UK in 5 years: what’s your prediction?
Discussion
I have to say, I’m increasingly concerned about where this country is headed. It feels like we’re seeing a sharper decline across economic security, political leadership, and social stability.
Is anyone else sensing that things are deteriorating faster than before? Would be interested to hear different perspectives.
Is anyone else sensing that things are deteriorating faster than before? Would be interested to hear different perspectives.
Cheese on Toast with Worcestershire Sauce said:
I have to say, I’m increasingly concerned about where this country is headed. It feels like we’re seeing a sharper decline across economic security, political leadership, and social stability.
Is anyone else sensing that things are deteriorating faster than before? Would be interested to hear different perspectives.
With regards the bit in bold I'm inclined to agree but I'm curious as to whether people were of the same opinion fifty or a hundred years back?Is anyone else sensing that things are deteriorating faster than before? Would be interested to hear different perspectives.
Cheese on Toast with Worcestershire Sauce said:
I have to say, I’m increasingly concerned about where this country is headed. It feels like we’re seeing a sharper decline across economic security, political leadership, and social stability.
Is anyone else sensing that things are deteriorating faster than before? Would be interested to hear different perspectives.
Yes. I think Britain is deteriorating fast. I predict watching it unfold from another country.Is anyone else sensing that things are deteriorating faster than before? Would be interested to hear different perspectives.
The economy will not have grown. The Government / We will not be able to finance the increased debt. Immigration into this country will have fallen but for the wrong reason, The people with skills that we needed will not want to come. Frustration fuelled by a materialistic media will increase envy, and social unrest.
Our soft immigration policies over the last 15-20 years have changed the fabric of the country. We've imported overwhelming bad amongst the good because we think we know more about Islam than Islamic countries; because of political correctness, virtue signalling or ignorance, I don't know but it now feels like a disaster.
I feel like public opinion is slowly changing to be more accepting of tighter immigration measures but I fear it's too little too late, in 5 years we will just see further erosion of what we consider British society and values and more issues related to religion and culture clashes.
I feel we are going down the same path as the U.S. with increasing government public debt, higher demand from the voters with less resources to deliver this, and lower tolerance to hard work to achieve this.
The only saving grace is that I believe we are a few years behind the U.S. so we can watch how it falls apart but it happens to us.
The only saving grace is that I believe we are a few years behind the U.S. so we can watch how it falls apart but it happens to us.
Tango13 said:
With regards the bit in bold I'm inclined to agree but I'm curious as to whether people were of the same opinion fifty or a hundred years back?
A hundred years back in before even my time. But 50 years ago yes. Up until recently I used to say that what was so depressing about the 1970s wasn't so much economic downturn with inflation and unemployment. It was the feeling that it wasn't a cyclical downturn but an inevitable national decline and that even aspiring to reverse it was somehow in poor taste.But in the last few years that sense of inevitable doom seems to have returned, along with many of the same environmental panics.
Some people put the change in attitude after the 1970s down to Mrs Thatcher or to the Falklands war, and both had something to do with it But I first noticed the turnaround with the Iranian embassy siege. Hostages had been taken and we all expected that in true 70s style the terrorists would get away after some kind of fudge.
Instead somebody somewhere decided that (even though UK Iranian relations were much like UK Russian now) 'we can't have that, these terrorists are taking liberties' and resolved the issue by force. There was suddenly a sense that not everything should be approached with fatalistic pessimism, that sometimes even the UK could actually achieve something and a problem could be solved rather than treated as an excuse for regulation or self sacrifice.
I think Boris Johnson did try to achieve the same change of attitude at first albeit cack handedly. Providing weapons to Ukraine was certainly in the right spirit. But on the whole we seem to be moving the other way with suffocating state intervention.
Most politicians now get that growth is urgently required, and that growth comes from trade and innovation, but what they don't seem to get is that trade and innovation are in turn downstream of economic freedom. We're getting tax increases, big minimum wage increases, 'nudges', green levies, green regulations, even a 'football regulator' of all things. While politicians wonder why the economy is flatlining. We (not just the UK) are trying to get a 1980s boom with 1970s policies.
You could probably write an encyclopaedia on this.
But I feel we’ve lost a lot of graft and engineering capability. We've lost our steel and aluminium processing plants.
We’ve failed to innovate in many areas, nuclear power should have been pushed years ago, but that takes time and politics is all short termism.
I remember someone posted a clip of Nic clegg saying he wasn’t going to approve a nuclear power plant as it wouldn’t be ready until x year, and that was reposted in the x year we had challenges in our electric production.
Once you’ve lost engineering talent and increased red tape it’s hard getting it back. Look at how HS2 has become a national embarrassment.
But I feel we’ve lost a lot of graft and engineering capability. We've lost our steel and aluminium processing plants.
We’ve failed to innovate in many areas, nuclear power should have been pushed years ago, but that takes time and politics is all short termism.
I remember someone posted a clip of Nic clegg saying he wasn’t going to approve a nuclear power plant as it wouldn’t be ready until x year, and that was reposted in the x year we had challenges in our electric production.
Once you’ve lost engineering talent and increased red tape it’s hard getting it back. Look at how HS2 has become a national embarrassment.
thetapeworm said:
Potentially Mad Max but with people fighting over electricity and Internet access rather than guzzolene.
Or just more of this I guess.
that would be good then people can get racy haircuts and glare at you a bit which would make them look naughty. I unfortunately have been there and done that many decades ago and am now a slap head. Or just more of this I guess.
They still won't have finished HS2 and it'll be even more over budget.
Unsure whether I'll have a job (Automotive)
Probably still won't have bought a house despite saving as best as I can. Rachel will probably find a way of getting her hands on the money.
I'm 35. I have never felt less optimistic about the future than I do at this moment in time. Try and just focus on my own life but it seems like everything is broken, far too often, particularly since COVID, relying on anyone to do their job properly is an absolute ball ache. We just can't get anything done in this country efficiently now.
We have a government that seems to despise any sort of aspiration or success, and then when you look across the political spectrum, left, right or centre, there is no-one else worth voting for. They are all self serving t
ts and you're just choosing how quickly you want to drive off the cliff.
There's very little future to buy into right now.
...and breathe...
Unsure whether I'll have a job (Automotive)
Probably still won't have bought a house despite saving as best as I can. Rachel will probably find a way of getting her hands on the money.
I'm 35. I have never felt less optimistic about the future than I do at this moment in time. Try and just focus on my own life but it seems like everything is broken, far too often, particularly since COVID, relying on anyone to do their job properly is an absolute ball ache. We just can't get anything done in this country efficiently now.
We have a government that seems to despise any sort of aspiration or success, and then when you look across the political spectrum, left, right or centre, there is no-one else worth voting for. They are all self serving t
ts and you're just choosing how quickly you want to drive off the cliff.There's very little future to buy into right now.
...and breathe...
Edited by WelshPetrolhead on Saturday 24th May 22:02
Tango13 said:
With regards the bit in bold I'm inclined to agree but I'm curious as to whether people were of the same opinion fifty or a hundred years back?
I think we’ve always had a proportion of society who have been miserable.Happy to be corrected but don’t we have the 6th biggest economy in the world, some of the best educated people, a fairly healthy, law abiding and democratic country?
That being said, we’re competing against people who are willing to work 16 hours a day. I think what we’ll see is less money being paid to people to sit around at home for doing nothing for various reasons.
Edited by Countdown on Saturday 24th May 22:15
Monkeylegend said:
Civil war then sharia law.
Glad I am nearing the end.
Eeek.Glad I am nearing the end.
Brother Monkey,
I believe you are correct. In 5 years we're bound to be under the control of some kind of Ultra Salafist Caliphate, ruled by a certain Mufti Mohammed El Yaxley Lennon..... Our spiritual leader (Nige Al Faaraage) will dominate foreign policy and war with the Great Satan (Trumpist USA) is inevitable. The immigrant hordes will overwhelm the GI Joes and Nige Al Faaraage will rule the waves once again.
I'm glad I'm not nearing the end..!!
Other than that, I guess things will stay largely the same.
In much the same malaise, in which it has languished for the past twenty years, with the usual ‘dog whistle politics’ still being practiced.
It’s true that the UK has held a position of some bearing, largely built on its past, which sadly it continues to fritter away; I predict in five years, its influence will be all but none existent
However, on the global front, there will be much change in ‘world order’ largely bought about by the unforeseen consequences of social media’s effect on populist thinking.
Meanwhile the UK will be bickering about things that bugger have all effect on the future of their country, much less the world.
It’s true that the UK has held a position of some bearing, largely built on its past, which sadly it continues to fritter away; I predict in five years, its influence will be all but none existent
However, on the global front, there will be much change in ‘world order’ largely bought about by the unforeseen consequences of social media’s effect on populist thinking.
Meanwhile the UK will be bickering about things that bugger have all effect on the future of their country, much less the world.
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