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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

AIBU - friends keep slating England!

66 replies

orangeflower11 · 19/05/2017 06:26

DH has friends who are really lovely people but they keep going on and on about how awful England is!

Part of the "motivation" is that they want us to move to where they are. But there are NO jobs - we've politely explained numerous times that our workplaces are filled with people from where they are who have moved.

But at first it was just how beautiful where they are is. It is but no more lovely than the English countryside. Then it was other random stuff. Then they somehow got the impression England is a vice filled den of crime and started going on about how we'd be safer where they are

It sounds like a non problem but it's really quite rude and I'm fed up of it! AIBU?

OP posts:

Roussette · 19/05/2017 07:05

How can it possibly be well meant???

It's like saying your mother is ugly.

Original poster

orangeflower11 · 19/05/2017 07:05

People (including the English) do seem to think it's okay to say awful things about England, I don't know why

OP posts:

PaleAzureofSummer · 19/05/2017 07:08

Dh is South African and he had some friends that constantly moaned about England when they lived here. They then moved back and when we've visited them they now moan about South Africa, so I realised they are just very moany people!

ravenmum · 19/05/2017 07:12

Replies:

"In England a lot of people think your country is XYZ, but of course that's just stereotying borne out of ignorance."

"You seem really obsessed with your hatred of my home. Why do you think about it so much? Could it actually be jealousy?"

"What would you say in my position? I mean, if I kept criticising the place you lived, how would you react? Wouldn't you get sick of it after a while?"

"Oh dear, I just remembered I'm going to be busy the rest of this year. Bye."

LostSight · 19/05/2017 07:13

Are they reading British papers online? They do make everything sound awful just now, what with Brexit and the reported attacks on racist grounds, the apparent poor treatment of the disabled and so on.

I am currently living outside the UK and it sounds awful. However, my parents live in the north of. England, and I know we could move back and have a good life. If I was just reading the news, I would never move back.

Original poster

orangeflower11 · 19/05/2017 07:17

They do live in the U.K., just not England. I know what you mean about the papers though! I think there's a subtle anti English sentiment where they are and I definitely would be reluctant to expose us or the children to that.

OP posts:

ravenmum · 19/05/2017 07:20

True, I also live abroad, and have the Essex Chronicle or whatever it is now called on Facebook. It is all just stabbings and murders! Makes Chelmsford look like a crime capital. But knowing the area I am slightly better informed. Mind you, my mother, who lives there, would have me think it's going to the dogs :)

Elledouble · 19/05/2017 07:23

A den of vice, eh?

Tell them you can't move away cos your pimp won't let you. Or that there will be no-one to run your drug ring.

Original poster

orangeflower11 · 19/05/2017 07:24

OP posts:

OhWhatFuckeryIsThisNow · 19/05/2017 07:30

Having grown up in Australia, this was something I experienced a lot. (Hello ex bil)
Typified by my best friend's husband and delightful kids. She won money, wanted to to bring family on trip round uk, husband refused point blank as he "had no desire to visit a miserable wet little island full of smelly poms" The kids winged every fucking mile of the journey, making really rude comments about small houses, crap food, not understanding accents. She was mortified as she finds something to love every place she goes.
Although it might just have been they were rude ungrateful cunts.

Screwinthetuna · 19/05/2017 07:30

It does have a bad rep. Most often, it's English people causing this. I've lived abroad and come back. Almost every person I've ever mentioned this to says something along the lines of, 'why on earth would you come back?' 'Why would you come back to this dump?'

WhatToDoAboutThis2017 · 19/05/2017 07:39

Screwinthetuna I think we British, and particularly us English, are a self-deprecating lot.

MackerelOfFact · 19/05/2017 07:40

There are beautiful parts of Wales, Scotland and Ireland but there are also beautiful bits of England - and it's not like the climate is any fucking different!

I find there is quite a lot of arbitrary patriotism in Scotland and Wales (less so N Ireland because it's still quite divided) - it doesn't happen as much in England, not because it's less good but because culturally 'being English' isn't generally as ingrained as part of our identity.

Personally, as an English person living in London, I feel that being a Londoner is a much more significant part of my identity than being English.

FittonTower · 19/05/2017 07:47

I love my little bit of England, I don't feel very "English" though and I don't feel I have a lot in common with my fellow Englishmen and women - at least not when I look at the papers they read and the things that's they vote for.
But I live in a place that sounds much like your friends, very low wages and I have paid dreadfully despite my degree but I bloody love my job. It's all about perspective I suppose. What do they say when you tell them to pack it in?

Original poster

orangeflower11 · 19/05/2017 07:56

Obviously I'm not that rude :)

OP posts:

Deathraystare · 19/05/2017 08:07

The harshest critics on England are the English. They are usually grining as they say anything. In a way you won't get people from other countries putting down their foibles. We tend to go "Yeah I know!" when someone complains of the weather, our weird (to them) ways etc.

We used to be accused of jingoism but now I think we are mainly laid back about most things for which I am glad. We are more tolerant of things than some countries (though at times I do think we should care more).

Deathraystare · 19/05/2017 08:09

I think we British, and particularly us English, are a self-deprecating lot.

(nods) Yes that is what I was wafflyingly trying to say!!! Beleive it or not I am English and that is my mother tongue (tied!)

Westray · 19/05/2017 08:11

An English identity that some other parts of the UK don't want.

Deathraystare · 19/05/2017 08:14

My Danish friend could not wait to get back to Denmark. She was quite rascist and lived (when in UK) in a very racially mixed area. When she moved back she thought where she lived was very parochial (plus they had a number of refugees there as well!). It took her a while to get back in the swing of things.

Westray · 19/05/2017 08:19

My OH is English- he wouldn't live in England again.

metalmum15 · 19/05/2017 08:28

Orange I think it's ok to have a moan about the country you live in, after all, you live there so you can see both the good and bad in it. It's not just the Uk really, dh works closely with colleagues in many other countries and they're just the same, they can see both the good and bad points of where they live. No place is perfect.
However, when someone starts slagging off your country and they've never even lived there. ..well, that's a whole other ball game!

chickpeaburger · 19/05/2017 08:34

Are your friends Australian OP? Lots of them seem to have a chip on their shoulder about England. Not the whole UK, just England.

KoalaDownUnder · 19/05/2017 08:39

Eh, some people are just rude moany pricks. I don't think it'd matter where they're from.

hackmum · 19/05/2017 08:57

I want to know what country they're in.

I like living in Britain. It's easy to focus on the bad stuff - the weather, the endless queues, the weeks you have to wait to get a GP appointment. But whenever I've been abroad, I've realised there are things I'd really miss. How green it is here. The quality of our public spaces, which are (mostly) well cared for. The fact that most people drive pretty carefully and considerately (compared to Italy, say!). The fact that people are, on the whole, polite in public and will apologise to you when you bump into them. The quality of tv and radio broadcasting - you can hear so much intelligent, interesting debate on Radio 4, for example, which is in striking contrast to the inanity you're exposed to when you switch on any American tv or radio station. The fact that you can rock up to A&E in an NHS hospital and you will be seen and treated, whoever you are. OK, you might have to wait, but at least you don't have to spend 15 minutes filling out an insurance form.

whoputthecatout · 19/05/2017 08:57

Obviously England is so shit that hundreds of thousands of non-English come to live here. Why would they want to live in a country that's so shit I ask? Could it be that, actually, it is quite a good place to live. Nah - maybe they're all masochists.

FFS OP - they're are not "really lovely people" They are rude, ignorant gits.

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