To think England isn't such a great place to live

[Cloudminnow]

Not just the weather, but so much more ...

parking fees everywhere and having to have change at hand (or very expensive pay as you leave - £8.80 to park for an afternoon shopping today!!)

hopeless and expensive public transport system

traffic jams all over the place

terrible customer service

obsession with celebrity culture and all it stands for

union flag and all it stands for

embarrassing monarchy (even having to have one at all)

desperate government

Olympics sponsored by Coke

Education system overly concerned with literacy, numeracy and data at the expense of a love of learning and creativity...

Can anyone sell England to me?!

Have only read first and last pages of thread, and I realise you've taken some flack, OP. Fwiw I wholeheartedly agree that things aren't great here. As for those who say go somewhere else if you don't like it, are move is already booked for next month.

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Consort are you confident that it will be better there? (assuming you had a choice) - report back!

I'm Irish.

Most of us here have to pay ?50 or ?60 every time we visit the GP. We are not poor at all but there have been times towards the end of the month where we have decided to hold off going to the doctor until we get paid.

You have John Lewis and Lakeland. and Gregg's. On a trip to Durham once I almost shrieked when I saw a Gregg's bakery, had to stop myself as I really would have looked quite mad.

There are queues and traffic everywhere in the world.

Every place has its problems, but we are moving to a place we have lived before. It is, in my view, a much better place to live than here. That doesn't mean it will be perfect, and we aren't expecting that.

It is, in my view, a much better place to live than here

Key being in your view. Other people will probably think differently.

A lot of the things the OP whinge about are not actually applicable everywhere in the UK.

RevoltingPeasantMon At least you don't have to pay to go and get a general checkup at the doctors. But Enigma you don't get check-ups on the NHS, do you??? At least not at any GP's I've ever been to. You only go if you actively think something is wrong.

Of course you can. What you do is this . . . you walk in and say "can i have a check up?"

They then give you a check up and chat about your general health, check bp etc and send you for blood tests if you are high risk for diabetes etc. Its magical really!

I live abroad and the grass is always greener on the other side. Few places are perfect - ask anyone who has spend years trying to emigrate to Oz or NZ only to feel disappointed with certain things.

Yes, there is plenty wrong with the UK, but by God there is plenty right as well. A stint in the middle east will show you that!

a stint in the middle east will show you that

Quite. But criticising England doesn't mean you think everywhere else is better. Of course there is plenty right, and even more when you compare with countries that have no human rights, or no access to clean water, or even more corrupt governments.

But that's not the point of the thread.

It's like saying you can't complain about having a tummy bug because thousands of people have AIDS. Or saying you can't complain about crap food in Tescos, because in some countries they can't buy any food. Etc etc.

Everyone is aware that there are problems in other countries, and that the problems in some countries far outweigh what there is in England, but that doesn't mean to say you can't complain about England, or question where things are going wrong.

still, after living in developing countries for over 8 years, things you immediately notice about the UK (Europe) are:

• absence of child beggars on every street corner
• much fewer people living in cardboard boxes/on the street
• no armed police/armed private guards (imagine if we had guards with machine guns at every shopping centre here!)
• I can safely walk around on my own, despite being a woman, without getting groped or grabbed.
• we can drink clean water from the tap (amazing treat after years of worrying my DC will accidentally drink tap water)
• free healthcare and schools.

I know this is "not the point of this thread" but maybe if you have experienced it, you are more forgiving of countries like the UK that are not perfect, but a damn sight better than most.

I wasn't talking about the ME as a troubled war zone, I was talking about the standard of living there generally, because I live there, albeit in a 'safe' and 'stable' country. I wasn't doing that annoying 'how dare you complain about car park charges in Hounslow when children are being blown up in Homs?' type thing, which I hate btw, because you are right - people are entitled to moan about whatever they find annoying in their own environment, as it is often the only frame of reference they have.

However - if we are not allowed to point out that England isn't all bad, and everywhere has its ups and downs and many of not most places have far more downs that England, then I am not quite sure how we are supposed to respond to the thread.

Unless of course the only acceptable response is to to say 'yes, England is a big pile of shite isn't it? Let's all agree that we hold it in contempt.'

if not

I live in Africa and could weep at this thread. Just my own experience in my own daily fight for survival (literally and figuratively) is very different to your reality OP. I wish that I could only complain about similar issues to you. Not saying your gripes are not real for you but it makes me so cross for being born here. Luck of the draw I guess.

No, I don't think I said the only acceptable response to the thread is to agree that England is a big pile of shite, and although you are the only one I quoted yours wasn't the only answer I could have quoted, IYSWIM. But so mnay people saying well England is bloody great because you can drink the tap water and we can walk the streets safely isn't quite fair either. I guess what I mean is that if you compare it to the worst, then of course it is fine, but maybe if people are open to what is wrong, rather than thinking well it's better than elsewhere, then that which is wrong can be addressed, and improved.

I haven't experienced living in developing countries, nor do I wish to, to be perfectly honest - I am very grateful for what we have here in western Europe. I live in France, so naturally compare England with France, and happen to prefer it here for the reasons I gave above. I know France isn't perfect, but I have made my choice. If I had to choose between England and Saudi Arabia I would choose to live in England, but that doesn't mean to say I have to like it.

In fact looking at the OP's list again, I'd say having come back from the ME for the summer I notice a few things about England which I dislike and that I imagine visiting foreigners will purse their lips disapprovingly at, but with the exception of parking charges none of them are on her list.

But the main things that strikes me is how beautiful the place is. You just don't see it when it is around you every day. You really do need to live in the ME for a good while to appreciate the sheer, lush, billowy beauty of England. My first couple of days back here I felt like I'd been given a shot of some hallucegenetic/psychadelic drug - everything was so colourful and patterned, and there was so much movement in the sky and the trees and plants. It felt quite surreal.

Oh well if you live in France then I can see why you are not that fussed about England. France is practically heaven. I'd love to live there. I hope to buy somewhere there one day.

(I say that as a frequent holidaymaker there - though I am sure it had its problems too - annoying bureaucracy for example.)

hallucenegenetic?

Oh dear. I think I just made up a word. I'll try again.

hallucinogenic. That's better, I hope.

My friend fell twenty foot on holiday in Greece. They left her lying there for ages (She'd broken her back and had already been lying there for two hours) whilst they quibbled about the medical insurance. They wouldn't mover her and airlift her to hospital until they knew she had all the correct insurance. Makes me wonder what they would have done if she hadn't.

You can go and buy a gun in America and they still have the death penalty in many states.

Nah, on reflection. Moans about the weather and benefit cuts and the NHS aside, i'd still rather have Britain.

You have John Lewis and Lakeland.

PMSL. Surely the two greatest reasons to love England? I have spend an embarrassing amount of time and money in both since I have been home. I know where my priorities lie.

Felatio the bureaucracy is improving, and certainly has done in the last few years. It isn't as nightmarish as it used to be anyway. Nothing compared to CRB checks and getting new passports in the UK, for example.

The problem here is getting it set up. Once you're set up you can do lots of things on line. Except car registration, which I have always delegated to DH.

CaptainKirk Last year we paid 9% of our income to federal taxes, 6% to the state and medicare. We are in NJ and we use DH's employers health insurance which is 100% paid for by them. I guess you paid more because you didn't own a home or take deductions such as contributions to pensions. We also donate about 10% of our income to charity each year which is a deduction from our taxes. We are way ahead compared to the UK where we would be paying NI of 11% and income taxes of 50% on the majority of DH's income and 40% on the majority of mine.

Quite frankly, given the taxes in the UK there should be no university tution fees, state schools should be better than private, disabled people should be fully supported and the NHS should offer better services such as appointment times that work for those with jobs.

PetiteRaleuse, you do talk a lot of sense. Chapeau!!!!!!!!

Thanks :)

For reasons I won't bore you with, I have spend many, many hours hanging around the passport office in London, on six different occasions, across a span of about 18 months. Each and every time the place has been heaving - mainly, and very noticibly with people who did not appear to be British. At least they weren't when they walked in, but they were by the time they left. They were all there to get hold of British passports. For whatever reason, they did not want to wait for it to arrive in the post or be at the mercy of some administrative system, they wanted it put into their hands at the first available opportunity, before someone changed the rules.

I think they, much like tiptoptoe think you are quite wrong, OP, all things considered.

I have several friends and aquaintances in the ME who have British passports who were not born in the UK, do not live in the UK but they have managed to live/work in the UK at some point, long enough to gain citizenship. They tend to be from Pakistan and Africa. A British passport is like the holy grail to them. My Pakistani friends love it, because they can get in and out of virtually every country in the world easily, and without visa issues, and although they are wealthy and split their time between glamorous cities in the US and Canada and Pakistan, when the chips are down the UK is the place where everything is free and easy - quite literally. They have a better standard of living in Pakistan because they are rich and they are Pakistani through and through in their hearts, but would they give up their rights to be British? Not on your life.

My neighbour is a muslim African man who worked in the UK for a while, had a child there, and got leave to stay and citizenship. He then left his wife and child there, went to the Gulf with his new African wife, and his other children were born in the Gulf. But they have British passports and attend the British school sponsored by the British government for British children. They have never even been to the UK and neither has their mother, and their father was only there as an adult for a number of years - but long enough to get that wonderful privilege of a passport. Come judgement day when everything goes tits up in the Gulf state where we live, I imagine he will be jostling in the queue for the first flight back to the UK alongside me and my family, and not in the rather under-subscribed queue for a flight back to Ghana.

Do you think they any of those people care about the monarchy, or who sponsors our olympics? Even the rain is a small price to pay for the security of being British.

Totally not the point, but in respond to not appearing British????? How can one not appear British????

maybe not appear english or scottish or Welsh, yes..I can see that. But not appear British, mmmhhh sort of defeats the purpose of what being British stands for, me thinks!!!