It's hard to get a handle on any kind of objective reality. Headlines always catastrophise.
Anecdotally at least:
- Brexit is a pretty notable economic negative, purely in the sense that it's added a lot of drag to EU trade and made it harder for workers to access the UK market. Nobody likes loads of red tape. It's hard to separate this from the many other influences from COVID through to Ukraine.
- There has been a pretty clear spike in the cost of living, which has a direct impact on things like poverty. Notably the housing market was very disrupted by the policies of the previous prime minister; again, it's hard to separate this from anything else but anecdotally a very large number of people noticed that they suddenly had to find hundreds of pounds of extra money every month due to housing end energy costs.
- The NHS is not in a great state, no. Several years of underinvestment and the pandemic came home to roost, and combined with the pandemic and rather a lot burnout it is not sounding great from anyone who works there.
- The economy isn't in "free fall" but does have several things dragging at it – including supply-chain difficulties, inflation, worker shortages, and other challenges. It's hard out there.
- Most noticeable and in-your-face thing for someone like me—in the fortunate position of being on the breadline—is an obvious deterioration in services and availability. Lots of strikes in various industries, quality of everything suffering, difficulties getting basic goods sometimes. It can feel pretty oppressive, though of course nothing compared to how some people must be struggling to get by at all.
Anecdotally at least:
- Brexit is a pretty notable economic negative, purely in the sense that it's added a lot of drag to EU trade and made it harder for workers to access the UK market. Nobody likes loads of red tape. It's hard to separate this from the many other influences from COVID through to Ukraine.
- There has been a pretty clear spike in the cost of living, which has a direct impact on things like poverty. Notably the housing market was very disrupted by the policies of the previous prime minister; again, it's hard to separate this from anything else but anecdotally a very large number of people noticed that they suddenly had to find hundreds of pounds of extra money every month due to housing end energy costs.
- The NHS is not in a great state, no. Several years of underinvestment and the pandemic came home to roost, and combined with the pandemic and rather a lot burnout it is not sounding great from anyone who works there.
- The economy isn't in "free fall" but does have several things dragging at it – including supply-chain difficulties, inflation, worker shortages, and other challenges. It's hard out there.
- Most noticeable and in-your-face thing for someone like me—in the fortunate position of being on the breadline—is an obvious deterioration in services and availability. Lots of strikes in various industries, quality of everything suffering, difficulties getting basic goods sometimes. It can feel pretty oppressive, though of course nothing compared to how some people must be struggling to get by at all.