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Comment by alangibson

6 months ago

The UK has just given up on being in any way internationally relevant. If the City of London financial district disappeared, within 10 years we'd all forget that it's still a country.

This feels relevant to your comment: https://archive.is/9V2Bf

Orgs are already fleeing LSEG for deeper capital markets in the US.

  • The LSE itself isn't really _that_ important; London remains huge for financial services in general (though this _may_ be somewhat in decline for various reasons; it lost a certain amount of importance as the de facto gateway to Europe after Brexit, say).

As an aside, the UK is a great tourist destination, especially if you leave London right after landing.

Beautiful landscape, the best breakfast around, really nice people, tons of sights to see.

How much damage can they withstand before they figure out how to stop hurting themselves? I wouldn't touch UK investment with a ten foot pole.

  • A lot more, the Online Safety Act is just a symptom of the structural problems (Lack of de-facto governance, A hopelessly out of touch political class, Voting systems that intentionally don't represent the voting results, etc).

    Argentina has had nearly 100 years of decline, Japan is onto its third lost decade. The only other party in the UK that has a chance of being elected (because of the voting system) is lead by someone who thinks sandwiches are not real [1]. It's entirely possible the UK doesn't become a serious country in our lifetimes.

    [1] https://www.politico.eu/article/uk-tory-leader-sandwiches-no...

    • > “I’m not a sandwich person, I don’t think sandwiches are a real food, it’s what you have for breakfast.” The Tory leader went on to confirm that she “will not touch bread if it’s moist.

      The headline is clickbait. She didn't say that sandwiches are not real. She is saying that she doesn't believe it is a proper lunch/meal.

      2 replies →

    • >A hopelessly out of touch political class

      Orwell pointed this out in England your England which was written during the Blitz. Many of the problems he described have only got worse in the decades since he wrote about them in my opinion. While the essay is a bit dated now (it predates the post-war era of globalisation for example which created new axes in UK politics) I still think it's essential background reading for people who want to know what's wrong with the UK, and it's an excellent example of political writing in general.

    • She doesn't think sandwiches aren't real. It was just a point about not liking them.

      The current actual leader of the UK decided to politicise this, in a real moist bread response:

      > Prime Minister Keir Starmer — who leads a country grappling with a stagnant economy, straining public services and multiple crises abroad — in turn accused Badenoch of talking down a “Great British institution.”

    • Argentina is a great analog for the UK, time shifted by century. Both former first-class economies doomed to a long decline by bad policies that elites refuse to change.

      9 replies →

  • > How much damage can they withstand before they figure out how to stop hurting themselves?

    Funnily enough we wonder this about the USA and its drain-circling obsession with giving power -- and now grotesque, performative preemptive obeisance -- to Donald Trump.