Talk:United Kingdom

Debt

Total UK government debt rose quickly from 44.4% of GDP in 2007 to 82.9% of GDP in 2011, then increased more slowly to 87.5% of GDP in 2015.[245][246]

This is factually incorrect. This is just the government's borrowing.

No. The last comment is incorrect. UK Government Debt did indeed increase from c 35% of GDP pre-crash to c 85% of GDP post-crash, at which level it has more or less stablised. Government Borrowing has fallen from c £145 billion per annum in 2010 (i.e. 10% of GDP) to c £60 billion per annum now (i.e. 3% of GDP). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 185.108.92.22 (talk) 13:57, 5 October 2017‎ (UTC)

External Debt: The comments re the UK's external debt are misleadingly one-sided and ignore the fact that the UK is also one of the world's largest creditors. Its "Net International Investment Position (the sum of its external borrowing and loans) is modestly negative and very much in the middle of the global rankings.

I agree with the above comments. This whole economic section seems determined to present a negative view of the UK economy. The UK's NET INVESTMENT POSITION (which is what really matters) is actually in credit. The fact that the country is both a major creditor and a major debtor reflects its large financial sector and is arguably a sign of strength rather than a sign of weakness. Also, whilst it is true that UK inequality has widened since the 1970s, the situation has stabilized since the late 1990s and has in fact improved since the 2008 crash. Thus, for almost a decade now, inequality in the UK has been narrowing, not widening as this article misleadingly suggests. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 185.108.92.22 (talk) 13:57, 5 October 2017‎ (UTC)

For example, it owed 5,010 bn in pensions with no assets [unfunded] as of 2010.

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171766_263808.pdf — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.194.83.28 (talk • contribs) 16:37, 5 January 2016‎ (UTC)

FYI, those in credit are the private institutions that are lending money, in most cases to businesses abroad and thus the UK taxpayer receives no benefit, those in debit are the Government, or more accurately, the UK taxpayer, who have seen their taxes thrown away on failed privatisations, and sweeteners to businesses, not to mention that wasted in an attempt at privatising the National Health Service by the back door, whilst the bottom 25% of the UK population attempt to get-by on the minimum wage, and the less fortunate, including the sick and disabled, get denied benefits because of the new 'Universal Credit' system and end up losing their homes and are forced to resort to sleeping in doorways - something that was almost unheard of in the UK ten years ago.

The Government debt (sic) is the result of Mrs Thatcher destroying three million jobs in the shipyards, mines, and steel industry in the 1980s, and replacing these well-paid income tax-paying jobs with low-paying non-income tax payable 'service industry' jobs at the minimum wage. Of course the country's in debt, all that tax has been lost.

When Mrs Thatcher came to power in 1979 there were around 750,000 unemployed. By 1986 there were over three million. To reduce the increased-cost of paying benefits the government then changed the benefit laws to make claiming benefit harder, they also changed the method of counting the 'unemployed' to only count 'those out of work and claiming benefit', thus by denying benefits to as many people as possible, the unemployment figures appeared to go down. In addition, because of the introduction of the Right to Buy' many better-off people bought their council house, but what is not usually mentioned is that the government also forbad councils from building any new council houses, thus the numbers of council houses available to those on low incomes - the group for whom council housing was originally implemented for in the first place - fell. The result was a rise in homelessness.

If that was not bad enough, the new Universal Credit system no longer pays rent directly to the landlord of a claimant's accommodation as the benefit system did previously, instead it is paid into the claimant's account and he/she then has to pay the rent to the landlord themselves, leading many already receiving insufficient money to pay for food, to neglect to pay their rent, including mentally-handicapped and mentally ill people - who are supposedly receiving 'Care in the Community' (sic) - thus leading to rent arrears and private landlords who has previously been eager to accept benefit claimants, as their rent was guaranteed to get paid, no longer being willing to accept benefit claimants at all when renting out accommodating. Thus people claiming benefits can no longer find anywhere to live as now there are no council houses for the people on low incomes to rent, and neither are there any private ones.

A 'negative view' is therefore quite justified to anyone not living in cloud cuckoo land. After the post-war economic recovery of the 1950's, 1960's, and 1970's, the country is effectively bankrupt again, as can be plainly seen by anyone not wealthy enough not to have to use or access any of the Public Services, which amounts to around 95% of the rest of the UK population.

... one of the criteria for a diagnosis of insanity is the patient repeating an action over-and-over again and expecting different results. By this definition the UK electorate, who presumably would prefer things to get better for them rather than worse, qualify with little room for doubt. Perhaps they would just prefer to carry on as before voting the same people into power until sufficient people at the bottom become desperate as they did in Germany in 1933.

BTW, the UK Government has just agreed to pay £33 million of UK taxpayer's money to Eurotunnel - a private company - over a lawsuit that Eurotunnel filed because the government - made up mostly of lawyers - mishandled a ferry contract applicable after Brexit. That's £33 million that won't get spent on schools, roads, the NHS, the benefit system, the police, etc. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.144.50.207 (talk) 10:30, 1 March 2019 (UTC)

33 Million is probably a bargain as the expected fines that the government could have got had it gone to court would have been a lot more. Also Eurotunnel have made some agreement on what infrastructure changes the 33 million will be used to make life easier. But I dont really see what this has to do with article improvement. MilborneOne (talk) 15:49, 1 March 2019 (UTC)

Scots rebellion was about British sovereignty, not Catholicism

The section in 'History' under "After the Acts of Union of 1707", should mention that the King George I, and the House of Hanover were German, and he barely spoke English, and that the Scottish uprising was not just about Protestantism, but that the House of Hanover were not thought of as British by almost anyone in Britain. The uprising had a lot to do with British sovereignty, not just Catholicism. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.30.55.165 (talk) 15:19, 3 September 2017‎ (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 24 January 2019

2601:444:8480:2504:BD0B:1848:B02E:D832 (talk) 01:29, 24 January 2019 (UTC)

Hello, i would like edit permission to let Wikipedia thrive with my knowledge P.S I’m not cocky boi

 Not done: this is not the right page to request additional user rights. You may reopen this request with the specific changes to be made and someone will add them for you, or if you have an account, you can wait until you are autoconfirmed and edit the page yourself. DannyS712 (talk) 01:56, 24 January 2019 (UTC)

Re recent changes to infobox

Just to say that Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Infoboxes says, "When considering any aspect of infobox design, keep in mind the purpose of an infobox: to summarize (and not supplant) key facts that appear in the article" (my emphasis)--Ykraps (talk) 13:43, 2 February 2019 (UTC)

Oh, I see that point's been made. Sorry, not very quick at typing.--Ykraps (talk) 13:46, 2 February 2019 (UTC)

Was revert due to the fact that they're not even mentioned in the article. Wonderful example of bloating and info box for no reason.--Moxy (talk) 13:54, 2 February 2019 (UTC)

I just wish this point was more widely known among sometimes quite prolific editors (usually those who seem to be intent on cutting content, sometimes drastically). I find I often have to repeat myself in countering arguments that an article body need not contain any information which is found in the infobox. For editors of UK articles, please watch out for these spurious reasons for cutting content in article bodies.  DDStretch  (talk) 08:40, 3 February 2019 (UTC)

Languagess in the infobox

Opinion welcome - It is not accurate to have English described as official and the others as recognised. The others fall into different catagories and cannot be treated as the same. As the infobox stands, Welsh has official status within a part of the UK so it should be in the same section as English. Cornish, an extinct language with a revived form practised by a negligible number of enthusiasts, is acknowledged as making a contribution to the culture of one UK region, in its extinct or revived form, making its entry into the infobox misleading. The other language fall somewhere between these two extremes. We should either recreate the infobox template parameters to be more specific, or stick only with English, the one UK-wide official language. If we take the second approach, "Welsh (in Wales)" should not be included because that would imply the languages have the same degree of official standing in Wales, which they do not have. All these other languages can be dealt with in the article itself. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 03:40, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

We had those arguments years ago & what you have in the infobox is the result of those arguments. Do you really want to open up this can of worms again? PS: FWIW, I've been tuning into the UK House of Commons debates concerning Brexit. The only language I heard all the MPs using, was english. GoodDay (talk) 04:02, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

I was not party to those discussions. Consensus can change with time. All I see is an infobox containing detail that is misleading. That is what happens when you try to squeeze too much detail into the infobox that shouldn't be there. The place that sort of detail is in the body of the article where any nuances and potential misconceptions can be handled properly. Reference to the EU charter in the infobox is what is opening that can of worms you speak of, not my suggested change. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 20:30, 6 February 2019 (UTC)