Is it really that bad in the UK?

[BlastedPimples]

I don't live in U.K. anymore but was over visiting at the weekend for a wedding.

So lovely to catch up with people I'd not seen for yonks.

BUT every single person I chatted to was so gloomy about the state of the U.K. All professionals (civil servant, TV producer, charity head for example) so perhaps protected from some of the poverty.

I have never heard people express such pessimism even with the approaching GE.

Is it really that bad?

It's becoming more like America - ok if you have enough money but scary if you don't.

One difference is professional jobs in America generally have much higher salaries.

Maybe I'm older than most but I remember how awful it was in the 1970s, then followed the booming 80s!
Well yes, you are priviliged because try being in your late 20's / early 30's now and in one of those careers and getting onto the property ladder in most UK cities where those sorts of jobs exist!! I'm guessing you must at least 50 so went to uni in the days before there were tuition fees and got on the housing ladder before properties became several multiples more than the average salary! I was listening to some of our graduates in the kitchen at lunchtime and they were talking about paying £200-300 a month back on student loans and that's before they'll be paying at least £600-800 a month in a flat share......both those amounts are more than my mortgage on my own home which there's no way they'd be able to afford at the age that I bought it (I couldn't afford it myself now and I earn twice what they do!)

For me, the absolute worst thing is the overcrowding. There are just too many people squeezed onto this little island. I’m in rural Essex and really feel like I’m suffocating. My local woods have been hacked into to build two massive new housing estates, and at the other end of the village a second giant estate is being built. Kids from those estates now meet at the end of my road to sell drugs. Eighteen years ago, when I moved here, that would have been unimaginable. Back then, it was a quiet, rural lane. As if that wasn’t enough, 800 new homes are planned for the long road that runs into town. That road is clogged with traffic now, so what the hell is going to happen when an extra 1,000 cars are added? We can’t be far away from booking time slots to use the roads. I have lived abroad, and every country has its faults, but when you’ve got plenty of personal space somehow nothing seems so bad.

Where are people supposed to live though?

Yep! for me its the decision between moving out and spending every penny on housing and bills (not that its easy to rent privately anyway as people regularly bid above the advertised rental prices in my area) or staying put for now and being able to have some sort of life for myself in my 30s/40s and in retirement.

That's going to become more pertinent in the coming decade.

As PP says, there's an extra 800 homes planned for once rural village. That's enough to satisfy the UK's population growth for, oooh, a day.

Look, people don't want to be stuck on some overpriced noddy housing estate with 7 different houses looking in at you on you when you're taking a piss. They want to be in London where the infrastructure and the fun is. So it's about time councils and developers started thinking outside the box and built high quality medium density apartments on the many brownfield sites that are available.
Otherwise before long the urbanisation of London will extend all the way along the A12 corridor to Ipswich.

How?! The house is hardly luxurious but I'm grateful, can't all be privileged to had a mortgage

RubySloth · Today 10:53
No, British people just like to moan. I'm on a low income and have multiple health issues, kids, live in social housing and getting by just fine. My kids are enjoying school and getting a good education. I have no issues with getting medication or access to good healthy food

You’re fortunate. Many people in similar circumstances cannot secure social housing.

"I really think we've hit a low point as a country and a society and for the first time in mynlife, I'd rather live somewhere else."

Me too

I think that since the 50s/60s people expected that life would get better. Certainly it would be better for their children and grandchildren. Better education, jobs, housing. Up until this century it was working. I live a life of unimaginable luxury compared to my grandparents (I'm 63).
Now...we seem to be going backwards. The Social Contract is broken and it seems to have made us a meaner, more selfish society. It's every man for himself and god help the poor/ disabled/old.

Yep. That's what 14 years of Tory mismanagement have done to us.

This is supposedly a wealthy western country yet we have appalling public services, transport, schools and health service.

Add to that the cost of living, the madness of Brexit and the aftermath of Covid and you end up with a very gloomy nation...

...

The posts saying, "It's worse elsewhere." are odd. What have other countries got to do with it?

The UK is a wealthy country. I always expected it to be alright, iyswim. And I was really taken aback by the pessimism. No anger really either. Which suggested a kind of defeated feeling too.

But it just seems like it's on a downward spiral that is even affecting the affluent now.

I really really hope things improve. The UK's decline benefits nobody.

Or GP appointments. If you are chronically unwell, you'll be on a priority list. Its not so easy for others without chronic issues. As it should be of course, but there arent enough resources ro go round for the people that need care sporadically.

Im a single parent, a professional, with what many consider a good/interesting job, one child, and a salary that 10 years ago would have meant we lived very comfortably.

However.

The cost of living is so high - esp as a one-salary household- that I can’t really save anything meaningful and I budget to the penny. I don’t drink, buy myself new clothes except second hand, have expensive hobbies, buy expensive make up- none of it. Anything spare goes on my child and one, one week holiday a year.

Im of an age when I was hit with the first wave of tuition fee increases- so I’m still paying that back.

I had severe postpartum anxiety, and the NHS couldn’t treat me for 12 months. I couldn’t wait that long- I was definitely not well. Paid for private treatment and put it on a credit card. Still paying that back too. That was 7 years ago.

I have never inherited and will never inherit any property or family money, & the cost of living is so high I can’t save for a deposit - and so I’m stuck in precarious private rented accommodation basically forever.

My industry is making redundancies left, right and center- and I moved to a cheaper-to-rent part of the country where jobs are even scarcer. So if I lose my job, I have no idea what I’ll do.

I could go on- but ultimately life feels far too precarious for someone who has worked hard their whole life, first in education and then work, and achieved everything that a decade or two ago we would have said equated to “success”, and earns what should be a decent salary. It shouldn’t be THIS hard. I have no idea how people who have had less luck and more life challenges are coping.

Its constant grinding anxiety that my life and my sons life could fall apart at any moment if just one thing changes - my landlord sells, my job is made redundant, I get sick etc - there is no safety net, and the only way up is to inherit generational wealth, or at least get a boost up when you’re starting out- and that’s why the UK feels utterly shit atm.

I disagree re: the anger though.

I am very fucking angry. Particularly about brexit, which means I can’t even use freedom of movement to escape this binfire of a country.

It depends on your personal circumstances how it affects you. Everything is very expensive, quality of fresh produce is now poor, public services are broken, retail is suffering, infrastructure is in dire need of overhauling, education is diabolically underfunded. The lack of investment and goodwill over the last decade has really taken a huge toll. Yes many people are doing just fine but so many aren’t and it’s becoming increasingly apparent the absolute disparity between the haves and have nots.

You’re absolutely right, there is no safety net for all those in very similar situations to yours. Earning a salary from a decent job that should have afforded you to at least buy your own home is a thing of the past unless you have no outgoings and are frugal to the point of depriving yourself or get a leg up by inheriting or living at parents to save for a deposit.

This

I grew up assuming that things would gradually improve or at least stay more or less the same. It's come as a shock to realise that things can deteriorate even in the absence of events such as war or some natural disaster. To see the country be dismantled by a sitting government is depressing and unnerving. I kind of always assumed there'd be a welfare state for example, but I no longer assume that. Same with education and health. I'm not bothered about myself as I'm older, but I worry for my young adult children who are ND.

Not really, people just like to moan , altho it is virtually impossible to see a GP but then Labour privatised GP services. Didn’t they !.

Yes, nothing functions properly. Water companies and other utilities take the piss, the roads are more pothole than road, education is poor unless you have lots of money. People behave like sheep and there's inadequate funding in almost every sector. The police only respond is life is in danger. The NHS is fucked top to bottom and no individual takes responsibility for anything in any business or sector.

Try getting an NHS dentist or a GP appointment or anyone to answer a phone generally is difficult.

Television programs have presenters that speak to the populace as if we are seven but to be fair an awfully large proportion of the people are infantile in their approach to life. Adverts reflect this by using cartoons, flashing images and bright colours to try and gain attention whilst ignoring features of a product that are worth knowing.

The levels of crime and violence are high but the figures are massaged to make it look as if this is not true.

Food is eye wateringly expensive and covered in security tags.

An awful lot of people would leave but Brexit (a collective act of self destruction) has made this far far harder.

Yes it's all crap

I hate all this, oh people just like to moan, but then also acknowledging that in lots of places you can’t get easy access to a dentist or a gp appointment but oh it’s worse in other countries, great but I’m not in those other countries. That’s not just someone moaning about the weather, it’s a legitimate problem and people are going to complains and talk about it.

serious problems can happen when you don’t have easy access to a gp appointments, I am one such case, delayed cancer diagnosis and current in credit card debt too because of having to go private to get someone to actually lay eyes on me and not just fob me off with call tomorrow or useless phone appointments. But that’s just me “moaning”

The "I and my circle of friends are just fine" type posts seem incredibly naive/out of touch to me.

Financially, I'm comfortable. I don't currently have any major health issues. I'm fortunate to own the (very small) roof over my head.

But I'm all too aware that life can change in a heartbeat. If you really don't see what a struggle it is when you don't have a decent income, and/or don't own a home, and/or have a chronic health condition, open your eyes and look beyond your own circle. Sure, it's always been difficult if you're in those situations, but it's got a lot worse.

What really depresses me is that all the main parties in this election are obsessed with making promises about not putting up taxes to win favour. I would happily pay more tax if it means that an ambulance will come quickly if I need one; that I won't have to wait for hours in a hospital corridor; that if I need social care it will be provided; that social housing will be built to address the housing crisis.

Our political system is not fit for purpose as it incentivizes only short term thinking. No one wants to be honest about what it will take to tackle problems that can't be fixed over a parliamentary term.

No, it was what 13 years of Labour did. They made everyone dependent on the State and wasted so much money on useless public sector jobs when they should have saved the money for a rainy day.

I agree, we had austerity cuts then things looked brighter, we were given some wriggle room and covid came long, throwing us back into the pit, as well as Russian/ Ukraine war. Those two major factors have had a huge negative effect, not completely the governments fault.

We are still paying out money for things that were meant to be temporary. The government are paying school meal vouchers during the holidays, school clubs during the holiday were you get free lunch which contradicts what the vouchers are for. Don't get me wrong, it really helps my family but considering everyone keeps going on about the "cruel tories", as someone with no savings, holidays etc. If though I don't have the best quality of life and nothing to help my children (other than pushing with their studies), but it makes you appreciate the country especially when your grandparents don't originate from here and know their struggles/ other family members struggles living abroad having a terrible time.

One of the problems with Brexit is that no-one seems to be able to mention it now...it's still a toxic subject, so things that are a result of our being outside of the customes union/single market, the sewage problem, the quality of fresh produce etc are covered up/swept under the carpet.