Britain’s economic record since 2007 ranks near the bottom among peer countries(economist.com)
economist.com
Britain’s economic record since 2007 ranks near the bottom among peer countries
https://www.economist.com/britain/2022/12/15/britains-economic-record-since-2007-ranks-near-the-bottom-among-peer-countries
52 comments
The problem with the Brits is that we keep voting in slimy incompetent leaders. The country is completely at the whim of The Sun and The Daily Mail.
To be fair, the electorate didn't vote for Liz Truss or Rishi Sunak, they were voted in by Tory membership, who are mostly old and wealthy and don't really care about the plight of the working class up and down the country.
But you are right, people voted for awful leaders like Boris Johnson because they presumably value a comedic personality over honesty and integrity, and because the Tory press do an excellent job of denigrating candidates from any party who don't serve the media owners' own interests.
But you are right, people voted for awful leaders like Boris Johnson because they presumably value a comedic personality over honesty and integrity, and because the Tory press do an excellent job of denigrating candidates from any party who don't serve the media owners' own interests.
Rishi Sunak is the youngest prime minister in modern British history:
1. *Rishi Sunak – 42 years old (2022)*
2. *David Cameron – 43 years old (2010)*
3. *Tony Blair – 43 years old (1997)*
4. *Liz Truss – 47 years old (2022)*
5. *John Major – 47 years old (1990)*
6. *Harold Wilson – 48 years old (1964)*
7. *David Lloyd George – 53 years old (1916)*
Not exactly. The membership are only given a choice between two candidates. If the membership actually got to choose who ran the party then we'd most likely have had the first female black PM of the country (Kemi Badenoch), who would also have had computer science training. The MPs unfortunately had other ideas and so members got a choice between Sunak and Truss.
> If the membership actually got to choose who ran the party then we'd most likely have had the first female black PM of the country (Kemi Badenoch)
Doubtful. Colour me very very sceptical, for the simple reason that her political positions are quite extreme, even in the party that she finds herself in. I'm not saying that there's no "base" for that in that party, just 1) not a majority and 2) these are also mostly people who are ... shall we say, not "progressive" enough to be enthused by the thought of a "female black PM".
Doubtful. Colour me very very sceptical, for the simple reason that her political positions are quite extreme, even in the party that she finds herself in. I'm not saying that there's no "base" for that in that party, just 1) not a majority and 2) these are also mostly people who are ... shall we say, not "progressive" enough to be enthused by the thought of a "female black PM".
She was easily winning polls of the members. The idea that conservatives are racist is a left wing slur, not reality. She lost because she is too conservative for the Tory MPs, who are well to the left of the party membership.
https://conservativehome.com/2022/07/16/our-next-tory-leader...
https://conservativehome.com/2022/07/16/our-next-tory-leader...
Who isn't a slimy incompetent leader? The system here seems to be that you have to be slimy & incompetent to get anywhere close to the top.
UK's GDP grew 14% from 2007 to 2022. The EU's GDP grew 12%.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/281744/gdp-of-the-united...
https://www.statista.com/statistics/281744/gdp-of-the-united...
Paint me ultra skeptical about all such claims. It might be true or it might not. The error bars on these metrics should be enormous but none are given. In reality the British government has absolutely no idea about even far more basic stats like the size of the population, and calculation of things like GDP/capita and productivity are all heavily influenced by errors in that sort of base figure. Official population estimates are massive under-estimates and there's now lots of evidence that this is true.
Until about 2020/2021 a lot of the case for this had to be built on things like mismatches between expected electricity/water consumption and population claims, but since Brexit and the vaccine rollouts there is now far clearer evidence.
For Brexit, the government claimed there were 3.7 million people from other EU countries living in the UK and the actual number who came forward to apply for residence was 2 million more than that.
COVID made the problem even clearer. In some age groups more people came forward to be vaccinated than theoretically existed in the country at all. The government claims 9% of the population is unvaccinated but an opinion poll run by the BBC yielded 25%, a likely more accurate figure. The ONS recently had to admit in writing that their vaccine effectiveness numbers were meaningless garbage (and always have been) because if you take them at face value, vaccines are magical elixirs of invulnerability that make you much less likely to die for any reason at all including things that aren't health related, like workplace accidents. The ONS pretends it must be because they missed some confounding factor despite adjusting for some crazy number of them, in reality the explanation is simpler: because the population estimate is far too low, they think there are far fewer unvaccinated people than there really are, and thus the calculated death rate is far higher than it really is. The size of the vaccinated population is known to a higher degree of accuracy and thus the death rate in that group is actually accurate, creating this apparently nonsensical effect.
After 10 years they tried to do a new census, but did it in the middle of lockdowns and the resulting figures were massively out of line with other known figures:
https://www.cityam.com/census-2022-london-population-funding...
"CLF, a group of 12 local authorities, stressed that the figures were “skewed”, with Westminster missing 30,000 residents (15 per cent of the population.)"
So the chance to repair the data was flunked. Although the ONS is in denial, in the past the government has taken some steps towards admitting this. The official population size was downgraded to "experimental" (lol) and could no longer be classified as "national statistics".
A government that can't even count how many people exist on an island is in no position to accurately measure the output or productivity of those people, a far more subjective and complex set of statistics to compute. In reality nobody knows how the British economy is doing. At best they can measure a subset of it.
Until about 2020/2021 a lot of the case for this had to be built on things like mismatches between expected electricity/water consumption and population claims, but since Brexit and the vaccine rollouts there is now far clearer evidence.
For Brexit, the government claimed there were 3.7 million people from other EU countries living in the UK and the actual number who came forward to apply for residence was 2 million more than that.
COVID made the problem even clearer. In some age groups more people came forward to be vaccinated than theoretically existed in the country at all. The government claims 9% of the population is unvaccinated but an opinion poll run by the BBC yielded 25%, a likely more accurate figure. The ONS recently had to admit in writing that their vaccine effectiveness numbers were meaningless garbage (and always have been) because if you take them at face value, vaccines are magical elixirs of invulnerability that make you much less likely to die for any reason at all including things that aren't health related, like workplace accidents. The ONS pretends it must be because they missed some confounding factor despite adjusting for some crazy number of them, in reality the explanation is simpler: because the population estimate is far too low, they think there are far fewer unvaccinated people than there really are, and thus the calculated death rate is far higher than it really is. The size of the vaccinated population is known to a higher degree of accuracy and thus the death rate in that group is actually accurate, creating this apparently nonsensical effect.
After 10 years they tried to do a new census, but did it in the middle of lockdowns and the resulting figures were massively out of line with other known figures:
https://www.cityam.com/census-2022-london-population-funding...
"CLF, a group of 12 local authorities, stressed that the figures were “skewed”, with Westminster missing 30,000 residents (15 per cent of the population.)"
So the chance to repair the data was flunked. Although the ONS is in denial, in the past the government has taken some steps towards admitting this. The official population size was downgraded to "experimental" (lol) and could no longer be classified as "national statistics".
A government that can't even count how many people exist on an island is in no position to accurately measure the output or productivity of those people, a far more subjective and complex set of statistics to compute. In reality nobody knows how the British economy is doing. At best they can measure a subset of it.
> For Brexit, the government claimed there were 3.7 million people from other EU countries living in the UK and the actual number who came forward to apply for residence was 2 million more than that.
Source seems to be this https://blog.ons.gov.uk/2021/07/02/are-there-really-6m-eu-ci... , and it notes quite clearly that "EUSS data should not be used as an indicator for how many EU nationals are living here. "
Source seems to be this https://blog.ons.gov.uk/2021/07/02/are-there-really-6m-eu-ci... , and it notes quite clearly that "EUSS data should not be used as an indicator for how many EU nationals are living here. "
In the opinion of the ONS, who are the ones who were publishing the bad figures originally? They're the people being criticized for generating garbage statistics in the first place, of course they're going to claim there's no real problem, so you'd have to test their reasoning.
Their attempt at justifying this bizarre claim is that maybe 2 million people applied to live permanently in the UK but don't actually live there. Literally the first criteria for applying to the scheme is that you live in the UK and the purpose of applying is that you want to continue living there. This reasoning is idiotic on its face and just makes the ONS look even worse, even if we didn't already know that their population statistics were hugely inaccurate from other sources.
Their attempt at justifying this bizarre claim is that maybe 2 million people applied to live permanently in the UK but don't actually live there. Literally the first criteria for applying to the scheme is that you live in the UK and the purpose of applying is that you want to continue living there. This reasoning is idiotic on its face and just makes the ONS look even worse, even if we didn't already know that their population statistics were hugely inaccurate from other sources.
Worse than Italy? (I'm Italian, it's hard for me to believe UK fared worse).
I'm HN's resident Republican curmudgeon, but this is all squarely the fault of the Tories. They've over-optimized the economy to _only_ do what they're the best in the world at, the rest of the country be damned. They're out of touch with people in Manchester, with immigration sentiment in the Midlands, and with just how hated they are by the Scotts.
I really wish Labour would get it together, focus on something besides hating Israel, and end this nonsense. The UK used to have a bunch of competitive car, aircraft, and train manufacturing concerns - no more. This is a total failure of governance.
I really wish Labour would get it together, focus on something besides hating Israel, and end this nonsense. The UK used to have a bunch of competitive car, aircraft, and train manufacturing concerns - no more. This is a total failure of governance.
I'm not a natural Labour voter, but they have an approximately 25 point lead at the moment - they're very much getting their act together. I'm not sure where the "hating Israel" thing comes from, that talking point is several years out of date now.
They aren't really getting their act together, they aren't doing much different to what they were doing before that poll lead. That lead is the result of the Conservatives having constant leadership turmoil and appointing unpopular people to the Cabinet. It's a consequence of ruling party dysfunction rather than Labour suddenly improving.
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What has Labour done to suggest they hate Israel?
Look, I don't really wanna get bogged down in Tory-Labour, Republican-Democrat, "is being opposed to certain issues and members of the Irsaeli government anti-Semitic" conversation. I really don't. But as a US citizen who follows US news closely and world news incidentally, I'm aware this is an entire topic of discussion. I expected it to be a section of Corbyn's page- and it was- but there's a whole Wikipedia article about it, so you can judge for yourself.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism_in_the_UK_Labour_...
My personal read is, it ain't much different from some stuff in US politics. A bit of horseshoe theory stuff, not that I buy into that at large. But on the right you have politicians making alliances with neo-Nazis, on the left you have fervently pro-Palestine politicians. Both sides are or can be partially motivated by xenophobia, neither side is immune to having a theoretically defensible view possibly motivated by actual prejudice. I myself have been called an anti-Semite over disagreements that I believe to have little to do with religion and much to do with the actions of government agents. So it goes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism_in_the_UK_Labour_...
My personal read is, it ain't much different from some stuff in US politics. A bit of horseshoe theory stuff, not that I buy into that at large. But on the right you have politicians making alliances with neo-Nazis, on the left you have fervently pro-Palestine politicians. Both sides are or can be partially motivated by xenophobia, neither side is immune to having a theoretically defensible view possibly motivated by actual prejudice. I myself have been called an anti-Semite over disagreements that I believe to have little to do with religion and much to do with the actions of government agents. So it goes.
Supposedly Jeremy Corbin said something overly critical of its foreign policy, but I've yet to hear a direct quote I wouldn't myself say in public.
Looks like they recently made up: "UK Labour Party is pro-Israel again, says chair of its visiting friendship group"
"After antisemitism drove Jews away in Corbyn era, MP Steve McCabe says opposition party has returned to traditional Israel-backing stance, but is concerned about the new coalition"
https://www.timesofisrael.com/uk-labour-party-is-pro-israel-...
"After antisemitism drove Jews away in Corbyn era, MP Steve McCabe says opposition party has returned to traditional Israel-backing stance, but is concerned about the new coalition"
https://www.timesofisrael.com/uk-labour-party-is-pro-israel-...
Wow, so you have to be pro-Israel in order to not be considered an anti-Semite?
What about all those Israelis marching against the govt in Israel, are they considered anti-Semites too?
Western political discourse has descended into utter nonsense.
What about all those Israelis marching against the govt in Israel, are they considered anti-Semites too?
Western political discourse has descended into utter nonsense.
There are entire Wikipedia articles on the history of Labour's issues with anti-Semitism- I know, because my link to one was posted before your reply was. The issue is much more nuanced than what you or the person you're replying to are implying.
Proposed leftist economic policy.
St Jeremy led an institutionally anti-semitic Labour Party, clearly documented by the EHRC. Reading that will answer your question.
> immigration sentiment in the Midlands
Like it or not, UK needs (skilled & semi-skilled) immigrants. There are jobs which the citizens do not want to do but still expect world-class, low-cost services. This is where semi-skilled people which used to come from Europe stopped after the brexit.
To fund the welfare system, NHS, old-age care, the govt needs money. This is where high tax paying, skilled immigrants come in.
The govt is not doing much to attract the relevant people (unlike Germany, Canada for example)
Like it or not, UK needs (skilled & semi-skilled) immigrants. There are jobs which the citizens do not want to do but still expect world-class, low-cost services. This is where semi-skilled people which used to come from Europe stopped after the brexit.
To fund the welfare system, NHS, old-age care, the govt needs money. This is where high tax paying, skilled immigrants come in.
The govt is not doing much to attract the relevant people (unlike Germany, Canada for example)
The primary beneficiaries of those low-cost services seem to be the upper deciles, while the indirect harm hits the lower stratas of society. And the net benefit seems entirely unclear, especially when the long-term pension and benefits obligations for immigrants are taken into account.
For example, let's say immigration reduces the cost of housekeeping services from $20 per hour to $15 per hour. That's great for an upper-middle class person who saves a bit of their weekly cleaning bill, but a lower-middle class person saves nothing, because they clean their own house. And the people who were displaced from that semi-skilled industry are now likely looking for jobs in other semi-skilled industries, depressing wages across those classes of jobs.
And of course immigration also contributes to rent inflation and increases in the cost of real estate, which primarily benefits those with significant capital in real estate (again, disproportionately the very wealthy) while driving down disposable income for everyone else.
For example, let's say immigration reduces the cost of housekeeping services from $20 per hour to $15 per hour. That's great for an upper-middle class person who saves a bit of their weekly cleaning bill, but a lower-middle class person saves nothing, because they clean their own house. And the people who were displaced from that semi-skilled industry are now likely looking for jobs in other semi-skilled industries, depressing wages across those classes of jobs.
And of course immigration also contributes to rent inflation and increases in the cost of real estate, which primarily benefits those with significant capital in real estate (again, disproportionately the very wealthy) while driving down disposable income for everyone else.
> The primary beneficiaries of those low-cost services seem to be the upper deciles
Not necessary. For example, NHS is used by a large cross-section of the society. Another example are council services like picking up garbage. You will notice there is a substantial deterioration in these services.
> semi-skilled industry are now likely looking for jobs in other semi-skilled industries
There is a massive shortage of labour in hotels, farms, construction
> rent inflation and increases in the cost of real estate
Yes it does. But this is because of lack of housing supply. Govt is missing new housing targets every year since 2001 [1]. The focus should be to increase the pie instead of being a zero-sum game. The right migrants help you achieve this.
Also, the UK's birth rate is below replacement level [2] and with life expectancy high, UK will increasingly need more tax payers to fund the current standard of living .
[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/61407508
[2] https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsde...
Not necessary. For example, NHS is used by a large cross-section of the society. Another example are council services like picking up garbage. You will notice there is a substantial deterioration in these services.
> semi-skilled industry are now likely looking for jobs in other semi-skilled industries
There is a massive shortage of labour in hotels, farms, construction
> rent inflation and increases in the cost of real estate
Yes it does. But this is because of lack of housing supply. Govt is missing new housing targets every year since 2001 [1]. The focus should be to increase the pie instead of being a zero-sum game. The right migrants help you achieve this.
Also, the UK's birth rate is below replacement level [2] and with life expectancy high, UK will increasingly need more tax payers to fund the current standard of living .
[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/61407508
[2] https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsde...
> There are jobs which the citizens do not want to do
Do you have a shred of evidence to support this?
Do you have a shred of evidence to support this?
Construction: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQPGe6HQlZI
Hotels,pubs,etc: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/food-and-drink/features/british-...
Documentary: Britain's Unemployment Crisis | A Very British Job Agency | Channel 4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVH6pgKyZvE
Taxis/Uber (anecdotal): I rarely see proper english uber drivers.
Hotels,pubs,etc: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/food-and-drink/features/british-...
Documentary: Britain's Unemployment Crisis | A Very British Job Agency | Channel 4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVH6pgKyZvE
Taxis/Uber (anecdotal): I rarely see proper english uber drivers.
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With respect to the "hating Israel" comment, I'd encourage people to read an article written by David Graeber (now, sadly, deceased) in 2019: For the first time in my life, I'm frightened to be Jewish [1]
[1] https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/first-time-...
[1] https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/first-time-...
Yes - and the more focus on “Culture War” topics by the Tories is equally ridiculous. It’s a generational failure of leadership.
irish republican or guns and incest republican?
The latter.
apologies im sure you aren't all pro incest but i couldnt think of how else to call it
[deleted]
Ironic you blame the Tories, since all those industries primarily died of during the 70s, after the collapse of Bretton-woods; when unionist Labour ruled the country by marxist-economist principles.
France and Germany are industrial powerhouses that are ruled by unions. Much more of their GDP comes from manufacturing than the USA, and dramatically more than the UK. It's absolutely possible to build a harmonious and productive system.
It doesn't seem to work the same in the anglosphere though. Unions in Germany at least seem more like guilds, they engage in collective bargaining but also do a lot to ensure high quality work from their members. Less need to focus on the owner/management and more need to focus on the public/customer side of things.
Anglo culture is probably more atomized, with different effects of collective bargaining as a result.
Anglo culture is probably more atomized, with different effects of collective bargaining as a result.
France has smaller manufacturing than the UK [1], neither France or Germany has never been "ruled by unions" the same way that the UK was in the 70s [2]:
> _The most egregious example of waste was the coal industry, hence the strikes. The tax payer was subsidizing coal to the tune of £1.3 billion a year which was real money back then, just under 1% of total national GDP, not including the increased costs to power and steel industries that were prevented from using cheaper alternatives. When the mining union leader Arthur Scargill appeared before a Parliamentary committee and was asked at what level of loss it was acceptable to close a pit he answered “As far as I can see, the loss is without limits.”_
You are just straight up lying at this point. Even in France, unionist lawmaking is one of the reasons _why_ France has so little investment and manufacturing, and Macron was elected on a platform of trying to break it up.
[1] https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/FRA/france/manufacturi....
United Kingdom $274.87B France $262.64B
[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35092534
> _The most egregious example of waste was the coal industry, hence the strikes. The tax payer was subsidizing coal to the tune of £1.3 billion a year which was real money back then, just under 1% of total national GDP, not including the increased costs to power and steel industries that were prevented from using cheaper alternatives. When the mining union leader Arthur Scargill appeared before a Parliamentary committee and was asked at what level of loss it was acceptable to close a pit he answered “As far as I can see, the loss is without limits.”_
You are just straight up lying at this point. Even in France, unionist lawmaking is one of the reasons _why_ France has so little investment and manufacturing, and Macron was elected on a platform of trying to break it up.
[1] https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/FRA/france/manufacturi....
United Kingdom $274.87B France $262.64B
[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35092534
Although it UK appears to be a democracy but in reality it is not. One of its true test is whether the people make the govt implement the key policies they want or whether the will of the people is truly reflected in the way govt conducts its business. It seems there is a big disconnect.
The general sentiment amongst people that no one listens to their plight & problems. I have felt this sentiment since Tony Blair's days. There appears to be a permanent establishment which influences the key policy making no matter which party forms the govt. This is not democracy.
This has resulted into feelings like nothing radical is going to happen to reverse the decline of the British empire.
The general sentiment amongst people that no one listens to their plight & problems. I have felt this sentiment since Tony Blair's days. There appears to be a permanent establishment which influences the key policy making no matter which party forms the govt. This is not democracy.
This has resulted into feelings like nothing radical is going to happen to reverse the decline of the British empire.