Collapse of normal life

[OldPot]

It feels to me that this is what is beginning to happen. Spiralling bills that surely only the well off can pay, shortages of things we all took for granted (2 of my mum's regular medications are out of stock, no chemicals for the local swimming pool, things opening for a few hours instead of all day (post office, banks etc), NHS on its knees, many other services just not running as they should). Plus the sodding infernal heat and drought this summer.....

And yes I know we are luckier here in the UK than many, many others countries.....but I just feel there is no turning back to life pre-covid.

How are the Tories making the invasion of Ukraine worse? How have they handled things in another country badly. Are you saying that the U.K. shouldn’t have helped, shouldn’t be housing families escaping the bombings?

I would dispute that we are in the worse position of any other country in the world or even in Europe.

I left school in the 70s and that was dire. Might not be a popular opinion but 1980 and Thatcher were a breath of fresh air and new hope.

The only reason we had the mess in 1980 was because of first the Wilson Labour government who handed power to the unions then Ted Heath’s Conservative government who weren’t strong enough to bring them under control then Callaghan who resumed business as usual.

That is a country on its knees.

Working all month to see 1/3 of your salary being deducted in tax, then on top of that Union fees that meant nothing to me as it just cost me money in fees and were non negotiable and national insurance at a further 5% meant even though I was a school leaver and on a very low wage I was being taxed the equivalent of a higher rate tax payer. I came out with £80 per month and lived in a shared house which cost £60 per month + bills

You are full of shit. Only 5% of funding comes from the state;

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_the_Netherlands#:~:text=Funding%20for%20all%20short%2Dterm,help%20them%20pay%20their%20insurance.

And no petal, I’m not angry, more amused.

I left school in the 70s and that was dire. Might not be a popular opinion but 1980 and Thatcher were a breath of fresh air and new hope

l left in 1980.Margaret Thatcher was not a breath of fresh air. She destroyed society and privatised everything, which is why we are in the mess we are in now. She was just an uncaring monster.

...and we were in a hell of a mess in the 1970s, which was one of the big reasons why the Tories were voted in in 1979. Surely everything that happens is a follow-on from what happened before.

Someone on this thread has said that parties are not so much voted into office as the other ones are voted out of office. That is an interesting idea and I would need to go back in time and google a few things to see if it has been the case since 1945.

The Tories were responsible for the privatisation of the utilities - that’s not a follow on from anything, it was a conscious and self serving decision. They’re now doing the same with the NHS. I think the country has had enough of Tory ideology - time to give someone else a crack at it. How could it be worse that what this bunch of idiots have done ?

How can you know the effect that Thatcher had on the country if you left in 1980.

Something did need to be done the utility companies were massive unionised dinosaurs who held the general public to ransom.

Waiting list of 9 months-1 year to get a phone (the landline sort)

Bills through the roof because they could charge what they liked and you would have to pay because there was no alternative.

Trains and public transport that ran when they wanted to run.

Buying a train ticket didn’t guarantee you that the train actually ran or if it did set off, no guarantee that it got to your destination was
I got to know the various stations along the route to London because drivers would stop the train and walk off. (Especially if they lived near that station and didn’t fancy going the extra few miles into London and then returning home via public transport)

My salary as a teenager on what would have been below minimum wage was taxed akin to todays high earners.

At one point under the tail end of the Labour government I earned more by signing on than going to work.
I didn’t have to worry about rent or bills. I got free access to alsorts of places
I can see why for some people think that Thatcher destroyed that way of life.

I can't see how Thatcher destroyed society. There were mining villages that didn't recover but people for centuries have to go where the work is. We did not need the coal any more. Therefore there was no need to carry on mining it. The UK desperately needed to develop different industries.

I remember British Gas, Southern Electric, British Telecom, etc. Getting service was eye watering difficult and they were run very inefficiently. In 1979 I got a three month job as a secretary at British Gas HQ. I was paid about £5k which was very good money then. In three months I watched the clock tick. They offered me a permanent job. I declined because there was nothing to do. The tea trolley that cam round in the morning and afternoon, laden with subsidised cakes and other goodies was lovely though.

The NHS does not work. It is not efficient, cost effective or in the top quartile in relation to dealing with disease. It is not emulated by any other first world, European nation. It needs to cease and that is not a political statement but a statement of morality, ethics, and common sense. It cannot improve until the politics are taken out of it and the ordinary patient put at its heart along with dignity, efficiency and kindness.

Thatcher said ‘there is no such thing as society’ and she abandoned Liverpool completely.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-16361170.amp

How can you know the effect that Thatcher had on the country if you left in 1980

l left school in 1980…… and then spent all my young adult years under Thatcher. Bleak times.

Destroyed the north of England.

We just printed money but now the piper has to be paid.

But surely the privatisation of the utilities was, at least partly, because there is never just one reason for anything, a reaction, a follow-on, to what was happening with those utilities being in public ownership?

I am remembering and observing. I am not banging a drum for Margaret Thatcher, but some folk have this idea that the Labour governments of the70s were somehow wonderful and that she got in by some wild quirk of voting. I think the reason she got in was exactly what you say - time to give someone else a crack at it, possibly more voting OUT Labour rather than voting IN the Tories. Earlier on in this thread someone made that interesting point i.e. that parties are more voted out than voted in.
You say that you think the country has had enough of Tory ideology and it's time to give someone else a crack at it. Well, we'll see at the next General Election.
I'm sorry, we've strayed from the 'collapse of normal life'. In my normal life I always go to vote, but you cannot be sure that I always vote the same way.
In my normal life I have elevenses every morning, so I've 'Gotta Move'.

Civil Service are balloting for strikes. 6 weeks from 26th September. The union want to coordinate with other unions, such as teachers.

Combine a general strike with energy bills and food inflation, things could get bad, quickly this autumn / winter.

1970s more strikes than now, 3 day week, country on its knees, power cuts. It is nothing like that now in 2022

It’s exactly like that now! Just read an entire article about how the government are planning to ration energy. 6 hour cut offs.

I can't see how Thatcher destroyed society. There were mining villages that didn't recover but people for centuries have to go where the work is.
People would not and could not just “go where the work is”.

Firstly they had houses which in many cases they owned, and they couldn’t just sell up and move. The costs of moving are huge and the money from a house in a mining village wouldn’t be enough to buy a replacement house elsewhere.

Secondly they had communities built over generations. Friends, relatives and neighbours. Elderly parents nearby who couldn’t move and needed looking after. Children who were in school or who needed family childcare on hand so parents can work. People wouldn’t accept their social groups being dispersed.

Thirdly they had their own sense of place and community. You can’t assess a village solely based on its economic output. People had and still have connections with their homes that are stronger than economic forces.

The government actually tried to force people to move and it didn’t work. Hundreds of mining villages across the north were designed as “Category D” which meant no further development would be permitted and the villages would be left to to deteriorate, people would be relocated and the empty villages would be demolished. There were protests. People refused to leave their villages and move into the “new towns”.

Towards the end of the policy, the government had more success with moving entire villages in one go and putting them into new towns as a single block with their social relationships intact. But in the end they gave up on the Category D policy and started to invest in regenerating the ex-mining villages instead.

There is still a very strong feeling that Thatcher ripped the heart out of the mining villages - even now, among people who were born decades after the mine closures. It wasn’t just about closing the mines - she tried to forcibly wipe entire communities off the map.

The energy blackout in Jan is worst case scenario. Well worst scenarios need to be planned for - nuclear war COULD happen or a tsunami - anything could happen it doesn’t mean it will 🤷🏼‍♀️

And yes I know we are luckier here in the UK than many, many others countries.....but I just feel there is no turning back to life pre-covid

Certainly we are better of than developing nations but we are now the worst performing economy in the G7 with dropping imports and exports and highest inflation.

Something happened in 2016 - then something about a ready baked deal in 2019 that we can no longer afford to even heat up.

Covid was a godsend to the Tories, they could hide the financial shenanigans and brexit consequences behind it.

I'd say that nuclear war is a very bad example of something that is highly unlikely to happen. It is however probably a good example of something that is not being planned for. Our government isn't exactly good at planning things, is it? Brexit = a couple of words on the back of an envelope.

And I’d say with this government in charge, planning for a worse case scenario is probably the wisest thing to do. They can’t plan anything.

I wouldn't be surprised if Truss inadvertently started a nuclear war. She's a liability

Such a sexist nasty comment.

A comment isn't sexist just because it's directed at a woman

Yess it is. Rishi id completely shit as well but no one is saying he is incapable and likely to cause a nuclear war are they! Pure misogyny!

I grew up in South Yorkshire. Thatcher destroyed whole communities. Evil woman and the ramifications of her policies such as privatisation and selling social housing is still being felt now.

Personally I think sunak is by far the safer option than truss who I rate as highly as boris

Furlough vs Northern Ireland as examples of them in action

I don't think Sunak would. Truss is a liability. Truss has no concept of history in NI, wants to annoy the EU as much as possible and told people to go off and fight in Ukraine. She might not cause a nuclear war but she needs to engage brain before mouth. It is not sexist to say so.