When are things going to get better?

[OrNo]

I realised recently we have all come to accept the mediocre/sub par standard of public services and I wondered when we can expect things to get better?

Examples are potholes. They're everywhere, damaging cars, causing accidents, splashing pedestrians. When will councils have enough money to do something about them? The roads didn't used to be like this.

Pavements are another. Cracked, uneven, damaged, trip hazards. Councils don't renew them often enough and I don't think they have the money for proactive inspection. When will they have enough? When will the streetlights be on all night as before? When will women be safer at night?

Obviously the NHS and dentists are clear examples. You used to be able to book an appointment with your GP or dentist at a convenient time. Now you have to phone 100x at 8am on the dot or there's nothing. If you want to move areas and move NHS dentists, in my town there are none taking on new patients. When will this change and more availability become the norm?

This isn't necessarily a political blame pointing thread. But I just wonder when we won't need foodbanks, services will have satisfactory capacity, our bins are emptied more than once every 3 weeks? When are things going to get better?

I don't think anything's going to get better until governments stop being cowards and start charging billionaires, multimillionaires and businesses with huge profits more tax (which the vast majority of the public will support and no, no all those wealthy people will leave the country, it needn't even be much to make a huge difference).

I thought it was understood that a Labour government would make it better. Many are now discovering that is not the case. The issues are systemic and no doubt taking away the winter fuel allowance will make all the necessary funds available.

It will only get better if we all pay more. To pay more I want to see some systemic changes around customer service standards and the better management of resources.

I mean, it will take years and years to make things better. If you remember back in 2007-ish when things worked, it didn't all just stop working the day the Conservatives took power. People aren't insane - they wouldn't have kept voting for them if it had happened like that.

The first thing was homeless people on the street - they showed up pretty quickly, I remember. 2010, 2011. And then libraries and Sure Starts were closing, but just in bits and pieces. Then the trains started going wrong a bit more than they used to. And so on and so on. If you think, it was only really last year when all the school ceilings fell in - that took years of neglect until that happened. And the hospitals, too - first one service closed and then another, bits and pieces, until there's nothing left to cut and there's nothing. You get used to it. It feels normal-ish, until the whole thing falls in like a primary school roof.

It took years to grind this country down to where it is and I guess it will take years to build it up again. It's harder to build things than to destroy them, after all.

Everyone needs to pay more tax IMO.

We have high expectations of services, yet most pay very little.

Don't pay more. They will spend it on refugees hotels and then more will come, more gang leaders will provide boats services , the UK has to pay more and it is one vicious circle

Councils have a finite amount of cash, they are spending huge amounts on social care, children, adults and elderly.

So what to do? Do you fix a pot hole or look after an elderly person trapped at home?

No one wants to pay anything, but wants everything fixed for their needs.

It's impossible.

If certain things were fixed correctly the first time, it would work out cheaper in the long run. We have some awful potholes. They’re bodged, fail, are bodged again, until someone grasps that doing the job properly will be better.

No one does anything about the weed smokers near the station, or the bikes stolen from there.

There’s a shocking lack of planning for road works. Three routes out of the village and, at the moment, all three have road works, for an indeterminate time.

My council tax is truly astronomical. I don’t think the council is making good use of my money.

Oh honestly. It's such a tiny % of the money that goes towards decently housing desperate human beings.

@RosesAndHellebores it does feel systematic and I really want to believe someone in power has the foresight and bravery to make things better.