The UK shot itself in the foot hard with Brexit, and has become a quite undesirable place for many for that reason. Doesn't mean that the US is necessarily doing great.
Software developer or equivalent income capable tech job, remote, university city/town. It's a fairly easy set-up (unless you're already very rooted somewhere). They're relatively inexpensive to live in (you can actually buy a real house at $100k per year!), and there are tons of safe choices (specifically with a low murder rate). Primary downside is far weaker food/nightlife/etc. vs what you get in major cities.
Yes. From the Left as well as the Right. Jeremy Corbyn is an example of the former.
>> ... from what is now a center-right Labor Party, post Blair.
Labour Party.
It seems traditional party politics were not the primary factor. There were Leavers on both Left and Right. Centrists were less likely to be Leavers than those on the wings of their party.
Demographic factors were more determining of a Leave vote than political affiliation: Age (older vs younger), region (England/Wales vs Scotland/N.Ireland), population density (rural vs urban), income (low earning vs high earning)
Exaggerate, embellish, etc., sure, but not outright lie.
How do you measure conformity across a country?
TV Set top boxes being paused at 8pm on Thursday, wifi connected devices seeing a weakening signal, social media posts.
The internet is a security services and big businesses surveillance tool wet dream.
Whats been interesting since is how various websites and their algorithms are being used to challenge your view point. What Eli Pariser highlighted in his Ted talk 12 years ago (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8ofWFx525s) has grown to all the major US tech companies because if everyone has their nose in a device connected to some website, the state can control people in deniable spooky hacker ways.
Remember intelligence is a cheaper and easier form of nipping problems in the bud before you have to puts boots on the ground, beit military boots or police boots, and at least here in the UK every element of the state is involved in surveillance, including the NHS and the educational system.
https://www.ft.com/content/80ace07f-3acb-40cb-9960-8bb4a44fd...
That's in addition to the sudden shock from the invasion of Ukraine, making it politically necessary to switch fuel even at cost which your linked article starts with.
Economy in the west is not that stellar mainly due to much more focus on social aspects, more paid time off, free education including universities, free healthcare, we take care of the poor, disabled etc. Of course none of this is free, we all pay for it. Economies in the east have their own issues, relatively poor and corrupt is never a good mix.
Some people don't give a fuck about anybody else, its just me or just the closest ones, and for those US system looks much better and numbers alone do support it. Only to the point when societal issues hit back. Or you want to raise kids, and they want to study on university. Or not to worry about your health issues, which will inevitably come to all of us unless you die suddenly without any prior health issues.
So yes its by choice, but I don't think most folks understand that choice, done for them in the past, without them having a say.
There's a thing I remember but not well enough to search for, where someone was asked to forecast the challenges the UK was about to face, and they went through the decades of the 20th century showing how the biggest and most obvious fears of each period had basically nothing to with how events actually unfolded.
A global pandemic happened simultaneously with this.