The UK is incredibly classist and it has almost no social mobility. You are born poor you’ll die poor. Same for working class, same for rich - your origins pretty much 100% dictate were you will end up no matter your competence and work ethics. Wealth there has been dynastic longer than the US has existed and most Land is in the hands of a handful of people mainly for the great achievement of their great-great… grandparent having licked royal ass.
In this environment, the richest are educate in their special schools (curiously called “public schools” because they’re supposedly open to everybody … as long as they can pay the very expensive fees that only the upper middle class and above can afford) to be maybe the fakest, most hypocrite people on the face of the planet, a way of being in life they genuinelly think that’s just “the proper way to be”. This shit then permeates society from the top down, the “higher” one’s social class the faker they are.
(I know this from personal experience having lived there, were I worked in professions and had hobbies that brought me in contact with all social classes, all of this with an outsider perspective of having also lived in Northern and Southern Europe)
It’s not by chance that Theatre in the UK is maybe the best in the World - faking ALL THE TIME is how a lot of people there naturally live their lives.
British politicials invariably come from at least the middle class, generally higher. Even the party currently in power there, called Labour and supposedly representing the working class, is headed by an upper middle class public prosecuter who has a Knighthood - you don’t get a title of Knight from the Queen (back when he got it, now it’s a King) if you’re not either from the elites already or dedicated to preserve the class system in the UK and keeping power in the hands of the “proper people” (or you’re a famous Musician or Thespian - which is how they whitewash the image of the “honors system” to make it seem meritocratic).
So British politics nowadays is entirelly about painting policies as seemingly good when they’re no such thing and let me tell you that, compared with at least the rest of Europe, they’re spectacularly good at doing it - “World Class” at forms of deceit such as misdirection, misportrayal and generally at setting things up so that what it says on the box is almost the opposite of what it de facto does.
(It’s not by chance that 1984 was written by a Briton - the concept of doublespeak is just a slight exagerated, less elegant and more obvious version of what the upper classes in Britain do)
All this to say that what looks like “nanny state” to outsiders is in reality just part of the mechanics that keep that incredibly calcified and social segregated structure as it is and and has always been (with the notable exception of a period of around 3 decades after WWII) - this is just part of the massive Civil Society Surveillance aparatus they have there (already a decade ago Snowden showed that the UK had even more of it than the US) that detects and suppresses threats to the “established order” of the elites entirelly controlling politics and their scions being destined to wealth and power no matter how inept.
Hell, even sexism there is of the “benevolent” kind - “women are fragile emotional creatures that need to be protected”, which then justifies things like for example “they’re not really capable for high pressure upper management positions”. Fake “goodness” that’s really about being condescent and suppressing people from being all they can be “for their own good”.
At the highest levels Britain is “world class” at fakeness and being anti-meritocratic.
It’s almost the opposite.
The UK is incredibly classist and it has almost no social mobility. You are born poor you’ll die poor. Same for working class, same for rich - your origins pretty much 100% dictate were you will end up no matter your competence and work ethics. Wealth there has been dynastic longer than the US has existed and most Land is in the hands of a handful of people mainly for the great achievement of their great-great… grandparent having licked royal ass.
In this environment, the richest are educate in their special schools (curiously called “public schools” because they’re supposedly open to everybody … as long as they can pay the very expensive fees that only the upper middle class and above can afford) to be maybe the fakest, most hypocrite people on the face of the planet, a way of being in life they genuinelly think that’s just “the proper way to be”. This shit then permeates society from the top down, the “higher” one’s social class the faker they are.
(I know this from personal experience having lived there, were I worked in professions and had hobbies that brought me in contact with all social classes, all of this with an outsider perspective of having also lived in Northern and Southern Europe)
It’s not by chance that Theatre in the UK is maybe the best in the World - faking ALL THE TIME is how a lot of people there naturally live their lives.
British politicials invariably come from at least the middle class, generally higher. Even the party currently in power there, called Labour and supposedly representing the working class, is headed by an upper middle class public prosecuter who has a Knighthood - you don’t get a title of Knight from the Queen (back when he got it, now it’s a King) if you’re not either from the elites already or dedicated to preserve the class system in the UK and keeping power in the hands of the “proper people” (or you’re a famous Musician or Thespian - which is how they whitewash the image of the “honors system” to make it seem meritocratic).
So British politics nowadays is entirelly about painting policies as seemingly good when they’re no such thing and let me tell you that, compared with at least the rest of Europe, they’re spectacularly good at doing it - “World Class” at forms of deceit such as misdirection, misportrayal and generally at setting things up so that what it says on the box is almost the opposite of what it de facto does.
(It’s not by chance that 1984 was written by a Briton - the concept of doublespeak is just a slight exagerated, less elegant and more obvious version of what the upper classes in Britain do)
All this to say that what looks like “nanny state” to outsiders is in reality just part of the mechanics that keep that incredibly calcified and social segregated structure as it is and and has always been (with the notable exception of a period of around 3 decades after WWII) - this is just part of the massive Civil Society Surveillance aparatus they have there (already a decade ago Snowden showed that the UK had even more of it than the US) that detects and suppresses threats to the “established order” of the elites entirelly controlling politics and their scions being destined to wealth and power no matter how inept.
Hell, even sexism there is of the “benevolent” kind - “women are fragile emotional creatures that need to be protected”, which then justifies things like for example “they’re not really capable for high pressure upper management positions”. Fake “goodness” that’s really about being condescent and suppressing people from being all they can be “for their own good”.
At the highest levels Britain is “world class” at fakeness and being anti-meritocratic.