To think the UK has gone to hell in a handcart?

What he did was highly ill advised, but not illlegal.

That depends on whether you believe there was underage grooming. The photos (now deleted) certainly suggest there was contact well before 16 and MM wasn't the only one to receive questionable Snapchat messages from PS. Clever move to cough up for an NDA so the finer details won't be shared.

Anyway, I'd say the biggest issue now is a collective selfishness. People chucking rubbish on the floor, being antisocial on trains etc, being disrespectful to teachers. All small things but add up to a society that isn't much fun to live in.

who can honestly blame them. It's wrong, very wrong, but human nature nonetheless
@ginasevern human nature also contains a deep drive for fairness & justice, primates also express this drive:

Mostly men but two of your examples are Truss crashing the economy and the disgrace of Michelle Mone.

Totally agree. The RF are the ultimate self preservation society and, given their unimaginable privilege and wealth, who can honestly blame them. It's wrong, very wrong, but human nature nonetheless.

Absolutely, we became the spivs of Europe selling off our infrastructure & dismantling communities instead of investing in people & places.
no civilised society should have utilities/transport/social care/childrens services etc in private hands, it’s always ends up that those on the receiving end of these services suffer whilst the shareholders gain. Tis a low bar that we console ourselves other countries are worse, it really shouldn’t be such a race to the bottom & the strokes that this cess pit of a government have pulled & continue to do so practically every day is shameful.

Agree, although I tend to see this as a 'human nature problem'.
What I mean is that all animals need to have a deep instinct to hold onto any resources or territory that they gain, other wise the species will not survive. Humans here are expressing the same deep instinct, no-one cedes power willingly, the more of it you have the greater your desire & ability to extend and defend it. This is why power corrupts, we always want more of it and given free reign (including the belief that it is deserved) we will take all we can.
What we need is mitigations put in place to check power BEFORE it gets entrenched and out of control.

I think you were spot on until you added Philip Schofield to that list. Whatever he did do / didn’t do was a matter for him and his family and isn’t really anything to do with the rest of us.The media just made it everyone’s business. If you add him then you need to add everyone who ever had an affair (I mean, maybe you do). What he did was highly ill advised, but not illlegal.

if anything I think his punishment has been far more extreme than it deserved as his career is over. I mean, Ant McPartlin nearly killed a kid drunk driving but the world seems to have conveniently forgotten that one.

The others are legit examples of the few shitting on the many and getting away with it.

Come on, they're toast at the next election and they know it.

I love my country but there are improvements that could be made and it has to come from all sections of society.
When you have the people in charge just rolling over it and making a mockery of laws/morals. You can not expect everyone else to toe the line.

Tony Blair going to war when the country begged him not to. No accountability for the consequences that followed.
Nick Clegg sold his election promises on uni tuition fees to get into power. No accountability for the consequences that followed.
David Cameron offered a referendum without setting the conditions properly, promised to deal with the outcome either way, then promptly ran away. How he is back in government has me completely flummoxed. No accountability for the consequences that followed.
And the list goes on and on and on.

You can defiantly feel the change out there. People are becoming more selfish and inward looking and those who just want a fair society are hurting because they remember how it used to be. Was it perfect no but a damn sight better than it is now.

Give Braverman, Badenoch, Sunak & Co another 5 years, and you won't need to do any imagining.

Quite. We were sold (are still being sold) the sweet, dutiful, lovable, almost vulnerable "one of us" rhetoric. They are not, she was not. Their primary objective is self preservation and that of their obscene privilege.

Yes, there was an iron fist in that velvet glove.
She had the sense to keep her mouth shut though, which meant people tended to believe the façade.

I agree that we should celebrate our freedoms but I don't think gratitude is in order. We fought and died for centuries to attain the rights you are talking about. Nobody handed us the right to vote, to not send children into factories or down mines, to not lose limbs whilst doing our jobs, to not be deported for stealing a loaf of bread or sold into indentured slavery. These freedoms were bloody hard won by brave men and women. They were not god given and they did not magically manifest or "just come about".

The Queen personally lobied the then Tory Government (and naturally succeeded) to change laws in her and her family's favour. This included the concealment of "her embarrassing private wealth" from the public and to ensure that her household remained exempt from laws around race and sex discrimination. She held immense offshore investments that avoided taxation in the UK (and which still does) and Charles' inheritance from her is tax free.

In fact she personally ensured that she and her family were exempt from a staggering 160 laws granting her sweeping immunity from swathes of British law ranging from animal welfare to employees' rights.

I think we should all be glad that we live in UK where at least we have a vote.

Imagine living in the Middle East in some theocratic regime where, if you go out onto the streets to protest about something you get shot. 🙁

Totally agree @NoisySnail

That of course is only the tip of the iceberg as the Royal Family's true portfolio has (and never will be) fully disclosed. I wonder why.

^

Perhaps there would be a revolution?

Oh no, but wait, we'll just keep the plebs happy with their tabloid information on the Royals instead, keep 'em happy. Why would they need to know otherwise?

And now all the algorithms are nicely set up on their cell phone we don't actually need to produce that much fluff for them to get worked up about. Harry and Meg, Randy Andy et al distracts from the actual problem of the extent of their wealth and influence.

Mistake

@coxesorangepippin I think that race to the bottom is part of the UK's problem. We should all want to make the country better, not just accept it being shit because some countries are worse. What kind of attitude is that? Totally deafeatist with zero ambition for our country.

When people get away with things for too long they overreach, hopefully they are now over reaching and enough of us can see through them.

Standard MN race to the bottom approach again here.

Oh it's not that bad, be grateful etc

Boris Johnson illegally prorogued parliament. Never been done before. He faced zero consequences for his illegal action.

Absolutely not me, I've never voted tory in my life and never would.

@Liloona That is such a vague statement. Give us examples.

Have a look at the accumulated wealth of the Belgian Empire. King Leopold was the richest man in the world at one point. The Dutch Empire?
They've lined their pockets very nicely.