UK Illustration: Chen Xia/GT

Britain is my home. I was born here, have lived my life here and in all likelihood when I die, I will die here. I've not always been proud to be British: sometimes the stuff my government does in my name makes me ashamed (this currently happens often). Despite this, I've always thought I was lucky to be born British. There exists a notion that we share values about fairness, justice, respect, and tolerance. Others may identify other characteristics, but I like to hope these virtues exist, and are not just the stuff of popular myth.

It is outrageous then - even as politicians pontificate on these virtues and with faux patriotism wrap themselves in the Union flag - that we continually behave in ways which deny them. 

What kind of a country are we living in?

We deport refugees audacious enough to seek help and run a creaking National Health Service. We have understaffed police forces and underfunded schools that're close to a breaking point. The poverty which makes foodbanks essential is so normalized that almost every supermarket has a donations caddy at the checkout.

The summer brought a heatwave health crisis which experts warned endangered thousands, drought caused water restrictions, and wildfires broke out even in London. And nobody seems to be in charge. The only political noise is from the farrago of the ruling Tory party's leadership election, which has long since become the stuff of public mockery. People have no faith that either candidate has the wherewithal to halt, or even slow, the berserk trajectory of Britain's clattering train.

We send refugees fleeing wars and persecution to Rwanda. But if the war they are fleeing is European, they are welcomed. I see the difference in their skin color and wonder: "What kind of a country are we living in?"

Only the right kind of refugee seems to get that special British welcome. Someone from Syria or Somalia will not be fast-tracked like the Hong Kong people invited to Britain because they were averse to China's rule. We protest their "threatened democracy" while disingenuously forgetting we denied them democracy for 150 years. 

Here in the UK, so much is a mess. How can it be that, in the sixth richest nation in the world, there are more than 14 million people in poverty? That's a fifth of the population. Foodbanks are used not just by desperately poor people but by working people whose income is not enough. Donors who can afford it buy extra groceries in their weekly shopping to deposit at the collection points. Sophisticated distribution networks serve foodbanks with surplus produce with too short a shelf life to sell, and which would have once been thrown into a garbage can. There are about 2,500 foodbanks in Britain, more than twice the number of McDonald's restaurants.

Some politicians are upbeat about foodbanks, like multi-millionaire minister Jacob Rees-Mogg who proclaimed them to be "rather uplifting" as if they were a demonstration of the British character, that makes us who we are. But what kind of a country is it which is now talking about the imminent need for "warm banks," places of refuge for people unable to heat their homes this autumn and winter? One of the richest countries on Earth wants to provide spaces in public or community buildings because people might otherwise freeze to death?

This is just a snapshot of how decrepit parts of our society have become. Social care, mental health provision, housing, public transport and almost every facet of our daily lives have been degraded by the neglect of the ruling classes. There is criminal neglect of critical social infrastructure - if not legally, then morally. 

A shocking metric by which to measure inequality in the UK is the gap between rich and poor. As our values have become impoverished, so have ordinary people. The 10 richest people in the land are worth ￡182 billion ($221 billion), an increase of 281 percent since 2009 - while wages fall at their fastest in over 20 years. For context: on the UK average salary of ￡24,600 you would have to work, without spending, for 4,000 years to accumulate a billion. Britain has close to 200 billionaires.

An exploitative, capitalist economic system brought us to this nadir, and our leaders aren't challenging it. Right now, they're on holiday. Boris Johnson skipped a heatwave emergency COBRA (Cabinet Office Briefing Rooms) meeting to party at his country mansion Chequers. He announced there will be no special budget to address the national cost of living emergency. Tory leadership contenders are too busy scrapping with each other to care.

What's going to happen? We are like that runaway train in Edward James Milliken's famous poem, whose driver sleeps at the controls. I ask myself: "Who is in charge of the clattering train?" Nobody, that's who.

The author is a journalist and lecturer living in Britain. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn