For reference, that's a fairly average value for Europe at the moment. Not sure why the UK is being singled out.
Not sure why but generally journos seem to write about issues like they are only hitting the UK when a simple google search shows they aren’t.
It does come across like a weird concerted effort to paint the UK as collapsing since leaving the EU. The majority of journos seem to be able to write only negatively about UK current affairs unless you read something like The Express who are delusional in their own right.
Most recent ones I can think of are the failed space launch and British volt going under.
These were both highly ambitious projects that had a high chance of failure, especially the space launch. It’s unlikely you’re going to get your first launch right, famously it takes many attempts.
When both of these happened journalists seemed to revel in the failure. It was very odd to see.
I understand with these two examples a lot of it has to do with government/brexiteer chest thumping which shon a spotlight on them. However it was still odd to see.
I think this then trickles down to places like HN (who’s membership generally has a bias towards remain) who also see an opportunity to revel in it.
This is odd as well because I can see why Britons or Europeans would be passionate about membership in a regional trade bloc, Americans who get really passionate about it confuse me. As a Briton I didn’t really care when America left NAFTA.
This is assuming the majority of people on HN are American but based on time zones and when articles are posted I’m probably wrong.
Edit:
This is a UK based publication writing about Groceries in the UK which is why it’s so specific. Your comment just spurred something I’ve been thinking recently.
Especially on Hacker News. I tend to avoid UK-based posts on here because the content is fairly predictable: the UK is going to shit and Brexit is to blame, repeated ad nauseam in the absence of any evidence that it's true. If I wanted thoughtless UK doom mongering, I'd read the Guardian or the NYT.
UK announcing research into x: comments will probably be negative and about how it’s a boondoggle.
UK company doing exciting stuff like fusion or quantum: comments will probably be negative and about how it’s a boondoggle.
It’s tiring.
Edit:
That being said it does lead to hilarious moments where I’ll read the Guardian and see a headline like “The NHS won’t make it to Christmas (for real this time) but it doesn’t matter because we’ll all be dead by then because of Brexit” and then I’ll see the Express in my corner shop with a headline like “Brexit HERO Boris makes Ursula von der Leyen CRY when he announced new BRITISH MOON BASE”
Actually what I'm describing is casualuk which is even wore for its banality some how.
If i needed a teenager to verbally doom scroll me i'd talk to my extended family.
- Governemtn forecast 4% lower GDP than without Brexit
- UK car industry significant decline in output since 2015 (around 30% IIRC)
- People who immigrated here for work (and have the right to stay) are choosing to leave
- Low investment compared to comparable regions / countries
- Turmoil around NI
- Banking migrating to Europe and New York in particular
- Trade deals not materialising
It’s not what “project fear” warned us of, but it’s certainly not good. Many of these effects are playing out across years so haven’t really hit home for people yet.
Are you being facetious ;)
It's because there are narratives to follow, sides to pick. There's no room for facts by themselves, they have to fit some story your pack has bought into.
Right, left, middle, or anarchy, it's all the same; you're part of a herd.
Obviously we are going through a tough time at the moment. While there are some things unique to the UK (such as the nurses and junior doctors strike), for the most part what we are experiencing is common to most of Europe and often even the USA. I mean look at France - Paris is drowning in rubbish due to bin strikes and protesters are setting things on fire - yet if anything that seems to be being covered as something positive for them. People taking back power and exerting their rights. Last time that happened here, though, it was treated as an almost apocalyptic event and emblemic of Broken Britain. Sure the Paris strikes are ostensibly about pensions, but really they're about more than that.
By default, Brits tend to lean toward the negative side. I think even before Brexit/Tories/etc. most British people would broadly have considered the UK to be a bit shit, and generally complain more than they say anything positive. However, when measured, the UK is in the top 10 countries on a huge number of metrics and isn't particulary awful at anything. I do find the general negativity a bit tiresome, but it's not entirely a bad thing. That negativity is probably partly behind why we have managed to become and remain such a successful and stable country for so long.
Online, though, British people seem to be incredibly negative in a way that I've rarely experienced in person. I figure one reason why people online are so unflinchingly negative about the UK is that online Brits seem to lean very hard left and we're now on our 13th year of Tory leadership. I'm pretty lefty myself, but an awful lot of the chronically online UK types are literally Trots and Tankies (who are, nevertheless, pro-remain #FBPE, despite the contradiction between those views). Look at, e.g. Corbyn's online popularity versus his real (un)popularity with the electoral base. Or how the Tories actually generally get a similar popular vote to Labour, but online it's hard to find a single person who expresses any support for them.
I also think the UK generally gets its news about Europe from US news sources, especially when it comes to economic policy and comparisons. The US news (especially NYT and such) love to paint the US as a capitalist hellscape compared to the utopia of Continental Europe and the Nordics in particular. In reality, of course, the EU and Nordics are a lot more complicated than that, and in socioeconomic terms we're a lot closer to Europe in most ways than we are to the US, but that doesn't seem to feed through so people draw the same comparisons that are popular in US papers. You also get that with the NHS vs USA's system, as though those are the only two options.
Most news sites have become rather terrible since they started optimizing solely for ad revenue.
It's for clicks. It's completely disingenuous and one should be wise to take a mental note of the author and publisher.
To answer your question: "Not sure why the UK is being singled out."
The answer to me is simply that it is a UK website www.grocerygazette.co.uk
There are plenty of similar stories about the same kind of inflation here in [redacted] such as [redacted].
With Hacker News being predominately English speaking I suspect plays into why we see more US and UK (and other English speaking countries) related posts vs non-English speaking.
And of course people do love to point out where the UK is suffering these days to put a Brexit spin on it (whether fair or not) as it gets them clicks. Much like a famous or young person dying is almost always reported as "died suddenly" these days regardless of nature of death as it gets clicks with all the anti-vax crowd.
Can't be that one has tech or purchasing power that the other doesn't, or that food needs to travel a lot further, and I would also not expect vastly different foreign relations (also because EU, but also because the countries are so similar in beliefs and histories).
And similar for slightly different but still nearby and similar countries like Germany, Luxemburg, and the UK. Anyone know what causes these differences?
Edit: to answer your question, I wouldn't look for meaning behind that but rather assume that a limited scope article is a lot easier to write than a broadly scoped one. In the ~global context of HN, the headline then sounds like they're singled out.
Or, in a word, Brexit.
Everywhere is getting inflation. Supply chain disruption, Ukraine war and a dash of climate change (hasn't really bitten yet compared to the other two). Britain seems to be getting about 5% more than everywhere else.
Source: live in UK
I wouldn't be surprised if those countries such as Spain reduced the amount available for export so that they can meet demand for local markets though, but capitalism would dictate that they sell to the highest bidder instead.
The UK is being singled out because its not able to import the groceries it used to do before Brexit now - there has been a low yield crop season in most parts of Europe and the domestic demand for groceries has literally exhausted the supply that can be exported. Since the UK is out of the Eu, its not possible to access the Eu domestic supply anymore and it has to wait for what remains for export.
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/02/28/british-supermarkets-are-rat...
There isnt such a situation like rationing vegetables anywhere else in Europe.
All I know is that here in the Netherlands, the prices they're mentioning are normal.
That isn't true at all, the UK is about the same as the Euro area taken as a whole.
> Since the UK is out of the Eu, its not possible to access the Eu domestic supply anymore and it has to wait for what remains for export
The UK is absolutely capable of tapping EU supply, we've got an extensive free trade deal. I'm eating Spanish cherry tomatoes as I type!
Source: https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/food-inflation?con...
https://ycharts.com/indicators/europe_inflation_rate
> The UK is absolutely capable of tapping EU supply,
I don't understand what are you trying to falsify. CNBC or their news about the UK not being able to import as it used to from the Eu.
"...James Walton, chief economist at the Institute of Grocery Distribution, told CNBC: “The U.K. is highly reliant on imports of fresh produce at all times of year, especially in winter — the EU accounts for much of this import volume. If there are shortfalls in production in the EU, then it would make sense that EU producers would serve their local demand first. This leaves less available for export to the U.K...”"
Having a 'free' trade deal does not mean that you will get priority over the domestic buyer as an outsider.
> I'm eating Spanish cherry tomatoes as I type
Your personal experience does not constitute a statistic.
You said the UK, due to Brexit:
> Since the UK is out of the Eu, its not possible to access the Eu domestic supply anymore
Which is just plain not true. Deprioritised, sure, but not unable. A lot of people take the Daily Mail seriously (including other news outlets too) when they say stuff like we can't get tomatoes. It just meant I went to the other shop across the road instead.
The difference apparently is in how much the inflation affects different basket items. Like food.
> Deprioritised
Yeah, that means 'unable' when there is a shortage like how there is just now.
> A lot of people take the Daily Mail seriously (including other news outlets too) when they say stuff like we can't get tomatoes
CNBC is not daily mail.
General inflation: UK 10.4% vs EU 9.9%
Food inflation: UK 18.2% vs EU 19.5%
Same reason I can't say UK inflation is 10.4% and much lower than the EU's 19.5%. They're measuring different things.
Even we gloss over it and trust the UK's own numbers, the Eu inflation in February would have been driven by mostly Germany with ~24% inflation compared to the ~10% most of the major countries have.
...
However it still does not make any difference since prices are irrelevant if there simply arent groceries and they are being rationed. That was the point.
Either food inflation or general inflation, the UK has similar rates to the rest of Europe.
The Tories are not in charge of deciding the inflation rate in the UK, it's from the Office for National Statistics and all the financial lenders would be very quick to voice their disagreement if they thought otherwise. Suggesting that the values coming from the UK are fake is an extraordinary claim which you have no evidence of.
Germany has a general inflation rate of 8.7%, this is below the EU average. They are not driving it up.
Groceries were rationed because UK supermarkets refused to buy them at spot-prices. The UK had a shortage of peppers while Sweden etc had peppers at 10€/kg.
Yeah, and that's a Japanese institution not British. Its incorrigible like the BBC...
> Suggesting that the values coming from the UK are fake is an extraordinary claim
Its as extraordinary as other claims like Iraqi WMDs or the GDP numbers generated from 'homeowners creating and using rent services'.
The trust of Brits in their institutions is amazing.
> Groceries were rationed because UK supermarkets refused to buy them at spot-prices
Surely not because of Brexit... It has to be something else.