To think the UK is in terminal decline

@Sourdoughandjam so how does a society with no children and young people function?

@YourAmberScroller "blue collar workers now in their sixties and seventies with just about one brain cell to rub together"

the lack of respect for essential workers in your post is truly horrendous. They are the ones who keep essential services going. They are perfectly intelligent.

I really hate that people think like you.

Seems pretty ludicrous that blue collar workers now in their sixties and seventies with just about one brain cell to rub together own significant assets in property, are able to buy new cars, have savings and a good pension, and can holiday multiple times per year while we chumps have to struggle to pay a mortgage on a house that we can barely afford but have degrees, decent jobs, skills aplenty.

That's an awful post. Those blue collar workers you clearly despise will have worked hard and done everything society asked of them at the time. Blue collar =/= thick.

It's not their fault things are harder for you. But since you're clearly so much cleverer and more skillful I'm sure you'll succeed eventually 🙄

It has everything to do with it.

If you don't want any children fair enough but you then just have an overpopulation of old
people which is financially more expensive?

How does it progress and thrive when it's massively over populated?

@Sourdoughandjam what's that got to do with my question? I haven't said anything about over population but you are the one arguing for no dc or solo dc?

My Dad is in his 60s and been retired for 10 years. Lives most of his retirement on the golf course and on fancy cruise ships. He had an average job and an average wage. With that he bought a suburban semi and brought up his 3 children along with my Mum who was SAHM. With one average salary we could afford the basics and have an annual holiday.

That just wouldn't be possible now. You'd need two average salaries to hope to get a mortgage out on a similar property, which would mean both parents working full time jobs. With cost of living theres little chance of building up the deposit either without the bank of mum and dad and with most of your salary going on rent. Plus exorbitant childcare costs.

The nuclear family is basically dead to younger working class people. It's just not affordable.

UK has massively declined over the last 5 years. I was born in the UK but moved to Switzerland 5 years ago. Trust me it's not like it everywhere. Every time I go home to the UK I can't believe how awful things are. The atmosphere has changed, everyone is miserable, complaining, fed up, desperate for change. Last time we visited my 4 year old asked why there is rubbish everywhere. It's also as if society has declined or as if people have given up. I took a public bus one day and the driver just pulled into a lay by and got out so he could have cigarette. Then there was the day that my train was delayed and I asked an employee at the station what was going on and she started effing and blinding about how they were all delayed.
Here in Switzerland you pay less tax. Everything works, its efficient- healthcare is incredible, public transport is on time, it's clean, no litter, no potholes, brilliant education, no antisocial behaviour or crime. If you are unemployed for any reason, as long as you have held a job for 2 years you are entitled to unemployment benefit capped at 10000chf per month for 18 months. It's a good, stable economy. When I first moved here I was shocked by how expensive it is but now compared to the UK it feels the same. My advice to any young person in the UK would be to move abroad if you can, because you cannot build wealth in the UK. Everything is working against you. But it is totally possible to do so by moving abroad. We have been able to save so much money in a relatively short space of time and we would never have been able to do that if we had not left.

Civil service has always slashed jobs every few years. My DH worked in civil service for 20yrs – he went through at least three periods of heavy redundancies.

This is just not my experience. A lot of the older generation retired at 55 or 60 years! It's true that people who are retired now saw unprecedented prosperity and not "because they worked harder." They simply did not. They benefitted from Thatcher selling everything off, RTB, gas , electric etc etc and being a part of a massive group that voted Tory en masse, protecting their generation and throwing all future prosperity away.

I agree that this country is in terminal decline but for more reasons than you’ve outlaid. Seems pretty ludicrous that blue collar workers now in their sixties and seventies with just about one brain cell to rub together own significant assets in property, are able to buy new cars, have savings and a good pension, and can holiday multiple times per year while we chumps have to struggle to pay a mortgage on a house that we can barely afford but have degrees, decent jobs, skills aplenty.

The education system is unfit for purpose. The NHS has always been in decline since the day it was founded but now its joke level with services being rather pointless when wait times are months - years long, and the when you do get to the front of the line the service is inadequate. Basic things like food are unaffordable for working families. Childcare… I could go fucking on.

How does it progress and thrive when it's massively over populated?

Importing?

Yanbu

This is just the beginning.
The UK decided to commit suicide with the Brexit referendum in 2016.
We warned this would happen. They called us fearmongers.
Now, people suffer the consequences. The anger that younger generations feel towards their incompetent parents and grandparents is palpable.
We are heading towards a generational schism.

From speaking to my sister who is a community mental health nurse (57 now) about her experiences, and those of her friend who is head teacher of a primary school, I’d say the country is fucked. My son has dual nationality and I’m urging him to use his red passport.

The thing is they'll 'save' money by cutting all these civil service jobs and then complain they can't afford to pay them unemployment benefits because the benefits bill is too high. All while they have to compete against the millions we keep importing from around the world, for what few jobs there are. Added to the impact of AI in the future.

It's a very bleak future unless you have inherited wealth or come into money somehow.

There's no middle class in Britain anymore, at least with Millenials and Gen Z. you're either rich or poor and living pay cheque to pay cheque.

Not to mention not enough prison places, high numbers of children not in school. Lots of stabbings.

Even around 2000 or so, it was calculated that those born in 1948 were likely to be the luckiest cohort. No war, in at the start of the NHS and an upwards trajectory of growth and personal prosperity until diseases of old age kick in.
Growth covered many weaknesses in an economy/society and in many cases allowed the pain of deindustrialisation to be relatively short lived.
A successful economy will be one that manages decline and redistributes what wealth there is as equitably as possible. Governments reaching for growth as a panacea are being shown to be offering empty promises.
In some ways, Biden’s green new deal was good as it was about creating growth by attempting to pivot in a different direction but when people hope and believe they can mostly accumulate wealth and hand it to their children then they are going to be disappointed. We can either conserve what we have, live within our means or go on a blame frenzy like Trump/Farage/AfD

I assume you'd also kick out all the people born here that claim benefits and don't contribute towards the economy?

What does foreigners in reciept of benefits mean? Not born here or not British citisezn? Surely that includes ie all the Irish/ wind rush/ south East Asian pensioners claiming their state pension?

No, Brexit and a Tory shit show is why this country is a mess.

Brexit caused a 5% decline in GDP and has cost us billions, so yes our country is in a far worse position than it would have been if we hadn’t done it. Plus we’ve had 14 years of the Tory Shit Show. The country is in decline and will take at least a decade to get it back on track.

Totally agree. The only way to halt the decline us to stop most immigration and to kick out all those who are not citizens and who contribute nothing. There are 1 million foreigners in the UK in receipt of benefits and millions of others who have disappeared into the black economy. Why am I and other UK citizen taxpayers paying to support foreigners??

Sky high immigration isn’t for shits and giggles. Its because we need them to keep the economy and public services afloat because the British have elected useless politicians for the last 50+ years who have always chosen the short term easy solution to every issue rather than dig in and make the necessary proper long term investments.