Yeah, who could ever afford a £8 ping on a SWE salary. /s
I used to like going out in London: "everything's so cheap!" Especially, getting a nice beer at a random pub would cost significantly less than a random basic lager in Paris.
But this year, I was shocked to see the price increase. It's now pricier than Paris, even though Paris prices have also edged up a bit.
And since my cash is Euros, I always compared the prices as converted to euros, so this accounted for the conversion rate variations.
£8/pint is also way more expensive than normal. I was out in Shoreditch last night, paid £6.70 for a pint of Brewdog, and that was more than I'd usually pay.
UK is insane.
It's the same nanny state style as some other European countries where they will try and sell you nothing over the counter because "you might abuse it" but they have a drinking and illegal drug culture to rival the best of them.
The US sucks if you're in the lower end of the spectrum without insurance but with insurance you actually get treatment. There's other countries where it's a pleasure to have private healthcare if you're middle class but many in europe definitely aren't. They'll just try to discourage you unless you're having an "my leg is detaching" type of emergency.
There's a reason why there's ads in the tube to "go to turkey to fix X health problem".
We should stop comparing having a health net for the jobless in a country with the US and typical quality of life/healthcare situation for a professional.
Edit: If I felt things worked, and people would eventually be able to afford houses and get into a better situation high taxes would be fine, but it's high taxes and policies that still benefit the richest/landlords/corporates/big pharma. It's corruption and classism. He former is widespread in many countries but the pretense otherwise is what is annoying.