Tell me the bad things about living in the UK

[alwayscrashinginthesamecar1]

In the interests of equality, as we have had other threads for other countries, I thought I'd start this thread.

I'll start it off with

Bloody awful weather
Obsessed with class
Racist and in some places sectarian too
Filthy cities.

Why aren’t these types of threads in Chat?

Way to go OP, getting people to focus on the negatives when a lot of people are struggling with their mood.

Too crowded.

The attitude that the UK is utterly shit and can do nothing right and that every other country is somehow better than this one. I have lived under a dictatorship or two and I can assure, we are bloody lucky.

@boredboredboredboredbored

You've never been to Birmingham then or some of it's deprived suburbs?

hahaha! I LIVE in one of these 'deprived suburbs' of Birmingham and I really like it. Our neighbours are lovely, it's quiet, you can buy anything you could possibly need (well, pre-Covid at least) from the shops on the main road. We live in a beautiful 4 bed Victorian house with a large garden that we bought for £150k, we can walk into the city centre but if we don't fancy that we can hop on a bus or a tram. Our secondary schools are some of the best in the city.

Yes, there are negatives but they are really not as prominent as you seem to think. Everywhere has litter, everywhere has crime. House prices don't insulate anyone from the realities of life.

Racism. There’s tonnes of it.

Housing is terrible. Why is the standard home 2.5 bedrooms and a tiny kitchen? It’s not like the uk lacks space to make houses a comfortable size. 3 full bedrooms with a kitchen big enough for a table would make a huge difference to families.

Inequality in education

People keep voting for Tories. That's probably the worst thing. I like this country.

Did I mention whinging poms? Because apparently it’s fine to create threads slag off other countries (like the current threads on USA, Nz/Australia) but if anyone criticises the UK it’s ever so horrid and negative and brings the thread police out in force. So just dishing out what’s been served

Well said! I find that often (although certainly not in all cases, before I get flamed) many Brits travel to another country and expect it to be just like home, and are full of complaints when they find things are done differently.

It depends where you live. I see green fields and villages. I live near a large town but rarely go in because it’s like many town centres with failing high streets and it’s dirty in places. I’m sitting in bed with the windows open and all I can hear are birds.
My brother lives in Australia and I have other family in Europe and I wouldn’t swap. I do wonder why we don’t pay our nurses and teachers enough as they do in say Australia but then they have a higher cost if living. I’m surprised at all the people saying poor food here. Where are you shopping?

Bloody awful weather
Agree about this. I like that it's rarely that cold but I can't bear the lack of predictable sunshine.

Obsessed with class
Never even thought about it until MN

Racist and in some places sectarian too
I think that there's an element of racism everywhere but certainly in london it's a fully multi cultural community and I love the fact that I and my children have grown up with friends and colleagues of every race religion and colour

Filthy cities.
Nope, they're not

I think that blind worship of the NHS is a problem, it's amazing in patches but it's not generally that great and our cancer care, if it's a less common cancer is absolutely woeful.

Traffic in parts of the country is terrible

but generally, I think that the UK is a pretty wonderful place to live.

Its not like the U.K. lacks space to make the houses a decent size
It’s exactly like that. We have a similar population to France on a much smaller piece of land!

I don’t get the class obsession others are mentioning.

Bloody awful weather
Obsessed with class
Racist and in some places sectarian too
Filthy cities

Looking out the window at the moment I'd disagree with the first one.

Second I think class exists everywhere but it's about much money you have.

Third you have everywhere - I can't comment as I am white.

Fourth I agree with - I don't know why the British are so awful at littering and don't have civic pride.

I feel a bit silly saying the next one as the Germans have it far worse, but constantly being blamed variously for Brexit, the Tories, the Highland Clearances, Empire, Slavery, the potato famine, etc. I was born in 1972, have never voted Tory, didn't vote for Brexit and my family were certainly not employed in any sort of influential job, either in in the UK or Ireland where my mum's family comes from.

I think for people of a certain age the teacher thing stems from the strikes of the 1980s. Mine wasn't, but a lot of people had their education massively disrupted by strikes.

The lack of can-do attitude Completely agree with this. Too much red tape (and we have the cheek to blame the EU for over-regulation) and too much worrying about being sued. Has anyone actually ever been sued for a pupil falling over in a school playground?

We have about half the land area of France. And quite a lot of it is cold hilly uplands.

• obsession with seeing ourselves as more important than we are on the world stage/drooling nostalgia about the empire/world wars

• racism (agree with PP that says if you think you haven't seen any racism you're white - I come from a majority white British town which has growing Asian, Eastern European and black communities and they are treated appallingly, the racism is open and blatant)

• the M25, the M6, the A1

• houses are tiny (I know it's because we're short on space but even on new developments etc houses are built small)

• Piers Morgan

• the class divide and how entrenched it is

• cauliflower cheese (not sure that's specific to us but it's terrible)

On the flip side, I love our national parks, our roundabouts, our sense of humour, the climate (when it stays below 20c - I like it chilly), our fish & chips, (some of) our history.

@BeltaneBride refugees want to come to the UK because they're more likely to speak English than Greek, Italian etc. It makes sense as they want to get a job and it's easier when you can speak the language.

Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People about Race

I should add that I totally disagree about poor food here. Our food is amazing. Fruit and Veg aren't as good as in europe but then we import a huge amount but they're not bad at all. Our supermarkets are amazing and proportionally cheaper than pretty much anywhere.

We also have the most incredible restaurants which have cropped up over the last 10 years from local artisan cafes to innovative casual restaurants, cuisine from anywhere in the world and some of the most exciting chefs on the planet. The vision of us having poor food is so out of date. We are a really really exciting culinary country.

Obviously, if you only eat in chain restaurants that's not the case most of which are fairly shit

I dont really hate much about it. I feel incredibly lucky that I can say that - I wouldnt want to live anywhere else. I love travelling around but always miss here eventually and feel a sense of calm when i get home

Unidentified monsters in lakes meaning you can’t swim in them, or boat on them or camp or fish anywhere near water just in case.

Huh? What monsters?

All countries have their downsides, but I can't help feeling that most of the people who complain about dirty cities, racism and crime for example, don't have experience of living in other countries and aren't very knowledgeable about living standards elsewhere in the world.

I can't think of a disadvantage of the UK that isn't equally or more true about umpteen other countries, and we also lack some of the problems that many countries have. Even the supposed awfulness of the weather is a matter of opinion. I'd bloody hate to live somewhere where it was hot all the time!

Monsters?!

@barkingfuckingdogs that thing Nessie in some lake up north. It probably has little babies lurking in small ponds and streams waiting for the unwary everywhere. Water is dangerous.

The darkness in winter.

Racism
Tories
Brexit
Poverty
Inequality

The actual place I love. The beautiful mountains, temperate climate, gorgeous beaches, picturesque little villages, cities with amazing architecture. It’s a lovely country but it’s being tainted by its politics and all that stems from it.

Worlds worst cuisine.

Ever been to Eastern Europe?

Winter is too long
State is too big/private sector too small in areas where the state intrudes
Not enough greenery in cities
Average houses too small/expensive
Food isn’t great (especially the meat)
Quite racist
Very classist
Fireworks are sold in supermarkets
The coffee is bad outside of London
It doesn’t rain properly (just endless drizzle)
People lack boundaries
Politics heavily skewed to to left (made worse by the fact that no one seems to realise)
General population is very entitled and lazy
Social housing everywhere yet the vast majority seems to be incredibly poor quality/downright death trap
Too many dialects (difficult to understand if you are a foreigner)
Weirdly cliquey (people often draw the majority of their friends from similar professions/backgrounds etc and refuse to socialise with anyone else)
Roads are crap

Huge freedom to define your own life. You are free to be whoever you want, say what you want, work your way in to any position you want, provided you have what it takes, which is not a question (as some will tell you) of having been born in the right place. I could give you hundreds of examples of success stories of people who were born poor and have made it to the top of their field here.