Why do so many posters on here seem to be struggling to accept that the U.K. doesn’t just include England?

[Rhine]

And that we have different rules regarding Covid?

Over the last couple of weeks I’ve seen so many comments from posters asking rather aggressively why others posters are still meeting up, going for meals, to the pub, for drinks, to the gym etc ‘when we are in lockdown’? Well actually no, England is in lockdown. I’m in Wales and we are not in lockdown. Scotland is not in lockdown. I believe Northern Ireland wasn’t but is about to go back into it. The U.K. doesn’t begin and end at the borders of England...

I’ve just seen one thread where a poster continually pointed out she was in Scotland but that didn’t stop the ‘ we are in lockdown’ remarks.

Please educate yourselves. It’s annoying.

It's not just a UK issue either - I lived in Spain for a year and their national news would regularly talk about "the Prime Minister of England" or "Queen Elizabeth II of England" or "The English film star, Richard Burton" or whatever.

I was teaching and my first lesson was to whip out a map and teach my students the difference between terms like Great Britain, the British Isles, Scotland, England...

(I am Scottish, btw).

It's mainly an issue on school threads - on one you have someone posting about school entry requirements or catchments without making it clear where they are - and as the systems are so different in different parts of the UK it really is very relevant.

But on the other, lots of posters write about their Y6 or Y14 child and I genuinely have no idea how old that is. Would be so much easier if they just said their age.

It happens about school holiday dates and "summer born" entry to school! In Scotland the cut off date is 1st March so summer born children are amongst the oldest, not the youngest! 🤣

Scotland also has a better deal for deferring entry to P1.

I too wish more people would realise that the UK equals more than England.

It’s similar in Northern Ireland, scifi, but not quite as drastic. I think the cutoff is 31 July (any northern Irish mnetters who can confirm?) so an august born child will be the very oldest.

@RaspberryCoulus even within England there are differences, so if a poster starts a thread about something where there is not only UK country but a regional variation within that country don't bother stating where they are they will get useless advice.

The covid comments based on whatever shitshow is going on here in England annoy me, but not as much as "The seller of the flat I'm buying wants XYZ, I'm a first time buyer so how does this work?" with absolutely no mention at all of the country they are in. 3 pages later "I'm in Scotland." Righto.

I've been looking for somewhere to post this nugget (I'm Scottish😬). I was listening to an audio recording of an interview conducted by a presenter with two people- one was in US and one in England. Think the presenter was in Middle/ Far East, possibly.

The one in England, when asked where in the world she came from, said: 'I come from a little island called England' 😳😳

@Dishwashersaurous

Well of the 66 million people in the UK, over 56 million live in England.

Therefore the majority of people live in England and it is a sensible assumption to make.

If someone is not in the majority position, same as living overseas when this is a UK site, it makes sense to include location in first sentence

Yes, agree IF you are talking about a topic with a significant difference that people might not be reasonably expected to know the details of, for example if talking about buying houses in Scotland, where the system is different to E&W, or about half terms, or St David's/Patrick/Andrew day traditions, of course it would make sense to just briefly clarify "I'm in Wales/Scotland/NI/Australia"

But for something like 'we went out to the pub' when during lockdown all pubs are closed in England, to me it is therefore COMPLETELY OBVIOUS that either this situation happened pre lockdown OR the poster is in an area where pubs are open. It's not like it's a well concealed secret that the different countries/regions have different restrictions, and have done for a good six months, so it completely baffles me why anyone would jump over the perfectly logical explanation of 'oh this poster must live in a region where x is allowed' to instead go straight to 'TROLL! I am banned from doing x so there is no conceivable way this poster could possibly be allowed to do x."

It's not helped by the media or large companies though. E.g. there was a furore this week when British airways tweeted "Good Luck England" for a recent Wales/England rugby friendly, despite their name not being English Airways" and in fact having several bases and thousands of staff based in Wales. This happens all the time, the BBC always puts their support behind England despite, again, British* literally being in their name.

I started a thread a week ago about several companies pausing 'deliver to store' during "the lockdown". I complained to Boots about this and got a reply saying "sorry for inconvenience etc. but we decided to pause delivery to store during the lockdown to avoid people coming into store and putting staff at risk for non-essentials."
A very understandable position but one which completely ignored my point which was my country was not in lockdown - the boots in my city centre had a queue half way down the main street last weekend. Another website had a pop up for customers saying "We know you can't visit us in store right now." Except I could - they had three shops open within 30 minutes of me. How hard would it have been to fit a "some of you" in there?

And people wonder why the Celtic nations get "chippy" and don't support England in whatever sporting events they get through in....

I'll probably be shot but I think if you come from Wales, Scotland or Ireland - just bloody say so, if it's relevant. If different rules/laws apply then it's very important. Be proud of where you come from

Can you not say "Ireland" in the same breath as Scotland and Wales, please? It's a completely seperate country that has nothing to do with the UK. If you mean Northern Ireland, say so. NI IS part of the UK and nothing to do with the country of Ireland.

There are people on MN from the UK, Ireland, France, US, Australia....everywhere. Don't assume where anyone is from.

I can tell you in Ireland UK/Britain/England are used interchangeably when the speaker means England or UK

They're not, unless by dimwits that can't tell the difference. No-one I know confuses Scotland with England, for example.

@Newuser991

Perhaps Wales and Scotland would like to pay put of local taxes for their last lockdown that was stricter than England's

I honestly wish you would all get independence, Wales too and then you'll have nothing else to fucking moan about.

Enjoy living without the taxes raised by London.

Enjoy living without the fucking water we provide for you...including from the reservoir you created by flooding people's houses...

Oh and the energy sources - Wales is the fifth largest exporter of electricity in the world.....Scotland creates enough energy just from wind power for more than double its population, not forgetting the oil reserves. England, on the other hand, imports electricity from Wales, Scotland and from continental Europe.

"
Perhaps Wales and Scotland would like to pay put of local taxes for their last lockdown that was stricter than England's

I honestly wish you would all get independence, Wales too and then you'll have nothing else to fucking moan about.

Enjoy living without the taxes raised by London"

Ooooh do I not have to pay tax because I'm not in London or England? I wish someone had enlightened me before. 🤔

@Newuser991

Perhaps Wales and Scotland would like to pay put of local taxes for their last lockdown that was stricter than England's

I honestly wish you would all get independence, Wales too and then you'll have nothing else to fucking moan about.

Enjoy living without the taxes raised by London.

Would be extremely happy to live without the taxes raised by London. Have been a full time, higher band tax payer for many years now - and so glad my money has gone to things like HS2 , which will not benefit Scotland in the slightest. Expect I’ve paid more to the coffers than many folks in London. And for that privilege I’ve been governed over for many years by a right wing government that most folk in my country wouldn’t have voted for .
Your contempt shows both arrogance and ignorance

I honestly wish you would all get independence

Well you're certainly helping the case for it, @Newuser991

You know what gets me riled each and every time.....”The Queen of England”.
No.....no, the last Queen of England was Elizabeth 1.
This Queen is Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and other Commonwealth realms.
It BUGS me.

@FelicityPike

You know what gets me riled each and every time.....”The Queen of England”. No.....no, the last Queen of England was Elizabeth 1. This Queen is Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and other Commonwealth realms. It BUGS me.

Me too

To be fair it is a uk site with majority of population being in england and with regards to asking for advice on certain things , country is relevant
Scottish law can be very different , things like how to make a chocolate cake doesn't matter where based
Re : covid now when asking advice def helps to put location even if england due to tiers , and scotland , wales , ireland having very different rules
If I post under scotsnet part of site say an education question I would expect the answer to reflect the scottish education system

And to add if i posted on a french based site a covid question I would expect the answers based on there lockdown unless i stated where I was in my post

Well that's exactly it timeforanewstart. Say you posted for a chocolate cake recipe and you mentioned, 'I went to this cafe today that served the most amazing chocolate cake so I'd like to try and make my own', in amongst the helpful replies with recipes there would probably be a couple from people thinking they're being clever along the lines of 'cafes are shut, we're in lockdown '. Similarly if you're Scottish and you posted in June that you were going to make a chocolate cake with the kids on a week day, the same kind of smart arse would have to post 'shouldn't they be in school '

It's tedious and irrelevant.

Yes, I have noticed that recently. Contributed to the lodger thread where everyone was howling to chuck the person out asap and posted gov.uk rules. Except no one had ascertained where the OP was - there are different laws in Scotland and NI. It all just falls on deaf ears. I was born and raised in England and then moved to another nation in the UK. Boy, it looks different from the other side!

The Queen thing bugs me too. I'm a Scot and have pledged my life to save hers. Scots have always punched above their weight in the armed forces.

NiceandCalm
As a child/teen I struggled to know the difference between England, Britain, Great Britain, UK (United Kingdom). I thought it was all one and the same thing. I think a lot of people still do.

I'll probably be shot but I think if you come from Wales, Scotland or Ireland - just bloody say so, if it's relevant. If different rules/laws apply then it's very important. Be proud of where you come from.

Hi think you need to continue your education as I live in a region of the UK called Northern Ireland - terribly inconvenient at the mo in regards to Brexit etc but we are a completely different country to Ireland

@RaspberryCoulis

Scotland is not in lockdown

Glasgow and the surrounding area is in lockdown. Restaurants and bars closed. Non-essential retail closed. Just the same as England.

There are lots of people who do indeed talk about "England" when they mean UK, or UK when they mean England - lots of threads about how the UK's education system is X or Y when in fact they mean England. But if you're going to have a moan, get your facts straight first.

Scotland is not in total lockdown.

This has bugged me for a long time on mumsnet. I've had threads totally derailed by people assuming I'm in England and me having to continually remind posters im in Scotland.

I've also had posters being quite rude and argumentative about things I've posted they can be quite disbelieving of things outwith the South of England.

Or you could assume it's a small minority doing this and not blame the whole country! Always the same on here!