To think the UK is in terminal decline

This country is a shit tip. Mess everywhere. Drug problems, poverty, immigrants everywhere in Northern towns. (Maybe South too I don’t know). I don’t feel safe in my own neighbourhood anymore.

The other point of reducing public servants is the pensions they will be paid for up to 30 years on retirement People are living longer -pensions cost so much for so long. Doesn’t a doctor retire on about 50,000 a year. Where will we find this money.

The world is in decline, thanks to humans.

Thing was in the past you had respect for the privileged people who ran the country partly because it was seen as an honour to serve- we have no respect for anyone now,anyone is fair game to be belittled,cancelled etc
Why would anyone of calibre be an MP now.

I don't think reducing the number of civil servants is an example of the decline of this country. There have been many other factors, two of which were avoidable- Brexit, and the poor/belated response to Covid 19.

I agree with those who point out the low quality of politicians.

Of course the country is headed into the deeper spheres of becoming a shit hole.

That’s what happens when you put talentless morons, sorry ‘progressives’ in charge who have never had real jobs. Government stuffed full of career politicians or ex charity workers who have no idea about the real world works where business is done and money is made. On top of that you have a public sector and civil service employing people you wouldn’t pay to build your shed. Corrupt, incompetent and brain dead.

But hey, at least net 0 is going well. You know, the whole 0.5% of global emissions that this country is reasonable for.

The funniest thing is when people come on here to criticise the US or middle eastern countries for various things. While the world laughs as Little Britain for feeling all smug despite being nothing more than an irrelevant, increasingly poor small island.

My family have never had money, I’m the first person in the family who has qualifications outside of GCSEs and I’m in no better position than my parents were at my age. If anything, they were much better off as my mum could work part time as a cleaner, my dad retired at 55 with a decent factory pension.

I can’t afford the £150 pension contributions per month so I’ve had to opt out, in order to feed myself today.

there will be no inheritance.

It’s really depressing.

I believe we tend to overestimate the quality of life of previous generations and negatively compare ours to theirs. The really of many families 50 years ago was that until they could enjoy higher standards later in life they had a pretty difficult, basic life with few comforts. It wasn’t rare to see families crammed in too small houses, only furnishing or heating a few rooms at the time and going camping once a year because it’s all they could afford. Social time was at home or pub, not meals out. All money would go on the very basics for surviving. Of course there are many families out there struggling, and this should not be the case. But comparisons between generations are thoroughly inaccurate.

Basic business knowledge tells us that we make money either by making something and selling it, growing or mining something and selling it or providing a service and selling it.

The only way as a country you can grow your economy is to sell said thing, product or service to another country.

Products are far safer bets and more productive than services, services can easily be moved or provided elsewhere, production less easily.

We produce virtually nothing compared to our industrial heyday when we produced for much of the world - the wealth was made then and is now running out.

We cannot compete with say china or India for mass production of cheap goods, but we should have focussed heavily on hi tech, low volume, precision, high return goods over an obsession with service provision.

We are now reaping the return - we have very few skilled workers left in a manufacturing sense and inadequate facilities to train sufficient new blood and have closed most of our raw material production facilities, so decline is inevitable.

Why are you laughing? Living in a cesspit won’t be fun for anyone. I really can’t stand people that care so little they just throw litter around. It’s slovenly and disgusting.

I try not to watch the news as it mostly upsets me. I have felt cuts for years as I entered the world of sen years ago..in that time its got much, much worse with cuts. I'm also a governor at a sen School and I can see firsthand the cuts in services there.

My adult son thinks we are headed into mass civil unrest as decline becomes very noticable in the next tens years. I normally roll my eyes but I'm beginning to belive him.

Our culture will have to change with multi generational living as in Asia. I have been focusing on that since I had my kast child. Can they all stay living at home into adulthood?

As a country we’ve made some stupid decisions. We elected a clown (Johnson) and got Brexit, which is going to make the country decline from what it was. We might elect Farage next if we are that stupid. But the decline isn’t terminal, one day a new generation will come along and realise how misguided we were and do better. I don’t think the cost of living crisis is a sign of terminal decline. It’s a sign of having pushed the Earth’s resources too far. People with degrees struggling financially? Not terminal decline but just a consequence of the fact that very large numbers of people have degrees. Raising educational levels should have some positives as well as negatives. Massively increases inequality is a huge factor in driving the cost of living crisis but not much is being done to tackle it. The status quo is maintained by people with vested interests and we don’t have leaders with the drive and ability to address it effectively.

The older generations felt they were staring into the abyss also - the ruins of WW2 - rationing of food continued into the ‘50s . The Cuban middle crisis, and the daft nuclear preparations ( hide under a table ) during the ‘80s

we look forward with fear and back with rosy tints as a species

Lol 😆 £10,000 fine.

Terminal decline my arse

Staring jnto the abyss? Bit ott

This. Also, absolutely the UK is going through a bad patch, but I wouldn’t view it as some form of ‘terminal decline’, no.

If you want to solve the population issue fast enough to avoid climate disaster you are talking billions of people who need to die within the next couple of years

for the uk to be self sufficient we would need about half the population to die today

try to be a little practical

Littering should be a £10,000 fine and community service if it becomes repeated behaviour.
We are too relaxed, and need to sharpen up, start insisting on minimum standards in society.

I see a very mixed picture. In some ways we are far more comfortable than we have ever been before, we have so much technology and knowledge at our finger tips. We have so much choice and entertainment. We have free health care (a total luxury compared to most places in the world) free roads, free education, free social care and a benefits system that is amongst the best in the world. Free museums and culture. Beautiful countryside.

So from this point we are very wealthy. Maybe many have become complacent about this inherent wealth.

What I do see is a massive shift in personal responsibility and respect. Scruffy, dirty people in grubby clothes that are virtually pyjamas. Littering on a masse scale. Disrespect and rudeness. And this breeds hopelessness. Taking pride in where you live, support local businesses, pick up litter, be courteous. None of these things cost anything. Everyone wants someone else to do it, they think the state can pay for everything. Some of this will be mental health related, but mostly it’s just poor behaviour and low standards.

Until we see society shifting to look after what we have, take pride in themselves and their homes and areas - this decline will continue and get worse.

which brings us back to hopeless politicians who don’t have the balls to make the drastic changes needed.

And when they do they get their collective arses handed to them.

Until the exploding world population issue is tackled the whole world is in decline. It's the elepant in the room. Meanwhile it's all focus on climate change and bring in daft rules that loads of countries will ignore anyway.

All true, but lots of people still have personal responsibility and are aware and act on all the points you raise but are pretty helpless as they can’t influence choices and actions made by others, which brings us back to hopeless politicians who don’t have the balls to make the drastic changes needed.

People are in denial about how much of the decline is self inflicted. A tragedy of the commons

our health service could be run better for much less if people took better care of their own health-10% of diabetes care alone whixh is 2/3 self inflected through weight

education would be in better place if childen were brought up to respect eduction and accept that things can be hard and they just have to do stuff they don’t want to.

rising food prices are related to climate change and conflict which the refusal of the poppulation to buy in season , to virtually give up flying , to walk more , to pay more for ethically produced goods all exacerbate

every time you save money and buy foreign made goods form Amazon you put your money out of the country and not much comes back as taxes

everytine you search out the cheapest hairdressers ,takeaway , supermarket without thinking about anything else you drive businesses to drive down prices and to do that they have to drive down wages, whixh then increases the tax burden as those workers claim UC to get to a basic living standard. And with so many on minimal wages there is less cash in society to buy stuff whixh propogates the spiral

True for the older generations but the younger generations know they’re staring into the abys. Having to pay student loans, workplace pensions because there probably won’t be a state pension for all, highly unlikely to ever be able to afford to buy their own home, in some areas unable to even rent their own home. The older generations have benefitted from low interest and healthy economic growth. The younger generations will only benefit if they are lucky enough to inherit and in most cases that will be long after they need it, often when they’re retired themselves due to increased life expectancy. There really isn’t much for today’s youngsters to be positive about. The era of growth and prosperity is over. Whether intentional or not the older generations have benefitted from factors beyond their own making and pulled up the drawbridge behind them. Not sure why todays young have to struggle for a few decades to try to have any kind of pleasant life only for some to massively inherit when they’re 50, 60 or 70, when they don’t need the money anymore, their own children will have flown the nest, if they could afford to have them! Inter generational wealth is a massive problem as the next generation can’t access it when they need it!