Are things in the UK as bad as it sounds in the news?

[Lolobella]

I left the UK in 2017 and now live in Europe. I obviously still follow the UK news closely and visit, although I have no family left there.

In the last few months the UK news have become increasingly grim and concerning. I can't tell if it is just the news painting the country in a worse light than necessary, or if things are genuinely as bad as the news make it sound.

Obviously this is a tough historical moment for many countries, but the doom and gloom in UK news is just on another level and makes if sound like the country is in free fall. Poverty, strikes, crazy energy prices, failing NHS and public services.. Is it really so bad?!

It's awful to hear that the 'managing to doing ok' classes are feeling depressed by the COL crisis etc. If only people would stop reporting facts, & let the food bank queues & cancelled ops & unstaffed hospitals & 4 million kids living in poverty get on with it quietly.

I mean - one knows abject poverty exists, but it's so gauche to TALK about it.

All over in the past couple of years. My most recent unpleasant experiences were in Munich and Berlin though but having talked through with German colleagues, apparently, this has now become the norm. Very sad.

Self-employed get nothing here unless their income is very low. If people are unemployed they only get benefits if they have paid enough NI - they then get benefits for six months, or they have a very low income with low savings. We don't let people starve in the street and I assume Belgium does not either.

@Annabel073 Interested, in what way are Munich and Berlin run down now?
And are you saying all of France is now run down?

Yes it is, for more and more people every day.

The unbelievable train chaos in the North wouldn’t have happened if Labour were in power.

They wouldn’t have set such a ridiculous budget which pushed mortgage rates up. Their C o E worked for the Bank of England.

The NHS wouldn’t be in the crisis it’s in if Labour were in power. She. Blair came to power, he reduced waiting lists by paying private hospitals to see patients. So got the wait right down. I doubt nurses would have had such shite pay rises.

I agree with this.

It’s all true OP, and then some! It’s a shitty backward insular country to live in as well
Post Brexit Tory land!

OP all those claiming it is media hype are ignoring the stats. Our economy has contracted.

I'm saying my experiences extend across France. I'm not generalising to the whole country as that would be somewhat ridiculous. However, having lived in both France and Germany and currently travelling regularly to both countries, I am equipped to make a judgement.

@Annabel073 In what way are Munich and Berlin run down?

I meant that 'self-employed' people who then become unemployed are entitled to nothing. And people are palmed off with 'self-employed' contracts where they are just in low paid jobs, not entrepreneurs, but the employer doesn't want to pay towards their social security. Lots of food banks here.

External issues at play, so not down to government.

As I wrote above, yes Covid and Ukraine war have contributed but our economy and public services were already weakened due to the policies of the government since 2010 which are making it harder for the U.K. to withstand these issues. Russia is the only major economy with projected lower growth than the U.K. for the next year.

We also have growing inequality reaching levels getting nearer to US levels of inequality with higher inequality than other major European economies. The wealthy with a lot of assets (inflated housing market, stocks and shares) are doing exceptionally well as these are both still rising. Wage earners with few assets much less.

But that's a far cry from non fucntional.

I missed post about non functional rail service - but unreliable and increasingly expensive I'd agree with.

We've had several trip postponed or cancel because of train strikes - DH been unable to get into work a few times.

We also seem to have additional signal, train company and driver strikers and shortages hitting local services not just national well publicised ones. It is putting is off going by train.

We've also has local bus strikes - so it's over 12 months we've been dealing with transport problems costing us money and causing us inconvenience.

DD1 and i are also job hunting and the same locations with no transport keep coming up - they aren't walkable or cyclable so even in a city I'm starting to wonder if we will really have to start driving.

It is the same here self employed people not really self employed are entitled to nothing if made unemployed unless their household income is very low. If their partner is working or they have savings above a low amount they get nothing.

It isn't reading the news that is depressing me, its my every day life experience of living in this country and hearing friends and families challenges. This isn't some made up misery experience. Its very real.

Yes, I spent 25 years working overseas, retired and came back to the UK in 2013, because of elderly parents. I deeply regret that decision, my parents have now died and we've had Brexit. I wish I was still in the position to work overseas I'd be off like a shot!

I agree. I see more in my everyday life than I read in the media.

My family is fine but we have a good wage between us. I don't like spending as much as we currently do for food etc and i don't buy some items now because of the cost, we are doing slightly less fun stuff than before. However I have some friends who are really struggling and others that are burying their heads in the sand buying and doing everything they used to and this will catch up with them.

Who are the idiots that keep voting for them, don't they understand that repeating this shower and making it bad for the majority, it will have an impact on their own lives?

@Lolobella we are predicted to be in recession soon with foodbank use rising, many but not enough professions on strike for what the gov says is about money (all they understand) but is also about conditions and jobs. Energy bills and general cost of living is through the roof. It's probably worse than reported as there is never truth coming out of the westminster lot.

Labour made themselves unelectable at the time we needed them the most.

Pray tell, how are they unelectable? Have you not seen the recent polling?

On a personal level not much has changed. Yes some things are more expensive but we can afford the increased cost and our bigger financial plans haven't changed. Obviously we'd always like things to be cheaper! None of our friends have been noticeably affected either.

Yes there are strikes etc which I support.

TheGuv1982 Labour should have walked the last two elections; instead they chose to support neoliberal identity politics. And then complain about how awful the voters are.

Well some things are bad here, but I guess it's all relative. Clearly it's better in the UK than many places, otherwise we wouldn't have increasing numbers of people making perilous journeys across the channel.
As always on these "the UK is the shittest country in Europe" threads, I wonder why so many people want to come here, rather than staying in France, Germany, Switzerland, Belgium etc. And they're not all people who have family here or speak English.
Maybe they're not watching the news, so they don't know what a shithole the UK is until they get here.
Or maybe it's actually OK here after all.