Anecdotally, the British people I have interacted with in a business setting seem to have a dearth of ambition. These people weren’t depressed, but I sensed a kind of defeatist cynicism.

As an American I realize our culture encourages taking risks and we are remarkably forgiving of failure. In fact, we seem to congratulate people for the fact that they tried in addition to overlooking the failure. I’m not sure if this comes from “the frontier spirit” or if this mindset used to exist throughout the Anglosphere. In any event, I do feel bad for the UK as a whole. It just seems like things keep getting worse and at some point the national mood becomes a self fulfilling cycle.