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?!

Yep I remember the headline that ratcheted up anxiety everywhere that was false and I just stopped engaging with the rollercoaster. Much better. There was another thread where many did the same but different tone to Bristol / Swiss take from op.

It must have been heady to have that power - we all reacted to those headlines - plus the extra profit. Not given up lightly.

Yes. Toryland is shite

At the moment I'm seeing a bustling town centre full of people eating, drinking, shopping. Friends are living in houses heated to a normal temperature, living as normal. These aren't super rich people, I guess you'd say normal middle class. It remains to be seen how much of that is stacked onto credit cards but so far I'm not seeing anything change in any drastic way.

Same. I live in a poor, run down town (has been for decades). I still see restaurants packed with diners, cocktails bars busy.
Even people queueing ages to buy a carrot toy from Aldi, ffs.
People I know are booking holidays left, right and centre, and expensive festival tickets for next year.
These aren't wealthy people either.

I’m very worried about the NHS, but there are signs of hope in my area. A new convalescent home has been opened to look after and rehabilitate the patients who were”bed-blocking” (horrible term, I know).

Hopefully, the knock on effects will include the increased availability of beds on hospital wards, fewer patients having to wait in ambulances or hospital corridors and paramedics being freed up to attend more call-outs per shift.

Also, a new, stand alone radiography centre is offering X-rays, MRI scans and CT scans. My friend had a CT scan on a Friday and got her results the following Monday. In my experience, CT scan results used to take 1-2 weeks to come back, so this new service is great!

yes I do @Trottersltd - every party wastes huge money. I have little respect for any of them. Labour started to build a super hospital and scrapped it wasting millions. It's been shown that the higher tax rates you put on higher earnings, you just disincentivise tax payments. Look at France for example. Between 1997 and 2010, Labour reduced the tax rates for corporates. People have short memories.

That's those people.

There are millions that are suffering enormously. They are often the least visible members of society. They might not be in your social group, nor buying shoes or a Peking duck wrap of a Saturday, but they do exist.

100 people buying a Costa coffee does not erase another 100 living in abject poverty.

The problems are external but our lack of resilience to deal with them is the fault of government actions over the last decade: mismanagement of the NHS, a punitive approach to benefits*, Brexit and then Truss's disastrous sterling crash and corresponding rates rise.

.* because people who are on the breadline and constantly monitored are under physical and mental stress which prevents them taking steps that could improve things. If we genuinely want a creative innovative economy we need to build in opportunities for people to be creative and innovative.

We are still a kind and generous country with £7m a day being spent on housing refugees in hotels.
Do they not get put up in hotels in France? I remember seeing pictures of the 'camps' on the French side of the Channel a few years ago.

We are being threatened constantly with power outages though, NHS is on its knees and you can't get a doctors appointment in many areas. The sewers don't cope with a bit of rain, we don't have enough reservoirs, and we don't have enough green fields to build housing on. Health staff are increasingly employed via agencies it seems, with the latest insane number bandied about for a doctors shift of £5k.

I live in Switzerland, changed location details of my previous post to make it less identifiable although the substance was correct.

Yes. This thread is full of people recounting their personal experiences, so I added mine. Just as valid as anyone else's.

Costs have definitely gone up here too, but it doesn't seem to be as out of control for now. It is freezing cold but I don't believe the vast majority of people are substantially reducing their heating to the point of being very cold in their homes.

I don’t know anyone reducing the heat in their homes to the point of freezing either. Everyone I know seems to have their homes heated as normal, and most aren’t high earners. I only read about this on mumsnet.

my DH is currently reading an interesting book on social control theory. Apparently fear of scarcity and worry can push people to do the exact opposite of what they should do. I have a mentally ill friend who basically had 160k in her bank account 2.5 years ago but basically has nothing left. She was made redundant around a year ago. She has always been a spender but always worked; ironically when she lost her job and was signed off sick and only had that money for her future, she went into overdrive. And when she eroded the last of her savings, the spending etc became even more extreme. This is why a society built on unfettered capitalism benefits from having lots of worried, cash strapped overworked people. They are the best consumers.

Yes, the NHS/emergency services situation is scary at the moment. I'm genuinely worried about whether effective healthcare would be available if one of my children became ill. I've seen the queues in the childrens A&E at my local hospital recently and it's frightening. Really feels like a child could die in the queue before being seen by a doctor. All public services have been cut to the bone by 12 years of Tory rule and the safety net feels like it's been torn away.

I reckon it might depend on the area one lives in then and the people you know socially. Sounds like the situation is affecting society very unevenly.

I am in an energy saving group and people on it are doing it. I live in a top floor flat in a nice part of north london and people have definitely reduced their heating. With the exception of myself + DH and a pensioner on the ground floor, my neighbours are all renters and a 2 bed flat in my area now rents for 1800 (it was 1400 in 2019). I guess thats the heating budget! At one point, we were the only flat heating!

In the past, I didn't really have to heat very much as the other flats would all put the heating on.

@X2Kids I am sorry, I had no idea. That's horrific. The video has made me eat my words

I really do not know why you know no one reducing their use of heating. Are you very wealthy?
Everyone I know is, and some are lower middle class. I mean I am sure our Senior Managers on £90k to £150k at my workplace are not doing this. But anyone ordinary - except for the few lucky ones on a low fixed deal.

External issues at play, so not down to government. I very much doubt the current situation would be any better if we had Labour in government. But yes, things are dire at the moment here. It wouldn’t be too bad if we were given an end date of when we can expect things to improve, but economists are basically telling us to expect high mortgage rates, high fuel bills and food increases throughout 2023 at the very least, probably even further than that.

I was at a woman's house for a church meeting at the weekend. A big middle class home, and she apologised for the cold. She had set her thermostat to 16 degrees. This is what I am seeing nearly everywhere.

I frequently think the same when I visit parts of Germany and France.

@Annabel073 What parts of France and Germany?

Our media love to pile on the doom and gloom, its constant. I've stopped checking in so much on the news and its a much healthier way to live. Yes its more costly for many things and yes I am having to tighten the belt etc. but many other countries are impacted too so I don't think its as bad as many other countries. However when I was constantly reading the news my stress levels were much higher because its negative to the point of depressing you, feeding your fears and just goes on and on. Anything positive is shunted down the list of doom and gloom news.

Just for a bit of balance, I'm in Belgium and all the same things are happening here - food shortages, food price increases of 50% for many things, energy bill hikes. It's one of the highest taxed countries in the world, and you still have to get health insurance, which to be fair is cheap, but you are then only reimbursed 50-80% of what you've paid (upfront) for treatment. You're only entitled to the equivalent of universal credit if you've worked for a certain number of days in the past 18 months, and if you are self-employed you get nothing (a lot of contracts are 'independent' here, so employers can avoid paying towards any of your benefits). Same goes for pensions, I know a retirement age woman who gets nothing because she worked as an independent and now has to keep working in her old age. The trains are cheap and state owned but often cancelled and delayed, much higher unemployment rate and young people have to do lots of unpaid/low paid internships for years to get anywhere near the prospect of a job that isn't zero hours/independent. The grass isn't always greener, and the Tories might be to blame for a lot of things, but unfortunately a lot of these things are happening across Europe.

Oh yes, and the mail service is about x4 more expensive.