To think the social contract has completely broken down?

That was the case 15-20 years ago too, nothing new. People had crappy headphones you could hear music through super loud.

I have no idea! I just asked if things had got worse since Labour came to power because that’s all I seem to read on MN? Or at least that things are not getting better. The recent thread about people shoplifting and walking out with full trolleys of shopping was shocking. Brazen lawlessness of that kind is surely quite recent and can’t be blamed on the 2008 crash?

As I said the best thing to do short term is scrap the triple lock and put that money into
housing & infrastructure, we need that to boost productivity but the electorate will not have it.

We need cross party solutions because if there is a solution it will take years.

@Crushed23 so what improvements would you have expected in 2 years considering the decline over the past 20 years?
Low interest rates masked a lot of the issues (although QE created more) but with inflation as it is that is not an option.
The electorate doesn't want cuts or higher taxes so there is no leeway for any government.
Reform are popular because they are saying we can have a utopia of low taxes & excellent services, we can't.

Absolutely, - chuck your parents to the care home, exclude quirky people from the school gate for having done nothing, let your sons kick the ball everywhere, have affairs and leave your spouses without any problem, if you are a man and married and you work, just give her money for a weekly food shop and nothing else, she is a gold digger otherwise - just to name the few things I observed about this country and no, it is not like that in the whole wide world

Yes, but there can be improvements without a party completely ‘turning things around’. If the electorate can see there’s been some improvement in one term they are more likely to vote them in again and give them the timeframe in power needed to turn things around.

but serious question @JinnyAwesome we already have more over 65s than under 15s so how do younger generations fight for political change?

Unfortunately I think that's how younger generations feel.

The first thing we need to do is pause the triple lock but absolutely no government will go near it.

Well I guess then we’re all fucked and we may as well give up. The UK (world?) won’t have any population at all in a few decades so what’s the point.

I was reading the other day about how that quote was taken out of context.

Where is the shite? - In bad council estates, big inner cities, where else...not sure

Depending where you go. Not in small Europeans countries or town. Big cities are always full of shite , sometimes, car parks , drivers, or people having gardens in the English terraced houses

At some point one generation has to step up and say you know what, I was fucked over, but in order to not fuck over subsequent generations we need to sort it out.

@JinnyAwesome how does one do that with the demographics as they are?

People who are blaming this on 14 years of Tories, have things improved under Labour in the last 15 months?

No i don't think so but the point is we never recovered from the 08 crash. Nearly 2 decades of low growth & productivity. How can that be even turned around? And in a few years?

@JinnyAwesome your post missed 2 important bits.
The young aren't stupid & I don't think gaslighting will help.
They aren't having dc.

People who are blaming this on 14 years of Tories, have things improved under Labour in the last 15 months?

Serious question / genuinely interested, as I no longer live in the UK. All I seem to read on MN is that it’s the same if not getting worse (I’m aware MN skews negative though!).

I honestly think this message about the young being “fucked over” isn’t helping. Mainly because the “young” that first got this message are no longer that young. If you keep telling people they have no future and that everyone fucked them over then they’ll stop caring. And they grow up still not caring. They have children and tell them the same thing. Until eventually the people being blamed for this (normally boomers) will all be dead and you’ll just have an unhappy population where no one is trying to improve things. At work I had a 32 year old tell me that there was no point them trying to study or train as they’d been “fucked over” by the “boomers”. This person has 2 children. Who they will be telling the same thing. Surely, the 32 year old should be encouraging his children to try and do better. And the 32 year old should be trying to improve things for his children. If everyone keeps shrugging and throwing their hands up and saying well look nothing can be done its all the boomers fault nothing will ever improve. You’ll have a 55 year old prime minister in 30 years telling the country it was all the boomers fault.
At some point one generation has to step up and say you know what, I was fucked over, but in order to not fuck over subsequent generations we need to sort it out.

Totally agree with your last point. I tried to argue on another thread that everyone must take personal responsibility for who they choose to marry and have children with and it was met with “what if you’ve got low self esteem from a poor childhood” or something to that effect. Therapy and self-improvement is recommended for every problem on MN except tendency to date in the gutter and pick shit men - women can’t help that, apparently.

Anyway, I digress.

Main character syndrome is a thing.
When I went away this summer, I cannot tell you how many groups of people just walked 3, 4 sometimes 5 or 6 abreast. They all expected me to move, even when I was on stairs etc. So it isn’t just in the UK.
Then the dickhead throwing his kids into the middle of people trying to do aqua aerobics, despite there being 3 other pools for him to use. Again he wasn’t British so it’s definitely a thing in other nations.

Removing shame from the vocabulary of people is a big problem. Of course, people who don’t want to ever have to feel shame are fine with its opposite, pride, but you can’t have the one without the other. There absolutely are things people should be ashamed of. Of course, that can be subjective but simply stripping shame out of society has, I believe, led to a lot of the destruction of society.

Also the conflation of “reason” with “excuse”. That someone comes from a chaotic home may be a reason for their bad behaviour (for example) but that shouldn’t be an excuse for it.

Yes, this.

Brexit? It was already well underway, Brexit was a response to the loss of community in those areas left behind by post industrialism

The only reason Reform has become mainstream is because of the entitled selfishnessof our population.

people don't want to face up to the reality, that we are in serious economic strife & after years of kicking the can down the road we've run out of road. They want low taxes but excellent public services and are blaming illegal immigrants for the fact this is no longer possible.

She wasn't a stupid woman, how did she not know that neoliberalism was the solvent to dissolve all social bonds. How did she not know?