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I think you are right on the symptoms, and some of the causes, but let me add some from the other side, as I think left and right both make good points and you have to be intellectually honest if you want to move forward.

There are some multinationals who escape taxation, but even if that were perfectly addressed it wouldn't solve the UK's issues. Tax receipts are already close to 40% of GDP, these are record highs, frankly there are few countries where going over 40% is both possible or sustainable. (The US is at 25% for reference).

House prices are high because for 15 years mortgages were basically at 0% interest. This didn't actually make housing more affordable through cheap mortgages, if just inflated house prices. The endless schemes to help young people buy property just makes this worse, as the schemes are just built into the price.

Lastly, and this is usually hard to hear for people of your persuasion, you just can't add 500k-1m NET people to a country and expect housing to be just as available, and the health service to not be under massive strain. It's a physical impossibility. YES, I know many immigrants work in the NHS. That is not a valid rebuke to the problem. 1m net immigrants last year is 1m more people who need health services. The NHS has received massively more funding since covid and just can't cope. I'm not against migration, but the sheer numbers need to be talked about. You can't keep a sustainable country at these levels.

Finally, the UK has relied on financial and advisory services for decades as the core of its economy. This seems to be working less and less, tech is taking over. the 80-90s were about finance, since then it's been about tech. Slowly the country is falling behind.

This is a chronic issue in almost all of europe, but at least there there is high end manufacturing, and eastern europe has tonnes of catching up to do which grows the economy.

Regarding your point about migration,

> * Net migration was unusually high in 2022, as several factors came together at the same time, including the war in Ukraine"[1]. *

Even so, the net migration numbers were nowhere close to 1 million. From the same source as above,

> * With this caveat in mind, estimates from the Office of National Statistics suggest that total net migration was 504,000 in the year ending June 2022. *

You suggested that the UK adds 500k-1m migrants every year, but the actual number seems to be pretty much at the bottom of that range. The number of students coming to the UK has also increased significantly (it does contribute to increase in net migration stats).

The ONS still predicts (with a considerable amount of uncertainty I'll admit) that the net migration numbers will fall significantly in the next 5 or so years.

1. https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/lo...

I don’t think it matters really whether it’s 500k or 1m, if you have a massive housing shortage and a failing health service.

That’s still almost 1% addition to the population every year.

Even if that means 100k families, you still need an extra 100k houses or flats ideally per year. That is impossible, even with super efficient planning laws.

The UK completed 177810 houses last year, and 174940 the year before that.

Table 244: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/live-tab...

I'd guess there is still more interest in moving to London proper than space for additional housing within the city though.

Do you not see the problem with this?

> eastern europe has tonnes of catching up to do which grows the economy.

Most of Eastern Europe is expected to overtake the UK in terms of living standards in the middle of this decade. Parts of it already has.

I found the same link as the other reply, and I notice the UK's net migration is broadly in line with other wealthier European countries and the USA.

You absolutely can have this level of migration, but you need to build the infrastructure to support it (homes, schools, hospitals etc).

Relevant statistics on number of dwellings are here [1], and they seem to fit the population increase, but I don't have time to find similar statistics on school places, hospitals etc.

[1] https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/housing/...

> you need to build the infrastructure to support it (homes, schools, hospitals etc).

Isn’t that the point the above poster was making? If you don’t build the support, then you cannot handle the influx of people.

Immigration without augmentation results in lamentation.

It was a typical blame-the-immigrants comment with no evidence.

I don't mind what arguments people make when they provide some evidence to support them, but the commenter wrote "physical impossibility" when it took me 2 minutes to find statistics to the contrary for their first point.

I'm not sure why this pose was downvoted, apart from mentioning brexit.

I used to live in the countryside, the 90s had a background of rapid improvements in schools and hospitals. 2000s full of out of town megashops killing the high street. 2010s public service cuts. 2020 stuff just not working.

The scale of the housing price problem is difficult to behold.

https://www.plumplot.co.uk/Norfolk-house-prices.html has the house prices

https://www.adzuna.co.uk/jobs/salaries/norfolk is the average wage. The average house price is 10x the average wage. but thats not evenly distributed. if you live up in the northern part, the average house price is 100x times wage.

The UK was already extraordinarily unequal in the 2000s, however inflation, benefit "adjustment" and general failure in policy.

> if you live up in the northern part, the average house price is 100x times wage

I really, really, _really_ doubt that's the case. That'd need salaries to be <£10k and house prices of >£1 million.

Click on the first link, and look at the average price for burnham and blakney

House prices are awful, and with the current mortgage rates it makes it even harder. Last July when we first started looking at what sort of deposit we would need and how much mortgage payments would be it looked like we would be spending an additional £400 a month (which is fine, I wouldn't have to save for a house after all). But since the catastrophic economic policies of our shortest term prime minisiter we would be paying an extra £1000 a month over our current rent.

The house 2 doors down was last sold for £80k about 20 years ago. The house over the road that has just gone up for sale is asking for £300k. I'm lucky that my salary is over the median, but a 3-bed semi detached is like 10x the median salary (£26k). The same sort of property that my parents generation bought for 5x the median salary back in the 90s.

And who is hoovering up those expensive houses? Not the middle class.

Rich folk are investing in housing and renting it out. It's crazy.

Sometimes not even bothering to rent them out. It's the capital gains game!

Feudalism 2.0

> £80k about 20 years ago - asking for £300k.

7% a year assuming they spent £0 (hint: they didnt)

And that's fine if the median salary increased by 7% a year (hint: it hasn't)

The houses here used to be affordable for a middle income person or family. Now they aren't, that's the issue, not the sticker price.

edit tldr:

At the same time houses have gone up in price, wages have stagnated, rent has increased and inflation has increased. So we earn the same, pay more for rent, utilities and food, and have to save more (10% deposit is usually the minimum).

UK was already creaking at the seems in the 2000's. I left in 2011 and have spent the last 5 years crawling up a sewer pipe of regulations trying to get my post brexit immigration sorted.

Brexit was just a fantasy of better days to come that was actually pretext for a right wing power grab. And what do right wingers ultimately want? A world of red in tooth and claw capitalism with themselves as the permanent winners, right up until they are hit with one of life's unexpected curve balls then they come crying to the state to save them.

Fuck the tories.

Harsh but fair. It's not significantly different in the US.

You know, it's not different in ANY of the empires, past or present. Look at Russia and it's just a couple decades of further decline, but the same thing.

If hackers and nerd idealists are worth anything, it's for trying to solve all this against a background of constant push-back. I sometimes wonder if the most important thing I could possibly do is try to depict this larger picture in such a way that people got it.

> You know, it's not different in ANY of the empires, past or present. Look at Russia and it's just a couple decades of further decline, but the same thing.

I very seriously doubt that US or even the UK will look like Russia in a couple decades. Russia was historically a backwards agricultural country, that went through breakneck centrally-planned industrialization during the Soviet era, which ultimately collapsed under its own mismanagement, corruption and stupidity. Now they're just playing in the rubbles, getting most of their money from selling vast Siberian mineral riches. Whereas US/UK for the past 200 years have been at the forefront of enlightenment, industrialization, innovation, scientific discoveries, creation of complex and extremely well performing businesses etc. All that is constitutes an enormous capital that can't be just pissed away in a couple decades.

> If hackers and nerd idealists are worth anything, it's for trying to solve all this against a background of constant push-back. I sometimes wonder if the most important thing I could possibly do is try to depict this larger picture in such a way that people got it.

Thinking about this, it actually reminds me of season 2 of Clarkson's Farm. He might not be what you think of when you think of a prototypical hacker, but Clarkson actually is one. In the series he constantly found loopholes to evade the tyrannical council although they sadly ended up winning in the end. Although it makes you think that if someone with his influence and resources can't find a way through the bureaucratic minefield to open a restaurant in an disused barn in the middle of a field on his own property what hope do the rest of us have.

You should absolutely. How would you do it?

Closest I've got is a game concept where it's your job to manipulate populations's attitudes. However, this assumes that gamifying something and having people able to do it themselves, would give them insight into seeing it on a grand scale around them… and it assumes they'd be able to do anything useful about it if they did get that insight.

Might be like trying to guide chaos. Get beyond the Dunbar number and you're in trouble.

> UK was already creaking at the seems in the 2000's. I left in 2011 and have spent the last 5 years crawling up a sewer pipe of regulations trying to get my post brexit immigration sorted.

As someone planning to leave and never come back, can you give me a brief overview of some of the shit I might not know about that I'm going to have to deal with?

Make sure your gov.gateway is accessible for later pension stuff. Make sure you can keep your uk bank account if in the new country - i couldnt. Had to close it and transfer costs are high in emergencies. If your bank has an app Make sure it will work in thd new country. I had to change to UK on my phone for a year (Google rule?) to be able to get an app.

We're a fair few years on, but I changed to a very large bank before emigrating. Nowadays a second account with Wise or similar would probably suffice for occasional use.

I should have moved my UK phone number to a pre-pay plan on a premium network (O2, Vodafone etc), I left it on a budget one which cancelled it with very little notice.

Well EU immigration basically made it tougher for brits to emigrate, which is fair enough.

I can't elaborate too much but high skilled and family reunification pathways are still open, but the tests and documentation are more onerous than before brexit.

stop being misled. tories, labour, it doesn't matter. two sides, same coin. government needs to end. international banking cartel needs to end. the synagogue of satan needs to end. evil needs to end.

"Pay rises are around 0% for most people I know."

Some data:

https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwor...

Growth in employees' average total pay (including bonuses) was 5.8% and growth in regular pay (excluding bonuses) was 6.7% in January to March 2023.

(That appears to be on an annual basis.)

I don't know those people. I think averages that include London and other cities don't represent most of the country. Average salary for where I live is £10,000 less than the UK average (I just looked it up)

Average weekly earnings by selected region, £:

  UK:            747
  
  Wales:         600
  North East:    625
  East Midlands: 700
  South East:    841
  London:        904

https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwor...

> I'm a lecturer (5 yrs) and I'm struggling to pay my bills. We've been out on strike and nothing happened

Why would not working result in higher pay? Especially in a field where the product is increasingly seen as a luxury that costs as much as a downpayment for a house and ultimately not a essential requirement for employment.

Striking provides a forcing function to reveal the actual value to the employer of your labor.

In certain fields (e.g. medicine, academics) there are huge centers that represent the majority of jobs for a region. Specialized workers here find it harder to job hop, as there are fewer opportunities.

Striking provides another means to better pay. Say you value my work at $40/hr, but are currently paying my at $20/hr. In domains where employees don't have much recourse to just go find another employer, strikes provide a good mechanism to call the bluff of an employer. If they really only value your work at $20/hr, they'll not be willing to pay any more. If they do value it more highly, striking makes it so they have to choose between making concessions or losing work they value.

I mean I might be biased because this strategy worked for me. But how about, hear me out. Instead of not working you try working harder and providing unique value to your employer.

Hard to swallow for union types but it’s how I ended up being paid significantly more and having no issues buying a house.

This approach only works if your employer knows you have other options and risk leaving if you aren't properly compensated.

In an environment where your employer knows you don't have any options, there is no incentive for them to pay you any higher regardless of how much effort/value you provide.

This doesn't address the issue specified above. In this example, you already provide unique value to your employer at $20/hr over what they're paying you.

If you have no recourse when they value your work at $40/hr, what recourse would you have when they value your work at $60/hr but still pay you $20/hr?

Being a more valuable employee works great in combination with exercising leverage over your employer (quit-threat, striking, competitive labor market), since those threaten to take that value away from your employer if they don't play ball.

I don’t think this works in academia.

A lot of people get student loans. A lot of people never end up making enough to even begin repaying their student loans if they've taken a degree that's not in demand, or they never end up paying it back before it is just eventually written off. The student loans aren't like a normal loan. Yes, it may be to the sum of what you could put towards a downpayment on a house, but it isn't the same as that's something someone would have to repay, regardless of how much they were making.

As a lot of people can access further education, they take the opportunity even if it isn't necessary for employment. Most students work whilst studying, even with a student loan, because the loan almost certainly doesn't cover their rent, food, transport and textbooks for example. Most young people you see working in hospitality are probably in university studying.

What's the alternative to make ends meet for students? OnlyFans?