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I'm not from the UK, but from a distance (the other side of Europe) it looks like UK's ongoing economic implosion seems to also have been caused by the people over there going all in on "the service industry!" sometime in the late '80s - the '90s, and leaving aside almost anything that involved making physical things, from roads to steel to stuff like that.

Imo that might work for a very small country or for a city-state (like Hong Kong or Singapore, even though these also used to make actual stuff), but I don't think you can base the economy of a country as big and developed as the UK is entirely on services. At most you get a pseudo-city-state, which is what London looks like, surrounded by economic "blob". It's not London that built modern UK, but the likes of Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow and, yes, Newcastle and the North-East of England. All those cities might as well not exist now, from an economic pov.

Of course, I might be totally wrong on this as I don't live in the UK, but I've got most of that by reading David Edgerton's The Rise and Fall of the British Nation: A Twentieth-Century History [1] recently. (a Economist editorial from a couple of weeks ago was also quoting David Edgerton, if it matters)

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Rise-Fall-British-Nation-Twentieth-Ce...

Yes, I think this is true.

But it wasn't an active choice. By the early 1980s, most forms of manufacturing had become uneconomic because of union activity. And, amazingly, this is still the case (there is a refinery near me, was bought by Ineos, they had a multi-decade package of investment based on an agreement with the union not to strike, deal closed...union went on strike almost immediately, Ineos never put another pound in, invested heavily in Europe where unions are more co-operative, they are now beginning to shut down the refinery...it is that simple).

The only exception to the places you have listed is Manchester: towards the south of the city, they have built up a really competitive ecomm hub (with the airport, with the port, and with the support of local govt to build warehouses)...inflation has totally destroyed this industry (China subsidizes international shipping, most of these companies fulfilled orders for Europe/US out of the UK...the rise in air freight finished them). Glasgow is largely retail/govt-based, the North-East is seeing very promising investment in the free port but is very troubled, Birmingham muddles through.

The problem with things like manufacturing is that it overlays several areas that are problematic for the UK: planning, infrastructure, labour, labour mobility, energy...none of this stuff works anymore. For example, not many people know that one of the first modern CPU was made in Scotland (this was when Intel were making a similar chip for the first calculator in the early 70s)...but the industry just died in the 80s.

Again, people will talk a lot about deindustrialization but far less about why this happened. In the 60/70s, the govt invested heavily in local production, almost all of these companies failed or were sold to foreign buyers who could manage them properly (Rolls-Royce is the only exception I believe). There was no active choice, all other options were just removed by repeated failure.

I think it was kind of possible to go so hard on services, as part of the EU Single Market. It was a place where the EU concentrated lots of its finance industry, for instance.

We know how that went...

> * Housing - separate from just planning, there are specific rules within the housing market that cause distortions above the planning system failing to produce enough supply. For example, rent controls in Scotland...that caused a 40% drop in rental supply in two weeks, this is economic mismanagement on a grand scale.

Umpteenth reminder that England is the only place on planet Earth where people earning a top 10% salary, that is 70K£ pa, are at constant risk of eviction and live in houses and flats with mice and bed bugs and where children die of mould. Incidentally it is also the country with the least regulated private rental market.

Hardening eviction rules is economic suicide.

The problem with unsuitable housing is a side-effect of lack of supply. If you make it harder to evict, you make it harder to foreclose, make it harder to buy houses (because landlords can only sell to other landlords)...it is very bad news.

This happened almost immediately after Scotland brought in their rules...because politicians there have been blocking new builds for decades (and favouring social housing so people are more dependent on the state).

What is amazing is that this stuff happens, you see the complete failure of a set of economic ideas, and then the next day you have people suggesting the exact same thing...and people wonder why Britain is in the state it is in? The country's elite have vigorous support for ideas that are economically damaging, the voters love it, the journos love it, the lobbyists love it...not surprising.

> Hardening eviction rules is economic suicide.

No, it isn’t. The current state of affairs in England (even Scotland and Wales have different regulations) only causes misery and an immense waste of resources on housing. Or do you think Germans or Frenchmen spend 3 months a year doing house viewings? Nowhere in the civilised world you can evict a family that doesn’t have rent arrears and nowhere in the civilised world you have a homelessness problem comparable to the English (maybe San Francisco being the exception).

No-one evicts a good, rent paying tenant in England.

Issue #1 is that the supply does not keep up with demand so rents keep going up. Issue #2 is that tenants don't know the law.

If somebody can be evicted with a 2 month notice, are they going to complain about the lack of repairs? The answer is in the abysmal quality of the English housing stock. I mean, would you risk making your child homeless when the law says you are right but there’s nothing you can do to enforce it?

I’ve rented in London for 12 years and I wouldn’t wish that experience on a serial killer. In Italy or Germany, not even people on the dole live as bad as a private tenant in the UK, regardless of their income. (Thankfully the company I used to work for completed its IPO 3 years ago and now I can live like a normal person).

Knowing the law is useless when the law doesn't protect you.

As a student my landlord wanted to do electrical work that required me and my partner to vacate the property. The law states that he has a duty to provide alternative accommodation. We brought this up and the response was simply that we'd be evicted instead.

Fuck private landlords. They can go do actual work for a living instead of leeching off of society.

The reason you spend that time is because of the rules.

Actually, the homeless rate in Edinburgh (which actually has an eviction ban and, even, rent controls now) is 3x the rate of SF...the reason why is that most of the rental market disappeared because eviction control meant that landlords could only sell properties at the end of rental periods (and when these came up in September, they all just removed properties from the market because house prices are going to be lower next September).

The law of unintended consequences. The govt tried to take control, and it has made the problem significantly worse. This is the economic problem that the UK faces in a nutshell: voters want things that are economically damaging (the situation with housing is probably 10x Brexit), they don't understand why they are damaging, and when the damage comes they blame someone else (and btw, the most amazing thing is that if you look at a city like Edinburgh...the people are VOTING for the people who are promising not to build any housing WHILST they are complaining about a lack of housing...it is the kind of thing that makes you realise that people are getting what they are asked for).

In continental Europe it is practically impossible to evict a tenant without arrears, yet the rental market is larger and there is less homelessness (and, yes, there is plenty of public data on homelessness).

Real world outcomes aside, that is less homelessness and a better functioning private rental market, evicting families with children is just uncivilised and should be allowed just because of that.

"is 3x the rate of SF" -- citation needed. I live in Edinburgh and have been in SF and very much struggle to believe it.

You need to find the data yourself. There is no public source that makes this comparison.

I have lived in Edinburgh for two decades btw. Most people who work here have absolutely no idea how many homeless people live there (it has been in the thousands for years) because almost none of these people live on the street or have substance abuse problems (and Edinburgh has very effective segregation so the wealthy don't have to see the poor or their problems). They are just normal people who have been evicted for whatever reason, and have nowhere to live because the city doesn't have enough housing. So they get put into hotels or B&Bs (but, because of the refugee situation, these have largely been exhausted now too...I remember a few years ago when they were trying to house Syrians, the council said...literally no room, we are overloaded beyond belief...since then refugees worth about 2-4% of the population came...the council has been telling poor people they have to leave now, go to England, go to the Highlands, they don't care, just leave...people who have been paying rates for decades).

Last year (i.e. before the latest crisis got very severe) there were 20 thousand people on the council's waiting list...this is in a city of 400k people (and, obviously, significantly less households).

The numbers are absolutely staggering and, again, people who live in Edinburgh have no idea because most people who work there have no contact whatsoever with "locals". They vote for brownfield-only building, they love the Cockburn Association intervening on every planning decision, they vote for the green belt, etc.

I'm sorry but I call BS on this. You claimed a specific figure 3x. I'm not claiming things are particularly great in Edinburgh, but people on the council's waiting list are not necessarily homeless.

Okay, good. Call BS on your own inability to find answers for yourself. Congrats, you have won.

I did not say everyone on the council waiting list was homeless. I have no idea why you think this because it isn't anything that I said.

You literally said it's x3 the homelessness. Also, there is a world of difference between being a real SF homeless in the streets; and being B&Bed temporarily by the government in Edinburgh.

Most homeless people in SF aren't living out on the streets, but instead living somewhere invisible like crashing on a series of couches or in their car or RV. So you do have to look at the numbers.

And of course they also aren't bussed in from other states and on drugs or whatever the common story for not building them housing is.

> Umpteenth reminder that England is the only place on planet Earth where people earning a top 10% salary, that is 70K£ pa, are at constant risk of eviction

Reminder that London is not England. Top 10% earners in most other parts of the country live very comfortably.

I assume you’re talking about London? I doubt that 70k£ is top 10% in London

Google search found "Median annual earnings for full-time employees in the United Kingdom from 1999 to 2022 (in GBP), by percentile" here: https://www.statista.com/statistics/416102/average-annual-gr...

    Data on the average annual gross salary percentiles in the United Kingdom in 2022 showed that the bottom ten percent of full-time workers earned an average of 19,403 British pounds a year, with the top ten percent of workers earning around 62,583 pounds a year.

Agree: No way this is Greater London.

The BBC say it's ~£86k in 2020. Not too far off.

[0] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-53628115

That is a perfect example of what I mean by reform chatter being thin on substance. Impressive listing of problems. Incredibly hand-wavy on what to do about it:

>which will now require structural changes.

>needs fundamental reforms in multiple areas.

Everyone can see the problems. Everyone agrees there is need to reform. Actual viable game plans on how to fix it seem to be in short supply though. Current political elites (of all shades) are all about "we promise to make it better" rally slogans like increase trade, reduce redtape, boost growth etc. Those are aspirations not plans.

Reform UK (the party) in fairness has more precise language (and numbers) in their policies than labour/con, but even there it goes fuzzy on key aspects that determine viability. Funding for the very specific spending promises comes from very nebulous sources like "reduce wasteful spending". Not that it matters - small opposition parties can promise unicorns for all. By the time they reach enough votes to get to implementation the unicorn has morphed to a donkey with a superglued on horn.

Perhaps I'm just jaded & expect too much from politicians...

None of this stuff is hand-wavy. There is just no mandate to do structural change because voters vote for things that are directly opposed to each other, and there is no political leadership to actually push this through without voters. For example, healthcare...Javid did an interview the other day where he said explicitly...it is not possible to reform this, the public don't want it but the system is collapsing (and, ofc, this plays into Labour's hands...this is the only area they are strong on despite Streeting seeming to advocate for every position simultaneously).

You have quoted transport and local govt. Both relatively complex areas.

The main structural change in transport is linked to the planning system. All environmental assessments need to be removed, appeals processes need to be time-limited, lawyers removed totally, and (very likely) you need to remove all planning authority from local govt. This is probably the toughest area because central govt will fuck it up, but you could un-delegate it and then re-delegate to a new local body (but not like education pre-academies, it would be something like local infrastructure bodies that raised money from local taxes).

Local govt...where to begin. Social care needs to be moved out, likely some degree of tax devolution, planning needs to be moved out, massive levels of waste...I have not actually seen how this gets solved because unions and nepotism is so embedded (the Tories introduced new disclosure requirements, the media just don't seem to report this stuff...you can see massive levels of not only waste but what looks like graft...nothing), more powers for councils to create economic growth locally (the lobby group against this goes to the heart of govt, some councils like Warrington have created massive growth locally with so few powers...the Civil Service is violently opposed to this)...big picture is: remove powers that have externalities (healthcare, planning) and hand over economic powers (one idea would be local corporation tax).

Reform and SDP are specific. But what people don't understand is that "reduce wasteful spending" is specific...everyone knows the area in which money is wasted. But what they don't say is quite simple: you try to reduce spending, the civil service unions will stop all work across all departments immediately, they are militant. If you look at what is happening at Home Office or Justice, no-one is explicit about that because, frankly, voters don't want to hear it. That is what "structural change" means...the Home Office needs to be burned to the ground (and btw, the Tories have been trying this, the Border Force is still failing...the public doesn't realise that their senior management has been put on measures multiple times, they have brought people in from the MoD, the army...nothing works, they literally restructured the whole thing to get it away from the Home Office MULTIPLE times...it still doesn't work).

But there is masses of very specific policies in every area that can change things. The problem isn't politicians but that there is no mandate (largely due to Labour successfully selling the public repeatedly on bags of magic beans).

> because pension and insurance rules (that were largely adopted from Europe) mean that they have to own large amounts of govt bonds

Let me help you with the brevity - you mean Solvency II. So you're fine with governments bailing out the financial system with our money, but not happy if they put (admittedly heavy-handed) measures in place to stop the casino mentality.

No, I mean Solvency II amongst other rules. There are many others (pension regulations are even worse). Let me help you with complexity (financial regulation doesn't happen to be particularly simple, it won't yield before your mighty intellect because you had a thought, you have to do the work).

Er no, the reason Solvency II exists is to bailout govts (and insurance companies, it is a tacit way of decreasing competition). That is the beauty of these regulations: you have poor people in Europe who are getting absolutely rinsed by this stuff AND they will actually fight for it (the "casino mentality"...is that something that European Commissioner tells you to say?).

It does nothing to increase systemic safety: look at Europe, almost every large bank is functionally insolvent, requires massive zero-interest loans from the govt, almost all new loans in some of the large economies are now govt-guaranteed...is this what a safe system looks like.

If you take a country like Germany, which has gone the farthest down this route, savers have net financial wealth equal to Greece. Look at Allianz's market share, they own everything. It is tragic. Removing these regulations will be massively beneficial for consumers, the reason they exist at all is to limit competition and choice.

Btw, this isn't hard. The US made these changes in the early 70s, that is why they fund most VC activity in London. Consumers need choice, they don't need to have their money trapped in govt bonds subsidizing govts that can't repay their debts in a free market, the only result of this is lower returns for consumers.

Actually key parts of Solvency II (Matching Adjustment - drafted by the U.K.) specifically favours corporate debt over government bonds which is in part why actually U.K. insurers don’t hold much government debt at all. Really odd that you should get this so wrong.

This isn't the case. Solvency II treats govt bonds as essentially risk-free, corporate bonds are not treated as risk-free, and there are substantial capital requirements for non-bond investments. UK insurers have substantial holdings of govt debt (really odd that you should get this so wrong), they are one of the largest non-govt investors in the market (obviously).

What return can insurers assume under the MA and how does that compare to government bonds?

> ...is that something that European Commissioner tells you to say?

I guess we are diametrically opposed. I can equally ask you if Jacob Rees-Mogg writes your posts.

> (if people from outside the UK can believe it, some local councils are introducing rules which mean you will be fined if you exit your neighbourhood in a car to go to another part of the same city).

Can you give an article or city name for this?

Oxford. Another town announced they were looking at this. I would also point out, this is one measure in a long string of similar measures: LEZs, that wasn't enough so now they are doing ULEZs, banning cars from some cities (York)...near me the council put a traffic calming measure near a school, this was so effective that the school was unable to receive food deliveries...all this stuff came in during Covid (my local council went into an "emergency session" during Covid, passed all these measures without votes or public enquiries...funnily enough, these were all measures that they had proposed before Covid but which failed public consultations).

I live in York, cars have not been banned. Some central streets have been pedestrianised for a long time. Inner roads around the city center can be extremely busy.