The UK is in a mess. We have squandered our natural resources and the environment has been seriously damaged. The financial system is fragile and we have an unprecedented level of public and private debt which fuelled an unsustainable house price bubble and rampant consumerism. We have allowed our manufacturing industries to decline and now we are dependent on China and other far eastern countries to produce goods for us. Similarly, we squandered North Sea oil and gas and now we are dangerously dependent on other countries to supply us. These are not not temporary problems : things will not get back to ‘normal’. It will be downhill from here.
On the political front we have an electorate whose level of expectations of the public services they can reasonably expect is totally out of kilter with what they are prepared to pay for them via taxation. Through the boom years politicians encouraged these expectations whilst promising not to increase income tax. No wonder we are in such a mess!