I am not pretending everything is perfect, but economically the UK is projected by the IMF to grow faster than any other developed G7 Economy in 2014; and at twice the rate of the Eurozone [1]

Debt is high, but the key metric of net debt as a proportion of GDP is decelerating and is forecast by the Office of National Statistics to level out over the next few years and be falling within 3-4 years. [2]

The UK has made cuts to social and welfare budgets, but these cuts are actually smaller than across the Eurozone. Social spending has risen faster since 2000 in the UK than anywhere in the OECD. [3]

There are still issues with wealth disparity (poor vs rich and South-east versus the rest of the country), tax avoidance (mainly corporate), and challenges with reforming the welfare state so that benefits are there for the those that genuinely need whilst not creating a disincentive to those that work. However, saying the UK is mess at the moment, is do dismiss the facts.

[1] http://news.sky.com/story/1238991/imf-sees-uk-growth-remaini...

[2] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-25944653

[3] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10574376/Graphic-Br...

Your comments are not very helpful,as you are quoting growth rates from arbitrarily selected starting points.

The main measure of an economy is GDP per capita. Apart from cyclical fluctuations, the main drivers of GDP per capita are are investment and productivity.

In the UK both of these are below that of the major developed economies.

As for the current growth of the economy-all is not well, as there is a large current account deficit, which is being funded by borrowing from overseas and is not sustainable.

You obviously don't remember the 70s.

Do we have rubbish piling up on the streets, dead people piling up not being buried? Do we have rolling power cuts due to strikes? Are we all on a 3 day week? Massive inflation and interest rates?

The UK is turning the corner after the disastrous spend spend spend! Socialism of the last decade.

I'm interested to see what's around that corner. What is the average price of a London home at the moment - 12x salary? Foreigners are still flocking in, and the market mania seems to be increasing with sellers increasing prices 7% a month. I find it hard to believe this isn't leading to some sort of catastrophe. This site keeps track of the UK housing market: http://www.housepriceviews.com/

The disastrous spending of recent decades has been private spending funded by borrowing not public spending (although arguably the government should have tried to be more counter-cyclical than it was). The recovery happening at the moment is due to borrowing restarting and accelerating and is also the first steps towards the next crisis.

> (although arguably the government should have tried to be more counter-cyclical than it was)

That's a very polite way of acknowledging that the UK government ran a massive deficit-funded spending campaign throughout one of the fattest and longest boom cycle in history.

Public borrowing was small compared to private borrowing, it would have been better to take action to limit bank lending to cool the housing market than to drastically cut public spending. And I don't think many political leaders would have borrowed much less, under the Tories I think both spending and taxes would have been lower which wouldn't have produced better results.

The tax rates the rich pay are lower, but the overall percentage of the tax take paid by the rich is higher. The richest 1% paid 20% of total tax in 1997, 24.4% in 2007 and 29.8% now.

The UK competes with many other places for where the rich want to live. France has had a disaster with their recent proposed 75% tax rate.

The same goes for entrepreneurs - would you register your startup in the USA if the tax rates, especially on capital gains were massively higher than elsewhere? It's also a question of VC capital - would they let you.

It's better for the USA to get it's cut of Facebook's success rather than drive Facebook into a tax haven and get nothing.

The percentage of the tax take goes up because the richest 1%'s income has gone up massively while the bottom 90% has stagnated.

"It's better for the USA to get it's cut of Facebook's success rather than drive Facebook into a tax haven and get nothing."

And the race top the bottom continues.

yea the race to the bottom pretty much defines human progress. It is a great thing. That is why $100 today can get you what a king could not get 200 years ago.

Actually I think it is technological progress that drives what you have described. Take some things that have remained unchanged in the same time period. The price of land, property or gold for example. $100 will get you a lot less of those.

Wages going down for the majority, while a few get a lot richer is hardly what I would describe as progress.