When l was researching some articles at the end of last year, I stumbled on a new You Tube niche of sorts: people that basically go across the UK highlighting the decline of major cities and towns on the ground. You Tubers like the Wandering Turnip, Charles Veitch, UK Explored, Honest Places and Wendall visit cities and towns up and down the country, documenting precisely what you or I would see were we to go there, and their work is invaluable as such. There is just no easy way of saying this but many of Britain’s cities and towns are just broken, and what these areas demonstrate is that ‘Broken Britain’ is not just a slogan, it is real.
In many parts of the UK, the decline, decay and destitution has firmly set in. Places like Walsall, Bristol, Grimsby, Dewsbury, Hull and many others have declined tremendously over the years. Parts of Birmingham, Leeds and Newcastle are following a similar path. It can be observed in the abundance of derelict buildings, ubiquitous graffiti, excessive litter, empty high streets, homes that have fallen into disrepair, bordered up shops and abandoned cars. Increasingly, more and more of the country is descending into a dystopia and no one wants to acknowledge it, certainly not the ruling class. What is both striking and sinister is that the people and the environment are reflections of one another; both embodying the decay and destitution that is all around them.
The picture below, for example, is from Birmingham, the You Tuber JoeFish describes Birmingham as being “like one big rubbish dump. The moment you step outside the city centre, there is rubbish everywhere".
Many of these are former industrial towns and cities that never fully recovered from deindustrialisation. Once the beating heart of British industry that powered the country through the Industrial Revolution, they are increasingly being defined by poverty, crime, homelessness and unemployment. Some of these areas were hit hard by the COVID-19 lockdowns and have yet to recover whilst increasing rent and competition from online retailers have invariably played a part too. A struggling economy and government austerity have contributed as well. It is sad to see and this article feels like an obituary of sorts. The plight of these areas is a damning indictment of governments both past and present.
Recent trips I had to Sutton and Swindon tell a similar story. In a 300 meter walk from Swindon Station to the office of the Lotus Eaters, l passed by two people who appeared to be under the influence of something or other, heavily tattooed, talking loudly with slurred speech and carrying the posture of a marionette puppet. A discarded vehicle lay strewn across a patch of land with toppled metal fences laying on the grass, behind which stood graffiti donned walls. Once again, the parallel between the people and the area is uncanny. Interestingly, when asked by Swindon Borough Council what the residents enjoyed about the town centre, 42% of the respondents said “nothing”, I am hardly surprised.[1] I think it is important to add that while this was in Swindon it is a broadly similar story up and down the country, in fact this could have been anywhere.
As I have explored elsewhere on my Substack, a culture of borrowing to meet its obligations has finally caught up with the British government. The government is broke, it is out of ideas and out of money, and many local authorities are on the verge of bankruptcy (Birmingham and Nottingham are two such examples) and the required funds needed to help redevelop these deprived areas is not there. Increasingly, the private sector does not want to invest in areas with little in the way of human capital and a struggling local economy. Metapolitical commentary aside, this is a sad and desperate predicament that these areas face and there are no simple and easy solutions. The life, energy and vitality has been drained from many these areas. You wouldn’t want to visit many of these places, much less live and raise a family there. The only things that flourish there are poverty, crime and destitution, these places have been struck down by a ‘moral syphilis’ that cannot be cured. Recently, John Lydon of the Sex Pistols lamented the decline of Britain’s seaside towns on LBC, formerly full of joy and life they too have fallen into disrepair.
You cannot ignore the mind heist that goes on where they plaster over the unsightly, derelict buildings with pretty pictures of colourful, vibrant shops, basically a complete inversion of reality (totally redefining the phrase “to paper over cracks”). It is a sign of both denial and desperation that they resort to this and it leaves me asking the question “how long can this charade go for?” How long can our leaders maintain the illusion, the façade of a civil society till people start calling this out for what it is.
Fake, boarded up shops have sprung up all around the UK, in Northern Ireland alone the government has spent £8 million pounds on them.[2] They are a perfect facsimile of civilised life contained within a country that is in steep decline. You can’t have real shops but here are some fake ones. What is certainly not fake is the grim reality facing many of these areas and that can’t be boarded up, not for much longer anyway.
Links
The Wandering Turnip in Newcastle
UK Explored in Bristol
Notes
[1] Thomas, A. (2024) ‘Swindon residents like 'nothing' about town centre,‘ BBC. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-wiltshire-68462252
[2] McNeilly, B.C. (2014) 'In Pictures: £8m spent on fake shop fronts in Northern Ireland,' BelfastTelegraph.co.uk, 18 April. https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/in-pictures-8m-spent-on-fake-shop-fronts-in-northern-ireland/30196699.html.
Another excellent piece. It is such a shame what the UK has become. These pictures could have been taken literally anywhere in England.