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Comment by barrkel | Hacker News Reader

This smells a lot like using correlation to hypothesize causation. You could tell a different story about richer cities being able to afford better public transport.

Subjectively, most UK cities feel less dense than many continental cities, with less apartment living and more urban streets with two story terraced houses. Could tell a similar story about that.

UK laissez-faire local government combined with tribal politics making the ruling party incentivized to starve those local governments of funding - especially transfer funding when Tories are in power and Tory local government is usually restricted to rich areas not needing transfer funding - more material for storytelling.

IMO the UK political culture is toxic, education is particularly poor. Everything is centered on London and yet all the elite live outside in the green belt, while crime driven by inequality is rising and police numbers are continually cut, and legal aid is also being cut, leading to mistrials and slow cases due to self representation, and free movement is attacked by all sides.

I'm looking for the exit. This place is sick. The next domino will be something even more extreme, and it's chance whether it's left or right extremism.

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I think you’re making the UK to sound a lot worse than it is. The crime rate is still relatively low and on par with most Western European countries. And I don’t see how education is poor the UK has some of the best universities in the world, and decent schools. In fact the number of people with degrees has been slowly rising.

The UK is a great place to live and work, don’t let this comment tell you otherwise. Everyone on the internet seems to catrophise things

And yet the country voted for Brexit, mostly without even knowing what they were voting for.

I agree with the OP that politics in the UK are toxic. There are only 2 parties that matter, and they are essentially the same, even though they would have you believe differently. The parties never work together, and spend all their time shamelessly sniping at one another and blocking bills based on political points scoring. It doesn't feel like either party wants what is best for the populace.

Then you have the tabloid media, which constantly fans the flames of hatred and outrage, poisoning the minds of a large part of the populace, essentially able to make them believe almost anything that suits the narrative of the owner's political affiliation.

> And yet the country voted for Brexit, mostly without even knowing what they were voting for.

Well obviously enough thought it was the right option.

>I agree with the OP that politics in the UK are toxic. There are only 2 parties that matter, and they are essentially the same, even though they would have you believe differently. The parties never work together, and spend all their time shamelessly sniping at one another and blocking bills based on political points scoring. It doesn't feel like either party wants what is best for the populace.

That how government works. You have the main party in power and the official opposition that tries to block bills it doesn't agree with. It has been like this for centuries.

> Then you have the tabloid media, which constantly fans the flames of hatred and outrage, poisoning the minds of a large part of the populace, essentially able to make them believe almost anything that suits the narrative of the owner's political affiliation.

I agree with you on this I don't think it is a problem unique to the UK. And I think it'll get better because the sales of newspapers is decreasing.

> right option

Well, indeed. If you ask the usual humans if they want to eat, sleep, work, have fun, and also go grab a drink, yes, they want all of that at the same time.

People are rarely consistent in their wants, and it's no surprise that the voters eat up the imperial nostalgia. The UK will negotiate the best deals. Ah yea, sure you will. Naturally in the free time left after negotiating brexit itself.

> unique to the UK

no, alas this irrationality is endemic.

> Well obviously enough thought it was the right option

While I voted remain, I agree that we have to respect the outcome of the vote. But politicians on both sides told lies and half-truths, and many voters really didn't know what they were voting for - and of course some were simply ignorant, whipped up into a xenophobic frenzy by the tabloid press. The whole things has been a shambles, and demonstrates just how fucked up out political landscape is.

> That how government works. You have the main party in power and the official opposition that tries to block bills it doesn't agree with.

That's not how it's working though - my point is that Labour will block bills based on political points scoring, not because they actually disagree with the bill.

While Labour is not in power you won't get anything out of them about what they would actually do in this or that situation - they refuse to have an opinion on anything (but will invariably spout "well, we've been very clear"), and seem to exist to heckle the Conservatives

> ...and of course some were simply ignorant, whipped up into a xenophobic frenzy by the tabloid press.

Are you saying that those who voted to leave because of immigration issues were ignorant of what they were voting for?

Some, not all of them of course.

But some believe any old shit that vile hate rags like the Daily Mail bombard them with - let's not pretend that xenophobia and ignorance don't exist among voters in the UK.

> ...vile hate rags like the Daily Mail

What about from the GOV.UK website? [1]

[1] https://www.ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov.uk/crime-jus...

You apparently believe this data somehow proves your point... which in a roundabout way, kind of proves mine.

The data you've linked to doesn't give any figures for immigrants - presumably most of the people of Black, Asian and Mixed ethnicities are actually British.

>That how government works. Not in Germany.

> the UK has some of the best universities in the world

Let's not confuse leading research groups with general education quality. UK undergrad and PhD courses are short and their funding model makes difficult for universities to fail students (this is similar to what happens with master degrees all over the world).

I'm a master's student in the UK so I'm not really sure what you mean by 'short courses'? The UK follows the Bologna process and bachelor degrees are 3 years, masters 1, PhDs are 3 years.

I'm not, Oxford and Cambridge are always in the top 5 universities in the world don't see how you can argue they are not.

Nitpick: Scottish undergraduate degrees are typically 4 years - the education system being completely different up here.

And in Germany, Spain, etc. Plenty of places.

> The UK follows the Bologna process and bachelor degrees are 3 years, masters 1, PhDs are 3 years.

That is not true for every European country. In lots of them bachelors last 4 years, and some degrees just morphed their old plans in undergrad+masters as a way to keep them longer (5-6 years). As far as I know, placements years are unusual too.

You also does not need a master to get a PhD in the UK. I have met plenty of 23-24 year olds with PhDs there.

And again, the biggest problem is than most teachers cannot fail more than a small percentage of their students, even if they are absolutely terrible.

> I'm not, Oxford and Cambridge are always in the top 5 universities in the world don't see how you can argue they are not.

Even if Oxford/Cambridge/Imperial have excellent undergrad courses (as I am sure they have good PhD courses), that does not change the reality of the other 200. At some point, by the way, I was doing a PhD in a top 4 UK university. And I can tell you that the quality of undergrad courses I saw was questonable at best.

Yet in 8 years of mythical "austerity" the Tories have managed to gut every service to breaking point. Education is so broken that tertiary education has become an exercise in marketing and delivering least for the £9k a year. Schools are so starved of funding that 80% report being in crisis, as do Police, NHS, libraries, well everything really.

Local government funding is more centrally funded that at any point in UK history, and the last 8 years have brought an insane skewing of an already heavy skew in favour of London and the South East. The North-South divide is 2:1 for pounds spend by government now.

8 years to destroy every achievement of inclusion and protection since the war. 8 years to put a third of UK children into poverty and a welfare system actively designed to get people to choose to give up. The bastards even knew that whilst rolling it out.

I'm also looking to leave. I really, really don't want my retirement here any more as we abolish everything that was once worthwhile about the country and rush to public services that work as well as the US (ie not at all).

The UK has become, surprisingly quickly, a terrible place to live and work, with widespread poverty and low wages, and a job market devoted to zero hours contracts for all.

> he UK has become, surprisingly quickly, a terrible place to live and work, with widespread poverty and low wages, and a job market devoted to zero hours contracts for all.

I wouldn't say 2.8 % [1] of UK works on zero hour contracts mean the job market is 'devoted' to zero hour contracts. Just because it is in the news a lot doesn't mean it happens all the time.

Honestly your post makes it seems like the UK is this corrupt, broke country when it couldn't be further from the truth.

All I see is posts against the tories online but every election they've been the majority.

[1] https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwor...

Age and education selection when comparing HN with general population.

> makes it seems like the UK is this corrupt, broke country when it couldn't be further from the truth.

If so, how is it that we no longer fund $service adequately any more (where $service is any and all of them)? How is that possible after so much has been privatised leaving so many fewer to fund publicly? Why can't we afford enough police?

Why can't we afford adequate library provision? Interesting that parliament keeps their public library though, isn't it?

How is it that in a time of highest levels of employment food banks have grown from barely existing to being everywhere? Could it be that policy has resulted in deliberately inadequate welfare provision? How, in a time of such extensive employment, are wage rises barely noticeable?

If your definition is a few incoming oligarchs buying up expensive property they never set foot in, or someone putting up a willy waving skyscraper sure UK is doing great. By every other measure, including levels of mental health, poverty, satisfaction etc, UK has effectively shot itself.

Oh, and don't hold up Tories being elected as some sort of proof when our democracy is one of the least representative on the planet[1]. Our system is biased both systemically and demographically.

It feels like a corrupt, broke country, especially after a visit to London. It feels like somewhere to be deeply embarrassed of, and I mostly am these days.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9rGX91rq5I CGP Grey's "Why the UK Election Results are the Worst in History" on the 2015 results.

Seems like your pet peeve is the Tories. I mean i still think you’re massively over exaggerating, the UK is one of the best places to do live and do business.

Maybe read other news stories apart from the ones that aren’t just anti-Tory.

Not really - the system is just as unrepresentative for Tory voters in safe Labour seats. The net result is extreme lack of representation for just about everyone. It's the system that's broken - it's only functional for a two party system, yet still breaks for individual constituencies.

My real peeve is what the party system has become, even compared to when I first joined the voting electorate during Thatcher's first term.

The centralisation, and disenfranchisement and corrupt use of private capital in PPP was just as bad under New Labour.

Anti Tory sources? Thanks, that made me smile. For most of my life the Telegraph and weekend FT were the primary sources delivered to house, with Economist and New Scientist subs. I'd buy a Guardian periodically for balance, sometimes the FT full time. I no longer read the Telegraph since it became a rubbish tabloid Daily Mail 2.0 which leaves only Reuters, Guardian and to a lesser extent Independent as serious UK sources online.

The UK is a broke corrupt country. It has levels of inequality and institutional corruption the US can only dream of.

There has been no public service ethic in government since the 80s. Government has become a tool for leveraging policy for personal and corporate wealth extraction and the promotion of privilege. Promotion of common welfare and social investment are currently absolutely taboo.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/apr/07/mp-owen-pat...

The reason the Tories keep scraping through election wins is because the UK media are institutionally right-wing. The Tories rely on a base of confused pensioners and - increasingly - dog whistle racists. Latterly, BBC editorial has been obviously compromised, with BBC News failing to challenge or question government policy in any way, and selective reporting making dissent seem either small or irrelevant.

The result is that British voters are probably some of the least educated and informed in all of Europe.

None of this is good. I left the UK last year, and I genuinely fear for the future of the people I left behind. Historically, the next step in this kind of post-imperial malaise is traditionally a military dictatorship. I hope the UK can pull itself together and avoid that, but I worry that it's going to be a very close thing.

What countries do you recommend to move to?

Well thanks for bailing, and thanks for the advice to those you've left behind. Your hopes are greatly appreciated and I am sure that if we do manage to avoid military dictatorship we will all be very grateful for your help and assistance in avoiding this dire situation.

> All I see is posts against the tories online but every election they've been the majority.

They got 36.9% at the last election.

They also fought against moving towards proportional representation because they knew it reduce their power.

Centralized retirement is such an opaque system.

Invest into a system for 30 years so the older generation can live comfortable lives off your investments. The same generation being in power, guts your retirement because of austerity.

The tension across generations is so large today, that I wonder if systems that establish intergenerational dependencies are ethical anymore.

Why should a generation that enjoyed cheap education, be able to pull the ladder from behind them once they're done?

Unpopular opinion, but I've wondered if in its pursuit of fairness, Democracy allows a people that are unaffected by a change to blissfully ruin things for those who are adversely affected by it.

IMO, social democracies aren't equipped to deal with an "I got mine" tendency rooted in looser associations with traditional social structures. (such as family, religion or local communities. Not preaching, I am an aethist)

It should be noted that now ~45% of the UK population enter tertiary education vs <15% a thirty years ago [1]. This shift is necessary economically and yet politically unsustainable from general taxation. The shift to a debt driven system has been driven by this.

[1]http://www.lse.ac.uk/assets/richmedia/channels/publicLecture...

I've had similar sentiments, especially after enjoying life outside of the UK. Admittedly, part of that was supported by a London salary, although I could have lived on far less. The quality of life here, compared to other (even less well off) places is shockingly poor for how expensive it is, unless you're wealthy enough to avoid most of the problems (including the tax burden).

I'm fine with staying in the UK in the short term but I have huge misgivings about starting a family and raising kids here. If I were to do so, they'd be enjoying the things that most people here don't have the luxury of (private education, etc.).

IMHO the UK is not as bad as described by the OP, but it has certainly some issues that should be addressed ASAP.

I am an expat that has been living in Oxford & Cambridge for many years, after living in many other countries.

Upon arrival, I was shocked at how bad the public transport was in Cambridge. Different bus companies, incompatible tickets, unreliable schedules and extortionate prices. Trains are a bit better, but nothing to be proud of.

Second shock comes from car commutes. South & East England is pretty flat. But the road network really needs an upgrade. For example, highway interchanges are often roundabouts (!) leading to absolutely massive jams.

Thus, what would be a regular commute to work in mainland Europe by either public transport or car (say Buckingham to Oxford) is a bit of a nightmare and thus something nobody does.

Third thing is housing. Bad quality, and land controlled by a few leads to really high prices. Plus, low density and the aforementioned transport issues make it really hard to buy in cheap places that are a bit far away.

Lastly, education is expensive and there is a lot of elitism. In the US, I think it's not so difficult to get into e.g. Stanford if you come from a poor background as long as you work hard and get really nice SAT scores. However, in Oxbridge admissions are heavily biased towards high end schools. The only students from poor backgrounds I have personally met had exceptional achievements in their CV (e.g. IMO medals).

> Second shock comes from car commutes. South & East England is pretty flat. But the road network really needs an upgrade. For example, highway interchanges are often roundabouts (!) leading to absolutely massive jams.

Roundabouts are actually way more efficient than junctions (and a lot safer) because of the low speed. I can imagine it must have been a big shock coming from the US tho.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4PW66_g6XA&t=507s

> Third thing is housing. Bad quality, and land controlled by a few leads to really high prices. Plus, low density and the aforementioned transport issues make it really hard to buy in cheap places that are a bit far away.

I mean the UK is a small place and supply/demand tells us the land is going to be expensive.

Roundabouts are fine for cars on slow to medium speed roads - 20 to 40mph at a push. But they are a lot less efficient for longer trips. You don't get roundabouts on motorways or big dual carriageways. Slip roads and grade-separated junctions - often grade-separated roundabouts - are more efficient for time.

Grade separated junctions also take up a lot of space and divide communities, so I'm not 100% in favour.

Not true. Motorway exits are normally a roundabout, with busiest exit slip roads traffic light controlled. Sometimes the roundabout is broken up with more extensive lights. A defining characteristic of motorways is the absence of junctions on the actual motorway.

Dual carriageways sometimes adopt a motorway approach, with traffic light controlled slips, but are mainly roundabouts for junctions. It's been a while, but even on the A1, outside the A1M bits.

It is not true that motorways go straight into roundabouts. They normally use sliproads to grade separated roundabouts.

There's a slip road on and off the motorway and a roundabout at the end of motorway restrictions. That is straight into a roundabout. There are no junctions on motorways themselves. That was the whole point.

> highway interchanges are often roundabouts (!) leading to absolutely massive jams

A common quip in the UK is that the solution to any traffic problem is to build a roundabout. I agree they are terrible in congested areas, but I think Brits have a certain fondness (or stubbornness) for them.

> Lastly, education is expensive and there is a lot of elitism. In the US, I think it's not so difficult to get into e.g. Stanford

Stanford is far more elite than Oxbridge - I don't know how you could think otherwise. The price of admission makes it so, plus extreme competition. It's a poor comparison.

> Stanford is far more elite than Oxbridge

Anecdotally, I know several people unable to crack Oxbridge that walked into Standford.

That being said, both are elite and I don’t think a sane case can be made for either being “far more elite” than the other.

> The price of admission makes it so

Stanford, like most first-tier US universities, is both need-blind admission and full-demonstrated-need financial aid (for US students).

Same here, and no one ends up paying back their tuition fees. It’s basically a graduate tax on earnings over £25,000

There are a lot better places to live.

I don't like UK outside of London - I find it either sad and worn out with the same cloned high streets repeating every 50 miles, or smugly self-satisfied villages with wealthy people living in houses with names instead of numbers.

London itself is pretty good. It is, however, quite squalid, and crime is getting worse. Best thing going for it is the wages are pretty decent, for Europe. Population density could be a lot higher though, and property cheaper.

I'd like to take London, and plop it into the Alps - somewhere near Grenoble - or the Mediterranean - somewhere near Barcelona, though Barcelona already has a much higher quality of life, IMO. Take London out of England, and it would be fantastic.

By education, I mean primary and secondary. UK exports education at third level and it's pretty good.

Pop up to Liverpool one day and see what you think. Best when it isn't raining and the wind isn't too strong.

Bold Street and Jamaica Street might be good starting points, then there is Renshaw Street and the Baltic area.

> Best when it isn't raining and the wind isn't too strong.

So.... never then?

I have years of sunburn to prove that the Mersey can be warmer than Spain...you just have to pick your times.

I agree. A better title for the article might be something like "wealthy individuals in the UK matter; others merely exist as distractions".

For my entire adult life this has been the case, Labour or Conservative. I'm not sure how far back you'd have to go for it to be different (if ever).

The country is fundamentally set up around the idea of an elite having a good life whilst a large number of underlings scramble for the scraps.

The provinces are an inconvenient frustration.

I agree with most everything you say, but it's worth noting that the problems you mention leading to "poor productivity" are pretty much "all of politics". I think this is what you are getting at - its not one thing, but it's how we arrange everything- from funding justice systems to effective road transport and ensuring all citizens feel heard and engaged.

Brexit has at least pushed "everything" on to the agenda - but sadly it's again too simple solutions that are the problem.

I understand your desire to go - I just don't think the grass will be any greener elsewhere.

Perhaps we just need a reboot

> Subjectively, most UK cities feel less dense than many continental cities, with less apartment living and more urban streets with two story terraced houses

I suspect this depends upon the part(s) of the UK that you visit. If you were in Glasgow, or Edinburgh, up in Scotland you'd find that the majority of people live in tenements:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenement

There are huge swathes of the country where people live in terraced homes, and still more where people have detached/semi-detached. I suspect if you wandered around in London you'd find both of those, as well as the ubiquitous tower-blocks.

Crime driven by inequality? It's very plausibly driven by poverty, poor educational system and extreme social marginalisation (i.e. lack of good social capital), but these are not the same thing as "inequality".

I don’t see a huge difference. Social marginalisation is indeed huge here in Britain.

I couldn't find a paper with a quick google, but i did hear in a recent podcast that it is exactly income inequality (as measured by the Gini coefficient) rather than absolute poverty that is the biggest predictor in criminality.

Here is a clip that mentions it; if I can find a paper to reference i'll edit this comment when I get home:

https://podverse.fm/clips/BJE2hv7gZ

Edit: The connection was made specifically with violent crimes. Here is an article about it that has links to some research papers:

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/10/does-in...

Yes, please, I'd be interested by a reference

Yet violent crime has been dramatically decreasing while inequality has been increasing over the last 25 years in the US?

I don't have a good answer for that observation, I was just repeating what I had recently heard. It's not clear how localized the measured effect is, ie. how proximate the inequality must be. It's possible that since the top 1% is getting so much more disproportionately wealthy, it might in fact be making the rest of America more equal to each other. Maybe (wild guess on my part) there is less average difference between the poor in a neighborhood, and the middle class in the same area. The wealth inequality is hidden in statistics and is not so much in our faces.

I work in Farringdon and live in Enfield. I commute through Tottenham. I've been attacked in Tottenham twice in the past couple of years.

This is a pattern through a lot of London. Central London has a lot of well-paid workers, but even then almost nobody can afford to live there, unless they're happy with tiny flats or sharing. So they commute to nicer homes outside the city center. And the slums - and Tottenham is essentially a slum - see these well-off people travel through their area, and try to take what they can, because they can't see a route out.

The issue is that in a place like London inequality rapidly leads to poverty because the income/wealth differentials are so high.

On the ground, at the moment, housing is monopolised by those with decent careers or established wealth.

From scratch?

Someone a few years into a career in a well paid field may be able to afford a flat or house quite far out. A bog standard middle class worker may be able to afford to rent a small flat.

Someone working in the supermarket full time will be sharing a flat or house; someone worse than that (e.g. children of the above, part-time or unemployed) will likely be more than one to a room unless they managed to acquire social housing when it was still available.

Overcrowded housing leads to high stress levels, arguments, kids spending their time on the street, all sorts of nonsense.

Where would you move to?

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