The Labour Party's win: Britain must not squander a chance to arrest its decline

livemint.com:

I recently spent ten days in the United Kingdom, driving through the English countryside and occasionally giving lectures. My journey included visits to historical landmarks like the majestic Durham Cathedral, completed in 1133 CE, and the little village in Lincolnshire where Isaac Newton was born. But I also saw, in London and across the country, signs of urban decay and neglect, as well as homelessness, poverty and despair.

Having grown up in India reading the Brontë sisters, Arthur Conan Doyle and P.G. Wodehouse, and having been a student in London in the 1970s, I was somewhat familiar with both sides of the UK: the opulence of its imperial past and the pockets of entrenched poverty. Indians’ deep familiarity with British culture is rooted in the rich and complicated shared history between Britain and India.

Legend has it that when the great Indian writer Nirad Chaudhuri, known for his photographic memory, arrived in London from Kolkata for the first time, he could direct the taxi driver through lanes the driver was not familiar with. Although I relished the landscapes and the conversations with strangers, I could not help but notice an atmosphere of widespread discontent and social turmoil. Everywhere I went, people spoke about job scarcity, declining real wages, the dismal state of the health-care system, long wait times for medical treatment and crumbling infrastructure.

Trains frequently ran late and often were cancelled, despite government reforms aimed at improving service quality. Official data supports such anecdotal evidence that the British economy faces significant challenges. The UK’s GDP grew by 0.7% during the first quarter of 2024, pulling the country out of recession and providing the leadership with