People just don’t have the money to spend on things. Wage growth is non-existent and prices have risen dramatically. For my own part I have get a real “we’ve tried nothing and we’re all out of ideas” feeling. All we ever hear on the news is how spending will have to be cut yet again and taxes will have to go up.
Being from Northern Ireland I personally hope for unification with Ireland, although without significant changes I worry nothing much will change as Ireland has its own very similar issues.
We have a housing deficit, so abandoned houses are unusual, and mostly in places where people are moving away.
However "having transitioned quite well out of the factory economy" is definitely too rosy. We did "what the market wanted" but it turns out the market is not a strategist. And we have too large a population to exist purely as an offshore financing hub.
Unemployment has been low most of the past decade, although it is rising this year.
De-industrialisation is much exaggerated because there is a perception that the UK makes nothing because there are so few British branded consumer goods, but there are a lot of things made in the UK either foreign branded (e.g. Nissan cars) or parts or non-consumer goods (from drugs to satellites to get engines). While we are at the bottom end compared to other large developed economies, its only marginally so compare to, for example, France or Canada. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NV.IND.MANF.ZS?end=2024...
I have lived in two English counties (Warwickshire and Cheshire) in the last few years, and have visited a lot of different places this summer (from Somerset to York to Liverpool to Cambridgeshire and a few other places) and overall its a pretty pleasant country to live in in terms of everyday life. A lot of places (Manchester and Coventry, for example) seem to have improved over the last decade or two.
There are some issues with (lack of) policing IMO, such as the reluctance to investigate "minor" crimes, but this is not entirely new.
> The propagandists would have you believe that there is a massive crime wave and social breakdown due to immigration, but what people are mostly worried about in actuality is job uncertainty and backlogged public services.
I think politicians like to play up immigration as an issue because it distracts attention from their real failures. Both the big parties are try to cling to consensus policies that have failed.
> most people expect a difficult few years and are sceptical that the government knows how to fix the issues (and that vested interests won't prevent the solution)
I agree entirely. On the other hand I think the west in general faces the same problems.
Generally there is a lot of propaganda around at the moment, so take that with a pinch of salt. The UK is not as well off as the US generally, but this does not mean there is a breakdown of society or law and order.
The propagandists would have you believe that there is a massive crime wave and social breakdown due to immigration, but what people are mostly worried about in actuality is job uncertainty and backlogged public services.
There are areas of wealth and of deprivation both inside and outside London. There is political and economic uncertainty because the UK economy is imbalanced, and most people expect a difficult few years and are sceptical that the government knows how to fix the issues (and that vested interests won't prevent the solution)