[afavour]

It’s not impossible. The UK has a rich history of tech innovation but it’s long since been eclipsed by Silicon Valley and its funding (which the UK can only dream of).

But the UK government's GDS team is a fantastic example of doing tech right in government. I can see an expanded government involvement in tech for bodies like the NHS that is a clear alternative to the Silicon Valley model. The salaries would never reach US levels but could still afford a very comfortable life.

Problem is that it would require the government to spend money on itself and its employees, which successive governments are loathe to do because the press will punish them for it every time.

[TheOtherHobbes]

In many ways the UK is a tragic country: top tier talent in many areas, hamstrung by political, management, financial, and media culture rooted in the 19th century, and wholly colonised by offshore owners and foreign powers.

Many of the country's assets and infrastructure are now literally owned abroad, and run for the benefit of foreign owners.

You regularly get outbreaks of talent like GDS, and they regularly get sidelined/eaten/shut down if they're not aligned with corporate ownership.

[afavour]

Yes, I also think ossified social structures have a lot to do with it. You work up the chain of management and eventually you find the son of the Earl of Tossingham, who turns out to be completely ineffectual.

The US has avoided that fate up until this point but when I look at Larry Ellison’s son buying Paramount with dad’s money, the Trump juniors cashing in on their dads name (and to your point, all of them happily taking investment from the Saudis) I do have a sense of history repeating itself.

[tialaramex]

Nah, the US has always had the same problem except without titles. Robert F Kennedy Jr. is the same phenomenon. Why is the Earl or RFK in charge? Because of the name. That's what the Roark family in the Sin City stories is about, this happens in major US cities just like anywhere else.

It's worse if it's literally part of the design of the country's civil fabric, e.g. Saudi Arabia or indeed Britain's Royal Family but while Charlie and a handful of his family have that sort of connection a lot of those random Earls and other minor titles are just inherited power, same as a Kennedy or a Roark. And it's barely a century since Britain last had to do the "hard" (it's about an hour of parliament's time) work of just crossing out names on these lists (last century it was because some of our uh, nobles, were actually born and lived in Germany, and had thus become our Enemy in World War I)

To my mind, a big problem is that until extremely recently Britain's two major political parties both agreed on the Protestant Work Ethic, the idea that doing work is a moral necessity for people. There are a lot of scenarios where that breaks down, but neither Labour (because um, clue is in the name) nor the Tories could stomach the idea that maybe working isn't itself a valuable end. We are well past the point where it's mechanically necessary to employ everybody, and we may be approaching the point where doing so is actively harmful, a political party who can't even imagine that is a bad fit.