I think every country has there good points and bad, we all have crime but in a country with 70m people its going to be higher than say in Canada but I for one live in London and have never been attacked in the street, never seen a gun, dont know of anybody personally who has been the victim of crime, my house has never been burgled but when I spent a good amount of time in BNE last year I had my bike nicked from outside my house about a week after being there!
Things are relative to, yes house prices are high but wages are not so bad, we get decent holidays unlike our N American counterparts, flights are cheap abroad and theres plenty of competition to keep the prices low and everything is 'just around the corner', I think the tax system is pretty much equal to any other country and its not astrnomically high you just get used to it.
Theres many a country worse than England.