How the Conservative party went through Prime Ministers was astounding. The inside bickering of the party was something that I've not seen a major ruling party doing ever.But the rule of the Conservatives was much more disturbing: wildly inept and very mendacious. — mcdoodle
It really seems so. One is simply the lack of long term investments, which would need simply a vision of what the UK would be. But that hasn't happened. I think this commentator nicely sums up the "short terminism", which does explain a lot:We've been in a slow decline since WW2 and the end of Empire. Your analysis is pretty good; Thatcherism and Blairism were both about selling off all the government assets to cover up this decline, and once the assets are gone (to the extent that the health service no longer owns the hospitals it runs) nor the education service its schools), the sums stop adding up and there is "austerity". — unenlightened
Where is the UK going? — ssu
It's the common way to seek culprits, but I try to go a bit further here than just say that politicians have made lousy decisions. The question is why the lousy decisions. And why as @unenlightened put, has the UK been in slow decline since WW2.So, what I can infer from the posts by other members and yourself is that conservatives went too far? From what I understand its not the conservatives, per se; but, the third way politicians? Does that seem accurate? — Shawn
Even if the Conservative Party has dominated the politics of post-war UK, there has been the Attlee administration, Wilson and Callaghan administrations and the fifteen years of Blair and Brown. So the Labor party has had it's share in power here. — ssu
This is a very good observation. Trade unions have had (and have) both positive and negative effects. Rise of Thatcher has to viewed upon the events of the 1970's and events like "Winter of Discontent". If a trade union (or group of them) gets into the situation that it can literally stop the economy, it will use this power. On the other hand, if the impact of trade unions are minimal or diminishes to being nearly non-existent, things like real wages and workers rights do suffer.What has changed though is trade union power. The Wilson era was the last one in which the unions held huge power and influence on policy of either party. Unions were a strong force for raising the living standards of the poor, but also a strong drag on innovation and modernisation. — unenlightened
This is one very British thing: Britons live in very old housing and the production of new housing is very little. Seems to be lot of red tape. Someone could say that one of the objectives is to keep housing prices high in order that there's no trouble to the financial sector. Influx of immigrants won't ease the situation. And the financial sector is the one thing, the last thing that UK has going for it.- the 'right to buy' for social housing tenants has distorted the housing market and the British middle class regard their homes as 'assets' which are supposed to keep appreciating — mcdoodle
Today, the UK banking sector already consists of around 450% of nominal GDP on a residency basis, up from around 100% in 1975. The UK has the largest banking sector, on a residency basis, out of the US, Japan and the 10 largest EU countries.
Get involved in philosophical discussions about knowledge, truth, language, consciousness, science, politics, religion, logic and mathematics, art, history, and lots more. No ads, no clutter, and very little agreement — just fascinating conversations.