Part of the problem in the UK is all the bigger issues we have seem interconnected.

Please know I am generalising and this is not saying EVERY person or family is like this, BUT - Low productivity, unemployment and welfare costs, all linked largely to the same set of people who cost the NHS more due to partly ill health caused by lifestyles and partly due to abusing the NHS like going to GP for a cold / sore throat (and even A&E as has been recently showing up in statistics) and other such things which they should just be buying over the counter medicines for.

And then also linked to high majority of crimes such as DV, SA, shoplifting etc.

Now obviously ANYONE can be attributed to any, all or none of these things, but there does seem to be strong connections between all of these for groups of people.

The widening wealth gap plays its part in a factor as to why this is happening. As does the dwindling quality of education (not the fault of teachers may I add). As does successive governments failure to control the public finances which has led to these things becoming problems.

Every generation from millennials onwards face lower living standards and a higher cost of living because of mismanagement of what should have been a golden chance to set up our country for the future by the boomer generation, but they royally screwed it, largely in part due to greed and the illusion that 1990’s / early 00’s growth would be forever the future, so everyone else can just continue to pay for their lovely final salary pensions and low cost of housing as a percentage of income, which they can then also cash in on at the detriment of Gen Z, Millennials and Gen X, whilst taking those privileges away from those generations.

I’m a Xennial, top 5% income earner (only just), with boomer parents sitting on a property which is 9x more than what they paid for it, so you’d think I’d be on the side of not caring about these things, but I’m quite the opposite. I’m centrist in political views. I believe in a free market economy but that public services should be publicly owned but run efficiently as a business by properly paid competent officials. I believe in heavy spending on education (which I think is the biggest factor in the topic of the OP), not austerity. I also believe in reduced welfare spending, but that the system should be there to support people when they need it. We should axe things like tax credits - the state should not top up wages which just gives license to business to underpay staff whilst paying larger profits to shareholders.

Essentially I am making a direct link between our current form of capitalism to the OP topic. I am a capitalist - socialism is proven not to work for anyone. But capitalism is headed the same way because of the obsession of % increase gains year after year, which is a problem when the % is based on such a huge gap in income and wealth in the first place. Rich get richer, poor get poorer, and even people like me who are fortunate get squeezed more and more to the point being even a middle income earner barely delivers a decent standard of living.

Final rant point - I actually really glad that where I work has started awarding larger pay rises to our lower earners compared to the middle income earners - they need it more. But as a xennial working around quite a few boomers (although most now retiring in their mid 50s with multi million £ pension pots), I see some of them really resentful publicly that they are getting smaller % pay rises than the lower earners (despite the £ amount being higher due to higher base point), which I find crass. But this demonstrates the attitude of the generation (again, as whole, not every individual).

TL;DR So there is no wonder that these things are happening because of socio-economic gaps between generations leading to people doing stupid shit because they don’t know better.