The UK’s Self-Inflicted Economic DECLINE

A look at the many factors behind the UK's dismal economic performance in the past decade. Why some are international external factors, others are self-inflicted.

Text version

Chapters

0:00 State of the UK
0:50 Austerity
2:12 Public Sector Investment
3:34 Taxes going Up
5:51 Dodgy forecasts
8:14 Regional divide
9:28 Productivity puzzle
9:55 Brexit
11:25 Inflation
12:09 Housing
13:09 Balance of Payments
14:06 Overview

Sources:

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ABOUT
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[pollutingpenguin]

It’s so depressing… I love the UK. Moved there back in 2014 after uni, but had to leave again as the cost of living and the general chaotic state of the country became too much. Now I’m back in Denmark and no longer have stress or major worries about governance, if I can see my GP or cost of living.

[scottwales]

Young people of the UK - leave now before it's too late.

[dorincucos]

"it's just expensive to build in the UK" - it's amazing how easily we allowed ourselves to be gaslighted into believing this sorry excuse; simply because we want so badly to believe that our country is above corruption...

[HarryLime]

The system is beyond reform. Our only hope is to stop funding their criminality, collapse the establishment and start living like human beings again.

[TanzaBoy]

The question is why did national debt continue to rise for 11 years during an austerity? What was the point of the austerity!

[ashureg]

Hello from Poland. We've all been there, lads. Good luck :)

[ilikeboringthings]

The country has so much of its wealth tied up in non-productive assets (houses).

[TheNobbynoonar]

I’m no economist, but I thought that selling off the nation’s infrastructure, exporting our manufacturing base and expanding the service ‘industry’ as well fulling the housing boom, importing millions of foreign workers and keeping interest rates low we’re all to the benefit of the UK economy? The economic ‘experts’ have got what they wanted. So why isn’t the UK economy booming?

[Desperate-Drive]

I was born at the peak of modern civilisation just to see it fall 😔

[williampatrickfagan]

Irelands borrows on the 10 year bond market @1.4% less than the UK.
That says something huge about the state of the UK economy

[MegaCooliam]

I'm a medical student in North England, SO HAPPY i have an Irish passport. Godda start learning German again!

[CommonPurpose]

This started way before 2009. The town I live in was so busy on weekends from Thursday to Sunday night a hive of activity.
This was the 90s to 2000s then 2009 was last kick in teeth. I saw factorys and shops good employment vanish. This happened under Blair and Labour Party all they cared about was London I am glad now everyone can see it.

[mikerodent]

To summarise: we're fecked and double-fecked entirely. Who knew?

[mickdowns]

When the Thatcher government decided that manufacturing industry could be replaced by service jobs it was obvious to any objective person that long term economic prospects would suffer. According to the ONS in 1972 production was 70% of the UK economy; in 2023 it was 44%. Those jobs have gone to China, India and other eastern countries, who now make things which we import from the other side of the world. So we gave them the jobs and then we gave them our money for their products - crass stupidity to anyone except a self-serving politician.
Most of those lost manufacturing jobs were located in the north and midlands, so it's no surprise that regional inequality has worsened. Instead of protecting and developing our industries like the Germans do, the tories and new "labour" let foreign interests buy them up and asset strip them in the interests of globalisation and cheap goods. The tories are self-evidently an utter disaster for the country, but unfortunately Starmer's "labour"party is hardly any better as they are proposing to run with the tories' spending constraints. The current UK political system is designed to preserve the status quo, so we are doomed to stagger on clinging to the coat tails of the US whose only interest is to make money out of us.

[nikolaki]

1:11 seeing that graph took me right back. Osbourne had seen what austerity did to Greece and its tax receipts and he still pursued his fiscal nonsense. Probably out of spite for the unwashed masses.

[Drunkenmeows]

I came back from living in Korea for over a decade at the end of 2022. Still going through reverse culture-shock even over a year on...
The spending over there is spread throughout the country and it's fucking noticeable especially when you come from the UK having lived in the north for your life. No one's left behind and everyone expects there to be progress.
They have a devolved mechanism where regions can rake their own taxes and set there own fiscal strategy for investment and taxation.

[garyh]

There is no Productivity Puzzle - all productivity gains have gone to the top.

[nigelhardy]

This country desperately needs a political class with some ambition and balls. Instead, we have a mindset that is obsessed with cutting expenditures rather than actually investing in the country. A ten-year decline in local authority status and continuously high NHS waiting lists is bad for the country. Is it really going to be a decade before we see someone in parliament with Attlee's ambition and courage to restructure this broken country?

[KLGnation]

I literally can't comprehend why we still think austerity works it's actually pathetic.

[paulinskipukprogressive]

This is very helpful explanation -
clear and no too hard for
non-economists to follow.
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