to think the UK is completely screwed?

[coocookachoo]

We have a crumbling NHS, a quickly sinking pound, huge amounts of people in part time, insecure, low paid work needing to be topped up with benefits just to survive, a Dickensian style housing crisis with the return of squalor and slum landlords, huge divergence between the rich and the poor, schools having their budgets cut by large amounts, councils not having enough money for social care, low interest rates which discourage saving and encourage dangerous speculation, banks more powerful than ever, politicians who ride roughshod over the electorate and whose motives seem to be mainly to line their own pockets, "culture" being watered down to mindless tv shows and inane celebrities...and before anyone blames Brexit, a lot of these problems have existed way before Brexit but will no doubt get even worse now...

I agree with PP about having a sense of perspective. I remember moving here from Johannesburg as a student and being in shock at what passed for news here - back home the president was trying to convince people that you could cure AIDS by showering after unprotected sex and eating garlic. Genuinely, I wondered why you lot still had newspapers.

Now I moan about school places and the NHS with the best of them.

There is a lot wrong with the UK at the moment, but there's a solid foundation for us to build on in every aspect of society, from health through culture and politics.

Seriously? Get a grip, we are so fucking fortunate in this country! Can you imagine any citizen of genuinely struggling countries reading this bollocks? It's offensive, frankly.

I can't help thinking that those people on this thread who are talking about how lucky people are to live in the UK etc are people who own houses and have good careers.

If you're a renter with a part time, zero hours contract, then you're quite within your rights to be shitting yourself.

I'm part African and Arab, some of my relatives are astounded that we have such a thing as 'welfare benefits' tax credits, childcare allowance, DLA, etc. I think it's all relative. DLA is pittance and continuously being slashed but I reckon a parent to disabled child in some parts of Africa would think it a godsend.

Vladimirs but that old argument of "There are people worse off" is little comfort to people who are watching their hopes for the future die and their hopes for their children die.

user123456 precisely. Which is why I said that it's all relative.

YANBU to be concerned, the changes to working conditions and practices is worrying, as is the housing situation.
The NHS is being deliberately underfunded to undermine it.

We are the best country to live in IMO and I'd like to keep it that way, not see it all gradually eroded.

Oh dear OP. Life in the UK is better than so many other places but if you want to wallow and sink into a hole of negativity - go right ahead. Or emigrate - we need positive people in this country.

I am really interested in the lives of those with the "Stiff upper lip" attitude here.

Do you all own your own houses? Or do you rent? Do you have careers or McJobs?

This is a interesting thread. Every county has ups and downs over time. UK has peaked and is on the decline. 30 years time it will be back on top, and the cycle will continue.

There is a lot wrong with the UK, and a lot more will go wrong with the looming Brexit. A population that is too high, not enough space or resources. Public service being stretched to breaking point, banks not willing to help. All this was part of my motivation to leave the UK. The U.K. System was never going to let me win, or succeed in life so I moved and changed the system.

Secondly I think greed is involved here. People nowadays are not content with what they have. Consumerism and celebrity culture compound that making people feel the situation is worse than it is and that they are hard done by.

Eagle I moved too but I don't think it's all about greed. I think a vast group of people just want the basics, secure housing and secure employment which is enough to live on.

Those things are hard to come by in the UK.

'Twas ever thus.

I remember the 70's. I enjoyed it because I was a child but I was aware that they were pretty bleak for huge amounts of people. My parents were pretty poorly off and they considered 'comfortable'. Mingus be my screed perception though.

As a teenager in the 80's we spent a lot of time thinking we had no real future as nuclear war was pretty inevitable.

The NHS is a victim of its own success. We need to look at it with hard choices. I personally believe the time has come to have a direct NHS tax taken from our income tax. Ring fenced. Of course it will be more than we're paying now.

Even though I voted Remain in the referendum, I don't believe it's the zombie apocalypse. I don't go in for the slagging off f the UK like it's the worst country in the world. It's just not.

Mingus creed? Meant to say might be my screwed perception.

YABU. Some things are better than before, some things are worse. And things will change. People always think it was better in the good old days.

We could have a special sort of insurance, paid alongside our tax, and have it ring-fenced for things like healthcare, pensions and benefits for when we're out of work. What a good idea.

YABU. Not even a case of glass half empty as glass smashed on the floor in a massive rage quit. Life in the UK is pretty good on the whole.

I do think a few decades ago the perception was created that everyone could have everything, life would always get better and better. Reality is that we lived beyond our means and a cushy life is not guaranteed. You need to study hard, work hard and stop expecting everything on a plate.

I don't want to pay any more tax until all of the loopholes are closed & the billions being immorally squirrelled away by a handful of horrific individuals issue is resolved.

We could have a special sort of insurance, paid alongside our tax, and have it ring-fenced for things like healthcare

We do its called health insurance, go get some.

I lived in a place with no sewage system and only cold water in the taps so that's part of the answer, user
I can remember when heating was the wood you collected for the fire.

My grandfather had rickets.
My parents didn't own a car until I was 12, a tv until I was 14, a phone until I was 16.

I know it sounds like get out the violins, but that was in the UK, not abroad. We are very very lucky.

Hesterton I honestly believe the UK is heading back there. I really do. The lack of social housing is pushing people into private lets...often totally innapropriate temporary housing too.

There's poor management of people's living conditions and a stressed out infrastructure.

Stars....I can list that kind of thing too you know. My grandmother almost died as a 7 year old trying to steal coal from an open coal hole.

My Mum collected firewood with an old pram. We also had no phone until I was in my late teens. There was no carpet in our sitting room...we had ice on the inside of the windows.

I see things becoming that way again. I do...the lack of social housing is part of my fear for the future.

I don't. I still think we are lucky. Things have improved immeasurably from a hundred years ago, perhaps not from twenty, but definitely from a hundred.

And we've never had to send our kids to war. Or to live through a war. I am studying WW1 at the moment. It makes you think.

But you are completely right about social housing. It should never have been sold off.

YABU to think the UK is completely screwed.

You are right to be concerned - until someone gives us any chance to vote for a government with the will and authority to address the issues you raise, and unless and until enough people share your concerns, don't expect any big changes in those issues.