I do love this country, but it’s got a lot of problems at the moment. It feels pretty broken, …but it’s still great.
Here are 17 things that need fixing, and 7 reasons for hope. And I think the 7 are bigger than the 17, so all is not lost. But we need to pay more tax, we need stronger and clearer leadership, and we need to come together to do it. We are too divided.
17 problems with the UK (in no particular order):
- The rich-poor divide is increasing
- NHS – huge consumer of money, yet still feels on brink of collapse, low morale of doctors and nurses, waiting lists, queues in A&E, seems to be running on just the goodwill of the great people within it
- Ageing population – resulting in less tax take and more demand, especially the NHS and also social services (a huge and neglected problem) – this is probably the root of the shortage of money which is fuelling most of the other problems)
- Schools / status and quantity of teachers / buildings / syllabus / morale
- Armed forces – funding and size, and inability to control purchasing contracts / focus on expensive kit
- Roads almost all need replacing rather than patching, and in many cases they aren’t even being patched – it’s going to be expensive
- Traffic congestion / public transport not great as an alternative
- Homeless / alcoholism / begging / circular trap
- Drugs: county lines, prevalence of cocaine and normalisation of marijuana
- Lack of police / visibility / tackling of crimes like phone theft and burglary / lack of faith in the police, or even support for them
- Dwindling trust in authority / institutions, undermined by social media and fake news: the BBC, – lawyers, judges, the police and the law,
- Lack of faith in politicians, lack of respect for any of them, lack of decent choice, but then, who would want to be Prime Minister?
- Full prisons
- Prices of houses vs wages means that young people can’t get onto the ladder, have to live at home, never really get their own lives fully
- North/South divide. – does it matter? I think it does.
- Local Councils – many are bankrupt or very underfunded, leaving to graffiti, pavements broken, hedges overgrown, town centres depressing, litter
- City centres and high street shops decaying due to internet shopping, leading to lack of community
Reasons for hope / things we still do have:
- Almost no corruption – you can’t buy exam results, pay your way out of a speeding fine or criminal conviction, MP’s incomes are pretty well monitored most of the time, and our politicians get hammered for taking even a free pair of glasses of giving their PA a handbag.
- Racism isn’t gone but we have less than most other countries and we are getting there.
- Homophobia almost gone, thank goodness.
- Sexism still there but again, better than most countries – female prime ministers, news readers, role models, and starting to get onto boards of directors.
- Smoking is massively reduced now.
- The BBC is still pretty good, (though underfunded and unable to stop the sex scandals for some reason) – but still making many great programmes
- Freedom of speech – we are allowed to criticise the government, the police, the law, wear what we like (within reason), write what we like – as long as it’s not incitement to violence or hate, and that’s great.
I know people will disagree with many of the above, and certainly we’re not perfect, but try most other countries and see if they are any better!!
PS – not listed in either category because I don’t know enough about them, but these might be “once great and now in trouble”…. Let me know what you think.
- The Arts, including music industry and film industry
- Science and tech
- Universities
- Small businesses
- Car industry
- Manufacturing
- North Sea oil
- Links with Europe
- Journalism and quality newspapers
