But how? The entire economy of the city of London is based on being the word's money laundering capital, vacation playground and best buddy for Russian Oligarchs, Saudi Royals, CCP big shots and other wealthy dictators and warlords. It's Thacher's legacy.
Brits never saw a social revolution, and it shows.
Is pretty much the entire economy of the UK.
Yes Thatcher had her part to play, but election after election after referendum, the will of the people is more of the same Great British exceptionalism.
Of course, because you probably don't have to live with any serious consequences of your choices, and you're most likely unaffected by these ones either.
Almost half if not more than half of the population in a democracy usually doesn't get to make a realistic choice, they voted for the losers without enough power to enact anything.
Most people don't get to live with the result of their choices but the result of others'. This means the pain is lessened for those responsible, and heightened for others. Are they allowed to moan without triggering your sensibilities? How would you know which is which?
Then realistically you probably didn't get to "suffer" the real consequences from most of your democratic process related choices. If you voted for leadership that went on to wage an illegal war you don't get to bear any of that responsibility. People love to bang their own drum about democracy, and freedoms, and their power, and the contribution they made. Until you bring up what the leaders they chose did. And then it's no longer their responsibility, then it's just a stamp on a paper, not a share of the responsibility. What are the consequences you suffer for something like that?
An example of this that I have heard many times is that of Blair and Iraq.
However now the situation is more interesting as Brexit was done to themselves, not others (though that does not make any suffering ok).
Part of my point is that unanimity (amongst the people) in democracy is pretty much unheard of. So Brexit was not done by everyone. Realistically it wasn't even done by a majority of the population. All the others are in for the ride despite being against it.
Democracy may be the best system we've got now but it sure sucks sometimes. It's why it's called the dictatorship of the majority, and many countries are democratic and yet have very little protections for the different minorities, particularly the ones who have no chance of becoming a majority anytime soon.
The other part of the point is that most times people don't suffer from some of their decisions despite taking credit for any when it suits them. Similar to sport fans where when their team wins "we won", and when it loses "they lost".
Public support of the Iraq war went hand in hand with the UN both finding WMDs and approving action[0].
The lies about Brexit are pretty infamous: from £350m/week for the NHS to stoking immigration fears and the fabrication of EU powers.
While it's disappointing that people are convinced by these types of lies, I'm not sure they're fully to blame; or that it does much good to do so. The bigger question is how do you combat these lies. The ones that seem to tickle the part of the brain where factual arguments don't seem to have much sway.
It doesn't help that elections are also just popularity contests and charades of endless lies and empty promises. Your average voter is far too I'll equipped to make informed judgements on complex issues making them easy to influence through fear mongering by groups with vested interests in seeing the results they want.
Everything is fucked.
Having lived in Zurich for many years, those are fightin' words! /j
The irony - she was mail order bride that just got her Swiss citizenship.
> we spend probably half an hour in Zurich trying to find someone that knows the place and speak German or French at acceptable level to give us directions. It was during the late evening and out of 15 people we stopped like one was swiss.
Stopped...successfully? And does Swiss German count as "an acceptable level of German" :)? I don't find it hard to believe that 14 people would pass you by (as people would in a major city), but I find it hard to believe that out of 14 people, none would speak the major national languages.
It was mostly amusing. Not bad in any way.
The general feeling towards Russia in the UK is very hostile, and there are certainly a huge number of people happy to put the squeeze on Putin. There is little to no enthusiasm for appeasement here, and the pressure is on the government to ease the pressure on the vulnerable without bending over to Russian foreign policy.
[0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Litvinenko
[1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Sergei_and_Yuli...
It’s complicated though, as the money is loved, despite the toxic effect on property prices and political parties.
While BJ has made a show of his support for Ukraine, his relationship with Russia has been interesting.
I am prepared to believe that until next week they are fully aware that the people who will elect them genuinely don't care about the poor. After that I hope the idea of getting re-elected by the public will induce a sudden change of plan, if not heart.
The rest of the G7 at least seem prepared to shield their population as much as possible through planning and government intervention, which is probably why they seem much less concerned.
On top of that, the answer to the pain of the current sanctions isn't to go back to relying on Russian gas. It's to pump covid levels of investment into alternatives that don't require us to prop up quasi-dictatorships in order to keep the lights on.