Hangover

I moved to London 5 years ago and its has often felt like I have joined a party that is coming to an end. It has been a long and a wild party where everyone has been on this roller coaster that only went up.  The country was stable, the economy was booming, liberal ideas were everywhere and there was a general well being all around and what’s more no one really had to work that hard and if you didn’t want to work at all then the government took care of you. It is probably what the Victorians must have felt in their hey days. 

This party is now winding down and the hangover is beginning to bite. It manifests itself in many ways – workers demand bonuses for doing their jobs, unions striking for the sake of it, immigration is suddenly not politically correct any more and there is immense displeasure at welfare payments being reduced. Workers complain for being made to work only for work experience at a very low pay and now the government even wants to clamp down on cash payments to handyman and cooks. It is hard to see how the government and the economy is going to pull itself out of the rut and manage the overall decline in its global standing,

But their is still some top grade stock left over from the party which is pulled out to make the hangover better temporarily. This has been on show in the run up to the Olympics and with all the accompanying soft power paraphernalia. This will be a summer to remember not only because of the Olympics, but also because Britain is probably going to look back and think of it as the end of the glory days.