To all of you who live in France and claim that life is better in the UK, the obvious response is why then are you living in France?
For those of you who nevertheless believe that life is better in the UK I can assure you that it is not. How do I know? I've spent over 30 years working in the construction and engineering industries both in the UK and the Middle East, for both UK and north American based companies, private and public sector employees. Despite my experience and despite having the highest possible qualifications (three degrees, one from Cambridge, and three professional charterships) I have only recently secured a job with a UK firm (following a three-year spell working in the Middle East away from my family) and only on a part-time contract basis, at a lower grade and significantly lower salary with no long-term job security.
Contrary to the claims of the UK media, Britain has not survived the (largely self-induced) recession particularly well and her economy remains fragile. Despite the huge sacrifices many of us have made, social divisions have continued to grow while the main instigators of the recession have escaped without penalty (their organizations having received massive state subsidies to prevent them failing). House price inflation, particularly in London and the South East, is spiralling out of control, transport and energy costs are amongst the highest in Europe (despite the UK's small size, the concentration of London and the S East, no shortage of cheap and willing labour and despite Britain having benefited from North Sea oil and gas revenues for many decades). Unsurprisingly, food prices also continue to creep up month by month.
Many of those who have managed to enter or re-enter the job market during the last four years now work on zero hours contracts and for pitiful wages (the minimum wage, where paid, is hardly generous when you take account of Britain's spiralling living costs and taxation regime) while many of those who managed to retain their jobs throughout the 'austerity' period (including a large proportion of the public sector) have seen their salaries further decline (in real terms). And for the future, well the NHS is clearly being outsourced while state pensions for those of us yet to retire will be virtually worthless (assuming we live long enough to be able to claim them) and for the next generation probably non-existent. To add to the pain for those yet to enter the job market, the cost of higher education is extortionate (far higher than anywhere else in Europe) but with no evidence of those costs ever being recouped (I predict large scale loan payment defaults in years to come with the taxpayer again picking up the bill). And significant relaxations in planning legislation mean that what little undeveloped 'countryside' remains is now also up for grabs, either for residential development (to cater for second home owners, investment buyers and for those forced to move home every few years because there are no minimum space standards in the UK) or for shale gas exploration/ exploitation (because the UK frittered away its North Sea legacy).
And have you looked at the kinds of jobs that are now routinely advertised? Virtually all of them are sales or marketing in disguise, geared to making money rather than providing high quality services, education or research (the things that really contribute to a high quality of life), and heavily dependent upon either an artificially inflated housing market or public sector contracts.
What the last three recessions should have taught us is that a) the model of continuous economic growth is fundamentally flawed and b) all the Thatcher era achieved in practice was a massive transfer of debt from the public sector to the private sector (the UK has by far the highest level of private sector debt of all G8 countries) which has actually increased economic instability.
The French model may not be perfect (whose is) but it is far more humane and equitable than the British/ American model and has been far less damaging on both the social and environmental fabric of the nation. Reform may be required, but not of the kind imposed in Britain over the last 30 years. We should learn from the past not repeat the same mistakes. Thank goodness countries like France and Germany have resisted Americanization for so long.
