I've lived in Germany on and off over the years. I don't think people in the UK realise just how degraded and shabby and generally unpleasant UK towns have become over the last 40 years of Thatcherism. We've let our public infrastructure degrade to almost US levels.
It’s easy to underestimate the economic catastrophe of the last 16 years because it’s been gradual. But imagine we’d actually grown at 2% a year since 2008 and then lost it all at once this year: it would be a collapse of >30%
Hard to overstate how radical we need to be now
Reminds me of the time John Major, in similar electoral difficulty, said ‘When your back’s to the wall, you’ve got to turn around and fight.’ Advice that would lead to you fighting a wall.