I was born in England, live in London, have a Dutch partner, and also travel to the Netherlands often enough. I agree completely. They have their problems too (from the political to having to tap out on buses), but the overall level of quality and care seems rather higher. The sense of decline and disengagement is strong too. Difficult to say much objective about that (though keep an eye on the turnout in the upcoming general election), but I see it from all political persuasions.
Yeah I agree that it is hard to be entirely objective on something as subjective as sense of decline — lord knows I’ve spoken to Dutch natives whom hold an opinion that the country is ‘not what it used to be’. I do get a feel that people, generally, seem less embroiled in a race to the bottom than we do in the UK.
It feels that people in UK have been ground down to a point of ‘ah well, it’s all f*cked and always will be now’ and, as such, people accept things like a £5k bicycle failing multiple times within 2 years.
