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.

@namechangerequiredagain

Everyone always whingeing. It's always someone else's fault - the gov, the rich. The lack of can-do attitude.

This ^ and this:

The cult status of the NHS. It needs overhauling. It’s not underfunded, it’s wasted on needless managers and stupid schemes. It’s a disgrace.

Oh and the hypocritical facebook rants. Like my teacher friend who posts .... 'it is NOT safe to open schools..... there is no scientific backing to open schools..... do NOT open schools.... this government is KILLING our children....' but is sending his kid into school on Monday???? Go figure

Your teacher friend probably has no choice but to send his child to school, but is scared witless...

I personally hate our free healthcare, good schools, the greenery and how pretty it is especially in the spring and summer. Erg, don't even get me started on a drinking water, it's clean and safe, what a joke.

Disgraceful new builds.
How they can justify the size of the houses here Ill never know. You look at other countries and you start to realise we are having the piss taken out of us.

And people who come from abroad to live here and then are rude about the country and the culture here.

Moving somewhere doesn't mean we cannot ever criticise the place when things are wrong.

I love the UK out of all the countries I've lived in.

Classic to see this thread is, as usual any time POC mention racism, full of white people sniffing "well I haven't seen any racism" and denying the experience of others.

UK has plenty of racism both casual and institutional and classist too.

Re moaning Aussies, a dd used to work with some, ditto endlessly weather-moaning South Africans. She would ask what they were actually expecting when they chose to live and work in a Northern European country in winter - a balmy Mediterranean climate?

However it was a Swede who finally shut them up. ‘You call this cold? Where I come from it’s twenty degrees below freezing!’

I agree. There is lots of racism. Maybe people miss it because it's not directed at them, or because... Well Brits usually don't say things like this out loud... It's around the corner...

It's all generally shit to be honest when you know how it is to live in many other western countries. And the UK government have just transferred their assets into private ventures of their friends (under the guise of the pandemic) - NOT TENDERED - this is tax payers money. The inner circle don't follow the law, still trying to understand how they get away with it but it will all come out in time, it always does. Cummings also has been give £1bn to do a project of his own too, to.no benefit to us. Again, tax payers money. We have a government more corrupt than ever and if you can leave I would! Oh but we have clean water and a few rural parts if you want to fly your flag around there.

I like most things about living here, feel very lucky actually, but racism is alive and well, sorry!

The UK is the least racist country I've seen, not saying there is no racism BTW.

I absolutely bloody love this country. Even the shitness is good. And lots of the shitness is a thing of the past now anyway.

The weather, the food, the history, the architecture, the little stories in everything.

Charity shops. Interesting buildings. The BBC.

If housing was more affordable it'd be perfect. But we live on a rocky island and they aren't making more land

I find parts of it shockingly dreary. The brutalist post-war grey concrete boxes that blight so many town centres. Shabby grey housing estates.

The weather. Too wet, seldom warm enough, chokingly humid when it does get warm.

Litter everywhere.

I don't like the way that town and city centres on weekend nights are the perserve of the young and the drunk. There's a horrible edge of violence in the air at those times.

The terrible rise in visible rough sleeping.

Having lived in 4 different European countries I think a lot of these things are consistent across everywhere (gossiping neighbours, sectarianism, a small percentage of people who don't give a shit and make things worse for everyone).

Things that genuinely are better in the UK

• Significantly cheaper food (for example in France food spending is about a third of your disposable income and that's considered normal)
• Somehow less bureaucracy even though it feels like we have loads you dont understand quite how long things can take elsewhere
• Lower taxes - personally I think this causes many of the bad things so it's not great BUT it is shocking when you first move somewhere with higher taxes
• Less conformity in terms of religion where you're not expected to go to church/temple every weekend and schools are mostly mixed

Bad things include:

• Roads and public transport infrastructure is genuinely shocking. A 4 hour business class train in Italy cost me €40 - we still can't get the Pennine trains electrified.
• NHS is great if you're dying but otherwise it's slow and fails consistently at both early diagnosis and rehabilitation. Our cancer stats are an embarrassment and maternity care dreadful.
• Education is deprioritised - further education is off the scale expensive to the student compared to other countries and vocational training is non existent.
• Inconsistent weather means you can't plan things like bbqs, picnics more than a week in advance and that on sunny weekends everywhere is packed
• The country is so London focused and there's very little decentralised power meaning all the jobs are in one place and the regions can't differentiate

There's probably more for both, the funny thing is that while I appreciated the good stuff living abroad, it was the tiny niggles that made me miss the UK most just because it didn't feel like home. Queuing, a similar sense of humour, having spices beyond paprika, a variety of cuisines - I could live off Italian food forever but sometimes you really fancy a curry or Vietnamese food.

@Nofunkingworriesmate, perhaps less of a class issue and a postcode one. Racism is sadly still strong among some demographics, as is homophobia and sexism.

I don't think anything here is so bad compared to other countries.

I think there is a lot of good in the UK.

As someone who has immigrated, I have pros and cons of the UK.

PROS

• Delicious chocolate
• Country pubs
• Close to other European Countries - makes travelling easy!
• London theatres
• My family

CONS

• The weather
• Low salaries
• Days out are expensive

Our local council has a habit of waiting and waiting and waiting... and then cutting the grass verges when all the wild flowers are in their full spectacular colourful glory.

The obsession with class. Or lack of it, as the case may be.

Everyone thinks they are an expert judge of talent, despite having no knowledge whatever.

The tabloids and their relentless pursuit and dragging into the gutter of even the most minor so-called celebrity.

The worst thing about the UK is that it’s a country run BY the rich and privileged FOR the rich and privileged, voted in by people who themselves are rich and privileged, or people too selfish/thick/lazy/ambivalent to realise what they’re doing (Or not doing in the case of those who don’t vote)

We don't have 'bloody awful weather'. No worse that northern France, Germany, Belgium or the Netherlands. We don't live in a permanent artic tundra or in drenching winter. Certainly my city isn't filthy. What a silly and negative perspective you have.
This government, some parts of the press having extraordinary power and little responsibility, and generally quite poor levels of education such that people can't engage in even rudimentary critical thinking are poor as against quite a number of other countries.

I don't like the way the South fails to recognise that their wage structure and prosperity is at the cost of the North. The attitudes to Scotland. No one has cared about the average age of death for men in the likes of Glasgow, for a decade, for example.

The divisions that have been created among the WC, started as far back as Thatcher's time.

The two child policy that been brought in. A lot of people are now going to see how cruel this is, as well as the bedroom tax and hopefully will spark a change in attitude to our punitive benefit system.

Amd in Scotland, class is far less of a think than it is in England.

The wind
Cost of university education
Social inequality
Drinking culture
North South devide
The government
Expensive public transport (outside of London)
Poor road infrastructure in many parts of the country.

However many of these things are relative and possibly no better or worse than elsewhere. Or if they are worse we have something that makes up for it.

I'd like to know though filthy cities compared to where?

The weather definitely had a negative impact on me when I lived in the UK, coming from somewhere sunnier without the dark winters. But weather is weather - unlike the Tories you can’t vote it out, so you just adapt. Or move!

To me, the weather is a huge bonus, but I am in the South-West, the weather is wonderful at the moment, but even when it is not hot/grey and rains a lot, it's functional- you aren't too hot, aren't too cold, don't have to go through snow, or have the air con on constantly. I spend a lot of time in a Mediterranean country and it is too hot for me and don't feel at all productive.

I also dislike a lot of the things about the UK that others have mentioned, but I'd also say that these have got worse in the last 10 years. The roads did not used to be full of potholes. Rubbish was not as prolific on the sides of roads as it is now. The homeless population which is very visible and shocking in the Uk is growing again, ditto drug use. Public parks used to be immaculate- I have pictures to compare and they are now untended and neglected looking. People respond to this downgrading of their environment and I think the street culture in the UK (as in what it's like to walk around everyday) is quite rough and unpleasant at times. Calling out to women is very common, whereas in the country I know best in Eastern Europe, this simply doesn't happen, even though in summer half the women are walking around wearing bikini tops near the beach.

The positives- despite everyone feeling lately they live in a police state, they really really don't, I haven't seen any police during lockdown except in a police car. People do as they please a lot of the time. People dress how they please as well, in lots of European countries, how women dress is very much judged, it might be judged here but that doesn't stop anyone going out in a strappy top and see through leggings. If you have tried social mobility in France, the Uk does not look obsessed with class! Or try being Roma in most of Eastern Europe.

One of my friends loves the bureaucracy in the UK, she comes from a country where the law is applied very randomly, or rather, there's a lot of bribery, things also take years which here are relatively straightforward. She likes the fact we are all stuck on the same government website whereas at home it all relies on being prepared to pay bribes or be massively frustrated.