Tag: Britain

TIL: SLS, aka the Shit Life Syndrome

In recent years, many of Britain’s coastal communities have slipped behind the rest of the country in measures of income, education, and health, giving rise to an over-all feeling of depression and ill health which is recognized informally by doctors as S.L.S., or Shit Life Syndrome.

—From the New Yorker

Britain – a small, uncomfortable nation

“There are two kinds of European nations,” Kristian Jensen, the Danish Finance Minister, said last year, referring to Britain’s situation. “There are small nations and there are countries that have not yet realized they are small nations.”

—From the New Yorker

British tax rises: 1975 vs 2016

These days, governments prefer to raise money by stealth. In the Healey budget of 1975, there were eight big tax measures. In George Osborne’s budget in 2016 there were 86 crafty little ones, including higher taxes on landfills

The Economist: Britain’s long-standing opposition to tax-rises is slowly softening

The mis-educated British, or why Boris Johnson has an audience

Many Britons have grown up believing their homeland saved and civilised the world, while atrocities, genocide and human rights abuses often go unmentioned. Successive governments have failed to narrow this knowledge gap, whether by setting up truth commissions, establishing a museum of colonialism or teaching schoolchildren about colonialism as part of the standard curriculum.

Why do archive files on Britain’s colonial past keep going missing? | Siobhan Fenton

Reality of the Raj, and the recovery

… in the post-colonial period is that a democratic Indian government endeavored to invest more in the health and education of more citizens, however imperfectly this was implemented. The British, in contrast, supplied fewer public goods and too often the expenditures were directed toward defending British rule, extracting revenue or ensuring India as a captive market for British goods.

Legacy of British Rule Is Still Holding India Back, April 13, 2017 at 05:10 PM

Both of these are largely forgotten, if not deliberately erased.

Many Indians tend to blame post-colonial democratic governments for bringing India down.

Most British students are barely taught the reality of British colonial rule from perspective of the colonised.

Austerity Britain

… local authorities have been forced to embark on an epic economy drive. Their spending on public services will be 22% lower this year than in 2010.

Joe Anderson, the mayor of Liverpool, says that, even if he closed all 19 libraries in the city and its nine sports centres, stopped maintaining its 140 parks, halted all highway repairs and street cleaning and switched off 50,000 streetlights, he would save only £68m—which is £22m short of what he must cut by 2020. So there will have to be a further 10% reduction in the social-care budget, he says.

Britain’s local councils face financial crisis, January 28, 2017 at 12:33PM

In other news, firms are already planing to move their European employees and businesses out of Britain. And not just any employees:

… the prize is a share of the 1.1m people who work in financial services in Britain (rising to 2.2m if jobs in supporting industries are included). These workers pay 12% of Britain’s taxes and generate an annual trade surplus of £55bn ($69bn).

Firms consider upping sticks from Brexit-bound Britain, as foreign capitals mount a charm offensive, January 27, 2017 at 11:44PM

Since we’re coping so well with the deep, enforced austerity, the government decided the best course of action was to give the economy another jolt with a hard Brexit. Who needs social services and functioning economies when knee-capping your own economy will win you votes?

Multiculturalism vs Assimilation

“… away from multiculturalism and towards assimilation”

Segregation scars parts of Britain, some immigrant groups remain poorly integrated and minorities within them are hostile to liberal values.

Britain’s genius is its ability to integrate newcomers, January 13, 2017 at 06:03PM

Continue reading Multiculturalism vs Assimilation

‘Head in the sand’ negotiation strategy

Concern is growing among some high-ranking officials that ministers don’t understand or won’t admit the scale of the task they’re facing.

UK’s new ambassador to EU named – BBC News, January 5, 2017 at 12:16AM

Bureaucrats aren’t the only ones concerned. So are the remain voters, the media, the financial markets, and I.