AIBU to think this godforsaken country is a shambles?

[Toysintheattic29]

THIS IS WHAT’S ON MY MIND: this country is in shambles. I’ve never seen so many homeless people on the streets; social care services unable to cope with overflowing caseloads; our precious NHS struggling to care for anyone at all (forget it if you have non life-threatening surgical needs or are elderly); train fares continually getting jacked up; rising costs; roads cracking up; broadband speeds laughably slow and the biggest con of all, BREXIT. Even in the austerity of the 1950s things were not as grim as they are now - at least we had a reliable health service and publicly owned transport systems and many members of the public didn’t have to rely on food banks.

This is the great british empire mentality.

Think politicians and some people in this country are simply delusional.

This country is small, relies on import and no longer great.

You really think things were BETTER in 1950s, take off those rose coloured glasses!!!

I can remember the 50s - things were most definitely not better then.

YABU for making so many sweeping generalisations.

YANBU it’s all a mess and what’s worse is there is little hope of things getting better only worse thanks to Brexit. Ah but it’s ok because we can have blue passports back

We have free healthcare. The same level of care costs Americans tens of thousands of dollars every year. We have fairly low taxes. Our rail infrastructure is the oldest in the world and runs very well in comparison to newer infrastructure - if we want spangly new trains we need to pay for them. Yes the UK runs on imports but it runs on a hell of a lot of exports too (the exporting of knowledge, of technology, of patents). We also get huge inflows of investment and patent income.

The NHS is currently caring for three people in my immediate family and doing it well.

We need to pay more taxes ( but we won't vote for that) , use less, abandon the doctrine of growth , waste less, drink less. We also need to accept that we cant all live in the south east.

We had a gap year and spent 10 months in Australia, their bureaucracy is worse than ours in some areas, health is expensive, each state has it's own rules for car registration, road speeds, education, there is quarantine of fruit and veg between states. We actually saw a homeless family of 6 living in a tent on a campsite, not sure if true but they told us they were considered to have a roof over their heads.
The past wasn't necessarily better and neither is the present.

If it's that bad, move somewhere better. That's what many others do for a better life.

Aye, but don't fret, you can pay ££££'s for a lovely blue passport you can get no where with

But what's the point of this thread? Things have always been this way op

You have fallen for the daily mail shite.... which, to be fair, is the only thing that's changed. Reporting standards have dropped

Watching the news last night, this is exactly what they are continually reporting: doom and gloom (ok I know there's plenty of it). The NHS segment for example: why do they never show the amazing work of our NHS every single day? Because it isn't news worthy, that's why. Same with trains, economy, politics, Trump, everything. They only want to report/spin bad news. It's so depressing and needs balancing out.

I wonder how many countries in the world have it better. Some, certainly (though probably not better in all the categories you complain about). But the vast, vast majority have it much worse, and their inhabitants would no doubt think you were unbelievably spoilt to think of your country (which many are desperate to come and live in) as 'godforsaken'.

That doesn't mean there aren't changes that need to be made, but at least you have the right to a vote (and to leave if you want).

Do you think the 13 Billion we spend every year on foreign aid, could be redirected back into the UK, after all should we be paying so Indian can have a space program?

Yabu

@mummy - the money given to India in aid is paid back a hundred fold by the investment of Indian companies in the UK.

If you were born in 1920 (so a young adult in the 1950s) if you got that far) your life expectancy at a birth as a woman was less than 60. If you were born in 1980, your life expectancy at birth as a woman is 77.

And on hunger/food bank use:

Food bank use in Germany and France is much higher than in Britain. In 2014, 1.5 million people a week used food banks in Germany.[19]

A 2012 survey by the OECD found that 8.1% of Britons answered yes to the question ‘Have there been times in the past 12 months when you did not have enough money to buy food that you or your family needed?’, which is less than neighbouring France (10%) and the EU (11.5%) and OECD (13.2%) average, as well as the United States (22%). However it is more than Germany.[55]

Analyses by the Food Foundation thinktank published in 2016, ranked the UK in the bottom half of European countries for food insecurity.[3]

Things were not better in the 1950s.

Just to give a few examples;

There was still food rationing until 1954.

The contraceptive pill wasn't introduced until 1961 - and it was only available for married women.

It was very difficult for a woman to get a mortgage right into the 1970s.

I would definitely rather be living in the UK now, despite it's problems.

Okay, I wasn't alive in the 50s but those who were tell me things are much better now.

I still think things are crap but it's mostly overpopulation and crazy amounts of so-called economic growth i.e. propping up the country on consumer goods and services etc.

My Dad is elderly and had a very expensive and complicated operation which saved his life. With amazing aftercare. He also has ms and leukaemia. Both of which he receives the absolute best care which is keeping him alive.

For free.

I live in America where this doesn't happen unless you can afford it.

Toys many homeless people are now here from other countries, poorer eastern european countries. We cant do anything about that. We had systems set up to cope with the homeless, small charities - not enough but something. Unfortunately there is only so much any country can do when many people want to come here to beg, live, work on a shoe string. Mix this into the homeless we already have then we have a much bigger issue.

This is why Frank Field said - in his pre Brexit blogs, you need to choose which poor you support, those of your own country, already here or those from Eastern Europe, even the best safety nets in the world have a finite number of people they support.

Frank Field is the MP for Birkenhead one of the poorest wards in the UK. He is a Labour MP.

"We have free healthcare. The same level of care costs Americans tens of thousands of dollars every year."

"Same level"? Americans get far superior healthcare to that provided on the NHS.

Whether or not that's fair or necessary is another matter, though.

@cote - no they really don’t. I have family up there, and know exactly how much £1,000 per month health insurance can buy you. It’s really not much at all.

The only fundamental thing this country doesn't do well at is the weather and no amount of changes of policies or governments is going to change where it is.

I have had my heating on since August and the darkness is really getting to me.