Sunday, 26 May 2024

WHEN DID IT ALL GO SO HORRIBLY WRONG?

Writing in The Times Matthew Syed claims, correctly, the UK has suffered a calamitous collapse in hard and soft power at a time when totalitarian  China and Russia are using economic muscle and warrior diplomacy to assert themselves.

It's a good piece but he makes a major error. He suggests all this has happened over the last fourteen years. 

Both Labour and Tory governments share responsibility this country's precipitous decline over the last few decades.

We have lost our way in a fast-changing world. 

You can read it LINK


20 comments:

  1. Weak leadership, poor economic management and Brexit have dragged Britain out of the top 10 countries in a global index on good government.
    https://chandlergovernmentindex.com/wp-content/uploads/2024-Chandler-Good-Government-Index-Report.pdf

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    1. Rubbish leadership! Rishi Sunak's Election announcements have him blurting out policy on the hoof and then expecting his MPs to fill in the enormous gaps where sound judgement and planning ought to have been. Sunak is finished after the Election. And by extension so are the Tories.

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    2. That's why we should give Reform a chance

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    3. Their de-facto leader can't even be bothered. Nigel Farage has announced that he will not be standing or leading the Reform party in the general election.

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  2. Britain has declined as it chose finance over industry, austerity over investment, and a closed economy over openness to the world.

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    1. We have a real problem in the sense that the only way to really durably raise productivity growth for this country is for investments to pick up. But the last Chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, signalled a fresh period of austerity is on the way to plug the hole in the nation’s finances. This could be bad news for infrastructure schemes and long-term for productivity.

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    2. Being an entrepreneur in this country is like running through mud

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    3. 22:14 when Lab gets in there won't be an economy to close. Vote Reform

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    4. Brexit continues to slowly drag our economy down, we could do with that 4% GDP every year! I could never vote for The Reform/Brexit Party.

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  3. The destruction of the BBC has been a major source of the loss of Britain's soft power & making Boris Johnson and David Cameron as Foreign Secretary hardly added to Britain's standing in the world .

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    1. The BBC is a hotbed of defeatist socialism funded by the poor bloody taxpayer. A source of soft power? You dream!

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  4. For more than a decade, Britain has been beset by weak economic growth, anaemic productivity, and stagnant private and public sector investment. Since 2016, its political leadership has been in a state of Brexit-induced flux.

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    1. Oh, for God's sake this mess seriously predates Brexit

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    2. Brexit is one of many mistakes. People are seriously mistaken to pretend Brexit has had no negative impact.

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    3. 09:14 Oh, for God's sake this mess seriously includes Brexit.

      The Office for Budget Responsibility, thinks the UK will ultimately be 4% WORSE OFF, than it would have been if we had voted no to Brexit. https://obr.uk/forecasts-in-depth/the-economy-forecast/brexit-analysis/

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  5. The Tory mismanagement goes far further back than the last 14 years. For example:
    * There is a housing crisis as council homes were sold off.
    * There is failure now stemming from water, rail and energy privatisation of the past.

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  6. All empires rise and fall. Let's face it, America won WWII for us.

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  7. No the Russians won the war . And then the Americans saved us from the Russians

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    1. Talking of Russians …

      Alexander Lebedev is the owner of the Evening Standard newspaper. And, the Evening Standard now intends to go from a daily print schedule to weekly. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evening_Standard

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