To think our towns and cities are just so run down lately, and our standard of living has decreased significantly?

They can probably only blame others for so long. And people seem to be expecting things to get worse. When asked, the majority do anyway.

How do the Tories ( or Labour for that matter) make people litter the streets, spit,let their dogs shit everywhere? I must have missed that memo.

I don’t disagree that a higher population has partly caused higher house prices and rental prices- supply and demand will always play a role.

But in the UK, unlike in other countries, no government has had the balls to risk a proper house price crash or correction since the last real one in 1989/90. In this country many people are obsessed with incessant house price growth (a dinner party topic that never seems to go out of fashion) and those people are more likely to vote.

Whether it’s with quantitative easing or temporarily reducing stamp duty at pivotal moments (eg in the Covid lockdown), the successive governments have intervened to prevent the housing market taking its own course which has caused the ridiculous and unsustainable growth we’ve witnessed over the last few decades. So lots of older people are sitting on hundreds of thousands of pounds (if not millions) worth of unearned wealth, that eventually gets passed down to their descendants who will consequently also be in a great situation property wise. Tough luck for those whose parents or grandparents who couldn’t ever afford to buy or only in less affluent areas that haven’t seen much growth, though…

At this point Labour are in the unenviable position of having to pick up the scorched earth policies left to them from the previous administration.

My estate is approx 15% Indian, Nepalese, Thai and they aren't the families screwing it up.

All the scummy families, who have been scummy since the day I moved here, are white. They litter, fly tip and never bring their bins in. They all work but are antisocial thickies.

I’m interested to see if people’s expectations about Labour do actually happen.

🤦🏻‍♀️

It doesnt increase, ffs, it gets more disporportionate as one side is bigger than the other.
The irony here is ignoring the fact that the demand for housing would be decreasing with the decreasing birthrate yet the price of property is kept high by immigration and buy to let investments. Nevermind though love, it's only your kids who are going to inherit this mess.

My hometown is feral heavy, very depressing to see uneducated generational estate families not breaking the cycle of deprivation and ferality. For years TV spoofed them and made fun of them, we all laughed at the Vicky Pollards, all the while their prevalence quietly exploded and now this feral underclass are a significant portion of the population. It’s very sad when you see the potential of some young children stifled by the influence of idiotic parents.

the irony of calling someone else thick when you can't understand that fewer people dying = more people alive = larger population 😂

I’m south London , I go litter picking and the top” tossers” I can see areEastern European depressed looking men with rucksacks full of tins of beer ( remarkable how many tins of Tyskie I pick up), yoofs who seem to think it’s uncool to put their empty boxes of fried chicken in the bin , intravenous drug users who toss their cans in the park or the river and let their Staffies/ XL bullies crap on the ground. There is an erosion of common, civic values and I think the retreat of religion, insecure family structures for some as well as drugs have a lot to do with it.

The Tories certainly managed to wreck things, it is true.

No, I don’t think that’s correct actually, it obviously depends on when you’re measuring to and from when.

We are certainly the best money launderers shufflers in the world though, or amongst the best. Does that help the average person or high street…no.

I genuinely feel a bit uncomfortable in certain English towns.

I often think what did Victorian Britain look like?

Our towns are like some kind of sci-fi set that are basically everyone either scurrying around trying to not make eye contact or just loitering around as there’s no other free third spaces.

Nobody has any money any more. How often do you see families sitting outside cafes/pubs just stopping for a drink/snack? In nicer areas cafe’s are just people ‘hot desking’ or having meetings. Nobody has money to socialise outside of the home.

But worse than that, I find my self in town’s surrounded by people that just look impoverished. People just loitering around within swarms of litter. Hanging around the numerous Turkish barber shops. You don’t see families with two parents as why would you do a family day trip into town? Nobody looks happy, just trying to survive another day.

Empty mobile phone case shops or ‘bargain’ clearance stores. Kid you not there’s a shop selling BHS clearance items. Who on earth wants to buy a faded, discoloured and misshaped BHS pillow for £10?! Even WH Smith’s feels soul destroying. Walk a couple of steps and there’s those sleazy ‘do you care about dogs?’ chuggers.

Everybody is skint, but everybody is fed up, skint and given up. British are down-beaten. Town centres are just the melting pot of our population. It’s a sorry state of affairs.

Every aspect of society and our living environment has gone to shit . It’s very depressing to see what this once great country has become .

Shhh on Mumsnet those families don’t exist that live on benefits and breed more benefit claimers.

It’s really not! Great Yarmouth is awfully run down and deprived. The back streets of Norwich are graffitied and closed up.

Tourists visit the best bits of course.

Yes we used to go to our city centre every weekend now we go 2-3 times a year and that is purely to visit Primark. Most of the shops are boarded up, there’s no restaurants left and no night clubs. Litter is everywhere and the main streets are full of monkey dust ‘zombies’. We can’t afford to go for coffee or lunch like before as everything is so expensive as is parking. Public transport is poor and expensive so I no longer visit other cities for days out.

I remember going to Spain in the 1990s and feeling that it was so much poorer and backwards than the UK but I went to the same resort we used to go to last year and couldn’t believe the difference. It is now the other way round. The roads were better than here and everything was cleaner and superior to the UK.

I think there’s now a complete lack of respect for other people and the environment here. There’s no police presence, they won’t come out to most crimes because they don’t have the resources or it’s too much paperwork. No one dares scold anybody’s children anymore, even teachers are threatened by parents.

There doesn’t seem to be any hope for the future. Young people aren’t going to be able to afford a house, or see a dentist. Everything’s so much more expensive and opportunities fewer so I can see why there’s such a gloomy atmosphere.

There is most certainly a feral underclass evident in our area. Shouting at their dogs and DC on the school run while clutching Monsters. They all have English accents though and are generational estate families, not immigrants.

Agree. The biggest own goal there ever was.

European citizens have their own problems these days. It's not just us.

Up until July 2024 the UK had the fastest growing economy of the G7 nations, no?

I spent some time there in the 80s and it was not particularly lovely then. I was living in London and had a boyfriend who lived there. He mostly came to mine!

I’m in the north east and I think most places are much better. Both the rougher areas and the naice areas.