What happened to the UK?

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What happened to the UK?
Sometime around 2007/2008 the UK became a potential subject for an economic experiment that a coalition of Tories and Social Democrats implemented in 2009. It was called the “austerity programme” and the coalition sought to capture its essence by telling us that we were “all in it together”. By the time of Autumn 2013 the then Chancellor, George Osborne, reported that the economy was bouncing back and there was a return to economic growth. The problem for the bulk of the population was that there was no discernible trickle down of the benefits to the educated middle, working and under classes. These groups had been anaesthetised by press propaganda, the benefits system and cheap alcohol for years but something began to stir when they were told that austerity would continue for another six years or so. Scotland had voted for independence and this was closely followed by demands for separation from Wales and Northern Ireland. London planned to become a city state as it no longer wished to be held back by a failing UK. It was said that this ambition explained the sudden death of the London Mayor in a road accident. His cycle disappeared shortly after the accident leaving the investigators scratching their heads. 
The most interesting fact of all was that the greatest stirring initially came from educated and less well educated young persons who had lost hope for a future that had been sold to them but which turned out to have been made of straw. The Government sought to blame the baby boomers as selfish takers of their children’s futures what with their index linked pensions and wealth hoarding. The baby boomers themselves claimed rightly that their wealth was depreciating because of the Governments monetary and fiscal policies and that there spending had actually been fuelling a recovery. They were spending the wealth that would otherwise lose value in their savings accounts because of low interest rates and increasing inflation.
By 2016 it became clear that the economic turn-around had failed and the UK had fallen into a depression which followed the collapse of the Euro. The Euro had been supported by various, ultimately artificial, measures for ten or so years but this had only delayed its full collapse. Confidence in Sterling and the Euro virtually ceased to exist, hyper inflation followed and trade between the UK and all other countries virtually stopped over night. The Chinese and The Russians looked on for some time before realising that no country was immune from the effects of the breakdown of global trading. They waited a long time before realising that the western world’s survival, even if only as a market place, was in their interests but they ran out of time to do anything. The USA took a decision that it could do nothing and chose to adopt a policy of “splendid isolation” from Europe.
Food and fuel were the first to become scarce and then virtually nonexistent. Riots in the major cities of London, Birmingham, Manchester and numerous other places were daily occurrences until people began to realise that rioting and looting of designer goods meant very little when there was no food heat and light. The Government had declared a state of emergency but were virtually impotent to manage the social unrest. To begin with the armed forces sought to calm the unrest but when they were neither being paid, clothed or fed they began to return to their communities and they took their weapons with them. The web of implicit and explicit rules governing individuals behaviour broke down and anarchy prevailed but new standards of behaviour were being established through a process of osmosis and these were emanating from much smaller groups and clans who had bonded together to protect themselves and their territories. As people returned from the cities to the land the industrial revolution was reversed. These city dwellers were not welcomed by the clans whose behaviour was governed by a territorial imperative to protect their land resources. The Royal family, old aristocracy and the super wealthy nouveau aristocrats had moved out the country and the bulk of people left to their animalistic existence had one objective – to do what they had to do to survive. The concept of nationhood had given way to the precedence of neighbourhood as the maximum geographical reflection of the clan’s social systems. The wider society had disappeared.