Thoughts on England and the UK

The good, the bad, and the underrated

I have submitted my application to become a British citizen, and I think it’s a good moment to pause and take stock of my adoptive home. A lot of this will be England- and London-centric: I have only visited Scotland for short trips, and have never set foot in Wales or Northern Ireland. I’ll use ‘British’ or ‘UK’ instead of ‘English’ when I’m confident the behaviours I’m describing are common across all nations.

I have deep affection for England, which has provided my education, wife, employment, and children. Having lived in four countries, and visited many more, I think that England is the best of the lot, with London being the world’s greatest city; and this makes it all the sadder to witness its decay.

England is full of contradictions: insecure and embarrassed of its past yet arrogant and proud of its institutions; weary of ostentation yet embracing of pomp; buttoned-up yet wild; cosmopolitan yet parochial; and above all, progressive yet exceptionally conservative. It is this conservatism that is the cause of England’s decline, and I’ll go in it in more depth; but let’s discuss all the above in turn.

Insecure arrogance

—Have you guys ever heard of Nicaragua?

— Yeah, ‘cause we schooled in England, so…

The Mighty Boosh interview

If there is one person who exemplifies (nay, personifies) the British psyche, it’s comedian David Mitchell. His shtick is that he’s uncomfortable in his skin — socially awkward, weary of confrontation, easily embarrassed —; he’s nevertheless famous for his rants and strong opinions on anything from grammar to Whatsapp. Like him, the UK is a country that ever since the fall of the Empire, has been unsure of its position in the world. No longer a global superpower, it plays second fiddle to the US; where it was once the cradle of the industrial revolution, it now has no tech companies to boast of (even Sweden has Spotify!); its world-famous brands are slowly being sold off; and so on and so forth.

This insecurity is compounded by British people’s ambivalence towards their heritage. Every other country I’ve lived in glosses over the black spots in its history and celebrates its proud moments. The UK is unique in the deep shame many of its elites feel about the Empire, and in the suspicion they feel of anything that approaches nationalistic sentiment — I’ve met English people who root against their own national football team. There are many people in the UK who almost seem to derive pleasure from self-flagellation over the (real or supposed) crimes of their ancestors.

Despite it all, like David Mitchell, the British seem to feel no cognitive dissonance by on one hand belittling themselves, and on the other adopting an aura of superiority over everyone else, as per the quote above: of course someone schooled in England has a better education. The British are like Socrates in his Apology: he begins by claiming to know nothing, then criticises everyone from politicians to craftsmen for knowing even less.

The English love to hate on their country, but of course they drive on the right side of the road; of course their spelling is correct (though in fact, the British themselves often used ‘-or’ spelling instead of ‘-our’; hence Honor Oak); of course their accents are the most comprehensible (though in fact, foreigners find American accents easier to follow); of course the NHS is the best healthcare system in the world, and has to be included in the Olympics opening ceremony; &c.

I suppose this shouldn’t be too surprising. It’s one thing to learn to question your history, and another to internalise that your values and traditions and way of doing things are inferior. This brings us to…

Parochial cosmopolitanism

I think it should be explained in the brochure that the local convenience store does not sell proper biscuits like custard creams or ginger nuts.

— Complaint to Thomas Cook

Traditionally, the British elites have always been well-travelled: from the young men on the Continental Tour, to administrators sent to oversee the far corners of the Empire, to adventurers exploring the Poles, to (more pedestrianly) the elderly retirees in Spain or Greece. In our more egalitarian times, this instinct to go abroad is shared by the less wealthy too: anecdotally, the British people I know of all income levels are better-travelled than those of other nationalities.

As I’ll discuss later on, this cosmopolitan spirit results in the British being exceptionally welcoming to different cultures, with an unsurpassed ability to assimilate foreign elements (hence their national drink being brewed from a plant native to the other side of the world!), and a historic belief in free trade (one overlooked adverse consequence of Brexit is that the EU has lost its free-trade champion).

So it is baffling that at the same time, Brits can be so self-absorbed and ego-centric that they consider their ways of doing things natural and normal, when they’re anything but (see the section on sinks, further down…); or that they are still shocked when they are referred to as ‘foreigners’ when they’re abroad. I do not know whether this list of ‘actual’ complaints to the Thomas Cook travel agency is real or not, but it gives an idea of what I’m talking about.

The other area where this parochialism manifests is British people’s atrocious language skills. About 35% of British people speak more than one language (and, from the British people I’ve observed ‘speaking’ anything other than English, I’d say this is generous); by contrast, almost 80% of Germans speak a foreign language. Yes, yes, fair enough, English is a global language, etc. But still.

Repressed wildness

They broke up Mr Austen’s grand piano, and stamped Lord Rending’s cigars into his carpet, and smashed his china, and tore up Mr Partridge’s sheets, and threw the Matisse into his lavatory.

— Decline and Fall

The stereotypical caricature of an English person is that of a diffident, reserved, somewhat aloof man or woman who finds hugs and other PDAs awkward, and who shies away from expressing any sort of emotion.

This is not the image the residents of Magaluf have for the English. The English are very good at compartmentalising: they have their normal self, and their party self. The latter emerges on special occasions (nights out, holidays), and usually requires a few gallons of low-cost, high-alcohol sambuca to appear. But when it does — what a difference to the normal self! Propositioning strangers, vandalism, loudness, fighting — everything’s fair game in those occasions.

All this is pretty well-known, but what’s perhaps less understood is how complete this compartmentalisation often is. Like, it’s not that the English will only repress their most extreme passions; they will also carefully hide or at least downplay their real views on everything. Even at university, where people are expected to have faux-deep conversations, my English friends were likely to only express their feelings and thoughts with an undercurrent of irony. Being candid and open and earnest does not come easily to the English, unless they feel really safe.

Modest pomposity

—What’s wrong with this tie?

—Too ornate, sir.

—Nonsense! A cheerful pink. Nothing more.

—Unsuitable, sir.

Jeeves and the Unbidden Guest

As this quote suggests, the English detest flamboyance and flare: newly-made bespoke suits should look well-worn; in Le Carre’s novels, spymasters are embarrassed to call their organisation ‘the secret service’; British luxury cars are far more inconspicuous compared to Italian ones; displays of wealth and leisure are gauche (you won’t find many British equivalents to an Agnelli or an Onassis!); and so on. Even modest faux-pas such as the wrong tie knot excite strong emotions.

On the other hand, this is the garb of the Lord Mayor of the City of London:

How do we square the English revulsion towards showing off with the over-the-top pomposity of British institutions and customs (which extends to everything from ridiculous ceremonies (my graduation had me kneeling in front of the Vice-Chancellor, holding their finger, while a Latin prayer was recited) to nomenclature — ‘Lord Chancellor’ &c.))?

Basically, in the UK pomp is fine when it’s impersonal and institutionalised: it’s a celebration of Britishness, and of communal lineage and tradition. The dislike towards individual ostentation is, I think, a vestige of the British class system: this system was (is) extremely rigid — you pretty much always belong to the class you were born into. And so, if you were born upper class, you would expect everyone to know it, and you did not have to show it off through your wealth; doing so would be unkind towards the lower classes. If you were not, any pretence that you’re U because of your wealth is futile — so trying to do so is seen as vain and tactless.

(By contrast, in a country like America where class is more-or-less determined by wealth, those who have newly-acquired wealth have every reason to display it so as to showcase their new class.

(Of course, all this is stripped of a lot of nuance. In the past, British aristocrats would bankrupt themselves to build larger houses to display their power; and old-money Americans would like to claim that class is not about wealth, and would signal their superiority by other means, often looking down on the overly-extravagant nouveau-riche (see for instance the condescension from Tom Buchanan towards Jay Gatsby; but n.b. that the grandson of a liquor dealer came to epitomise American upper class).))

Progressively conservative

Whatever is, is bad, and any change is likely to be worse

— Middlemarch

At first glance, England appears to be incredibly conservative, as evidenced by the endurance and historicity of British institutions and traditions: from the Boat Race to the Knollys Rose Ceremony (please do click on the link, it’s worth it!), and from Formals to The Mousetrap, the English like to do things the way they’ve always done them. This impression is reinforced by meticulous record-keeping, dating back to the Domesday book. In England, everyone can relatively easily trace their family tree back to medieval ages — by contrast, in Greece you can barely find Wikipedia entries for 20th century prime minsters.

All this suggests the English venerate tradition and value continuity. At second glance, however, the English have historically been a progressive people, both socially and economically: they ushered the industrial revolution, their elites voluntarily (as in, without being forced to by a revolution) reformed the electoral system and expanded the franchise, &c; The UK has had three women prime ministers (granted, one barely counts), and members of ethnic and religious minorities in leadership positions (including the current Prime Minister and the Mayor of London). And British people are among the most open to living near people of different nationality, race, or sexual orientation (we’ll revisit this in the next section):

At third glance, the UK has become sclerotically conservative in defiance of its proud heritage of innovation. Its veneer of progressivism (these days manifest almost exclusively in the social sphere) is undermined by the fact ethnic minorities are still, after all, cast in umpteenth Agatha Christie adaptations instead of in new material; by the country’s inability to build desperately needed new housing; by the lack of any kind of vision by British politicians (so that one party can only drum up excitement by falling back to Marxist ideology from last century, and the other by banging on about Thatcher (overlooking the fact that what made Thatcher successful was her conviction, and her willingness to make bold choices)); by the use of human capital in service of American companies (the UK does have excellent human capital; that’s why US companies are setting up AI labs here. But why did Deepmind have to be acquired by Google?); or by the innate suspicion of and cynicism towards any new innovation.

How did the UK lose its way? I don’t think it did, exactly. I think the English have always been a conservative people on average. But there are three things that in the past have saved England from stagnation. First, there is a streak of rebelliousness in the English psyche, which explains Rock and Roll and Victorian explorers and Brunel and the industrial revolution. My comment on increasing reliance on endlessly remaking and adapting the same material aside, this spark of creativity still exists, which is why the UK punches above its weight culturally.

Second, for all its faults, the class system used to work in the nation’s favour in some ways: when aristocrats felt safe and secure in their place in the world, they could follow their convictions. Hence, they could be bold and decisive: political reforms such as the aforementioned Electoral reform, or the repeal of the Corn Laws, were carried out by party leaders against their own parties and class interests; such leaders did not pander to their voters or even their peers — they did what they felt was right for their country. Now, politicians are made of weaker stuff: they want to govern for governing’s sake (they just want to be in the room where it happens — what happens doesn’t matter!). (And this is how you end up with a Labour leader praising Thatcher.)

(I’m not falling into the fallacy of believing politicians in the past were better on average; of course most 19th century politicians were driven to some extent out of vanity or personal ambition, and of course most modern politicians mean well. But whether it was luck or foresight, the English managed to get decisive leaders in power at times of crisis in the past — something they seem unable to be able to do now.)

Third, the state apparatus was just weaker in the past. The more powerful the state grows, the more leaders want to exercise this power — often with the best of intentions, but almost always resulting in bureaucracy and stifling of innovation. This is not unique to the UK, of course — every state becomes more likely over time to over-regulate and over-legislate. But UK institutions (be it the central government or local councils) have been given more centralised power (and vetoes) than their equivalents elsewhere (e.g. the US), and are faster to exercise it. Basically: gridlock in the US stops government projects from taking place; gridlock in the UK prevents private projects from taking place.

(Europeans often sneer at American government dysfunction; they overlook that this dysfunction was very much intentional.)

Britain’s conservatism is sadly destroying the country. It’s heartbreaking because it’s literally visible: in train stations with holes in the ceiling and buckets in the floor to catch the water; in rubbish heaps in public spaces; in hour-long A&E and urgent care waiting times; in broken roads and pavements even in affluent areas; in a stagnating stock market; in struggling British universities (and this, despite the fact they’re disproportionately represented in the world’s top 100!); in overcrowded, ugly, yet ridiculously expensive trains; in mice-infested civil service offices; and worst of all, in perennial pessimism. The quote at the beginning of the section is from a book written almost 200 years ago, but it perfectly captures how the British feel about their country: everything is bad, but it can only become worse, and so no action is ever taken to shake things up.

Is all this reversible? Of course! The UK has the kindling it needs to ignite growth: it has good universities and research; it has smart people; it has beautiful (albeit overpriced) cities; it has an international language, which means it’s attractive for immigrants (it’s much harder to lure workers to Greece, despite the climate!); it has a functional legal system; it has extremely sophisticated finance and legal industries and know-how; it has good transport links to the rest of the world; it has strong brands and heritage; it has cultural capital; it is, in fact, hard to find any good reasons why the UK shouldn’t be the wealthiest country in the Europe.

But it needs decisive action to light up this kindling. First and foremost, the UK needs to sort out housing (I’m a believer in the housing theory of everything (sorting out housing doesn’t mean banning second homes (the UK has fewer vacant dwellings than most other countries); it means building more, doing away with vetoes and the need for a million consultations and permits, etc)); then, it needs leaders who’ll inspire people to overcome their inertia and suspicion of progress. Leaders who’ll confront and sacrifice sacred cows (including the NHS). Leaders who’ll aim to build new things, not just preserve the old (and to be clear, I’m not talking only about politicians, but also CEOs and other corporate managers: why are Burberry and Aston Martin languishing, when LVHM and Ferrari are thriving?).

The media have a role to play too: the UK has some great news organisations, but they are so averse to innovation. I think the FT is the world’s most reliable and objective newspaper, but you can guarantee that its response to new ideas is to poke holes and proclaim them stupid.

(I admit that, having lived here for so long, I find British cynicism easier to stomach than the absurd, cartoonish, over-the-top American optimism and excitement. It feels more sophisticated to be grounded and realistic and to laugh at idiotic VC pitches and brags; but what this overlooks is that while it’s wise and dignified for any one individual to shun hype, a society that mocks its dreamers will stop innovating (and to pre-empt the typical British intelligentsia response that ‘we only laugh at stupid dreams’, all dreams are stupid. Facebook was stupid — social networks had been tried before and resulted in MySpace’s cesspit; Amazon was stupid — who’d want to buy books over this internet thingy?; credit cards were stupid — how could a bank possibly convince retailers to accept a new payment method at a cost, and manage the flow of money back when computers were hardly a thing?; and so on. And even if all these ideas weren’t inherently stupid, it was stupid for the people behind them to pursue them — you have to be stupid to drop out of Harvard to build a social network; you have to be stupid to leave one of the world’s most successful hedge funds to work on an online bookshop in your garage. And yet.))

Sadly, I’m not holding out much hope we’ll see inspirational leaders any time soon. The worst thing Truss did was not the increase in interest rates, but the fact that through her government’s incompetence, she tainted the philosophy of her positions, which was in fact correct. The UK does need growth and decisive action and challenging the bureaucracy. But now, anyone who dares speak of these things will be immediately compared to Truss, and will see their credibility destroyed.

But on this sad note, let’s talk about things the UK does well, before we go back to doom-and-gloom with things it does badly.

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Things the UK does extraordinarily well

Cultural assimilation

I’ve been an immigrant all my adult life, and nowhere have I felt more accepted than in the UK. In Switzerland, I was told by a random stranger to ‘go back home’ (nevermind that I spoke the language, or that my father and grandfather had been to school and university in the country, or that I myself had been living there for three years!); in China, I was seen as the exotic foreigner (not in a negative way by any means — people were very friendly with me — but it was clear, as it is to any foreigner there, that I’d never belong); in my own native Greece, I’m told that I have a ‘foreign accent’!

People call the US a melting pot, but by all accounts it’s not really: cultures do not blend in the US. They just cohabit (and barely that). In the UK they actually do. My son attends a state school, and I’ve lost count of the number of different nationalities and religions represented in his class. As mentioned earlier, there are few countries, if any, where people are more indifferent to the nationality or ethnicity of their neighbours, and immigrants fare better in the UK than in other places:

If anything, the UK goes too far in its acceptance: one of the biggest and stupidest taboos here is to ask someone where they’re from, especially if you precede the ‘from’ with ‘really’. The argument is that asking people where they’re really from suggests that they don’t belong in the UK, which in my view misses the point: the magnificent thing about this country is that you do belong but can still be proud of your foreign heritage. My children are English through-and-through, but they have an obviously foreign surname: I think it’s sad if others don’t feel comfortable questioning them about it, just as much as it’d be sad if my children felt in any way uncomfortable about their name. (And to anyone who, like me, is of obviously (because of their name or religion or skin colour or whatever) of foreign extraction (no matter how many generations back) and is (or is about to become) British, can I just say: if people ask you where you’re really from, try not to give a sanctimonious, pointed, annoying, and pedantic answer (Manchester); you know what they’re asking. Tell them about your family history, be proud of it, and be proud of the fact that the UK has welcomed you or your ancestors; most other countries wouldn’t have done.)

Record keeping

I said earlier that English people can easily trace their family trees back to Victorian times, and further back; more generally, the English have fantastic record-keeping habits. Like, our local youth club has a board showing the rectors in charge of it going back over a hundred years (when the area we now live was seedy and crime-ridden), and we’re talking about a tiny little organisation in Bermondsey. There are student societies tracking their list of presidents to before (the modern iteration of) my own country was founded. It’s like keeping records is a form of hobby here.

Television

English TV is remarkably good. I’m not talking about big productions, but your run-of-the-mill talk shows: panelists on things like QI, Would I Lie to You, 8 out of 10 Cats, &c are witty, sharp, and knowledgeable, far more than their counterparts in other countries (indeed, when even talented celebrities who’ve made their careers in the US (e.g. Trevor Noah) guest-star in UK shows, they’re often underwhelming).

Humour

British humour is so good: from its stand up scene (check out the Comedy Store) to historic productions (Monty Python, Yes, Minister!) to contemporary TV (Peep Show, Fleabag) to cinema (Hot Fuzz) to theatre (The Play That Goes Wrong), the British know how to get laughs.

However, it is notable that the vast majority of this humour reflects the conservatism and pessimism described earlier. Where European or American comedy is exuberant, slapstick, and optimistic, British comedy is relentlessly bleak and depressing — compare, for instance, the original version of the Office to the American adaptation (and n.b. the aforementioned British arrogance — ‘of course the original version is better’).

(There are some notable deviations from the formula — e.g. the works of Richard Curtis. But even these, beloved as they are, are seen as cringe. You’ll hardly ever hear a British person praise them without adding ‘I know it’s silly’.)

Design

From the British flag to the ubiquitous Keep Calm posters, from the Aston Martin DB5 to the Mini, from the Tube sign to coats-of-arms, from St. Paul’s to the Shard, the British have produced some of history’s most brilliant designs (notable exception to be discussed later on: English sinks). What is truly impressive is the breadth of styles that have either originated or flourished in the UK: the country has not been a one-trick-pony in this area.

Bookshops

The UK has wonderful bookshops. London alone boasts the large (Foyles and Waterstones), the small (Daunt’s), the independent (John Sandoe, my own favourite), the historic (Hatchard’s), the entire-street-is-bookstores (Cecil Court), and a hundred others tucked away in side-streets and alleys.

Coffee

The UK is not famous for its coffee culture (indeed, tea is considered the national warm drink of choice), but the coffee here (at least in London) is great. I despise gentrification for the conformity in which it results (a conformity that is too often of the premium-mediocre type), but in London it has given birth to a large number of small cafes and growing chains that serve quality coffee in pleasant surroundings (for example: Comptoir Gourmand, Monmouth, WatchHouse, Kiss the Hippo).

Museums and galleries

Everyone knows the UK (or at least London) has excellent museums and galleries; perhaps fewer people who’ve never visited know that, unlike most institutions of the same calibre elsewhere, all these are free to visit.

Queues

The English know how to queue like no-one else. There’s not much more to say here, other than to note how this orderly behaviour is strangely enforced almost entirely non-verbally: the English won’t make a scene if you cut in front of them — you’ll just get cutting glares. Still, they (mostly) work, although I’m increasingly seeing poor behaviour in the tube.

Architecture & walkable cities

The UK has wonderful architecture, and is pretty unique in its blending the historic with the modern. UK cities and towns are wonderfully walkable, with beautiful nooks and alleys and ancient churches to explore. There’s no shortage of cities and towns worth visiting besides London (see next section) — Bath, York, Cambridge, Oxford, Brighton, Edinburgh, Canterbury, they’re all beautiful.

London-centric things

These are things London in particular does better than any other city I’ve visited.

Architecture & spaces continued

London’s particularly pleasant to walk around: it feels like an amalgamation of a large number of little towns, each with its own identity and character. You can walk from Rotherhithe to Marylebone, and you’ll pass through docks and wharfs, Victorian and Georgian houses, skyscrapers and cathedrals, arcades and markets (see further down), parks and gardens, classical and brutalist masterpieces, statues and street art and blue plaques, and a thousand other things worth seeing.

Specialist retailers

I don’t think there’s a country with as many historic retailers or purveyors for anything you can think of. Everyone knows of Saville Row and Jermyn street, but these are just the tips of the iceberg. There are beautiful shops for everything you could possibly want. Umbrellas? Check. Cheese? Check. Fabrics? Check. Shaving goods? Check. Toys? Check. Alcohol? Check and check. Tobacco? Check.

Markets

There are markets for everything: flowers (Columbia), vintage (Brick Lane), antiques (Notting Hill), food (Borough), fabrics (Berwick street), and God-knows what else.

Parks

Hyde Park, St. James, Regents’, Southwark, Battersea… so many to explore!

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Things the UK does astonishingly badly

Sinks

This is what an English sink looks like:

Washing your hands in England results in either third-degree burns or frostbites — and good luck trying to shave. This design is so bad that it couldn’t be made worse if Katerina Kamprani were trying her hand at it.

Why do the English keep making sinks like that? Their argument is that it helps fill up the sink faster — the idea of a wider faucet never having occurred to them, apparently. And why do they need the sink to fill up? Well… my mother-in-law and I sit at the opposite spectrums of the political spectrum, but no political issue excites as passionate debate as the right way to wash dishes. You see, like many English people, she believes this is not only a reasonable, but the obviously correct approach:

English people like to place a plastic basin in their sink, fill it up with hot water, and wash the dishes in that (why they don’t just put the plug in and remove the plastic, I don’t know; I don’t think they know either.). It is MADNESS.

Trains

My wife and I love trains — our honeymoon was travelling back to London via train routes in Europe. It is particularly galling then that the UK has the worst trains out of every country I’ve ever visited (with the exception of the train we caught between Sofia and Bucharest). They are overcrowded, expensive, ugly, unreliable, and slow.

(There is passionate and acrimonious debate in the UK on whether the ills of the railways can be blamed to privatisation; but as far as I can tell, most metrics seem to have got better since the rails were privatised. Bizarrely, according to Wikipedia, ‘satisfaction with rail of UK respondents was the second-highest in the EU, behind Finland.’ It boggles the mind.)

Formal events

I’ve attended a range of formal events of all budgets in England, from weddings to TV award ceremonies. Almost all of them have been underwhelming and perfunctory: the English seem to think that all they need to host a formal event is to follow a formula (formal clothes: check; three-course meal: check; grand surroundings: check), without any regard to quality, or to actually caring about how the guests feel. In most events I’ve been, the food has been lukewarm, the vegetables overcooked, the wine uninspiring, the salmon or chicken dry, and the bar’s supplies protected by a two-free-drinks-maximum policy. There are few things more disappointing that sitting for Formal in an oak-panelled dining room at one of Cambridge’s oldest colleges and being served soggy, sad little runner beans that wouldn’t cut the mustard in Greece’s worst tourist trap taverna.

Fast food

Weirdly for a city as large as London, there is a dearth of good burger and pizza restaurants here. Franco Manca used to be decent, and there are a few OK burger places (e.g. Bleecker, Patty & Bun), but I haven’t come across anything near world-class (by comparison, tiny Geneva has at least three excellent burger restaurants (Burger Foundation, Inglewood, and Holy Cow)).

Bars

The UK has good pubs (even with the depressing proliferation of standardised chains), and as discussed earlier, excellent cafes, but no decent bars. There are few places that a) serve good drinks and b) do not blast music so loud that it’s audible outside our solar system. This latter habit is even adopted by trendy restaurants, which is even more inexplicable. It’s just as well that I don’t like trendy restaurants (my three favourite restaurants in London happen to be the city’s three oldest).

Drinking culture

Speaking of bars, the first thing that shocked me as a student in the UK was how drunk people got. I remember my father and me having dinner in our hotel restaurant when we first arrived at York, and seeing people stumble and collapse on the sidewalk. We asked our waiter what was going on, and he said, ‘what, they’re just having a night out.’ Later, at the end of my first week at uni, my housemates did a grocery run to buy cheap alcohol to get drunk. I was so confused: it’s not that Greeks do not get drunk — it’s just that intoxication is a consequence of drinking, not the objective.

Austerity

Over ten years since Austerity was adopted as the UK’s policy response to the Great Recession, it remains controversial: people on the left blame it for everything that’s wrong with the country, from anaemic productivity growth to NHS waiting times; those on the right claim no real austerity has taken place, since national debt has only kept rising over time.

As far as I can tell, the truth is in-between: those on the right are correct that British debt and public expenditure have both kept climbing; but those on the left are right that as a % of GDP (and, I think, per capita), spend has been declining (until COVID, that is). And as usual when everyone’s right, everyone’s unhappy: those on the right think austerity didn’t go as far as it should have, and those on the left feel the UK has under-invested.

Personally, I care much less about the level of investment and much more about how that investment is managed. So my take is that proponents of austerity have focused too much on budgets, and too little on efficient management of existing resources — and though I’m inclined to agree with those on the left that the UK can do with more government investment in some areas, it is undeniable that there is inefficiency and bloat in public services that need to be chopped; not just to save money, but because bloat leads to worse quality of service.

For example: last year I emailed my local council to collect our discarded Christmas tree. I had to exchange emails with three (!) people at the council (one from the ‘Customer Resolutions Team’ and two from the ‘Environmental Services Team’). For example: registering my daughter’s birth (admittedly during COVID) required us contacting two different councils, filling in forms manually (one of which asked how many people my wife or I line-managed at work (?!)), and waiting for a call from an undisclosed number (so that if we missed their call for whatever reason, we’d have no idea whom to call back). For example: why does the UK tax payer have to pay for my healthcare, when I have private insurance and coverage? For a less personal example: why does the UK need 650 MPs when the US has 435 members at the House of Representatives?

Sadly, like everywhere else, British unions (and many voters) will protest against redundancies as a matter of principle, even when there is almost indefensible overcapacity or inefficiency.

Milk bottles

Everywhere I’ve lived, fresh milk comes in cartons. Not so in England, where it comes in ugly, bulky plastic bottles. Why, England, why?

Biscuits

Instead of debating whether Jaffa cakes are biscuits, the British should start asking why their biscuits are so awful. There is nothing in Britain that comes close to the worst thing in Papadopoulou’s range, or to Swiss chocolate-covered petite beurre. (OK, maybe shortbread is a contender.)

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Things that are underrated in the UK

The weather

Yes, ok, the weather here is not great, especially in spring (which always starts later than you expect). But it’s not as bad as people think either — the last few summers have been very pleasant and warm (too hot even!); and, famously, it rains less in London than in the so-called city of light, Paris.

The food

The best English cooking is the best in the world

— James Bond, Moonraker

English food is vastly underrated. It’s not flashy or sophisticated like French cuisine, or as rich as Italian, but when done well it’s reliable, flavoursome, and comforting. Think pies, sole, smoked salmon, lamb, Sunday roast with Yorkshire puddings, asparagus, game, battered cod, bacon, ham, English breakfast, bread pudding… Certainly, you’ll never leave a good English restaurant hungry (if you doubt this, try the best English restaurant, Wiltons).

Fashion

It’s common to jeer at the English for being badly dressed and uninspiring, at least compared to the Italians or the French. It’s true that the French or Italians I’ve worked with have been more chic on average; but the UK has greater variety. Sauntering about Paris or Milan may be more aesthetically pleasing for a sartorialist, but London’s more fun.

Nature

if I were forced to hazard a guess, I would say that it is the very lack of obvious drama or spectacle that sets the beauty of our land apart.

— The Remains of the Day

The UK has its share of dramatic landscape, but it is admittedly a small share. Nevertheless, as per Kazuo Ishiguro, there is beauty in the UK’s tranquility, with its rolling hills and lush vales and evergreen forests. There are wonderful walking trails everywhere, including around London.

The language itself

I’ve heard people complain that English is not as melodious as French or Italian, nor does it have the rigid grammar or spelling of German. But English is an incredibly rich language: though Germanic in origin, it has been hugely influenced by Romance languages and Greek. It has an enormous vocabulary, and contrary to the claim it’s not melodious, lends itself very well to lyrics and poetry. (Did you know Vladimir Nabokov once said Lolita was the record of his love affair with the English language?)

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Anything I’ve missed? Anything you disagree with? Let me know!