You touch on the core issue of the UK, but there's both a cultural and policy aspect. 1. As you say, an aging population has placed the entire country into a g

You touch on the core issue of the UK, but there's both a cultural and policy aspect. 1. As you say, an aging population has placed the entire country into a gridlock - the pensions system as it stands is ridiculous and unsustainable. Unfortunately, it is an almost immediate political suicide to even attempt to reform it. Young people are disillusioned and wield little monetary or political power. The old generation has all the cards, and are actively destroying their children's future for their own short term benefit. They have mortgaged their children's future, which they won't get to see, for the short period of time they still have remaining. 2. There's no investment culture in the UK. Literally everything and everyone is rent seeking. Want a retirement? Buy property and rent it out. Want a pension? Pension funds just buy gilts - government bonds. Very little money goes into productive assets. This creates a vicious cycle where money is simply siphoned away from the little productivity that remains to an ever growing number of rent seekers. There's no easy way out of this. One generation will effectively have to give up their welfare, but nobody wants to do this (understandable). The UK cannot afford to be the welfare state it wants to be.