Shadowing Practice: Why the UK's Economy is Awful - Learn English Speaking with Video
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This is London.
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It has 215,700 millionaires, 516 centimillionaires, and 45 billionaires.
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London is very, very rich.
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But the rest of the UK?
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Not so much.
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In fact, citizens of the once proud United Kingdom have less disposable income than the poorest five US states
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and the average OECD country.
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And if you remove London and the southeast from the equation, the UK's GDP per capita drops 14%.
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Life expectancy in parts of Blackpool are lower than in Rwanda,
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and entire cities and towns that once thrived now rank among the poorest in Western Europe.
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The UK has gone from from the greatest kingdom on earth to squalor.
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How did it get here?
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This is the UK, the divided kingdom.
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Our story starts in 1979.
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Margaret Thatcher is elected prime minister with the goal of controlling inflation.
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In the lead up to her election, inflation had spiraled out of control.
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100 pounds in 1970 was worth over 300 by 1979.
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But what caused this?
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First, the 1970s were rocked by two massive oil shocks.
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When OPEC doubled and then tripled oil prices, everything from gas to groceries got more expensive overnight.
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At the same time, wages kept rising as powerful trade unions demanded more pay to keep up with the rising prices,
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creating a vicious cycle of rising prices leading to rising wages, leading to rising prices, and so on.
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to this, loose monetary and fiscal policies leading to tons of money floating in the economy, and you have a recipe for disaster.
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Guided by Chancellor Jeffrey Howe and hardline monetarists like Keith Joseph and Alan Walters, Thatcher had made inflation enemy number one.
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To fight it, her strategy was simple.
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First, reduce the money supply.
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Thatcher's government set out to strangle money supply, cutting sterling M3 growth from 12% a year to just 6% by 1984.
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Second, interest rates.
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In June 1979, she increased rates from 12% to 14%, then again to 17% in November, the highest in the history of Britain.
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The idea was simple enough, make borrowing expensive, slow down credit, and choke off inflation.
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Although this helped stamp down inflation, a stronger pound made British exports uncompetitive abroad, while sky-high borrowing costs crippled businesses at home.
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Manufacturers couldn't invest, couldn't expand, and in many cases, couldn't even keep the lights on.
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And the third thing was government spending.
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The Thatcher government aimed to cut public sector borrowing requirement from 4.7% of GDP in 1979 to just 1.5% by 1983.
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Concurrently, while in the middle of a recession, they did the unthinkable.
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They raised taxes.
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But Britain was already in trouble.
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More than 2 million people were out of work and every month another 100,000 were joining the unemployment lines.
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It was so shocking that 364 economists signed a letter to the Times saying the policy had no basis in economic theory.
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So the question was, did it work?
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Well, yeah.
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Although extreme, inflation decreased from 13% in 1979 to 5% by 1983. But at what cost?
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High interest rates, a strong pound, and spending cuts crushed manufacturing towns across the United Kingdom.
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Britain's industrial base was gutted and regional inequality began to take shape.
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Meanwhile, London was living a very different story.
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Predominantly a service-based economy, London, unlike much of the UK, was able to hold on.
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By the mid-1980s, joblessness in Northern England, Scotland, and Wales all pushed past 15%, while the Southeast and London stayed under 10%.
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But why was this the case?
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Enter the Big Bang re-regulation package.
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Thatcher had a vision of transforming London into a financial superpower through deregulation.
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Fixed commissions and exchange controls were scrapped, the single capacity rule ended, foreign ownership welcomed, and electronic trading unleashed.
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The result?
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International banks poured in 450 million pounds into the city, 1500 new millionaires were minted,
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and London cemented itself as the world's dominant financial center.
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On paper, the UK looked like it had gone through a renaissance.
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At the end of Thatcher's first year in office, GDP was around 1 trillion Great Britain pounds, but when she left in 1990,
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it was 1.4 trillion GBP.
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GDP per capita also rose from 15.5 thousand to 19.9 thousand by 1990.
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Britain was richer.
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But this data doesn't show the whole picture.
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During this same period of time, the Gini coefficient, a measure for inequality, increased from 25 to 35.
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Meaning, while GDP per capita rose by 30%, inequality rose by 40.
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So although Britain was richer, it was becoming more unequal.
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This was partly due to the extreme cost of Thatcher's policies on Britain's industrial base.
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For example, in 1979, manufacturing accounted for nearly 30% of the UK's GDP, and by 1990 it fell to 16%.
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Concurrently, manufacturing employment fell by nearly 40% from 1979 to 1993.
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So yes, GDP rose, GDP per capita increased, but if you didn't live in London, it wasn't so obvious.
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The services industry grew but other industries declined as the UK wanted to rejig its economy.
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Another way to examine the impact of shifting industries is the relationship between direct and indirect jobs created.
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Basically, if you open a factory selling widgets, you might hire 100 people directly, but to make your widgets you need steel, electricity, and distributors, and more.
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Your factory therefore might support an additional 300 indirect jobs, giving a ratio of 1 direct job to every 3 indirect jobs.
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If we look at banking, the total is around 200 indirect jobs per 100 direct jobs, a ratio of 1 to 2.
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But if we look at iron manufacturing, the total is over 900 indirect jobs per 100 direct jobs, a ratio of 1 to 9.
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In fact, if we look at the financial services industry broadly, the ratio is around 1 to 3.6,
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which sounds great, but when you compare it to other industries like utilities, durable manufacturing and non-durable manufacturing?
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It isn't.
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And this is one of the reasons that service-based industries lead to higher GDP
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but increase inequality as earnings become more concentrated among a smaller group of individuals.
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But this isn't simply about job creation, it's also about wages and benefits.
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Manufacturing jobs tended to be characterized by formal employment agreements with strong benefits, retirement plans, paid holidays, insurance, and sick leave.
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Alternatives for the majority low-skilled manufacturing workforce did not have these characteristics.
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As such, studies show that the shift away from manufacturing led to an increase in inequality.
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And as a reminder, the UK's industrial base is deeply regionalized.
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So although there might be jobs and wage growth in the South, pockets that historically relied on out-of-favor industries became hollowed out.
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And today, not a single region in the UK north of London has a GDP per capita higher than the UK average.
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Let that sink in.
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That means that every region in the UK, excluding London and the southeast, is poorer than the average of the UK.
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Real quick, over 96% of you aren't subscribed, so if you've been watching for a while, join the 4%.
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It's free and helps the channel.
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Now back to the video.
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As cities become poorer, people begin to move to wealthier ones in search of greener pastures.
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It's only natural.
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In fact, this phenomenon is studied the world over.
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As such, as London began to grow, many economists believe that there would be a significant migration to the big city from other parts of the United Kingdom.
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But they were wrong.
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Even though people in the UK move between regions at a higher rate than other G7 countries, London is the exception.
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In fact, Britons move away from London more than they move to London.
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London is one of the only cities in the UK with a negative internal mobility rate.
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But how does that make any sense?
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Especially when you take into account that median household incomes in London are 14% higher than the UK.
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Isn't it obvious to move?
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Well, not if you take into account living cost.
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When you factor in housing, household incomes are only 1% higher in London.
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So unless you are on the top quartile of earners, it absolutely makes no sense to move.
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Housing in London is nearly two times greater than the UK average, and when you take into consideration what you get for your dollar, it's even more expensive.
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It's no surprise then that London has a major homelessness problem.
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But it's not like anything seen in the Western world.
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Homelessness advocates counted over 13,000 rough sleepers in London in 2024, a 10% increase from the year prior,
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and a 63% increase from a decade ago.
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Overall, 2% of Londoners are considered homeless.
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Compare that to New York at 0.8%, Toronto at 0.5%, Paris at 0.3%, Berlin at 0.3%, and Amsterdam at 0.2%.
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London is in a league of its own.
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One of the reasons for housing struggles is the right-to-buy scheme that Margaret Thatcher introduced in 1980.
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The idea was to privatize social housing by allowing tenants who
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lived in these homes to purchase them at a discount from the government.
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And these discounts were steep.
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Initially 33% for houses and 50% for flats, which was later raised to 70%.
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Now many conservative-minded folks might say this sounds like a good idea, but I assure you it is absolutely not.
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The government was basically allowing people to buy properties at steep discounts to market value without any promise of ensuring
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that housing stock would remain affordable.
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This policy would economically benefit the current generation at the expense of future generations.
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And not only that, local authorities had to offer mortgages with no deposit.
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So do the math.
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If you bought a property for 0% down at a 70% discount, then sold it for market value a few years later,
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untaxed might I add, you would be laughing to the bank.
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The problem was particularly acute in London.
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In 1980, London had around 715,000 of these homes, representing nearly 30% of the entire housing stock in the city.
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But today, only 390,000 of these homes remain, and social housing now comprises around 10% of housing stock,
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a decrease of 61%.
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percent.
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Furthermore, across the UK, it is estimated that at least 40% of right-to-buy homes are now rented at market rates.
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But there are more reasons than just this for London's skyrocketing housing prices.
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For one, there are no legal restrictions for foreign nationals to purchase property in London, meaning millionaires and billionaires from abroad have no barrier to buying in London.
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And they take advantage of this.
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Roughly 27% of total residential property sales in London in Q1 of 24 were to foreign buyers.
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Now you might be asking, what does it look like in other major cities like New York?
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While London is at 27%, New York is at 0.3%.
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That's a 90 times difference.
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And it gets worse, over 20% of new rental properties in London have at least one foreign shareholder, doubling from 2016.
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One of the reasons for this is the UK's non-DOM tax status, which has basically been abolished.
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This enabled UK residents who claimed their permanent home was abroad to avoid paying UK tax on foreign income and capital gains.
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Now some might think this is a smart policy, but it is deeply short-sighted.
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Yes, these people bring money from abroad and spend it locally, but they also compete with the local population on scarce resources like housing.
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Now if you have a handful of these people, it's really not an issue.
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But if you have 83,000 of them, you have a major problem.
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Countries around the world love the idea of rich people spending their money in their country.
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But it always leads to housing dislocations.
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Sydney, Melbourne, Vancouver, and others all fell trapped to this.
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Moreover, these rich individuals don't contribute in the same way to the economy.
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They aren't going to take care of the sick and old.
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They aren't opening new businesses locally and employing people locally.
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They aren't working at all.
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They simply buy luxury homes and cars, eat out, and sleep.
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Yes, they contribute a little to the economy, but they are nothing more than a way to pad stats.
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All of this at the expense of local people.
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But housing is only one piece of the puzzle.
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The deeper issue is where Britain puts its money, and for decades, the answer was simple.
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London.
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When most people visit London, they complain about the tube and the poor infrastructure.
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Clearly, these people haven't been to other parts of the country.
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If you look at transport investment in the UK, London takes the cake.
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The city gets nearly £1,200 per person.
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Compare that to the Northeast at just £430 and the East Midlands at £350.
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Even the Southeast, the closest region, barely gets half what London gets.
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To put it in perspective, if the North had been funded at the same per-person rate as London, it would have seen an extra £140 billion of investment.
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That's the equivalent of building seven Elizabeth lines.
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To make matters worse, Burton underspends on transport compared to its peers.
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OECD data shows that the UK put just 0.3% of GDP a year into roads between 1995 and 2020.
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Compare this to Italy at 0.4%, Germany and the US at 0.5%, and France at over 0.6%.
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The tragedy is that this underinvestment makes Britain's cities less productive.
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With weak road and rail lengths, cities outside London have far less effective size.
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Fewer people can commute in, fewer jobs are connected, less growth is possible.
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A unique data point that encapsulates the problem is
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that the UK is pretty much the only place in Western Europe where city size does not correlate strongly to economic productivity.
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The poor infrastructure is a critical driver of this, and it's not just transport, the same neglect shows up in R&D.
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R&D expenditure is heavily concentrated in higher productivity, higher income locations, ergo London.
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In 2016, the government spent just £21 per person on R&D in the north of England and 14 pounds in the Midlands.
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In London, it was 60 pounds.
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This creates a reinforcing loop.
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More R&D means London firms grow faster, which tracks more private capital, which funds even more R&D.
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Moreover, Britain is the outlier.
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Germany's poorer regions, the smaller bubbles on the scrap, receive more public R&D support.
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In the UK, it's the opposite.
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The outcome is obvious.
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The places that need support the most are left with scraps, and Britain's R&D policy ends up deepening inequality instead of fixing it.
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Now, there is merit to prioritizing government R&D investment into areas where there is business R&D investment, but that isn't even what the UK is doing.
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In fact, areas like London receive more government R&D support relative to the amount of business R&D in the region, whilst the rest of the UK receives less.
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Put simply, businesses outside of London are being deprioritized in favor of those in London.
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Just another reason the UK revolves around London and the quality of life is deteriorating.
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The United Kingdom is a shell of its former self.
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What once was a prosperous country has become a mostly vestigial nation with a single thriving city.
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Tony Blair once promised that the kaleidoscope has been shaken.
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The pieces are in flux.
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Soon they will settle again.
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Before they do, let us reorder this world around us.
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But two decades later, the only thing reordered has been the United Kingdom around London.
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The tragedy is that Britain still has the ingredients for prosperity.
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But until they can spread opportunity beyond London, that promise will remain broken.
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So yes, Britain still has money, they still have power, and they still have prestige,
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but it is concentrated in a few square miles along the Thames.
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For everyone else, the empire is gone, the factories are gone, and the future is shrinking.
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London sits and eats Michelin star food, while the rest of the UK eats scraps in the alleyways like stray cats.
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Thank you for watching.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This B2 speaking lesson is built on the video “Why the UK's Economy is Awful”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: London, housing, Gdp. This video has 204 sentences and 2600 words to shadow. The speech runs for 17:25. The speaker talks at a steady 149 words per minute, a comfortable pace for shadowing. Only 81% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is demanding.
Key vocabulary in this video
The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| inequality noun | /ˌɪn.ɪˈkwɑ.lɪ.ti/ | A condition or state (of social, cultural, or legal matters) that is not equal; especially, such a condition that is thereby also unfair. |
| inflation noun | /ɪnˈfleɪ.ʃən/ | An act, instance of, or state of expansion or increase in size, especially by injection of a gas or liquid. |
| caput noun | /kəˈpʊt/ | The head. |
| indirect adjective | /ˌɪn.daɪˈɹɛkt/ | Not direct |
| southeast noun | /sawˈθɪjst/ | The intercardinal compass point halfway between east and south; specifically at a bearing of 135°. |
| millionaire noun | /ˌmɪl.i.əˈnɛə(ɹ)/ | Somebody whose wealth is at least one million (10⁶) currency units (usually understood to exclude holders of hyperinflated currencies). |
| borrowing noun | /ˈbɔrəwɪŋ/ | An instance of something being borrowed. |
| scrap noun | /ˈskɹæp/ | A (small) piece; a fragment; a detached, incomplete portion. |
| concentrate verb | /ˈkɑn.sən.tɹeɪt/ | To bring to, or direct toward, a common center; to unite more closely; to gather into one body, mass, or force. |
| locally adverb | /ˈləʊkəli/ | With respect to place; in place. |
| concurrently adverb | In a concurrent manner; at the same time. | |
| homelessness noun | /ˈhəʊm.ləs.nəs/ | The state of being homeless. |
| widget noun | /ˈwɪd͡ʒ.ɪt/ | A placeholder name for an unnamed, unspecified, or hypothetical manufactured good or product, typically as an example for purposes of explaining concepts. |
| durable adjective | /ˈdʊɹəbəl/ | Able to resist wear or decay; lasting; enduring. |
| billionaire noun | /ˌbɪl.jəˈnɛɚ/ | Somebody whose wealth is at least one billion (10⁹) currency units (usually understood to exclude holders of hyperinflated currencies). |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| end up verb | To bring to a conclusion. |
| go through verb | To travel from one end of something to the other. |
| keep up with verb | To manage to remain beside or just behind someone or something that is moving away from one. |
| lead up to verb | To set in motion; to act as a causal or preparatory event or sequence of events. |
| push past verb | To rudely force one's way in front of another. |
| slow down verb | To decelerate. |
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | is elected · were rocked · was gutted |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | has gone · haven't been · has become |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | flats, which was · status, which has |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 17 contractions and reduced forms, such as aren't, isn't, couldn't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: southeast /sawˈθɪjst/, thrive /θɹajv/, mathematics /mæθ(.ə)ˈmæt.ɪks/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: inflation /ɪnˈfleɪ.ʃən/, abolish /əˈbɑl.ɪʃ/, shareholder /ˈʃɛəˌhəʊl.də(ɹ)/, restriction /ɹɪˈstɹɪkʃən/, vicious /ˈvɪʃəs/
- Long words — get the stress right: inequality /ˌɪn.ɪˈkwɑ.lɪ.ti/, millionaire /ˌmɪl.i.əˈnɛə(ɹ)/, economist /iˈkɑ.nə.mɪst/, productivity /ˌpɹɒdʌkˈtɪvəti/, characterize /ˈkɛɹəktəɹaɪz/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Shadow it sentence by sentence at normal speed, repeating each one until your rhythm matches the speaker.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like inequality, inflation, caput.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.