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?!

Yet unironically for the past decade the 'left' have been saying we should follow the european model while ignoring the fact of the privatisation model aspect of why it runs so well

Can you quote the "left" politicians who said this please?

Which European countries have a privatised healthcare system?

There is actually no such thing as a "European model" they are all different.

@Justanotherlurker You are as partisan as they come, basically what your saying is "Labour wont change anything, stick with the Tories"

Which has been the Tory tactic for a while.

For anyone interested in corruption post Brexit, I recommend Bonfire of the Decencies, which deals with some of the issues of reform Britain really needs after its experimental time the powerful dementing drug, Boris Johnson.

Nothing is a panacea, but we need some sober people in charge, not idiots.

There was money to be made on either end of the bargain, the fact your incistance bring up Mogg/Brexit into a conversation such as this shows you are being partisan

Nonsense. I’m simply saying one who profiteers from the downturn of their own country is not a good person.

Youre not half as clever as you think you are. Im simply up in arms about the current direction of this country, and govt, as many many others are too. Im not a die hard Labour voter, or liberal or green. I just don’t want shit govt. if that makes me partisan then whatever mate.

You are as partisan as they come, basically what your saying is "Labour wont change anything, stick with the Tories"
Which has been the Tory tactic for a while.

No I am not, I have voted both Labour, Tory and LD in my lifetime, I am a staunch remain voter because I understood the narrative as neolib as I work for multinational, yet I could undestand the narrative of the traditional Lexit vote.

If you had actually read my posts properly you would see that I haven't once said vote tory or that they would win, my point has been from the start that we are not as bad as it sounds, and the problems we face are not unique to the UK and '12 years of right wing government'.

My point is that Labour and it's vocal supporters are going to be thrust from the easy place of opposition into the difficulty of powe and have to deal with the problems instead of offering simplisitic solutions such as 'tax the rich' or 'make corporations pay', without trying to repeat myself (as you obviously haven't read anything or come back with any salient point), Labour will not be able to excellerate PFI like Blair did to paper over the cracks of the much needed NHS reform, they will not be able to let big businesses off from raising wages and instead introduce WTC etc, all underlying problems we are facing today, along with problems that are affecting the wider global economy.

It is for vocal anti tory supporters to realise that the narrative will change over the next 2 years, one from opposition to actually offering solutions, and there will be 'difficult' conversations needed.

The reason for the increased poverty, run down services and chaos in the UK is 12+ years of Tory rule, and the reason we have had the tories ruling with such a large majority is our "first past the post" voting system which gets them into absolute power with perhaps 40% of the vote. The only other country in the European region that has such an unfair voting system is Belarus, a country that we see as being run as a dictatorship. We also have the massive propaganda machine in the form of the right wing press working tirelessly on behalf of the Tory party. And yes, everything is as bad as reported.

It's fucking awful. Nothing works, there are food shortages, anything you can buy costs loads more than it used to, most employees have retired, returned to their home country or are working from home. House prices are still really high and now it's icy everywhere and nothing gets gritted so we're all falling over and crashing.

Scotland is much better but then we have the leader we we voted for; the only shit bit is we are still tied to Westminster. Please feel free to come up and join us, you are all more than welcome :it’s bad , but not as bad x

The UK is a weaker, poorer, sicker and more unstable country than it was in 2010.

Sunak and Hunt are doing their best to shovel the shit that their party have landed us in before they hand over to the next government. But things will not improve while the Tories are in power, all we can hope is they don't make things any worse.

#IBelieveInChristmas

Same as Dyson. He moved his company aboard, while promoting Brexit. Lots of average and poor people still love JRM, only because he speaks with a posh accent.

This thread has been interesting until it turned into a load of boomers discussing PFI or whatever

People seem to be concentrating on the cost of living crisis when answering the question of whether things really are 'that' bad. But the problems in the UK are much more than that.

The UK is now very similar to the US in terms of inequality, racism, tabloid culture and student debt to name a few issues

Nothing works, not just public services. Yes, NHS, council services and schools are largely crap but if you try to get on the phone to speak to your bank or broadband provider it's a soul-destroying hour or two you need to put by to sit on the phone, and there's no guarantee you'll get your issue resolved anyway. Our government voted for raw sewage to be pumped into our waters. Our railways are appalling and yet ridiculously expensive. We pay the highest electricity bills in the world. Life is depressing in this regard.

The level of government corruption is so insane that it is now overt and the authorities don't even pretend to care. Even banana republics don't do it so openly.

Rape is basically legal if you look at conviction rates

Our nurses need food banks

Our tabloids basically choose our government and we've had five prime ministers in six years

Healthcare is now third-world-country level and wages are heading there too.

Strikes everywhere: nurses, paramedics, railworkers, binmen, barristers, postal workers, firemen, doctors

UK has voted to impoverish and isolate themselves so it will only worsen over the next decade.

I've heard from my family that things aren't great, but it's pretty bad here in New Zealand too.
Food is still more expensive than the UK (butter is the equivalent of $2.50 at least and we produce mountains of the stuff). Fuel is $2.51 for petrol, without the Auckland fuel tax ($2.95 with it, which is 1.48 in pounds). We also earn less: Full time average salary in the UK is 38k in pounds which is $76 NZ$, but here the average is only $56k. The difference is that we have a Labour government that has increased salaries for nurses, teachers and care workers and not Brexit. Hospitals are still old and run down thanks to the previous conservative government though.
Poverty here is children with no shoes who have to sleep on the floor and get pneumonia because of poor living conditions. It's been like that for decades.

Sorry 2.50 in pounds for butter. Milk is 1 pound a litre for the discount stuff.

Spot on. Neoliberal capitalism has a lot to answer for. More here.

This thread has been interesting until it turned into a load of boomers discussing PFI or whatever

Bog off. What is with posters who can’t scroll past and ‘boomer’ how sad to be that bitter (and you got it wrong anyway). The rest meh.

This is a more insightful post though

We lived in NZ for a while - we’ve never been so well off financially as we were there! Dh was working in Waikato hospital and got paid a lot more than the NHS pays him. We paid a lot less tax as well. Yes food and drink were more expensive, but it was lack of ability to buy what we wanted that was more annoying.

What narrative of the lexit voter?

I ve posted several times the unique differences between UK and Europes comparable economies, incredible you cannot see the damage that 12 years of Austerity has done to education, health and roads, no other EU had that and none started the pandemic then Ukraine in such a poor state as the UK.

PFI? said many times that wont be used again but as i said to another pp who couldn't answer - If you can't borrow, won't tax, then what happens to NHS etc?

Though actually collecting tax owed would be a start, £9bn lost during CV because Govt repurposed staff to support loans, another Sunak disaster

We are up around £50bn of Tory waste in just 2 years.

Labour never introduced WTC, they just renamed Income Support, just as the Tories now call it UC, topping up wages has been around since 1972 (Ted Heaths Tories) yes its wrong but its the end result of years of below inflation wage rises, both public and private.

I do agree that Labour have to change from general criticism to specific policy but not now, all that would happen is the Tories would take the any popular ones, rebrand as their own.

but as i said to another pp who couldn't answer

Er I did answer not sure what more you want…

You don’t have to agree but I gave you an answer.

But it IS depressing for the many people who have to live their lives outside the privileged bubble in which you appear to exist! Do you really lack the insight to grasp that? You’re always on these threads berating the whinging poms for their negativity- it’s pretty tone deaf tbh.

Meh. I don’t care

I’m here for economic / political discussions which I find interesting - people can disagree or not, whatever.

It’s not always possible to do it without posts like yours with insults but a few manage it thankfully.

I think that strategy is pretty clear. Let Sunak twist in the wind for the next 12 months.

By November 2023, both parties need to be election fit. And while I would like to say that voters will be looking carefully at funding, they do not get that granular ime. Even politicians don't get that granular about manifestos.

The reason that Labour are 20 to 30 points ahead (depends on the poll) is reactive. People do not like feeling poor and they do not like costs going up.

This government is losing the election. You can see in the senior Tories taking jobs elsewhere, to the quiet backbenches, and indications of not standing. It is crumbling. Sunak has a difficult job but he's clearly got a huge charisma problem. I can see why he was rejected at first instance because he has not got that blood and fire quality that the Tories like.

It looks terminal, like Major in 1995.

Meh yourself
scolding people for negativity isn’t a discussion
nor is telling people to bog off
missed your “answer” on PFI btw

Scroll back if you’re interested.

Why would I engage with someone on the attack

Not interested.

You said no to pfi/borrowing, no to tax rises.

What you d do is focus on personal responsibility on health and social care.

I don't agree or disagree, there is nothing of substance there to do either with, especially as you don't actually say how you'd pay for any of that or addresses the real issues in the NHS right now.

Comes back to Tax or Borrow.