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?!

Well I mean we did try the equivalent of this by sending them all back to the care homes with Covid. Some of the blighters seem to have slipped through the net though

you mean sending them home once they were medically fit for discharge?

If they were still infectious and spreading the disease to other vulnerable people, is that what you call "fit for discharge?"

They weren't medically fit or they wouldn't have been in Hospital. We also didn't send them home, we sent them to care homes, full of people who did not have Covid.

The point shouldn't be forgotten that in order to save the Govt's blushes and TV cameras seeing the NHS fail, we sent away the sick to places where they knew they would infect other elderly people but where they could die quietly.

It was a disgraceful way to behave, that other countries also did similar is no defence.

They didn't let hardly anyone in to hospitals at that point though tbf. We protected "our NHS" by going without medical treatment.

Are you shitting me? Our hospitals filled up like fuck. Wards were full of covid patients. Respiratory patients. Heart and stroke patients. Pregnant women. Accident victims. Victims of abuse. And end of life patients.

Where were you that the hospitals had hardly anyone in them?

Yes, I called an ambulance for my child who was in severe respiratory distress. I was told no ambulance available unless they were blue. We drove to A&E ourselves and was told we'd done the right thing as it was a medical emergency.

We have to find an extra £250 a month for our mortgage next year.

Thermostats down to 16 degrees because electricity is so expensive.

All supermarket prices increased.

I also have no dentist as they've all gone private.

@TooBigForMyBoots hospitals were far from full. Unsurprising as the 999 service changed its criteria for recommending admission. The IFS 2021 study shows "a sharp decline in hospital activity in March 2020" ifs.org.uk/publications/what-happened-english-nhs-hospital-activity-during-covid-19-pandemic

Between March and December 2020, there were 2.9 million (34.4%) fewer elective (planned) inpatient admissions, 1.2 million (21.4%) fewer non-COVID emergency inpatient admissions, and 17.1 million (21.8%) fewer outpatient appointments compared with the same period in 2019.

Well I don't know where you live but round here the 'majority of essential workers' are the better paid! Definitley home owners.
My DM when she was in a local care home was one of a couple of self funders the rest, around 40 others, were provided for by the Council.

The quality of meals went down during her stay as there wasn't enough funding. And finding good staff was hard.

We should show this thread to some tories seriously. I think they think they are doing a great job.

I went on holiday in the summer to Turkey. Now I am just trying to find ways to get back. I have totally gone off this country and its worse when you go out then come back in.

Yes very true, there are few things worse than getting back to England after a holiday.

& its a relative new thing, never used to feel this way but everything is so fucking old here, roads badly maintained, if at all and traffic congestion.

BBC just telling us all the UK has the oldest housing stock in Europe and the worst insulated (in comparison to northern european countries) houses.

12 years of the Tories and they wrecked the place and the lives for most people.

Can anyone name anything that is better than in 2010

We had a wonderful holiday in Greece recently and the resort was top luxury but the journey there was a bit of an eye opener. Arriving back at Liverpool St was the opposite. Obviously depends where you go etc

I didn’t miss the constant doom media though and dial that down now anyway.

@Needarest22
We should show this thread to some tories seriously. I think they think they are doing a great job
they are doing a great job
they and their wealthy backers and friends have become much richer, the people who do the actual work to make them wealthy will soon be too ground down and exhausted to resist, the next stage will be various forms of gerrymandering to make sure they can't lose an election and then their work is done.

Ah yes, those houses we all have

Still at least the falling standards in buy-to-let properties goes some way to solving that problem.

Even if people can afford their care no one wants to do the work of caring for them, if the pay was high enough to incentivise people to take on this difficult and demanding work the fees would be even more unaffordable

There used to be plenty of people doing the caring but unfortunately England and Wales voted for Brexit which sent the EU workers who were willing to do the lower paid jobs that nobody here wanted, back to their home countries

It's like someone has sat you in front of a 10-year film of the slowest car crash knowing you can't do anything about it.

Great Britain has turned to Grim Britain

www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/news-item/the-costs-of-brexit-make-severe-challenges-even-harder-for-the-nhs-and-social-care

Exactly... the lies the british were told over brexit should have resulted in charges against people like Bojo... but instead the idiots argue the UK isn't corrupt but the EU is..... morons.

There are people who are really struggling. The price of food has shot up. Some parents are choosing not to eat so that their kids can. Some supermarkets seem.more avaricious than honest. The price of fuel whilst coming down is still high. The rich are getting richer tempers are fraying, particularly on the roads. Yes it's a shit show. Merry Christmas.

Re Boris almost dying? I'm not sure I believe the timely narrative. He was working from.home not long after.

Oh God ain’t this the truth! 👆

Thats not true at all.
I had the dubious pleasure of being admitted during one of the lockdowns. A+E was busy, wards were full. Staff were off with covid.
Half way through one of the other patients tested positive for covid and we were all put into isolation as contacts.

Yes and people voted for brexit because they believed that, without the workers willing to work for low pay, employers would have to put wages up
but that doesn't appear to have happened?