Anyone else scared of what the future holds for this country?

[AdamRyan]

Trigger warning I guess for news avoiders.

I've been feeling very uneasy since the Brexit vote but it's now tipped into outright terror that a huge catastrophe is coming and I can't see how we can avoid it! Hopefully people can make me feel better....

So:
*energy bills going up and government borrowing obscene amounts of money to cap it

• also paying for the proxy war on Russia
• also still paying off covid costs
• companies struggling as not enough staff, lots appear to be on the bare bones and I suspect we'll see bankruptcies soon as they can't meet contractual obligations and have to pay out
• No plans for fixing staff shortages
• medicine shortages
• empty shelves in shops
• pound is tanking
• everyone striking as staff can't afford cost of living
• basic public services (transport, NHS, rubbish, roads etc) unreliable
• power insufficient - risk of black and brown outs
• inflation going up so interest rates rising too - increasing pressures on households
• more people using food banks and more homeless
• No trade deal with USA, out of EU so not benefitting from preferential energy deals they are negotiating with e.g. Norway
• Then to top it all off, climate change, droughts, storms, flooding getting increasingly more severe

At the same time, despite spending as if there is a magic money tree, the government is cutting taxes primarily on rich people and refusing to publish the maths so we don't know how much their actions are costing!

I'm genuinely fearful for the future of the country as well as the world! Cheer me up please....

They were voted out in 97 after a similar period of corruption and poor economic management but, the main difference then wsa that the tories of their day look like centrists now or even left leaning in some issues. There was some degree left of the one nation conservatism that hung over from the 50s which recognised that the public need support at all levels

These people now are a disgrace but people lapped it up for 10 years so who is to blame?

@BirmaBrite The question asked was "will Labour take us back to the EU?" If that is one of their aims then why would the voters who voted for Brexit vote for Labour? It's not how they will win their voters back.

Not if they want the red wall back and to win a general election, unfortunately Brexit was in part why Boris won - 'get Brexit done'

Do these voters who wanted Brexit feel they got what they were expecting though? Surely lots feel they've been 'sold a pup'

Major was at least a decent man and politician. The Tories had just been in too long by the mid 90s and their time was up. Even then they were tearing themselves apart over the EU.

Too many either brainwashed by the right wing press after decades of anti-EU propaganda. Plus who wants to admit they were taken for fools?

But Starmer isn't stupid, EU membership won't be anywhere near the table at the next election. Another 10-15 years down the line and we may well be begging to join because the country will be bankrupt and on its arse the way it's going.

We'll never have the deal we had though, although the way the pound is tanking we'll end up wanting to join the Euro.

Anyone remember those Pro-Brexit adverts shown before the referendum, about the NHS?

Before Brexit - a waiting room crammed with miserable patients, coughing and grimacing in pain.

After Brexit - a waiting room with just a few cheerful patients, who are quickly shown into their consulting rooms with a smile.

I haven’t noticed this change yet. I used to wait up to a week for a face-to-face GP appointment, but nowadays I wait three weeks for a phone appointment.

Presumably, we’ll see the fast-track NHS we were promised as soon as the Covid backlog has been cleared.

Yep, a phone appointment that you miss because they phone too late and you've gone to the loo or had to go into a meeting at work and then you've missed the appointment and wont get offered another one

@Celticandco For those who voted for Brexit it was never about anything tangible. Most people didn't vote for Brexit because of the NHS bus message either. They voted because of a superiority complex that British is the best.

Grow our own veg.
Lots of people don't have gardens. Not much veg available between December and march
Repair holey clothes. Most stuff now isn't knitted - repairing harder and visible. Impossible to repair synthetic shoes.
Make our own clothes.
Cheaper to buy
Reduce our standards of cleanliness.
Not expensive to clean
Eat a rationed amount of food, no sugary snacks etc.
Who is going to manage and administer rations? That will cost
Forget about holidays abroad/flying.
Why?
Drive 10 year old cars.
Plenty do, second hand cars are expensive to buy and maintain
Mongrel dogs. From where? They've been neutered out of existence in this country
Dcs dressed in hand me downs. most do this already
Going to bed early in the winter. ???
Dcs home alone at younger ages rather than in expensive childcare. expensive childcare is baby to school age. I'm not leaving kids alone at that age!

👏👏

@Pyewhacket The most English response ever 🤣🤣🤣🤣
Sad.

What allows them to get away with it is actually all the charities and food banks and general goodwill of many. I don't think even the Great British public would countenance families starving to death on the streets.

"'We'd survive' is not acceptable. Why are people so willing to scrabble in the dirt for the crumbs from the Tory table?"

Not just willing to accept. Posters like @caroleanboneparte are actually actively happy to accept this level of contempt by this Tory Government.

This is how this Government can have and will get away with so much corruption, destroying our country because of attitudes like @caroleanboneparte and will laugh at us as they line their pockets while we happily work away and "survive"

no one is saying you wouldn't survive. But it would be a good lesson for the world and the subject of documentaries- look at how the poor people in a formerly rich country are living now.

Maybe some middle class people in eastern europe would feel sorry for the poor in the UK and decide to come over not to work as plumbers and au pairs, but would come here on humanitarian trips to spread christmas cheer with sugary snacks and brand new clothes for the children! There is a genre known as poverty porn and I think the UK would be a good subject for it because we would have all these quaint high streets and beautiful buildings.... next to people who are choosing between eating and heating and people in heavily darned clothing. It would be a good cover photo for Time magazine.

I can actually see that happening, after all the UN conducted a special investigation into the poverty in the uk.

"Grow our own veg.
Repair holey clothes.
Make our own clothes.
Reduce our standards of cleanliness.
Eat a rationed amount of food, no sugary snacks etc.
Forget about holidays abroad/flying.
Drive 10 year old cars.
Mongrel dogs.
Dcs dressed in hand me downs.
Going to bed early in the winter.
Dcs home alone at younger ages rather than in expensive childcare."

I don't know how to quote but what a load of BS.

I always wonder- what happened to our sense of pride. Why is there no aspiration to be a better and richer country but our first instinct is to go back to the 1950s when the whole world is moving on (and laughing at us)?

Do we have so little confidence in ourselves or so little belief in our society?

The latest budget announcements have felt like we've gone from the government digging the knife in to twisting it round and round so it really hurts.
There is nothing there that suggests they care at all about the majority of people in this country. No one can truly believe for a minute that removing the cap on bankers' bonuses or cutting income tax for people earning more than £150,000 will help families struggling to pay their bills this winter.

The thing is, what has happened to our opposition? Why is it so weak? All that seems to be left to do is protest but there just seems to be too much inertia. If anyone knows of any credible organising going on please let me know as I'd love to actually do something useful.

I assume we are going to be like America

You're going to be like West Virginia, Mississippi, New Mexico, Kentucky, Louisiana, and Arkansas.

😄

The government had to tell the markets that it needed to borrow an extra £72bn this year, but did not publish the numbers behind that. Interest rates charged for British debt hit 4%, having been 3.1% earlier this week, and 1.8% at the beginning of the leadership contest with Rishi Sunak.

The Treasury's answer to all this is a table of forecasts which shows how much tax revenue would be raised if its reforms were able to permanently raise growth in the economy.

But that table, while an aspiration that every chancellor and every politician seeks, has not convinced the markets. It is an assumption of extra tax revenue that has replaced actual tax.

The prime minister criticised bean counters in her leadership campaign. Today's plan only shows one side of the ledger. For a chancellor making a debut, it is usual to focus on fiscal credibility. That was not the priority here.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-63009173

Essentially, the UK is living from hand to mouth on money that is increasingly expensive to borrow.
This is what freefall looks like.

I will add a link, but here is a brief description:
”Charter cities are privately owned and operated cities where everything from health care, education… and the judicial system are not controlled by the State but by a private corporation accountable only to itself”. Imagine if a city like, say, Leeds, became a charter city. The corporation it was handed to would make and enforce the laws, determine what would be taught in schools, control access to healthcare. UK laws wouldn’t apply. Usual workers protections wouldn’t apply. All in the name of slashing ‘red tape’ and allowing companies total freedom. It is absolutely terrifying. Have a read of ‘Britannia Unchained’ for more batshittery.

www.thenational.scot/politics/20267661.rishi-sunaks-beloved-charter-cities-pose-huge-threat-democracy/

amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/aug/17/freeport-turbocapitalism-tramples-over-british-democracy-teesside-plymouth

Anyone who thinks most corporations will ever put a moral imperative ahead of their own bottom line is, essentially, nuts. What impetus will there be for the economically inactive to be cared for? What of the disabled, the elderly, the long term sick, the vulnerable? No workers rights means companies can exploit their workers, which is exactly what happened before those rights were won - children worked in factories and down mines, people were regularly killed by unsafe working conditions, maternity protection was non-existent, holidays and the five day week were non existent, and if you couldn’t work then you didn’t eat. Charter cities are a sick joke, and one of the aims of Brexit was to make them possible here.

I feel very passionately about this as you may be able to tell!