Why does life seem to shit in the UK

[RosieLeaLovesTea]

Endless threads about schools going down the pan and poor behaviour in schools making teachers want to leave.
NHS waiting lists and quality of care medical is poor.
housing market market in crisis and affordability of housing

I read the threads and it feels like life in the UK is really shit. Plus crap weathe for 8 months of the year.

how did we get here snd what is the solution?

The uk is very dirty and expensive.
dog shit on the streets, people sat on trains with their feet on the seats, etc etc
gross

Young graduates outside the south east bubble are struggling to get any kind of job tbh. And yet British companies are outsourcing employment to India for example purely to cut costs and make money for shareholders (who ironically tend to be us lot whose pensions are invested in said companies)….
There was a young Indian guy on the askUK Reddit submeme enquiring how he could get an IT job over here. The running joke was that he’d have better luck trying over there.
Plus the number of Americans/Aussies and Canadians loving London, wanting to relocate here and having this romantic ideal about the whole country. As do the huge number of other immigrants that want to come here. That place died a death years ago. If it ever existed at all.

A friend of mine is part of a Quakers group who have worked tirelessly to settle a family from Syria who arrived and were given social housing pretty quickly. I have no doubt this family need the housing but they speak no English and have needed massive amounts of input.
Meanwhile my children are all stuck paying sky high rents and being moved on constantly by landlords who decide to sell because the red tape isn’t worth the hassle.

I don't think the uk is that dirty. Where I live (Leeds suburb) is lovely and clean. I think Leeds city centre is pretty clean too. Obviously there are maby deprived areas that are dirty and unkempt. I've been to many countries that are far more dirty.

I think the UK looks dirtier than it is because there's a lot of concrete everywhere combined with grey clouds and rainy weather.

Edinburgh city centre is disgusting with an overwhelming stench of bins and urine.

Very dirty and dog shit on the streets? That's not true of where I live, nor the places my friends and family live, or the places that I've visited. Undoubtedly, there are grotty places in every country but it's not a reflection of the whole country. Just sounds like you have a bit of a chip on your shoulder when you are exaggerating for effect.

And yet the new trend is to carpet and paint everything inside grey as well!

Hah yep, I don't get it - looks awful to me!

The UK is quite green on the whole.
An overseas colleague who lives in the middle east loves to holiday here because of drizzle.

Life seems shit in the UK because you haven’t travelled.
I’ve lived in several developing countries and travelled a lot, and I am VERY thankful when I return home to a functioning state, no war, free speech, police force who aren’t corrupt, good wages, free health care, my kids are at great state schools… I could go on. I lived in a country where if a kid got cancer they simply went back to their village and died.

It’s all about perspective.

We’re some of the wealthiest people on the planet and very lucky. I choose to like the UK and see it as a great place to live.

Just perspective, innit.

But look how peaceful it is now - the courts got a handle on the rioting pretty quick and killed them stone dead. Very effective.

And controlled without guns.

One of the few countries police don't carry guns on the beat.

No it wasn't.

Under the free movement directive EU citizens could live, work, and study in another EU country for up to three months without conditions. However, the right to stay beyond three months was contingent on having sufficient resources and health insurance to avoid becoming a burden on the host country.

Countries were also allowed restrict access to certain benefits for a time and had the authority to deny entry or deport individuals deemed a public risk.

The fact the UK government didn't make use of any of the control mechanisms doesn't mean it was uncontrolled.

Also that only applied to EU citizens, the UK was always able to apply whatever restrictions it wanted on non-EU migrants.

ok, but I was talking about Spain which is what the PP was asking about?

Sounds like those houses are part of the 16000 or so properties Serco, Clearsprings and Mears, who're pocketing £4bn over the next 10 years, to provide temporary accommodation to asylum seekers on behalf of the home office (and guess which recently ousted party they have ties too). But it still not standard practice for asylum seekers to be offered social housing permanently.

If the above is the case then their anger should be directed at the landlords / local authorities who have chosen to take 5 years of guaranteed rent and no leasing or maintenance costs being offered instead of providing housing to locals. Then again that's the free market people love so much in action isn't it?

Yes day to day life in most UK towns and cities must be utterly depressing to almost everyone. They're shit holes. Underfunded, dirty shitholes. People get despondent so they stop caring. It's a vicious circle.

I can't believe how much rubbish is dumped everywhere. That one aspect in itself brings everyone and their environment down.

This. A 100 %. I have travelled a lot and lived in places that have none of these safety nets our country has, where life is cheap and poverty pretty much everywhere. Love the U.K. we are massively lucky to live in this bubble (for the most part).

I’ve lived in several developing countries and travelled a lot, and I am VERY thankful when I return home to a functioning state, no war, free speech, police force who aren’t corrupt, good wages, free health care, my kids are at great state schools… I could go on.

The UK is not a developing country though. Some would argue we don’t have free speech, police maybe not corrupt but definitely some major issues, wages have stagnated for decades, lot of us pay for healthcare via tax but can’t always access what we need but yes no bombs…

People who are critical of the UK are not necessarily doing it because they hate the UK, they're pointing out what is bad in order to improve standard of living for all.
We're a collective as a society and it's important to look out for each other.
I wouldn't live anywhere else and I love the countryside, nature, history, diversity of people and food but that doesn't mean we can't criticise aspects and try to improve things.

Unfortunately, it will never be like that until the taxation framework is reworked so that everyone contributes to public services. As long as 54% of the adult population are receiving some form of welfare, it cannot be fair. For every young single adult paying 35% of their income in tax to subsidise welfare benefits, there are people being taken out of tax and given benefits. The tax threshold needs to start much lower and more gently.

Roughly speaking, the basic state pension rate is the start point for taxation, which now is £12,570. So if you earn more, then you pay 3%, then 5%, then 8% etc.

But more importantly, unwind tax credits. These are a subsidy to employers. Working tax credit and universal credit subsidise companies not people.

A lot of councils do have the money but they waste spend it on other things.

Exactly👏

We can always compare ‘worse off’ places but why should we? We live in a developed country & our standard of living is dropping.

2 year wait for a scan? Thats ok, other countries don’t even have scanners🙄

I feel like I was a very positive person but feel completely ground down. Over the last 4 years it seems to have got worse

Companies don’t seem to be able to do the job they are paid to do, whilst making it harder and harder to pay your bills.

I had a direct debit that was running fine till another company took over

They cancelled all the current direct debits and said we needed to go into a local branch to set up a new one. Local branch with traffic is an hours round trip just driving. Which I did and set up a new Direct Debit

A few weeks later I got an email saying I hadn’t paid. Direct debit was not activated

Went into local store again and asked about the direct debit. I had cash to pay that month.

However the company have now changed their policy on DD’s and now you need to pay by card each month and they don’t take cash

Hoping things will to through tomorrow

I work long hours, sometimes 10 or 11 days at a time and have a 2 -3 hours commute to and from work so when I have a couple of days off I find I spend it fighting companies to do their job. Just this one incident with the cancelled direct debit has cost me 6 hours of my life at least and it isn’t over

My Tesco club card vouchers that haven’t been used say they have been redeemed
I find them pretty useless as there is always a problem with using them or even receiving them

An electricity company who removed a payment from my account, failed to send me bills and changed figures on my monthly statements so much so they don’t make sense, even to the people who work there

It shouldn’t take 4 months of repeatedly sending your metre readings and photos to an electricity company to make up your final bill.
6 months after I left the previous property I am still waiting for a correct final bill

I also have a credit card that I can’t access my account because the security has got so beefed up none of my families phones work with the app and I can’t do anything to view the account I have to ring up each month to find out what I owe

Recently my car got stolen from the driveway of my new house. We were just bringing the last lot of things to the new property. Didn’t have time to unload the car before work, and thought I would unload the following day. In it were all my family photos of when dc were born (pre internet) and as they grew up. As well as a lot of other stuff that was to go into the new house.

To say I was devastated was an under statement.

I can’t seem to get a handle on anything because as fast as I sort one problem out 2 more rear up

I just feel like companies and government agencies are out to scam you and make your life hard. And a lot of people just want to steal from you.

Add to that the weather makes walking painful
It is so damp, dark and dreary

Just want to leave the UK. I cant be in pain any more