The UK is declining, and people are starting to notice it. People are blaming the government, and clamouring for more support and money, but unfortunately I suspect it’s not that simple. The elephant in the room, in my opinion, is that we simply don’t have the money to maintain the standard of living we once enjoyed. Almost all political conversations here are contingent on this fact, but this underlying problem is rarely discussed.<p>It’s not clear to me _why_ this has happened, I’m not an economist, but it’s clear to me that this is the case. We’ve seen what happens when the government tries to go on a spending spree. Even Labour agree that we need to go into a period of (effective) austerity at this point.
It might not seem like the biggest issue at the moment but the departure from fact based economics seems to me to underly lots of UK’s current issues.<p>One example. They have to find Brexit benefits so we have pointless plans to depart from eu rules. Result is higher costs for businesses and uncertainty for anyone trying to plan.<p>This allowed someone like Truss to get into power with a fantasy economic plan.<p>You can want Brexit for lots of reasons but the denial of its real economic impact has poisoned the discourse about how to manage the U.K. economy.
I genuinely fear for the UK. It's going to be a very different country in ten years, and I fear it will be a weaker, poorer and more divided one.<p>I don't know for sure what the main cause of our current problems is, but I know that it's not a single issue. Brexit, Covid-19 and the war with Russia – not one of these issues alone is the cause of our problems.<p>My hope for the country rests in the fact that it still has wonderful, tough, resourceful people in it, and that it has survived worse catastrophes than this in the past, and come out okay.
It’s worth noting that for a long time, food prices in the UK have been significantly lower than in comparable countries in Europe. I go to France and Germany quite regularly, and to do a supermarket shop in either is significantly more expensive.<p>My wife and I do online shops at Waitrose (which is probably the most expensive supermarket) and at a local butchers and don’t particularly try and save money on food. We spend about £100 a week on average including the delivery cost.<p>Where I’ve noticed increases this year it’s been on milk, butter and some basic vegetables like potatoes. But at the same time - there’s been articles about how dairy farmers were under such competitive pressure in the UK that they’re closing and going out of business in the last couple of years, so to some extent, price rises in that area were inevitable.
I left the UK for the US in 2019. My I-485 was approved this week. I haven't been able to travel back to the UK since 2019 first because of Covid and then because of the pending I-485 petition. I'll be going back for the first time once my card is delivered.<p>Reading about what has been happening over the past years in the UK while sitting in the US is really strange. Sometimes it feels like reading about a cartoonish banana republic in a novel aimed at young teenagers.
Current top post on HN is a Raspberry Pi project: rpi is a British invention.<p>Second is a paper from UCL, based in London.<p>In the top few is a paper by DeepMind, also in London.<p>Yet HN likes to go absolutely nuts about how the UK is “done” at every opportunity.
I’m quite curious how this will end in the UK. Regardless of how much Brexit has to do with this, I think the lack of actual Brexit opportunities and the contribution it has to core inflation is at one point going to change the political landscape.
I think it’s too easy (and tempting) for other countries to sit and poke and hypothesise that a country is falling apart. That was a just a case of sensationalising and far from the truth. As someone presently living in the U.K. it is the same beautiful country full of incredible views, kind people and exciting opportunity that it has always been.<p>Pick any other country, America, France, Brazil, Germany, Australia etc and allow me to also tell you how it is falling apart.
What was the expected cost of Brexit in terms of wage stagnation and inflation relative to EU?<p>Sure, now the cost is added <i>on top of</i> the global average, but the UK economy would be suffering regardless, now it’s just suffering more.<p>But this was a deliberate choice. The Brexit was about “are you willing to pay X to get Brexit?”. Even low estimates of X were pretty bad.
The UK government is pulling financial levers as if this is a financial problem. But while there are several contributing factors, this is overwhelmingly an energy problem.<p>The UK is 20 years behind where it needs to be in terms of nuclear, renewable and storage capacity.<p>There is no silver bullet.<p>It’s going to take 20 years to resolve, and that’s assuming they start today with an Apollo-program-level investment in energy production.
I think one thing to remember is the following:<p>> The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said it was hitting poorer households hardest, as they spent around half of their income on food and energy, compared to about a third for those on middle incomes.<p>The branded foods that middle-income families eat would likely try to absorb as much of the inflation as possible. It's the "no-brand" food that will rise in cost the most, the food that the poorest families eat.<p>For example, Tesco (a popular supermarket in the UK) used to have a brand named "Tesco value" which would sell very cheap items, even at a loss sometimes. See the following examples: <a href="https://youtube.com/watch?v=wZCcuiS0his" rel="nofollow">https://youtube.com/watch?v=wZCcuiS0his</a><p>This brand has since been wiped out almost entirely, replaced with "Stockwell", a much more expensive alternative. There is no longer any 'cheap' alternative. You used to be able to buy a tin of beans for 9p about 10 years ago, in the shop the other day I couldn't find any less than 40p.<p>This wouldn't be a problem if wages also raised at the same rate, but they have been locked as they are in most Countries. The only time we see the wages raise is when then minimum wage legal requirement increases.<p>But this problem is much worse. The government will increase the payments to the non-working due to the increased cost of living, but as a result they will also increase taxes on those who do work. The increased taxes will move even more families into poverty. You have families where both parents work reasonable jobs above minimal wage, barely paying their bills.<p>Not to worry though, the ONS are going to redefine troublesome terms such as 'growth' [1] and 'recession' [2].<p>[1] <a href="https://blog.ons.gov.uk/2022/11/11/inclusive-measures-of-growth-how-ons-is-moving-beyond-gdp/" rel="nofollow">https://blog.ons.gov.uk/2022/11/11/inclusive-measures-of-gro...</a><p>[2] <a href="https://blog.ons.gov.uk/2022/11/11/uncertainty-and-the-r-word-what-exactly-is-a-recession/" rel="nofollow">https://blog.ons.gov.uk/2022/11/11/uncertainty-and-the-r-wor...</a>
The UK Pound collapsed for awhile there and only just now stabilized. But it is still far weaker than it has been for the last 20 years. So of course things cost more Sterling to purchase. Mix in global inflationary pressure and you have the situation as it is today.
Can confirm. My coffee pods went from £2.50 to £3.00 a 20% jump in a matter of month even with coffee wholesale price plummeting over the past year. Why is that?