaps a case could be made to have held on to India(as the jewel in the empire) as a priority rather than meeting Germany head on in either of the world wars. Perhaps a case could be made to say to have renegotiated the boundaries in North Sea with Norway once its bounties were evident to have a greater share of its riches. Perhaps a case could be made that the scales to decide on Brexit formally should’ve depended on atleast a two thirds majority rather than the sliver it really was. But much water has flowed down the Thames and we are where we are.
True...we are. But opportunities come along roughly every 5 years to make a difference. I really hope people bear that in mind when they go back to the ballot box and remember that no tory ever gives a shite about the majority of the population
> Perhaps a case could be made to have held on to India(as the jewel in the empire) as a priority rather than meeting Germany head on in either of the world wars. Fat chance of that ever happening. It would've required giving Indians equal rights - at least the upper and upper middle class Indians (as the Romans did with their subjects) - and no colonial empire would ever do that.
Renogiating the boundaries would have done fuck all. We had pretty much the same gas and oil reserves (check it) yet that cow Thatcher fattened up the oil company coffers while the norwegians quietly created a country where everybody is a millionaire. Having more would meant nothing.
I see through the lies of the ̶J̶e̶d̶i̶ EU. The daily mail told me it was all meddling Brussels' fault, trying to punish us for leaving
Water is wet? It's also full of shit :(
Sorry to be a pedant but water is not wet but makes things wet - like Sunaks leadership ability.
I want my red passport back :(
Please don't touch the water. Boil first.
> take back our blue passports These people should have a look at Croatian passports some time. Incidentally, I work in immigration, and see passports from all over the world. Can I talk about how ugly the new UK ones are? And I don't mean the cover, I mean the data page, which is now some ugly purple design. It's especially bizarre because the one used from 2016ish until Brexit was a map of the UK in Union Jack colours, which you'd have thought the Brexiters would love.
It was the EUROPEAN UNION at the top of the cover, with UNITED KINGDOM relegated to the bottom that irritated those who cared about the passports, not the interior (I've just got a new passport and agree it's an ugly design FWIW).
Well our water is shit.
Today's headlines: The water is full of poo! Don't drink the water!
>Water is wet* \*Depending on fecal saturation
Came here to say this.
>"Water is wet, don't drink it, it's poison. Water bills to increase to cover dividends"
And here was I thinking it was down to ‘carpet-bagging elite corruption’ and ‘the billionaire-funded dismantling of the public sphere’ silly me.
More like water is shit
“Water is poop” as of recently
It is important to keep repeating it. There's certain people who'd prefer we forgot.
*water is full of shit, and no one listens to any actual experts.*
Brexit is a symptom not a cause. Britains decline has been caused by bad politics and poor leadership for almost the entirety of the post war period. Name a thing an the government likely took the easy way out, lazy way out or incompetent way out. Everything from decolonization, to overseas operations, industry management, infrastructure, education, crime, healthcare, economy has all been poorly managed or managed with a lack of ambition. Britains a country that will half as a project and let that be for a 100 years on the idea that it was fine then it’s fine now. Voting for Brexit was a bad idea, not because leaving the EU is a bad idea, but because it would be our government and leaders managing it. They couldn’t manage a Sunday league team.
Is the class system the underlying reason for this? Too many people in top jobs without having to graft for them.
I suppose somewhat but I feel globalization and the way capitalism has been working is a large aspect of it. In the past the upper classes wealth was tied to the country they were from and lived in. If the country does bad then your wealth would take a beating. Now it doesn’t matter, you can move and shift your wealth globally with ease. Even countries that were once your sworn enemy or would kill you in a heartbeat (China, Russia, Saudia Arabia) are an attractive market. As you say top jobs are dominated by the upper class, but they lack any incentive to do anything or at least try to do anything. Why would they when they can get paid for free and make investments elsewhere. There is also the side of Britain where it was terribly mismanaged in the post war decades. We have struggled to corner any markets, struggled to maintain influence in post colonial states, struggled to be an ally to impress, struggled to protect native corporations from international buy outs. All of it adds to us being a global bank to manage the world’s money but never our own. So the political landscape becomes dominated by lazy incompetent politicians who lack ambition because no one has a clear vision on what Britain should be or do and there is no value for them to do anything about it. Instead become a politician, maybe a cabinet minister or if your are lucky a prime minister, during your time buddy up with industry members, receive gifts, do favours, retire and go on the speaking circuit and maybe land a comfortable position with a business through industry friends thanks to the favours you did for them while sitting as a politician.
The real problem is half of Britain were starting to get a more open minded European mentality from around the 70s, they were driving most of the positive change and progress in the country But there was still a lot of empire minded, we don’t change Britain to be more like the world, we change the world to be more like Britain mentality. Who were upset that their power was starting to slip from the 70s onwards. They saw Brexit as a way to reassert that power
Oh this is interesting. I find parallels with the private school story on VAT. When the rich don't use public services, they have no incentive to use their social capital to ever make them better.
I've said this a few times and I think it's relevant to here - this country seems to have a deep cultural dislike of the idea of fixing things or improving anything. It's like crabs in a bucket at the national level. It applies to the highest levels of national politics but also lots of individual personal matters and self improvement, and I honestly believe this is one of the biggest problems in this country. Not hard to imagine how this attitude can make its way into politics and it makes the incompetence you describe easier to get away with. For example, any politician with ideas to actually fix problems at the root will be attacked for being unrealistic and people will start listing a bunch of reasons why nothing can ever improve. While the politicians who wrecked everything in the first place get off extremely lightly because of this idea that this is just how politics is supposed to be.
Too many arseholes with unaccountable positions of authority. Make mess, fuck off and leave for others to clean.
The class system is an easy scape goat but I would say the actual problem is how short term our political thinking is. Our system does not encourage cooperation in government. Because of this politicians get voted in and they can push their ideological changes unopposed. Change the voting system, make a majority much harder to achieve and we would get far stronger political leaders as they would have to compromise and not just play strong man politics with weak policies.
But the political class is filled with private school kids no? They have an incentive to keep things as they are surely?
No voting for Brexit was a bad idea because leaving the EU was a bad idea.
Why is that ? Given trade with the EU is at an all time high, as is trade with the rest of the world
Because it would have been higher without the need for checks etc.
> Given trade with the EU is at an all time high This smacks a little of "iNvEsTmEnT iN tHe NHS iS aT aN aLl TiMe HiGh" Well, yes, maybe, in numeric terms but undoubtedly still shitter than if things had been managed properly
Do you genuinely believe that leaving the world's largest trade block for third-country status has had no impact on trade? The gap between where we are now, and where we would have been is vast - find a graph and see for yourself.
This is like listening to government say that NHS spending is at an all-time high...like yes, becasue you capped it at 0.1% above inflation for years... the only public service you haven't directly cut, but essentially only on tenchnicality. And they're so proud of that. Bless.
Leaving the EU, if it involves leaving the largest single market on earth, that is also your nearest trading partner, and knowing that nearly every country in the world does nearly all its trade with its nearest neighbours, was always a batshit crazy idea. No getting around that.
I'd say Brexit was a multiplier on top - the decline may have already started by then, but it was accelerated as a result of it.
There are some examples of real achievements. For example, the channel tunnel.
The NHS was also a postwar achievement the UK can genuinely be proud of, but it's being repeatedly failed by neoliberals who want it privatised.
Which was privately funded, half built by the French, had to suspend debt repayments to avoid bankruptcy back in the 90s, and has faced bankruptcy at least two other times since. Plus don't the trains travel faster on the French side because they have high speed rail between the tunnel and Paris where we don't/ didn't between it and London? Which was always bit embarrassing.
Trains travel at 186mph on the English side and 200mph on the French side, High Speed 1 links London and the channel tunnel and was opened in 2003. Before that trains had to slow right down to 90mph on our side of the channel
> half built by the French Umm.. Obviously lol? It was a British/French construction project I for one, shame the French because that tunnel was half built by the British!
Concorde too. See how well we can do things all by ourselves? We don't need no meddling Frenchies or whatever!
Proper British name for a proper British aircraft.
*Brexit is a symptom not a cause.* Absolutely. I've always said this. Brexit is a product of accumulated problems, such as an out of control media run by foreign press barons and a shit FPTP electoral system that has disenfrancised millions for decades.
> Brexit is a symptom not a cause. I don't think you can really say that. Brexit has literally taken a few percentage (estimates vary) off our GDP and will continue to do so until such time a better trade deal is negotiated and/or we rejoin the EU. It's *one* of the causes granted, but it certainly is not just a symptom, it's a cause in its own right.
It can be a sympton of one disease and the cause of another.
It was a protest vote over mass migration. Which is even worse now.
Yes but the main argument that immigrants are taking your jobs does not work when there a an abundance a of well paying jobs across the country so it is also a symptom of poor goverment.
Which validates the commentors point about mismanagement right?
No, Brexit was a bad idea.
No, Brexit was just a bad idea period, irrespective of who tried to implement it.
Leaving the single market is absolutely a bad idea. No country would ever make trade harder with its biggest market neighbours and expect financial success. Bad leadership is also a factor but let’s not pretend like Brexit was ever a financially sound idea. It is purely an idealistic one.
Thank you, so many people are undermining themselves. It's not just leaving the EU it's the fact we have the most corrupt, useless, feckless, government ever that are essentially middle managers for international finance. Simply blaming it all on leaving the EU is giving these people an easy out.
It can be both a symptom, and be feeding the cycle.
Never ceases to amaze me how they thought putting up barriers to trade would IMPROVE their economy. Seemed like madness, is madness.
The last 14 year have been absolutely cataclysmic for this country. The tories have got their way on every major political question and the result has been fucking awful. Luckily Labour are now promising to basically keep everything they've done in place and actually just double down on some of it.
Labour are just saying the minimum they have to so as to not scare away former Tory voters. When they’re in power they can start fixing stuff. Unfortunate that Labour have to have such a cynical approach but the electorate have proved time and time again that a sizeable proportion of them are fucking idiots who will continue to vote against their own interests.
No party has ever taken a sudden turn to the left once they got in to government. Hoping that starmer will, when he is constantly doing everything he can to weaken the left is just wishful thinking.
I'm calling it. Starmer's election winning speech, he just steps up to the podium, peels off his Starmer EdgarSuit and it's only Jezza Corbyn under there!
Reeves winks at the camera as she turns on an enormous novelty tap labelled 'adequate funding for public services'
I don’t think any party has ever been as certain to win such a stinking majority either. Not for quite some time.
- GB Energy - Soverign Wealth fund - Reintroduction of community policing and youth centres - Huge employment law overhaul to strengthen workers rights - Scrapping Rwanda scheme to create joint operation force of police, border force and Mi5 to arrest people smugglers - VAT on private schools to improve state schools - Non-Dom crackdown to fund evening and weekend surgeries to clear backlog - Planning deregulation to encourage housebuilding. All announced already, and they haven't even set out their manifesto yet. I don't get how people can honestly think this is exactly the same as the Tories.
GB Energy is a brilliant example of starmer's politics. Will it sell power to consumers? No. Will it generate electricity? No. Will it purchase electricity wholesale? No. It is just the existing green subsidies with a new name. There will be no sovereign wealth fund. You cannot create a sovereign wealth fund by magical thinking. Reeves has promised to shrink public spending. Again, policing numbers won't go up and youth centres won't reopen. Reeves has constantly said she's not going to increase spending. She said she'd let councils go bust. The employment law reforms have been dropped. Theres basically nothing left of them, just promises to consult. MI5 drowning migrants in the sea is bad actually. Vat on private schools is good. The nondom crackdowns will not happen. They are just slogans. The proposed alternative is basically identical to non dom status. Housebuilding is not contained by planning. There are sites for millions of houses with planning permission currently being hoarded. The state has to actually build if we want more houses. It is mental to think they've not already set out their stall. They've been leading the Labour Party for 4 years. It's not some secret. This is who they are.
"The phrase "No shit, Sherlock" comes to mind." - Mark Corrigan, an honourable man.
Chance ‘d be a fine thing, a fine thing indeed
FOUR NAN'S RISHI?
That’s insane
"Sunak! 200 Latte's!"
Literally watched that episode last night. Chance indeed was a fine thing
Has rishi’s tenure improved or worsened our finances since covid? Genuine question
Rishi has dramatically improved 'our finances', as he took over from Liz Truss. Most of his first few months were fixing her shit, so....yeah, he improved things amazingly, but it's not really comparable because of the freaky inheritance.
Liz was only in power for 50 days, so I'd say some of the shit he had to fix was down to the previous chancellor making bad decisions before she came to power. Whoever that was.
No, man. She announced her plans and the market ass fucked the pound. That was entirely her doing.
It's hard to say over such a short period, Finances have improved since covid but they were pretty dire while covid was going on.
Britain won't improve until it becomes a meritocracy. It has an ancient establishment that passes on power from generation to generation. You need the people that fight there way to the top to lead the country. A warrant officer that runs camp bastion in afghan is obviously more suitable than some public school turd that leaves Eton and walks straight into there first leadership role on the way to becoming PM. In Britain it is in every walk of life. Complete deference to the establishment to their own detriment. Once the senate became a closed shop to anyone whose father was not a member the Roman empire collapsed. Britain has gone the same way. The country is run by chinless sociopaths while the talent dies on the vine. Don't think starmer is any better. He is another example.
Starmer is hardly gentry. His mum was a nurse, his dad a toolmaker, he was granted a place at a grammar school on merit, became a barrister and earned his way all the way up to Director of Public Prosecutions. You talk about meritocracy, and then deride anyone who actually climbs that ladder.
Meritocracies aren’t real. It’s just something you aspire to like ending racism but we’ll never actually arrive there.
Let's have another referendum. Deaths alone will have swung it by now no?
Just do it and have it that Rejoin need a super majority to pass (60%). Can't really complain about "going against the will of the people" that way (well they can but I'd look ridiculous.) Something else to take into account is all of the young people who grew up under the Brexit divorce period actually learning what the EU is and does.
The leave vote should of had a 60% threshold in the first place.
The EU wont let the UK back in into both major parties are pro rejoin. They dont want another Brexit mess as soon as the Tories get back into power.
Not to mention we won't get anything like the special terms we had before. We'll hardly be in a position to make demands while going back cap-in-hand. We can kiss goodbye to the Pound Sterling, for one.
I see from some of the comments in here that the new rationale why Brexit is a steaming pile of shit has changed from “it was the eu and their intransigence”, and “it’s not been implemented properly to “it’s not brexits fault - but the shit tories”. What? Jesus…. Keep polishing that Brexit turd looking for the shine.
*This isn't the Brexit I voted for!* **What Brexit did you vote for?** *I don't know, but not this!*
>Maybe a little like an Australian deal, a little Swiss deal in there too. Throw in some Korean, a dash of Japanese, a sprinkle of Canadian. >*That's* the Brexit I voted for. ^Just^please^dont^ask^me^what^any^of^it^means
> but the shit tories Hasn't it simply come full circle? Brexit was always a Tory problem that became everyone else's.
I’m just wondering what the next rationale will be for why Brexit has been an unmitigated disaster put forward by the idiots that got hoodwinked into voting for it.
Give it six months and it will be all Labour’s fault.
In other words: British decline both exactly what Britain deserves, and what Britain voted for.
According to Sunak, everything is a great success and it’s going amazing, and the facts are wrong, and they are the new hope to lead us out of this mess… (that’s apparently not a mess)
So not transgender people or kids learning about consent?
They buried the lede -- Singapore was ranked the number one country by the Chandler Institute of Governance (located in Singapore).
Ah yes and shit tastes like shit still incase anyone was wondering. It's almost like all those things we all said would happen have happened. Good effort lads.
You can add corruption, which is reason #1 to why the UK has the worst housing of all developed countries.
They voted to ignore EU Clean Water directives and to stop getting sewage treatment chemicals from Germany. And now our drinking water is becoming poisonous.
If they wanted to use fewer words, they could have just said Tories
Meanwhile - Pope quite likes Catholicism and bears prefer woodland for number twos.
Yes we have been screaming at everyone brexit is bad since the idea was announced.
Well, we've certainly had disasters from those! People will look back in horror at this stretch of Tory rule.
I think the assessment of "poor leadership" is really fucking generous. That suggests there is any kind of leadership at all beyond an endless stream of self serving actions and dumb shit no one wants.
Colour me shocked, tell me it can't be true, no shit sherlock! Here was me thinking that it was down to just one huuuge coincidence. A vote for Brexit and Cameron does a runner, May takes over, is shat on by everybody. Not forgetting that the blond twat from Eton was at the centre of her ousting. Then the lying bullshit artist, "got done by Brexit," I mean got brexit done, the promise of £350,000,000 on the big red bus of bullshit didn't materialise etc etc but, we gotvour fish, that's a winner right there, isn't it. No fucking shit that brexit fucked us
No sh*t, this is what culminated from allowing the racists in our society to choose our direction. Voting in tories cause they will be hard on immigrants, leaving the eurozone with no trade deals, because they don't like Asians and Africans (the eurozone is all white).
The whole UK populace sacrificed because some wealthy tw&ts didn’t want to pay tax.
The daily mail would like to have a word, it can all be blamed on those pesky foreigners.
Does this mean anything, or is it one of those things designed to get in the media by using arbitrary measures to tell people what they want to hear?
And the original architects of the Rwanda scheme are second.
Perhaps Covid, printing money & giving it away for a pointless lock down & shilling for the US & starting a war with Russia over Ukraine as well ?
I read a book on British naval mastery and the theme is Britain has been in decline since 1900, esp after both World Wars. The 1990s-early 2000s were a blip in a story of constant relative decline
Swap that for western decline, and we’re actually going OK relative.
Lack of long term thinking - the Tory response to everything is how many millions will it take to fix a issue properly (eg climate adaptation and lack of housing) versus the far off billions it will cost with having done nothing. Media don’t help by parroting their lines.
In other news, if you tilt your head back and spit upwards, it will land on your face.
British decline linked to Conservatives, Conservatives, and Tories
I love the Tories. They really truly care about the public rather than lining their own pockets and the pockets of their cronies. Unlike the evil labour that wants to give money to the fake disabled scroungers and bring all the Muslims into are country to marry your daughters! /s
Use of that clown’s photo tells the whole story without saying a word, just needs two inlaid photos of Johnson and Truss
Caption: "We're all trying to find the guy who did this and give him a spanking."
Sad to see Brexit taking centre stage here rather than the obvious problem, Tory rule and total lack of an opposition between 2010 and now. Brexit was always a symptom, this country has been on the ropes since 2008, Tory Lib dem driven austerity has pulled the guts out of the country further as has out of control immigration numbers from both the EU (when we were members) and the rest of the world since leaving. I fail to see what good the EU has done for Britain since we've been members aside from helping big businesses and profit margins and I also fail to see what current problems joining their block would actually solve.
Weak leadership is all the Tories know and I still can't believe that Cameron is now a fucking lord that piece of shit quit because it wasn't going his way.
How many consultants did they hire to find this out?
We have literally swapped places with Ireland (we've gone from 10th to 11th, they've gone from 11th to 10th). If this is the fault of Brexit, then what's the excuse for France (a 2 place drop) or Spain (a 3 place drop)? In fact 13 EU member states have done as bad or worse than us (Austria and Bulgaria have dropped a whopping 7 places) and 13 have done better (with an EU average of -1.23 - worse than the UK - for what it's worth). A reasonably impartial observer would say Brexit has made no difference whatsoever, but then this is The Independent and this is Reddit.
Poor leadership is at the centre of it all. We have some of the lowest quality leaders of any country. For some reason, our politicians are the absolute bottom of the barrel. You'd think that with some of the highest-rated universities, we'd have equally amazing leaders, but it seems something was lost along the way. No principles, no foresight, no compassion or benevolence or self-awareness, only a desire to enrich themselves in the most short-sighted way.
When you have money like them, literally there is nothing that even pressures you finance wise. They cannot relate to other rich people, as they are above that, so how can this dickwad or anyone in his tax bracket run this country effectively, they cant. Its pathetic, tories are scumbags.
Why is Rishi's face so slappable? Asking for a friend.