To panic about the dire state of the UK?

[moveblues]

So... all things considered... aren't we up sh-t creek?
-gas and electricity prices
-covid (masks? Pfft completed Covid mate (in England))
-council tax hikes
-inflation
-food shortages
-Brexit
-petrol

Sounds like something out of a dystopian nightmare. I'm worried dear reader, and 'keep calm and carry on' doesn't help.

[quote Crikeyalmighty]@MarshmallowSwede. Beautifully written- we moved to Copenhagen but may go to Stockholm as it’s a bit cheaper and easier to have a car. Great lifestyle in Scandinavia— but you have to now have very specific skills if a Brit or cash in the bank and an income source as no recourse to benefits. All this anyone who doesn’t like it can leave— it really isn’t that simple!! Brexit has made it so . Ironically those who have specialist skills and cash still have options, some of the deluded that voted for it and have neither are the ones who are stuffed. More fool them for believing Boris bullshit and as was all over twitter yesterday- he regrets supporting it[/quote]
Really???

So were my Scandi friends and colleagues lying then, when they said being in the EU didn't mean Brits could just move to a Scandinavian country without a job and just claim benefits?

They've long been picky when it comes to offering jobs to non locals. Even if unofficially, employers prefer to recruit domestically. Unless very specific skills.
Aside from short-term student/gap-year type work.

It's always been difficult to move to those countries permanently. Unless, as you say someone has a lot of money.

My husband just returned from EU. No shortages of food or petrol. Prices a bit up

[quote onlychildhamster]@tearsforfears72 I am a Londoner and thought that Manchester (city) seemed very vibrant and doing fairly well. Of course there aren't as many jobs as in London but based on what I found from the stats, salaries in manchester are above the national average.[/quote]
In my experience the city centres of Manchester, Newcastle and York are decent because they bring in people for work and tourism, however it’s the residential areas of these cities that have the problems. The ‘nice’ areas for living seem to be in very expensive places like Cheshire and perhaps some towns in West Yorkshire

@PickUpAPepper DH and I aren't as rich as Rishi. Very very far from it. But as a whole, ethnic minorities are still poorer than our white counterparts except for a few groups like Indians or Chinese but that is often due to the fact that it's hard to get visas if you aren't educated or wealthy or both.

Although this has all made me wonder if there are any areas in the UK that are truly doing well/up-and-coming, or is this general decline of worthwhile state provision, the social fabric and the economy observable everywhere?

@Tealightsandd London councils had the practice of shafting our poorest and most vulnerable to the north where there was cheaper housing. So yes the north has to deal with London's problems too.

It's not just the UK that has problems. Same causes though (years of race to the bottom policies).

www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/emmanuel-macron-projectile-lyon-protest-b1927645.html

And remember the slap a couple of months back?

France has its own issues.

This is the tip of the ice berg.

Everywhere has its positives and negatives (although the UK is going through a tough time). We often look to scandanavia as a utopia but I lived there for a few years and it’s not the perfect society @MarshmallowSwede would have you make out. Its incredibly hard to make friends and integrate into society as a non-Swede (my Swedish husband agrees with this and was incredibly uncomfortable to start with st the friendliness and inclusion of my friends and family when he first met them). It’s expensive to buy things, the winters are long and depressing. It’s lovely in lots of ways and I enjoyed it there but it has its positives and negatives. We are very lucky in the UK in lots of ways. We can only hope things improve in future. If people want to laugh at us I think that’s a sad reflection on them. I would never laugh on someone (individuals or country) going through a hard time. How cruel.

[quote onlychildhamster]@Tealightsandd London councils had the practice of shafting our poorest and most vulnerable to the north where there was cheaper housing. So yes the north has to deal with London's problems too.[/quote]
Well perhaps if people from the north hadn't come to London taking jobs and housing, then the north wouldn't have had to deal with 'London's problems' aka social cleansing.

What the fuck have I just read?

@tearsforfears72 certain individuals are doing extremely well. I was looking at a flat the other day, there was a house on the same street selling for £3 million. Lots of cash buyers interested and not foreign investors either. Sold for asking price. I asked the estate agent who were these people and she kinda said - people with money from investments, people who climbed the property ladder.

It's so different from me and DH- saving 60k penny by penny by staying with my mother in law and it took me 3 years but yes in the same neighborhood I live in, there are people who are buying £3 million houses in cash.

Yes there are some empty selves at the supermarket, and shortages at the petrol stations, but in another two/three years we will have more then enough lorry drivers hopefully earning a decent wage. All we need is more training and more testing. Better wages will lead to more people going into the industry.

Imagine how annoying it is for the Scottish who didn’t vote for Brexit OR the tories….

At least the Scots can vote for independence whereas we're stuck like this forever. How is another party ever going to win an election with the current system?

'The future, is a boot stamping on a human face, forever'
George Orwell

They can just do what they want to us now. We're fucked. People (EU ppl) keep asking why we put up with it, but what are we supposed to do? There's marches all the time in London apparently, but they never achieve anything. Riot? Write letters? Strike? I don't know. What exactly does not putting up with it look like?

@Hdhdjejdj

What the fuck have I just read?

Ha Which bit?

This thread is the worst catnip to a certain post in many ways.

CarryOn I agree

I’m truly astonished. If you swapped the word northerners for black people or Eastern Europeans, you lot would be up in arms. You really are a very odd bunch or people.

Living in post-Brexit Britain is like being trapped on a sinking ship. I’m utterly ashamed of my country and I hate what it’s turning into. I’d be out of here in a heartbeat if I had the option of living anywhere else.

I feel the same

@tearsforfears72 oh and I am one of the few owner occupiers in my development, the rest are owned by landlords. I have been told that a lot of the owners of big houses in my area like to own a flat nearby for investment. They can afford to buy at current prices..so yes there is a lot of wealth in the UK. That's why it's so unconscionable to raise national insurance and council tax cos it hits the poorest but the rich wouldn't even notice.

It's all planned. Welcome to the new world order.

"you will have nothing and you will be happy"

Well perhaps if people from the north hadn't come to London taking jobs and housing, then the north wouldn't have had to deal with 'London's problems' aka social cleansing

Why would anyone voluntarily rush to London though? As l northerner l hated it and came back. So did ds after 2 years. The only reason people go is because jobs are non existent elsewhere.

@ERFFER

Imagine how annoying it is for the Scottish who didn’t vote for Brexit OR the tories….

A significant proportion of Scots did vote for Brexit - 40% of them.

Many voted Tory too. Definitely more so than they did Labour.

Strangely enough people - across the UK -are individuals.

Still let's keep on doing what's served the UK so well . Afterall, why take constructive action when it's so easy to push lazy generalisations (regional, age, class, and anything else) to stoke division.

@Hessneakingoutagain

Sooo, if you lived in another country, would you come back to live in the U.K. or stay put?

I do and would love to be able to consider coming back as an option, even though right now it doesn't look hugely appealing. Like pp have said, some of the same issues are happening everywhere. And my immediate family are all still in the UK.

However, thanks to Brexit, I could only move back if I left my husband and kids behind. Seeing the shitshow now is no consolation. And of course I didn't even have the right to vote on the whole thing, I guess being away for over 15 years made me some kind of traitor to be kept in check

@Cattenberg

Ireland. We could live and work in Ireland. Beautiful country.

I lived in the Netherlands in the early 2000s and in some ways it was cleaner than the UK. I don’t remember much litter, and the Dutch liked to keep their windows sparkling. Dutch public transport was great too.

But I HATED the smoking. Most of the Dutch people I knew were smokers. They smoked in the workplace and they smoked on trains. The Netherlands was definitely behind the UK in that respect. There was also a lot of overt racism in the Netherlands, especially towards black people. We could definitely learn a lot from the Netherlands, but it’s not a utopia.

I've not lived in the Netherlands but I did spend a lot of time there about 10-12 years ago. My friend had moved into a new build estate and they had a residents association. She mentioned to me that they had voted to keep their front doors grey to keep the estate looking good.

I laughed to myself. If that had been attempted in the UK more than one person would be shouting about their human rights and that they would paint their front door whatever colour they wanted then go and paint it bright pink just to 'show them'. That's the Brexit mentality isn't it - you can't tell me what to do!

When the LibDems went into coalition and one of their key policies was PR I had such high hopes. At last! The voting system will change! Then they sold out with the ridiculous AV and my hope that the UK would ever change within the next few decades faded away.

Tories and Labour are too invested in the status quo. It serves them both well. They really just take turns between opposition and government, why would they even want to change? Until things do, though, the UK will just lurch from one extreme to another wasting time, resources and people.

@ArseInTheCoOpWindow

Well perhaps if people from the north hadn't come to London taking jobs and housing, then the north wouldn't have had to deal with 'London's problems' aka social cleansing

Why would anyone voluntarily rush to London though? As l northerner l hated it and came back. So did ds after 2 years. The only reason people go is because jobs are non existent elsewhere.

Likewise why would socially cleansed Londoners embrace being socially cleansed away from their families, communities, and support networks? Particularly when the places they are socially cleansed too are teeming with insular bigoted locals.