The economy is in a mess because successive governments were in thrall to the idiotic, self-serving ideological nonsense of the neo-liberal 'free market'. They privatised and de-regulated like mad and Big Business and the Banks, freed from all restraint, went on a massive 'greed fest' until, inevitably, the whole rotten edifice came crashing down. The victims of this madness are not the politicians, or Big Business, or the bankers, but ordinary people who are currently being required to pick up the pieces. Sadly, many of these ordinary folks are, it has to be said, unthinking idiots who much prefer to identify and blame scapegoats for their plight rather than criticise the system. Unscrupulous politicians of the Right know about this tendency and exploit it ruthlessly. So along comes a bunch of right wing nutters, like UKIP, who blame all of our current woes on 'foreigners' (i.e. Europe and immigrants) and all of the scapegoating nerds and gits bite their hands off. It was ever thus!