I wrote a book called “Crap Towns”. It seemed funny at the time

Twenty years ago, I think there was still a sense that we were collectively laughing with each other about the dullness of small towns. We all had the same shops - Woolworths, Dixons, Our Price, BHS. We all had a leisure centre that looked like everyone else's leisure centre. Some towns were better off than others, some towns had parts that you were better off avoiding after dark, but the majority of towns belonged to the same broad spectrum of bland mediocrity.

Today, I think it's clear who would be being laughed at by whom. The fates of places have so radically diverged that we no longer have a sense of collective identity. All of the places listed in Crap Towns are now unrecognisable, for better or worse. Those familiar shops are now gone; in some places they have been replaced by artisan bakeries and pop-up boutiques, while in others they have been replaced by charity shops or nothing at all. Half the leisure centres have shut and we all know which half.

The upper middle class might have become more humourless and puritanical, but I think that's a subconscious self-defence mechanism, a manifestation of noblesse oblige without real obligation. The working class are too angry to laugh and certainly aren't willing to be laughed at. We all know that we're teetering on the brink of a populist wave, but no-one in a position of power seems willing or able to do anything about it.

Well put.

A few decades of compounding inequality transforms what used to be good natured ribbing amongst chums into bullying.

What compounding inequality? The UK's Gini coefficient has been trending downwards since the global financial crisis.

14 years of Conservative government made this country more equal, not less, because they flattened the income distribution by making everybody poorer.

The big pattern among rich people in the UK nowadays is not that they're getting richer, it's that they're leaving.

You’re looking at the wrong numbers. Wealth, not income. Wealth inequality is through the roof. Poverty is through the roof. More people using food banks than ever. More people on zero hours and low paid contracts.

If you think the problem with the UK is that rich people are leaving, then you have no idea about the reality of living in the UK. Visiting some of the towns in this book would be a starting point.

> Poverty is through the roof. More people using food banks than ever. More people on zero hours and low paid contracts.

Is that supposed to prove me wrong? I said that everybody is getting poorer.

> Wealth inequality is through the roof.

Wealth inequality, while high, is still roughly where it was in 2007. (Source: https://equalitytrust.org.uk/scale-economic-inequality-uk/)

> If you think the problem with the UK is that rich people are leaving

I said it's a problem, not the problem. And it's not just the ultra-rich who are leaving, but vast swathes of the middle classes. Many poor people would leave too if they had the means.

You and the other replier seem to think I'm defending the status quo. How on earth did I imply that? You think I think it's a good thing for the entire country to get poorer?

"Wealth inequality, while high, is still roughly where it was in 2007"

This is not whats represented in the source you cited?

In the graph titled "Top 10% and Bottom 50% Wealth Shares in The UK 1900-2020" you can clearly see the wealth owned by the top 10% increased from 54.4% in 2007 to 57% in 2020 and likely even higher now 5 years later.