UK is in an absolute mess
@TENET
The UK (driven by the English) is disorganized, point blank. Management has been a problem in this country for decades and it still plagues society.
Appearances, rhetoric are seen as being more important that the actual facts. Germany, the UK and Netherlands are the most similar looking and looking-feeling nations in Europe. There are parts of the Netherlands or Germany where if you don't pay too much attention you could actually feel that you are in the UK. Culturally in terms of mind and societal structure Germany and the UK are in many many ways opposite.
Germany: planned action, UK: off the cuff action
Germany: collective UK: individual
Germany: in-your-face authoritarian governance, individual freedom (superficially at least) and not in-your-face
Germany: good management in sport and large companies, bad management in sport and large companies
Germany: world leading large industries, UK no world leading large industries
Germany: less individual creativity - in arts and music, UK higher levels of individual creativity - in arts and music
Germany: rigid formality and little personal, interpersonal politeness - especially with strangers, UK: politeness prized above us, little formality in normal civic life
Germany: civil proscribed law, UK: principle based common law
Germany: focus on manufacturing, UK: focus on services
Germany: "everything is forbidden unless expressly allowed", UK: "everything is allowed unless expressly forbidden" (
Did Jhering coin the bon mot "In Germany everything that is not allowed is forbidden"?)
etc etc etc
Look at sports management in the UK (for a high profile example). Note that most of the good managers are not English (scots, irish) and even when they are English they are the less-power-connected gruffer and more direct Northerners.
Look at this video. It's really just bluster, grandstanding, ignoring facts, refusal to accept facts and it is considered acceptable (at some levels). u cannot run a country like that.
It is this UK muddling through which leads to where we are. It sometimes yields better results (esp. in art, science) but when dealing with large systems it is too ill-planned IMO in general.
EDIT: I mean most similar to the UK.. there are more similar nations to each other but I am talking from a UK perspective. i phrased that incorrectly but will not edit the original text and mess it up even more. so Germany and Netherlands are the most similar to the UK within the context detailed above.