I flew back to the UK today, having been abroad for a few months. I am feeling increasingly like a visitor in the UK. I quite like visiting London or the countryside, but the thought of living here appals me. Let’s consider Stansted airport.
Once you get to the terminal building you have to take a train to passport control. The train is driverless. Once at the main terminal you walk for several hundred metres through various halls and corridors, somewhat unkempt and dirty, without seeing a single official. (The security expert in my head thinks this can hardly be secure). At passport control there is one man in a high-vis jacket calling out to arriving passengers which automatic lane to use. Rarely, he isn’t shouting at people, but speaking in quite a friendly tone. Once in the right section, two people in high-vis jackets are directing people to the right machine. The machine scans my face and passport; they seem to line up and there is no “arrest now” flag in the database, so the plastic gates open and let me into the supermarket, UK. Onto baggage collection. Still not a real official in sight. After collecting the luggage, through customs. One person sitting on a stool in the inevitable high-vis. The actual checking is done by camera surveillance, (and, as I understand it, customs operations are mostly intelligence led anyway). A big sign on two sets of doors warning they could close at any moment, so be careful. I wonder if the officers ever do that. I doubt it; if an elderly person, unstable on their feet, was walking though, that could be the end of them. And, finally, out into the airport – lots, and lots, of shops. A couple of low-level unarmed police officers walking by.
Have you noticed the key point? Everything is automated. Big investments in technology have been made, and now, only a few, low-level, staff are needed to operate the systems. There is surveillance and checking but it is coy, discrete, behind the scenes. This is emblematic of modern Britain.
Contrast this with any other country I have visited recently; Kazakhstan, Armenia, Russia. In each of these countries, as you arrive, serious uniformed officials will control you – operating in clean, impressive facilities. In each case the national character is immediately on show; respectful, hospitable, and overly formal, respectively.
I get to London on the ‘Stansted Express’. I buy the ticket from a machine. The machine offers me the choice of ‘Off peak’ or ‘Anytime Day Single’. I have no idea and there is nothing to tell me. I buy the more expensive one, at £23.00, to be sure. This is approximately twice the minimum hourly wage for a one hour train journey. (According to AI this is not that much worse than it would be in Russia. But, certainly, the UK is not any cheaper). I have to cross London. I try the famous metro. Unfortunately, this turns into the almost guranteeed British transport nightmare. The Distrct line is out of action due to “signal failure” and I have to find a complex route around – made more complex by the fact that many stations do not have lifts or escalators, and I am trying to avoid lugging my suitcase up stairs. The announcement about signal failure makes it sound as if signal failure is something which has happened to them, something which ‘Transport for London’ is a victim of. In reality, of course, it is the inevitable result of under investment and an attitude that it is acceptable to provide a third-rate service to people. The trains are mostly, old, tatty and long since in need of a complete refurbishment.
And, so, just here for a few hours, and Britain in a microcosm – highly automated, somewhat tatty, background surveillance, public shepherded through the automation by unskilled workers, (often immigrants), in high-viz jackets, and expensive, broken, public services. Still, this recipie is making some people very wealthy. Many of these beneficiaries are, of course, US or other foreign, or institutional investors. I.e. US led global finance. Strangely, for me, whereever I go in the world, people dream of coming to the UK. They really think the streets are paved with gold, and life is honey.