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?!

Oh, come on this has been in the news several times, go look up your own links if you don’t bother to read the news. I assume it’s a reference to the recent Strep A child deaths but there have been others previously.

UK healthcare is a shitshow.

The UK is in no worse a situation than virtually all other economies, primarily due to the unnecessary lockdowns, printing money for needless furlough, but inflation, interest rates, GDP are comparable to other countries, the civil service and NHS staff are a part of what is going wrong and the MSM just love to bash Britain. The tories should be doing better, but if you think that things are bad now then wait until you see what a disaster Startmer and his motley will be. France has higher taxes than the UK as do most EU countries.

@tyg It is only the staff keeping things going.

I got the general impression that this was a purely UK problem and that the rest of the world did not have the problems we were having 😳

I left England 55 years ago but I'm still interested in what's happening. It certainly is horrid what's going on now. Where I live now is a lot better than in England.

Nope, show a comparable EU country with millions of days lost to strikes? with 7.2m waiting for basic healthcare? with AE waits in days? where you wont get an ambulance after a fall/broken hip? with 50k nurse vacancies? where patients stay for 6weeks in a ward because there is no care package? where pharma can legally raise antibiotic prices by 500% as parents panic about Strep A ? (if you can even get the drugs)

Or where train fares are higher?

UK is ranked 17th GDP per capita in Europe, we are seeing ours fall, other comparable economies are rising, also behind the eurozone.

Whats the point in very slightly lower taxes if nothing works?

I couldn't agree more, it is utterly grim. After 33 years of working, I was made redundant, took me 12 months to find a decent job again, used my savings in the process to pay my mortgage and bills etc as I couldn't get benefits. Then developed a chronic health condition and had an appointment to see a consultant cancelled 8 times so far, I've now waited 14mnths.

12 Years of Tory lies, corruption and serving themselves and the rich has brought this country to it knees, International reputation in tatters, the laughing stock of Europe. I desperately want to emigrate and I'd gladly move to Spain or Greece which would help my health condition, but oh wait of course, Brexit and no freedom of movement, means I can't. What a sorry, miserable little country we have become and all because of the power driven, greedy ambition of politicians.

I posted not long ago (I don’t live anywhere close to the UK, Europe, or USA) saying that I heard that it was pretty grim with the prices rising and food going up etc., and got a bit of a pile on!

Where I live is very isolated in terms of the rest of the world, but wages are good, inflation is rising, and my home loan is now ~£10 per week more (using a currency exchange rate). It can be lonely in terms of not being able to see family who live around the rest of the world (mainly UK and a return flight in economy is ~£2000 currently, plus involving plane changes and long flights) but I see the problems that the UK is having and is it really all down to Brexit, the Tories, etc?

Remembering when the Tories got voted in, Labour (allegedly) left a note saying “sorry, there’s no money left in the pot”. Well, money can’t be printed out of thin air, there has to be something to back it up with.

There was a referendum on leaving Europe and whilst the margin was slim, it seemed that those people who voted, voted to leave. And also, only 75% voted!

The NHS has been understaffed, underfunded and wages have been low for decades. Not just under the Tories. As a nurse, I earn about 3x what I did in the UK for the same job. Yes, prices here can be high, but the COL generally keeps pace with wages and the standard of living is higher, perhaps due to being just a small pimple inside the boil on the bum of the world. Yes, locals do call it this!

I worry about how people in the UK will manage, especially over winter if fuel bills will rise, and saw a headline (sensationalism?), saying that people have been asked to turn their electricity off? Or perhaps it was that electricity was going to be turned off? It sounded very similar to the load shedding in South Africa/Pakistan/India etc., where electricity is turned off for a couple of hours to allow other parts of the country to have electricity!

I know it’s extreme cold, snowy and icy over there and hope that you stay warm and well this winter. It will be interesting to see what Rishi Sunak (a man so rich that inflation etc., won’t affect him, especially since his wife is non domiciled in the UK, so therefore doesn’t pay tax!!) will offer up as a solution/implement.

@Lolobella

Broken by brexit

Yes. Welcome to the new third world.

We are the soon to be new Zimbabwe.

Freezing, transport cut off for many, post cut off, food honestly is gone so expensive. Oh and do not get sick....you'll have to sort yourself out at home and lots of meds out of stock

Bank of England are doing a low class job of tackling inflation. They know big interest rate rises are needed to get the country back on track but they prefer the masses to suffer the above instead

So derogatory!! No need for this you just trying to show you know better and completely off topic.

So what? Just address the question it's not battle if the minds.

I don't think we are being told to turn off electricity - the coal fired powerstations are being put on standby if they are needed so we won't have no electricity unless it's caused by the winter weather.

@Escarpahell energy costs are a function of unit costs and amount used. I suspect in Portugal at the moment it isn't averaging temperatires of -1 during the day, which is where we are i London right now.

Energy was very cheap for many in the UK for quite a long time. The sudden rises have beem a huge shock. One of the bigger challenges for the UK is not only energy costs but how much is used. For many years people in the UK did not insulate theie houses as the rate of return was not good enough (eg it would take a long time to realise the savings on the investment) as gas prices in particular were pretty low.

That is now coming home to roost.

I worked on the smar meter roll out a few years ago and one of the hopes was people would use their displays to understand their usage and work out where they could cut down. That did not happen as for many they didn't see it as worth the effort, why bother when the energy is vey affordable. You can see on here how many people have no idea how to use their heating sustems efficiently or even what uses lots of energy and what doesn't.

It has been a tough learing curve for many.

Well put it this way, my husband works full time and we can’t afford to heat our home. It’s horrible having to wear coats hats n gloves indoors because of the cold. If I could get out of the U.K. I would be leaving.

It really is that bad.
I volunteer in a food bank, we have been running out of food. We have been crying.

I had COVID 2 years ago. As part of my long term symptoms I am now partially deaf. I have been waiting for 18months to get a hospital appointment. Thank the stars it's not serious.

Use Lloyds direct for your medication. Been with them for years and I’m always 2 months ahead

Where I live in the South East England (not a posh area) all the restaurants are fully booked, people are out wearing their smart outfits. The shops are busy, families are booking the expensive Christmas activities nearby. Lots of people have nice cars. I don’t recognise a lot of what most people are saying. Lots of local businesses are recruiting so there certainly seems to be jobs if people are looking for one. I live near an airport and many people are travelling abroad.

Maybe the other equivalent countries have better health care as they have virtually privatised health care and not one where there are more people in management than there are in the frontline. The strikes are due to altlleft fascists who are trying to bring down a democratically elected government, when they should wait until the next GE, like I've had to when liebour were in government.
Don't believe what you see on the BBC, seek out other sources of information. That's not to say that we, and the EUSSR, are not in financial trouble, but this is due to unnecessary lockdown, unaffordable furlough schemes, useless PPE and dangerous jabs. Under liebour it would be even worse.
It's time that the MSM and civil service accept the result of our democracy and get behind Brexit.

But the majority of people can’t afford to insulate their homes which is why we are in this mess.

l read an article l think it was in the Ft called ‘Britains leaky walls’

Successive governments have tackled roof and underfloor insulation because it’s cheap and easy. No one has tackled wall insulation because it’s expensive.

It was saying there should be a huge govt supported roll out. Free to low and low middle households. Some but not massive contribution from squeezed middle. And wealthy to pay themselves.

These leaky walls cause a bigger carbon footprint than all the traffic in the U.K.

Isn’t an Alt-left fascist a contradiction?

Left wing and fascist sit at opposite ends 🤨

Someone upthread raid were the 5th richest country, we're now 6th and most of that is in the hands of a select few who want to hold on to their wealth rather than see the country's workers get a fair wage

Back in late 80s and early 90s, Thatcher made excellent reasons to join the single market, those reasons are as good now as they were then.

No country in the EU has a privatised health service, all of them are primarily tax payer funded systems, with some using top up private insurance.

Cons wasted £60 billion, £30bn with Truss and £30bn on useless PPE, even now paying China to store the stuff.

Tories stopped all the insulation schemes and replacement schemes, how short sighted.

12 years is long enough to sort out the problems in the UK, they have failed totally, the idea things would be worse under Labour is ridiculous, you don't know that, do you keep a car that keeps breaking down and cant be fixed, in the belief that a new one would be "worse"?

@ArseInTheCoOpWindow completely agree. A properly funded roll out of insultation would have made so much sense. Reduce bills and carbon emissions and create jobs.

You seem to be rather ignorant of health care in the EUSSR, Portugal which has a very socialist government has a two tier system, is struggling to get sufficient doctors for their public sector, most use the private system, which is more affordable than our system and interestingly is why Portugal appeals to many Americans.
NO other country in the world has a system like the NHS, says it all really.