Britain ‘no longer a rich country’ after living standards plunge – Parts of the UK are now worse off than the poorest regions of Slovenia and Lithuania
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/03/12/britain-no-longer-rich-country-after-living-standard-plunge/
by ByGollie
35 comments
Rather rich of the Telegraph to report this with an air of moral superiority when it spent the last 15 years enabling those right-wingers who are responsible for it.
I mean, this is no suprise with business investment dropping through the floor. We voted brexit to flirt with America. They never put out, and now they are orange and nazi.
The slowdown due to brexit hits in an interesting way, it’s not the people in work who really suffer. It’s the young looking for jobs, especially in the less productive parts of Britian.
My big prediction is that Britain will become a little like eastern Europe 20 years ago, where a larger section of the young emigrate for opportunities.
People really underestimate Slovenia.
Edit: Seeing a lot of this in comments. Slovenia is not post-Soviet country, nor it was ever part of eastern block. Yes it is ex-communist, but of neutral SFR Yugoslavia which had different system than Warsaw Pact countries.
Well done the Tories….and the people who voted for that rubbish…..
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I mean, I remember growing up in cornwall and being informed that my county was on the same poverty index as Lithuania. What’s changed?
Slovenia Is really well off. Categorizing them as some Slavic middle of nowhere is racist/xenophobic as fuck lol
Most Brits never had a high standard of living, even in their best days of colonial drainage of other nations. Money went to the richest.
Isn’t the guy who made brexit happen and caused this mess now, the leader of the second or third biggest party on paper?
The idea that Slovenia and Lithuania could be use as a standard for ‘poor countries’ is pretty obtuse.
Are things really that bad in Slovenia? I haven’t noticed.
Turns out putting all the economic and political focus in one city (London) for fifty years isn’t great for the country.
Move parliament out of London. That’s critical.
I’ve been visiting Lithuania for the last 16 years. In that time, the country has come along massively in terms of infrastructure and built environment. There’s a real sense of progress and achievement. At the same time, I’ve been seeing my own country, Britain, go in the opposite direction.
The area I come from is becoming almost unrecognisable from how it used to be: closed shops everywhere, mounting rubbish on the streets, public services cut to the bone, rising crime/antisocial behaviour, local councils going bankrupt, visible poverty – a general sense of social decline and polarisation. We don’t take holidays in England anymore, going by the sea in Lithuania is cheaper, safer and more enjoyable. Even the shopping centres in Lithuania in the regions are better than what one finds in England.
I do love when they take snippets of information to form a narrative.
Nearly 15 years of Tory stewardship will do that to the UK.
The key here is “parts of”. UK has always had badly neglected areas (for which they received a lot of EU subsidies, lol).
Wow who thought that given tax cuts to the rich and fucking over even one else was bad for the economy
No biggie, UK gov did it’s part in accelerating shitholisation process, don’t act surprised now
What’s wrong with Slovenia?
Slovenia is quite a rich country.
People say that the only thing that changes while crossing the border between Austria and Slovenia, is the language
Vast amount of assets are owned by extremely rich people here and elsewhere. Those assets are barely taxed, they can sit in the Caymen islands, or China or wherever soaking up wealth from the UK while government revenues are getting less and less able to provide services. Taxes from salaries are not cutting it anymore.
Meanwhile our energy costs are some of the most expensive anywhere and we’ve allowed our manufacturing base, which existed largely in those now less affluent areas , to be squandered. We continually base all of our decisions on whatever is cheaper in the short term, allowing swathes of our critical infrastructure to be bought up, loaded with debt and under invested in. Generally by companies from countries that just would not allow the same thing to happen at home.
We can cry about Brexit all we want, I voted against it for a reason. I get it, it makes everyone feel face eating leopard smug, and it’s the reason most people are here to discuss, but there are way bigger, more fundamental problems in the UK than that.
ITT; Nobody reading the article.
This isn’t really to do with Brexit. It’s a lack of recovery from the 2008 financial crash. We’ve flatlined since then. It was the same when we were in the EU. You can see the chart in the article.
GDP growth has been sustained by population growth, though at a lesser rate than that population growth, which has meant less per capita. Leaving the EU didn’t change any of these trajectories.
The problems with the UK economy go beyond Brexit and membership or lack thereof in the EU is comparatively trivial to the structural problems facing it.
Slovenia is not a poor country at all
Once again the usual stupidity in the comments.
No this isn’t all because brexit, brexit was another nail in the coffin.
Decades of focusing on London and the surrounding regions is the problem. Decades of neglecting the rest of the nation but instead of seeing the problem people just get an easy answer to distract them.
What we need is actual change not another easy way for labour tory or whoever else gets in power to shirk responsibility. But as per usual people can be easily misdirected with a single sodding word.
What did Lithuania do 😭
The telegraph is a joke
As a Croatian I cant stand Slovenia but maaan thats nice country to live in, really stupid article
Oh no, not slovenia, a prosperous eu country with incredible preserved nature and food resourceees….
still a rich country, just astoundingly unequal, result of 40 years of neoliberalism, funneling more and more money in the pockets of a few people
Slovenia is absolutely amazing. Loved my holidays there. So pretty!
I mean Slovenia is not poor…
Lol, picking 2 countries that are in the top 5 economically in the Eastern bloc is quite funny
The first part of the title is simply objectively false.
Congratulations to Slovenia and Lithuania for the improvements they’ve made; they should be celebrated, not used to try and bring the UK down.
High five Lithuania!
Slovenia randomly catching strays
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