I believe you have quite a narrow view of the UK, as probably we all have :) Let me comment on some of those "bad parts of living in the UK" as another immigrant in the UK:

- Weather: Really? I mean, it's not as cold as NYC nor you get hurricanes or huge storms like you get there. The weather is mild and the rain is hardly an annoyance. It's not LA or Barcelona, but if you're in England below Midlands you're in a pretty good place weather-wise. Also, climate change can only make it better ;-)

- Wages: Really? It's not SF where you can get $400k/year, but senior technical roles (not to mention VPs or CTOs and CISOs) can bag £90k-£100k. Also the daily rates for senior contracts go for £500-£700 per day.

- Council tax sure, it's expensive. TV licensing sure. What else?

- Surveillance on the motor ways: You mean speed cameras? Heck, I'll take a hundred speed cameras before a trigger-happy road cop. At least I know I won't get shot by the boys in blue for speeding.

- Groceries and restaurants are more expensive, yep. Many things are imported from other countries.

- Classism / racism is actually not as rampant as in... any other EU country. Trust me.

- Poor/Uneducated population: I'd rather see stats for those than base my opinion on the people around me. I live in the south east, so for me it's quite the opposite really. I'll skip commenting on your solutions to stop gambling and drinking, but there does seem to be a problem with binge drinking indeed - however that problem doesn't go away after people are become 21 years old.

- Narrow roads: There are veeeery old roads and veeeeery old things next to the roads that you can't just demolish. I find this problem to be more common in towns, where it's pretty usual to have two-directions streets where cars parked only leave room for one more car.

- Antiquated drug laws: I guess this is a reference to some US states decriminalizing weed? I can give you that, but come on, the UK does not have the stupid numbers of people in jail for smoking a joint that the US have :)

- I also would like to mention one of your good things that's BAD for me: The trains are awful, dirty (diesel! wtf?!) and often go late. They are also incredibly expensive, like 40x the price I was used to pay for better (and electric!) trains somewhere else in the EU.

Now I'll give some GOOD things from my own:

- London feels like the center of the world.

- You have direct flights from London to anywhere.

- Flights to Europe are stupidly cheap.

- You can get any food you want.

- It's a very multicultural country.

- Their culture, from literature to cinema and music is just astounding.

- The country has so much history behind every corner...

- The countryside and even some urban parks (so to speak) are F*CKING BEAUTIFUL.

- When it's sunny it's the most beautiful country on earth.

- The Premier League.

- The healthcare should go without mention. The NHS is, sadly, not what it used to be; but I'll take it any day instead of agonizingly dying because I can't afford insulin or some drug at 1000x its price.

- Sunday Roast.

- Guns are banned, so my kids don't have to learn nursery rhymes about school shootings.

- The people are mostly brilliant.