So who recognises Britain as it is today?

Alain Quay

One thing Britain could have done a few decades ago is introduce an sustained anti-litter campaign. Spain has done it, as has Australia, etc. In Scotland the SNP could do it so they have one tangible achievement to point to. Stuffing Gregg's wrappers into the nearest available space is endemic.

haydenm

Pross wrote:

ugo.santalucia wrote:

Pross wrote:

I can't help thinking people are over-stating things a bit here. Sure, there's a lot of bad stuff such as a decline in discipline and manners but that is hardly unique to the UK. Yes, there is inequality and education or healthcare could be better but if you look back over history what periods would you say any of those things were any better? Possibly the late 50s through to the late 70s but in those times I would say -isms were far more rife.

It's not a fair way of looking at things. Being the "fifth" richest nation on earth and by GDP pro capita probably one of the top three, one would expect outstanding health care, education and such... whereas what you see is vulgar display of wealth and deep pockets of poverty. Healtcare is a hit and a miss and education is patchy. Problems like obesity and diabetes are no longer a prerogative of the rich, in fact they put Britain in the same league as Mexico and other nations that we consider "developing".
If you compare Britain with Germany or Denmark or Holland you will see the infrastructure sucks, education is poorer and healthcare is worse... however there are more > million pound properties and more luxury cars... that is in essence the difference and why there is a problem

We were the richest nation on earth 200 years ago and yet vast swathes of the population had no education, no basic healthcare and poverty meant starving to death or being put in the poorhouse.

Now, you hear people moaning they are so skint they can't go on a family holiday or afford to run a car. No one repairs worn clothing and few cook food from scratch using basic ingredients. People want things handed to them and complain when they aren't. I'm certainly not saying things are perfect and there are certainly people who have far more than they need but are only interested in getting even more but I still think in terms of equality and social mobility we have probably never had a period like the present.

However, there are definitely issues but I can't put my finger on the causes. I guess it is a combination of some who will do anything to progress their own ambition at the cost of others together with those who are too lazy to fight for opportunities. Add to that the sheer volume of media available that allows us to see these people and it looks worse than it probably is.

This is sort of what I was getting at when I was saying that quality of life and inequality aren't interchangeable. I could easily imagine the 'standard of living gap' between rich and poor now being lower than it ever has been but people talk about the 'rise of inequality' as if they are some sort of revolutionary. One thing I really dislike about Britain today is our incredible ability to moan about how everything is going down the drain and completely ignore all the good things that we have. So long as the base level of standard of living is good I'm not particularly worried about other people's vulgar displays of wealth. I'm not sure more money would help healthcare and education a whole lot over all

rick_chasey

Alain Quay wrote:

One thing Britain could have done a few decades ago is introduce an sustained anti-litter campaign. Spain has done it, as has Australia, etc. In Scotland the SNP could do it so they have one tangible achievement to point to. Stuffing Gregg's wrappers into the nearest available space is endemic.

Reach for the stars mate.

Uk has a rising number of kids growing up in relative poverty but Christ, litter.

rick_chasey

The most relevant stats are the various measures of productivity. GDP per head per hour worked.

That flushes out how rich or poor people feel. UK feels stagnant even if the big GDP number is growing because productivity isn't. I.e. We only have seen a growth in GDP as a result of longer hours and more people (i.e. immigrants) working.

Stevo_666

HaydenM wrote:

One thing I really dislike about Britain today is our incredible ability to moan about how everything is going down the drain and completely ignore all the good things that we have. So long as the base level of standard of living is good I'm not particularly worried about other people's vulgar displays of wealth. I'm not sure more money would help healthcare and education a whole lot over all

Well said.

In one way at least, this forum is very British.

finchy

HaydenM wrote:

I'm not sure more money would help healthcare and education a whole lot over all

It could help to pay for more doctors. And beds. And ambulances. And nurses.

mamba80

Stevo 666 wrote:

HaydenM wrote:

One thing I really dislike about Britain today is our incredible ability to moan about how everything is going down the drain and completely ignore all the good things that we have. So long as the base level of standard of living is good I'm not particularly worried about other people's vulgar displays of wealth. I'm not sure more money would help healthcare and education a whole lot over all

Well said.

In one way at least, this forum is very British.

Well, if that were really the case, then no one would pay for BUPA or private education.

but i do take your point, we are very lucky to live in a europe with no wars, for that we should be very grateful,
i guess it comes down to whether or not you want things to improve or stay the same/worse?
tbh i dont give a 4x what others have, so long as they pay their taxes, then all is good.
what i really dont like is free loading, whether it be a multi millionaire and tax evasion or a healthy person scheming his way to DLA.

Stevo_666

mamba80 wrote:

Stevo 666 wrote:

HaydenM wrote:

One thing I really dislike about Britain today is our incredible ability to moan about how everything is going down the drain and completely ignore all the good things that we have. So long as the base level of standard of living is good I'm not particularly worried about other people's vulgar displays of wealth. I'm not sure more money would help healthcare and education a whole lot over all

Well said.

In one way at least, this forum is very British.

Well, if that were really the case, then no one would pay for BUPA or private education.

but i do take your point, we are very lucky to live in a europe with no wars, for that we should be very grateful,
i guess it comes down to whether or not you want things to improve or stay the same/worse?
tbh i dont give a 4x what others have, so long as they pay their taxes, then all is good.
what i really dont like is free loading, whether it be a multi millionaire and tax evasion or a healthy person scheming his way to DLA.

My main point was about the moaning and negativity really. The evidence is here on plenty of other threads as well.

narbs

HaydenM wrote:

So long as the base level of standard of living is good I'm not particularly worried about other people's vulgar displays of wealth. I'm not sure more money would help healthcare and education a whole lot over all

While nearly a third of kids in this country grow up in poverty I'll continue to moan and for a nation as rich as ours that's something we should all be ashamed of.

Stevo_666

narbs wrote:

HaydenM wrote:

So long as the base level of standard of living is good I'm not particularly worried about other people's vulgar displays of wealth. I'm not sure more money would help healthcare and education a whole lot over all

While nearly a third of kids in this country grow up in poverty I'll continue to moan and for a nation as rich as ours that's something we should all be ashamed of.

I've just halved that for you...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-33266799

As poverty is relative to the average national income, you have also just helped to backed up the first line you quoted above from Haydens post.

mamba80

With that post steve you ve just shown why people vote the way they do, they are sick to death of people like you telling them "everything is good, stop moaning"
2.3m children, even if you believe IDS figures, is hardly anything to be proud about and the fastest growing in poverty is working families, due to low wages and tax credit cuts, low wages paid by companies who could easily afford to pay far more.

DeVlaeminck

You have to look at relative poverty - comparing people now to people a hundred years ago is a nonsense. It's a bit like us all rising up in revolt because we don't have a self drive hover car and a sex robot and even the lowest paid worker will have both in a couple of hundred years.

Stevo_666

mamba80 wrote:

With that post steve you ve just shown why people vote the way they do, they are sick to death of people like you telling them "everything is good, stop moaning"
2.3m children, even if you believe IDS figures, is hardly anything to be proud about and the fastest growing in poverty is working families, due to low wages and tax credit cuts, low wages paid by companies who could easily afford to pay far more.

Just pointing out that it's half as bad as narbs had claimed. You of all people should know that stating things that are just plain incorrect sometimes backfires, 'Mr. Fujitsu'

If it was as bad as you say why do we have a Tory government?

And I repeat my point about poverty being relative.

finchy

For anyone who doesn't care at all about inequality, I would suggest listening to this lecture by Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz. He isn't the best public speaker in the world, but to summarise what he says:

Excessive inequality (he doesn't argue for absolute equality) is not an inevitable feature of capitalist economics, but the consequence of political decisions.
Inequality of outcome and inequality of opportunity are closely linked and form a vicious circle.
The accumulation of wealth at the top has resulted in a shift in focus away from productive labour and towards wealth-destroying rent-seeking activities. This acts as a drag on our economies.
Political inequality and economic inequality are also closely linked, and rising economic inequality is leading to a loss of social cohesion and political will.
As the poorest in society spend the largest proportion of their income, growing inequality again acts as a drag on the economy.
The old idea that incomes are linked to contribution was comprehensively destroyed in 2008.
The international institutions (the IMF is singled out) which were hitherto promoting aggressive neoliberal economics in the belief that this trickle-down approach was necessary to stimulate growth have now realised that this was a mistake and are now starting to prioritise reducing inequality.

He said a few other things as well which escape my memory, but it's well worth a listen.

haydenm

finchy wrote:

HaydenM wrote:

I'm not sure more money would help healthcare and education a whole lot over all

It could help to pay for more doctors. And beds. And ambulances. And nurses.

According to conventional negative press it would be squandered on middle management. We could throw endless millions at healthcare or education but if management are motivated in the wrong way the tangible benefit to pupils and patients might be small. I say "I'm not sure" because seeing as we all love moaning it's hard to get a grip on what is actually wrong or who to believe. I was just suggesting that extra funding doesn't always correlate into better results, according to WHO the USA is terrible and Japan is good, several ways to read this graph though

mamba80 wrote:

Stevo 666 wrote:

HaydenM wrote:

One thing I really dislike about Britain today is our incredible ability to moan about how everything is going down the drain and completely ignore all the good things that we have. So long as the base level of standard of living is good I'm not particularly worried about other people's vulgar displays of wealth. I'm not sure more money would help healthcare and education a whole lot over all

Well said.

In one way at least, this forum is very British.

Well, if that were really the case, then no one would pay for BUPA or private education.

but i do take your point, we are very lucky to live in a europe with no wars, for that we should be very grateful,
i guess it comes down to whether or not you want things to improve or stay the same/worse?
tbh i dont give a 4x what others have, so long as they pay their taxes, then all is good.
what i really dont like is free loading, whether it be a multi millionaire and tax evasion or a healthy person scheming his way to DLA.

I mean more money from a government budget perspective rather than a personal one, I have private healthcare through work and I'm lead to believe it's good, thankfully I've not used it yet. If I had to pay I probably wouldn't bother depending on what my local facilities are like (goes back to what Ugo further back I guess). I'd imagine the standard of service from private providers is better as much because of the way it's managed as the total level of funding they have but as I say, I've not used either

john1967

Rick Chasey wrote:

Alain Quay wrote:

One thing Britain could have done a few decades ago is introduce an sustained anti-litter campaign. Spain has done it, as has Australia, etc. In Scotland the SNP could do it so they have one tangible achievement to point to. Stuffing Gregg's wrappers into the nearest available space is endemic.

Reach for the stars mate.

Uk has a rising number of kids growing up in relative poverty but Christ, litter.

Every 10 seconds a child dies from hunger-related diseases. Poverty in the UK is not having a playstation.Every child has access to food,water,free healthcare,free education and social care if required.Dont confuse poor parenting with poverty.

rick_chasey

john1967 wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

Alain Quay wrote:

One thing Britain could have done a few decades ago is introduce an sustained anti-litter campaign. Spain has done it, as has Australia, etc. In Scotland the SNP could do it so they have one tangible achievement to point to. Stuffing Gregg's wrappers into the nearest available space is endemic.

Reach for the stars mate.

Uk has a rising number of kids growing up in relative poverty but Christ, litter.

Every 10 seconds a child dies from hunger-related diseases. Poverty in the UK is not having a playstation.Every child has access to food,water,free healthcare,free education and social care if required.Dont confuse poor parenting with poverty.

Don't know where to start with this.

Shan't bother. Though I'd suggest this line of thinking is one of the reasons why UK inequality is like it is.

finchy

HaydenM wrote:

finchy wrote:

HaydenM wrote:

I'm not sure more money would help healthcare and education a whole lot over all

It could help to pay for more doctors. And beds. And ambulances. And nurses.

According to conventional negative press it would be squandered on middle management. We could throw endless millions at healthcare or education but if management are motivated in the wrong way the tangible benefit to pupils and patients might be small. I say "I'm not sure" because seeing as we all love moaning it's hard to get a grip on what is actually wrong or who to believe. I was just suggesting that extra funding doesn't always correlate into better results, according to WHO the USA is terrible and Japan is good, several ways to read this graph though

Well no, you would have to make sure that the funding got spent on the right things. That's the governments job, and if management are misspending the money then the government should step in.

In terms of whether the increased funding the NHS has had over the past couple of decades, the number of doctors did increase - from 1.6 per 1000 people in 1990 to about 2.8 per 1000 people today. Still not good enough and lower than most other developed countries (when I broke my leg a few years back, I had to wait 4 hours on a trolley until I could finally see a doctor in A&E, with nothing but aspirin for the pain, so it's not just a question of British moaning, this sort of thing has real negative effects on people's lives), but it is completely false for the press to suggest that all this money has just been squandered.

bobmcstuff

Pross wrote:

I'm certainly not saying things are perfect and there are certainly people who have far more than they need but are only interested in getting even more but I still think in terms of equality and social mobility we have probably never had a period like the present.

All fine except inequality was much lower in the 1960s...



"Since the early 1990s, changes in inequality have been less dramatic than the change from 1979 to 1991. After falling slightly over the early to mid-1990s, inequality, as shown by the Gini coefficient, reached a new peak of 0.358 in 2009–10. Inequality fell in 2010 and has stayed relatively level since." https://www.equalitytrust.org.uk/how-ha ... ty-changed

Wonder what happened in '79. Anybody?

Stevo_666

bobmcstuff wrote:

Pross wrote:

I'm certainly not saying things are perfect and there are certainly people who have far more than they need but are only interested in getting even more but I still think in terms of equality and social mobility we have probably never had a period like the present.

All fine except inequality was much lower in the 1960s...



"Since the early 1990s, changes in inequality have been less dramatic than the change from 1979 to 1991. After falling slightly over the early to mid-1990s, inequality, as shown by the Gini coefficient, reached a new peak of 0.358 in 2009–10. Inequality fell in 2010 and has stayed relatively level since." https://www.equalitytrust.org.uk/how-ha ... ty-changed

Wonder what happened in '79. Anybody?

Mrs T was elected and a decent number of people started being economically successful? Unfortunately people doing well for themselves will increase inequality as measured like this - even when incomes at the lower end of the scale do not go down. Can't have that, can we :roll:

bobmcstuff

Stevo 666 wrote:

bobmcstuff wrote:

Pross wrote:

I'm certainly not saying things are perfect and there are certainly people who have far more than they need but are only interested in getting even more but I still think in terms of equality and social mobility we have probably never had a period like the present.

All fine except inequality was much lower in the 1960s...



"Since the early 1990s, changes in inequality have been less dramatic than the change from 1979 to 1991. After falling slightly over the early to mid-1990s, inequality, as shown by the Gini coefficient, reached a new peak of 0.358 in 2009–10. Inequality fell in 2010 and has stayed relatively level since." https://www.equalitytrust.org.uk/how-ha ... ty-changed

Wonder what happened in '79. Anybody?

Mrs T was elected and a decent number of people started being economically successful? Unfortunately people doing well for themselves will increase inequality as measured like this. Can't have that, can we :roll:

Yes and I have absolutely no problem with that at the top end of the scale.

Have to wonder what happened to the people at the other end of the scale though - collapse of heavy industry over that time, for example (not suggesting that's necessarily Thatcher's fault, they were being propped up before 1979 and coal was on its way out before she got in. Although she possibly could have done a bit more about it but that's another argument entirely).

I'd like to find some data on real income trends for the top/bottom 5%, 10% etc. to see how it compares but I'm going out on my bike now (I'm late...) - maybe this evening.

https://www.ifs.org.uk/uploads/publicat ... ms/r96.pdf - just read this, quite interesting on recent trends (p34) - the drop in inequality in 2012 was caused by benefits being broadly static but real wages further up the line dropping off.

Stevo_666

OK - will be interesting to see what you can find.

Although your link and last paragraph illustrates my point. That a drop in incomes for certain income bands while other things stay the same onthe face of it reduces inequality while not being a good thing in itself. And yet some people would celebrate this reduction in inequality. It reinforces the point made earlier that providing a reasonable base level for those at the lower end is more important than reducing relative inequality.

bobmcstuff

Stevo 666 wrote:

OK - will be interesting to see what you can find.

Although your link and last paragraph illustrates my point. That a drop in incomes for certain income bands while other things stay the same onthe face of it reduces inequality while not being a good thing in itself. And yet some people would celebrate this reduction in inequality. It reinforces the point made earlier that providing a reasonable base level for those at the lower end is more important than reducing relative inequality.

Yes, I agree.

I am not a left winger. For some reason when I come on here, I can end up coming across that way on some topics, but at home I often find myself defending free markets and deregulation (my girlfriend is a leftie who works for a charity and volunteers at a food bank, so we don't always agree... She doesn't support Corbyn though thank christ...). I suppose that makes me a moderate.

I haven't had much time to look yet but http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/econ ... 1820s.html seems to bear it out to a degree, although doesn't give figures for the period in question.

The former heavy industrial areas are also areas which voted strongly for Brexit, so it seems the "left behind" argument holds some weight at least in people's perceptions.

Were I in Thatcher's position, I would have gone a little easier on the tax cuts and used the North Sea oil tax windfall to do something to stop the UK economy tilting so far towards London (instead of using it to fund tax cuts). This could include things like putting the Giro in Liverpool or the passport office in Durham, but it would probably need to be a lot more fundamental than that.

Stevo_666

You may find the data you really need quite difficult to find in a clean, digestible form as it is very specific.

Btw I was born and bred in the North East and now living down South so I am one of the causes of what your linked article refers to, albeit quite a while ago.

surrey_commuter

NorvernRob wrote:

I don't see any differences, apart from the odd muppet on the news or social media saying there shouldn't be any muslims in the UK since the Brexit vote. Those types of brain doners were posting the same things beforehand anyway.

A couple of times a week I pick up my son from the school my wife teaches at. It's a mix of roughly 40% Slovak, 40% British and 20% other nationalities, mainly African with a few Chinese. I don't see any animosity between the groups of parents, and this is in a poor area where you'd probably expect racism and xenophobia to be much higher than average - or maybe this is the real world, and by and large people do actually get on together regardless of nationality/race.

People who live in multi-cultural societies have less prejudices than those who don't.

ukiboy

Definitely don't recognise Great Britain these days... Since Blair and his un patriotic 'multiculturalism' project took hold, Great Britain is no longer what it was. It is no longer the great and wonderful place anymore.
Greater London has become unrecognisable in a very negative way. For people of a certain age, like myself, it has taken a nose dive from which I fear it cannot recover.
The left wing 'generation snowflake' has struck a severe blow at modern British society, one which I fear may be mortal. Brexit and Trump being elected has demonstrated that the majority of sensible society are very much cheesed off with the left wing multicultural diverse politically correct agenda and all that it brings...

ukiboy

Surrey Commuter wrote:

NorvernRob wrote:

I don't see any differences, apart from the odd muppet on the news or social media saying there shouldn't be any muslims in the UK since the Brexit vote. Those types of brain doners were posting the same things beforehand anyway.

A couple of times a week I pick up my son from the school my wife teaches at. It's a mix of roughly 40% Slovak, 40% British and 20% other nationalities, mainly African with a few Chinese. I don't see any animosity between the groups of parents, and this is in a poor area where you'd probably expect racism and xenophobia to be much higher than average - or maybe this is the real world, and by and large people do actually get on together regardless of nationality/race.

People who live in multi-cultural societies have less prejudices than those who don't.

I live in a very multi cultural society. It really p's me off!

bobmcstuff

ukiboy wrote:

Definitely don't recognise Great Britain these days... Since Blair and his un patriotic 'multiculturalism' project took hold, Great Britain is no longer what it was. It is no longer the great and wonderful place anymore.
Greater London has become unrecognisable in a very negative way. For people of a certain age, like myself, it has taken a nose dive from which I fear it cannot recover.
The left wing 'generation snowflake' has struck a severe blow at modern British society, one which I fear may be mortal. Brexit and Trump being elected has demonstrated that the majority of sensible society are very much cheesed off with the left wing multicultural diverse politically correct agenda and all that it brings...

Yeah, people coming out with rubbish like this is what I don't recognise about Britain. Parochial crap.

ukiboy

Typical left wing nonsense. You neither know, remember, or care what this once great country used to be. I can enlighten you: Great Britain used to be an AMAZING country!

surrey_commuter

ukiboy wrote:

Surrey Commuter wrote:

NorvernRob wrote:

I don't see any differences, apart from the odd muppet on the news or social media saying there shouldn't be any muslims in the UK since the Brexit vote. Those types of brain doners were posting the same things beforehand anyway.

A couple of times a week I pick up my son from the school my wife teaches at. It's a mix of roughly 40% Slovak, 40% British and 20% other nationalities, mainly African with a few Chinese. I don't see any animosity between the groups of parents, and this is in a poor area where you'd probably expect racism and xenophobia to be much higher than average - or maybe this is the real world, and by and large people do actually get on together regardless of nationality/race.

People who live in multi-cultural societies have less prejudices than those who don't.

I live in a very multi cultural society. It really p's me off!

What in particular?