Best Of

Interesting thread from @RochdalePioneers. Not sure I agree with all of it but I do agree on the key points in his last paragraph.

1. The current systems and solutions offered by Tory and Labour have clearly failed.
2. The insurgent parties - primarily Reform and The Greens - have recognised this and realise radical change is needed.
3. The solutions they are offering are not going to make things better and will probably make things a lot worse.

So the question that I have been considering is whether actually there is no viable practical solution to the problems facing us. Anything radical enough to deal with thebproblems (assuming we can even agree on what the problems are) may be do radical and disruptive it leads to large sections of the electorate simply refusing to go along.

Are we and much of the rest of the democratic West becoming ungovernable?

We have no precedent or case study for our predicament unfortunately, except perhaps Japan.

Perhaps 30% of our problems are down to recent crises (and there have been many) but the rest are down to ageing demographics. A shrinking active population, and a rapidly increasing dependency ratio. Plus advances in healthcare keeping people expensively alive for longer. Hard to find a solution to that, other than an ever increasing pension age.

Our demographic challenge is nothing like Japan's: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_dependency_ratio (sort by elderly).

I get very irritated by this assumption, brought up all the time on podcasts. I think it's politicians abdicating responsbility.

Our GDP performance is also nothing like Japan’s. Theirs is abject.

Politicians rarely mention demographics. It’s the rest of us. But just look at the basic maths and weep. Healthcare spending has to rise ahead of GDP simply for service levels to stand still. That’s not politicians abdicating responsibility.

Maybe AI will save us.

It won't.

I'm pretty sure you're right. I rather worry that AI might be really good at the UK's key strengths of blather and high bills.

Middle East conflict will damage UK’s economy ‘more than any other’
Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development says UK economy will grow by just 0.7% this year
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/mar/26/middle-east-conflict-will-damage-uk-economy-more-than-any-other

Given all the circumstances, I'd be amazed and delighted to think the UK economy would grow at all this year.

Agreed !

But the forecast does assume it's all over by the summer, without further large scale damage to Gulf energy infrastructure.
..However, the global economy is in peril from the uncertainty surrounding the outcome of the war, it said, which means there is “a significant downside risk to the outlook [from] persistent disruptions to exports from the Middle East that raise energy prices even further than assumed and aggravate shortages of key commodities...

Interesting thread from @RochdalePioneers. Not sure I agree with all of it but I do agree on the key points in his last paragraph.

1. The current systems and solutions offered by Tory and Labour have clearly failed.
2. The insurgent parties - primarily Reform and The Greens - have recognised this and realise radical change is needed.
3. The solutions they are offering are not going to make things better and will probably make things a lot worse.

So the question that I have been considering is whether actually there is no viable practical solution to the problems facing us. Anything radical enough to deal with thebproblems (assuming we can even agree on what the problems are) may be do radical and disruptive it leads to large sections of the electorate simply refusing to go along.

Are we and much of the rest of the democratic West becoming ungovernable?

We have no precedent or case study for our predicament unfortunately, except perhaps Japan.

Perhaps 30% of our problems are down to recent crises (and there have been many) but the rest are down to ageing demographics. A shrinking active population, and a rapidly increasing dependency ratio. Plus advances in healthcare keeping people expensively alive for longer. Hard to find a solution to that, other than an ever increasing pension age.

Our demographic challenge is nothing like Japan's: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_dependency_ratio (sort by elderly).

I get very irritated by this assumption, brought up all the time on podcasts. I think it's politicians abdicating responsbility.

Our GDP performance is also nothing like Japan’s. Theirs is abject.

Politicians rarely mention demographics. It’s the rest of us. But just look at the basic maths and weep. Healthcare spending has to rise ahead of GDP simply for service levels to stand still. That’s not politicians abdicating responsibility.

Maybe AI will save us.

We missed an opportunity to reduce long term healthcare spending during Covid when we concentrated protecting old buggers like me at the expense of children and working people, thereby keeping us alive to continue to be a drain on the country’s resources.

Interesting thread from @RochdalePioneers. Not sure I agree with all of it but I do agree on the key points in his last paragraph.

1. The current systems and solutions offered by Tory and Labour have clearly failed.
2. The insurgent parties - primarily Reform and The Greens - have recognised this and realise radical change is needed.
3. The solutions they are offering are not going to make things better and will probably make things a lot worse.

So the question that I have been considering is whether actually there is no viable practical solution to the problems facing us. Anything radical enough to deal with thebproblems (assuming we can even agree on what the problems are) may be do radical and disruptive it leads to large sections of the electorate simply refusing to go along.

Are we and much of the rest of the democratic West becoming ungovernable?

We have no precedent or case study for our predicament unfortunately, except perhaps Japan.

Perhaps 30% of our problems are down to recent crises (and there have been many) but the rest are down to ageing demographics. A shrinking active population, and a rapidly increasing dependency ratio. Plus advances in healthcare keeping people expensively alive for longer. Hard to find a solution to that, other than an ever increasing pension age.

Our demographic challenge is nothing like Japan's: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_dependency_ratio (sort by elderly).

I get very irritated by this assumption, brought up all the time on podcasts. I think it's politicians abdicating responsbility.

Our GDP performance is also nothing like Japan’s. Theirs is abject.

Politicians rarely mention demographics. It’s the rest of us. But just look at the basic maths and weep. Healthcare spending has to rise ahead of GDP simply for service levels to stand still. That’s not politicians abdicating responsibility.

Maybe AI will save us.

Sorry to bang this drum again but demographics drive only a very small proportion of our healthcare spending increases. It's more than doubled in real terms since 2000 - no amount of ageing can explain that. It's a political choice.