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?!

Yeah, I live close to fields and fields with rotten food because they couldn’t find people to. And so none of that food will be on the shelves here, which means people will complain over empty shelves and expensive food. It is becoming a real problem.

We get one of the lowest number of asylum seekers in a Europe , so do you “I’m an expat not a migrant “ want the UK to be the only developed country to refuse even considering asylum seekers ?

But I suspect I know the answer to that. Maybe you’re right , homeless problem would end overnight and the GPs will have no appointments wait if it wasn’t for those pesky Albanians …but you’re ducking out soon back to your hot and nice foreign land soon, so it’s not your problem.

I’m not in the UK. Agree that benefits seems to be a huge problem for the UK. But where I live, during covid, food just rottened, it didn’t matter what the farmers paid because noone wanted to do the job.

Stop talking sense @Redmushrooms it’s fucking up @dollytot argument .

the fruit pickers who come here don't bring their families, they are here on short term contracts. Its seasonal. Most people don't want to do that for obvious reasons.If you look at the stats, the economically inactive fall into a few categories- students, the long term sick, stay at home parents/carers of the ill/early retirees. Very few of them are actually unemployed simply because they don't wish to work. Sick people can't be fruit pickers for obvious reasons!

Majority of rough sleepers actually have drug problems. I actually have a friend who is homeless and sleeps rough on occasion usually when she is on a manic drug episode. She is british by birth btw and used to be a co-owner of a house in London. She then went through a divorce where she did get a settlement but then used up all the money due to her mania. There are lots of problems with mental illness in the UK which means that a lot of these people are unable to work. On the other hand, sick people don't tend to immigrate so its obvious why they disproportionately occupy jobs which are physically taxing.

@Doubtmyself We get one of the highest number of asylum seekers in Europe too..

Majority of rough sleepers actually have drug problems. I actually have a friend who is homeless and sleeps rough on occasion usually when she is on a manic drug episode. She is british by birth btw and used to be a co-owner of a house in London. She then went through a divorce where she did get a settlement but then used up all the money due to her mania.

I know they have drug and alcohol issues, followed by a lot of mental health issues. They should be made a absolute priority imo.

But the problem is we haven’t got enough skilled workers , never mind non-skilled ones.

Hang on, aren’t you an example of skilled British workers who don’t want to work here?

the fruit pickers who come here don't bring their families, they are here on short term contracts. Its seasonal.

Same here. They are all youngish men working on the fields around here. They don’t have their families here..

Where in my post have I ever said I don't think skilled workers should come here?!

@Ballygoforwards Wow! what an utterly selfish and arrogant post! Your private health insurance will mean jack shit if you have a medical emergency.
you personify everything that’s wrong with this country.

Yes. Two income household here - eating poorer quality food and cancelling plans in exchange for putting the heating on. It’s depressing.

Posters get so much flack just for saying what their experience is mn becomes so skewed

@MarshaBradyo You do not deserve flack. But you are very obviously pretty well off.

I cringe at talking about incomes on here so I’m afraid I can’t even go close, it makes me curl up to post that kind of thing

But I do have another perspective usually which some others share around the media, which has become worse since Covid and I try to mitigate now.

I think it’s a shame though when others bring a different perspective and get hauled over the coals though. It just makes it one sided

@MarshaBradyo It is obvious from your many posts that you are very well off. Why be shy about it? So I am not surprised you are not affected by what is happening. An extra £300 a month for your family for food and heating sounds like it will make no difference to you.

@MarshaBradyo You get hauled over the coals because of your lack of transparency. If you said for example - as a family we have an income of £250k a year and lots of savings so we are not really feeling any difference, that would be fine. Instead your comments read like you are kind of pretending to be ordinary. People never respond well to that.

I live in a relatively affluent place but through work I know I people are really suffering. I think it depends on who you know, but you can be sure that there are families who are struggling badly pretty much everywhere in the UK right now. Fucking tories.

Well it’s relative isn’t it - some are wealthier others not. It’s not really what I want to post about there are others that things I find more interesting, so you won’t know and that’s ok by me.

My post was about the pp who has had some harsh posts which just distorts the view on here as people get put off posting.

I wonder if shops being full and places busy with people out spending has anything to do with you know.... Christmas. Many save or borrow to fund it, and many can just spend with abandon anyway.

A truer picture might emerge in the dark dreary days of the new year.

It is quite difficult to help someone with drug problems. I know because i have personal experience supporting my friend. Even if i had a budget of 100k to exclusively help her, i am not sure I would get anywhere. I had to literally fill out her UC application for her while she bounced everywhere. She had a family home to go back to but rejected it and frankly her family were getting mental health problems of their own just by her staying there as she kept verbally abusing them.

They need to want help and that takes more than ££ £ imho. I wish that drugs were not so easily available (in my home country someone like her would never have gotten addicted to drugs) but thats a story for another thread.

@MarshaBradyo Up to you what you do. I was simply explaining why you get attacked.

We live in London, so not the cheapest area admittedly, but we have a six figure income and on paper should be fine, but we're really struggling.

Liz Truss' mini budget put £700 a month on our mortgage. Energy up £300 a month, food similar. Nursery up about £200 a month. We've absorbed it but there's no contingency any more and we have to think really carefully about every purchase. We are fortunate compared to most.

The NHS is broken. I waited over a year for a gynaecology appointment for a postnatal issue that should have begun treatment six weeks after birth. GP appointments few and far between.

Rail disruption. Even on non-strike days my train is more often than not delayed or cancelled. It's grim.

I wasn’t talking about me so not sure why you are going on about it