Uk totally messed up - is anything good?

Couldn't agree more

This is somewhat simplistic. The very wealthy (rightly) contribute by far the highest proportion of tax. They also leave if they are taxed too much. Their leaving hurts the economy significantly - the 70s being a case in point.

I am currently on a mini holiday with in a European city with 3 friends and all of us have said in comparison the UK is now a non functioning toilet .

It pains me to say it but more and more the appeal of moving abroad is attractive .

Well arguably anybody who was paying attention has made out like a bandit. I now do have private medicine and schooling. I didn't before. You can only go to do many places before you realise things are shagged and they won't get better in time for your children.

Yeah there are issues and life is shit for millions

BUT

It isn't the winter of discontent

It isn't 1914-8 or 1939-45

There's no plague, no cardboard city, no 3 million unemployed, globally one of the highest GDPs per capita and life expectancy.

We just like complaining.

Champagne taste, beer budget. Britain is small c Conservative country with an ageing population that is just starting to cop on that 40 years of neoliberal politics isn't too good when you are old because zilch public services and reliance on a stagnant income is a ticket to a poor end.

The turn around will not be quick; a decade of work at least. It's not inevitable Britain is a powerful or well resourced country- we've made decisions in the last decade to do precisely the opposite.

In general I think people in UK are more interested in their health than they were 40 years ago. I think it started in the 80's with gyms and keep fit VHS and then lulled in the 90's, coming back in 00's with yoga/meditation revival and on until we've all been to therapy at least once (well, women anyway) and now the younger generation is apparently shunning booze and fags. This is despite the govt still glorifying alcohol and not fully regulating the fast food industry. You could argue the younger generations have lived with the failing NHS for their entire lives and have wisely decided they do not want to have to rely on it.

Blair basically carried on what Thatcher started, he just spent a lot more on public services.

The neoliberal consensus has led to many of the issues we face.

I actually think it’s partly our fault tbh. The general public doesn’t like being told the truth I don’t think so politicians studiously avoid telling us what we don’t want to hear.

No public sector employees your pensions aren’t actually affordable
No you can’t have a household with only one adult working part time in a 4 person hosuehold and expect the same standard of living as a dual income couple (this example was someone on mumsnet)
No you can’t be retired for 30 years, we can’t afford it
No the NHS can’t look after you properly we can’t afford it
No getting a degree isn’t in everyones best interest, some people are better off going straight into work (I’ve met builders who have created businesses worth millions so it’s not snobbery)

The whole of the west is in managed decline, even Germany is in recession.
Nowhere is great atm. We have an aging population, not enough people economically active, no willingness to just be honest and say you can’t tax every single penny out of people who are a bit wealthier than you (remember all those MP’s suddenly deciding they weren’t rich it’s people on 75k plus who are rich), a lack of honesty about how inefficient we are a lack of honesty about the fact that we are at some point probably going to have to start paying for a bit of our own healthcare at some point.

No-one wants to hear it. Completely agree the tories have made a shitshow of things but we have systemic problem of having too many things to pay for and not enough money being generated. This was inevitable for many countries even before COVID and before Ukraine. You just have to look at the debt to GDP ratios across eurozone countries.

Which country by the way, has not had to cope with the terrible war in Ukraine and Covid?

'Brexit was the result of a national vote, No matter what you or I think of the outcome, we are a democracy and I have to accept that.'

most people have now realised there was NOTHING democratic about the Brexit vote. Lies, more lies, disinformation, false promises, and outside interference. And most people know that the Electoral Commission would have cancelled the Brexit result, had the vote been official rather than advisory. NOT democratic at all.

I think things will get tough

Not yet but mners might be glad they’re here

It's all shit, I agree. Guardian today says schools are making redundancies because of funding, and they were already cut to the bone. Roads are like Romania. The NHS is buggered. Local Authorities bankrupt. Brexit is a shambles.

It isn't because we jumped on to the Russian war, or because we stuck our noses into Israel. It isn't because if covid. The whole world had that. It might partly be because of criminals like Liz Truss chucking billions down the pan, because the Tories can't put their hands on anything without squeezing a profit out of it for their mates, because of the endless daily rates paid to the hundreds in the House of Lords, And a hundred other things that could have been done more competently.

@midgetastic You can choose to live in another country.

You'll need to sort visas and in some countries have a firm offer of a job to go to but it is absolutely do-able and probably better than staying in the UK if you don't like the country.

One of the worst things about Brexit was Johnson kicking out any even vaguely sane Tory, your Ken Clarkes and your Rory Stewarts, and replaced them with Ukip-lite nutters like Mad Nads and JRM. Lee Anderson and Jonathan Gullis are cartoon characters.

Absolutely. Anybody moderate or rational was expelled and you're left with people who are a combination of psychopathic and power hungry, extreme ideological nutters, or just very thick.

People refer to it as "gold plated" because the contributions made cone nowhere close to covering the cost. For most people with DB schemes who have retired in the last couple of decades they'd have had to pay in 4-8 times what they did to cover the costs of the payments they expect to receive. Therefore others are being forced to cover this for them so they can retire in their 50s/ early 60s while the people paying for it struggle to afford mortgages/ rent, student loans, huge tax bills, huge childcare bills etc that the generation retiring early and had huge salary growth through large periods of their working lives never had to pay. While being told "we deserve it! We paid in!", as if nobody working now is paying in, actually far greater proportions of their incomes and having a far lower disposable percentage. And simultaneously being told "pay our pensions" but also "save for your own! You can't expect one from taxpayers".

They were quoted an amount that the amount they paid cannot fund. If they continue to demand it despite it being completely unrealistic then the outcome is that the organisation they contracted with (in this case, the country) goes bankrupt.

It was some of the public that voted for brexit same with the govt, if they want better leadership then they need to choose differently

One of the worst things about Brexit was Johnson kicking out any even vaguely sane Tory, your Ken Clarkes and your Rory Stewarts, and replaced them with Ukip-lite nutters like Mad Nads and JRM. Lee Anderson and Jonathan Gullis are cartoon characters.

@Talkamongstyourselves isn't the world currently run by Gen X?
Many of the leaders in industry and politics seem to be in that age range.

Would have made no difference if every younger person voted in the last election. The Boomers demographically are way ahead and are far more right leaning than the Gen Z/millennial cohort (as a majority).

There is a generation of us in the middle...Gen X. I think we are the ones the Tories underestimate. They seem to think that all those of us in our 50's think like the majority of the boomers, but they are wrong. We are seeing our children being squeezed out of the housing market, paying a fortune for childcare, our GC's education being shafted, lack of support in roles as unpaid carers, the destruction of the health service that a lot of us may need to use more in the coming years, etc. If the generations below us start exercising their right to vote in greater numbers then it will make a difference.

I had to highlight the part I wanted to respond to as, for some reason, the quote function seems to have disappeared.

I love living here but everything has gone to pot lately.

Thankfully, we still have decent libraries, wonderful parks and good leisure facilities in our area. The whole country needs that back.

Free education is rubbish with struggling schools and teachers that burn out.

Health care and dentistry? Abysmal

Crime? Awful. The police are stretched.

Workers are underpaid, the young can't find jobs or make enough to pay for housing and everything else they need.

Those are the things that need to be looked. Without investment in those things, our society will continue to go downhill.

We should take more action as pp have said.

No. Except the fact this is overwhelmingly like to be an election year and one that delivers a different government.