Is the UK about to collapse?

[Penfield]

Sorry - There was probably a better way to put this.

Does anyone else have a feeling that we are close to some collapse, explosion, disintegration of society ...

With gas prices, petrol shortages, inflation, Brexit fall out, Covid, gaslighting government etc

I feel like we're on the edge of something - big ...

When the bins stop being emptied, the bodies are piling up outside the mortuary, and you only have electricity three days a week.... I shall think I woke up back in the 1970s.

The thing with a lot of this, people voted for it. Millions voted for Brexit, that is a lot of the supply issues and having an impact on inflation. People voted for the Conservatives, this is what you get with a Conservative government (I know the alternative was Corbyn, which was equally shit). Gaslighting, politicians have always lied, now is no different, except perhaps that more people seem to believe the lies.

My worry is they will keep on voting for it. They have already for too long.

And yes we've always been lied to by politicians. But this is on another scale.

and the fact that so many people are believing it ... that is a big part of my worry.

It's an embarrassing shitshow, that's for sure.

I haven't personally had this feeling yet but it does feel like a lot is happening at the same time. I do try to avoid sensationalist media these days though (as tempting as it is to have a read for the drama) and I'm also lucky enough to have not been directly affected by any of the things you have listed (yet).

I don't know about a full collapse, but something has got to give.

@Staffy1 my old one broke in May and I don't think I can cope with another launderette trip.

@JasonMomoasgirlfriend I feel your frustration. That's a RIDICULOUS amount of time to have to wait!

As well as my washer dying, the door catch on my oven broke, and one of the screws got lost. I've been chasing the manufacturer and spare parts places to try find out what model screw I need to buy in addition to the catch, with no success. I might just cave and buy every type of screw they sell.

My fridge freezer still works OK though, so I've not yet experienced the full kitchen appliance collapse..

@Feelslikealot

No, we are not and stupid posts like this just encourages peoples anxiety and causes panic. But no doubt you'll get a thread full of people agreeing with you.

Absolutely. Currently 43% of posters think the poster is not unreasonable.

The levels of anxiety on MN about everything are not reflecting what I see in real life. Every 2 minutes there's someone literally shaking and crying over something minor, or panicking about some random guff they've read on the internet.

What do you mean by collapse op? Ie what do envisage happening

I suspect we won't end up with a total societal collapse.

I do however think we are in for a really rough winter. Every single sector is shouting about how they are struggling. When the boss of Iceland, Richard Walker, starts shouting about the myriad ways his company is being affected you know there is a real problem. He voted leave.

Fuel bills are going through the roof for people at the same time as the UC uplift has been removed. Foodbanks are seeing less donations and having to cut back what they can give out, at the same time as food prices are shooting up.

Gas prices are likely to see more industries shut down temporarily over the winter. The CO2 crisis has not gone away, though there is some temporary reprieve.

Farming faces multiple issues, from lack of being able to put animals into the food chain, to not being able to pick crops, to not having the fertilisers they need. (see gas prices again)

GPs can't do the blood tests they need to, which means they can't tell who needs further investigations. Ambulance waiting times are really terrible already. Pharmacies are worried about the distribution of medicine. Between covid, trying to catch up with a huge backlog and concerns about flu and other respiratory illnesses, the NHS is in for a really torrid time.

Red tape and the HGV crisis means that we are struggling to import from Europe. French fishermen are now threatening to blockade the channel tunnel and port of Calais. Everyone knows our country is vulnerable now - end of supply chain and lack of good will between us and Europe means that we can't cooperate our way to smoothing out issues.

At present, even the long term weather forecast looks deeply unhelpful for us this winter.

When the boss of Iceland, Richard Walker, starts shouting about the myriad ways his company is being affected you know there is a real problem. He voted leave.

Not great foresight there.

@Penfield

The thing with a lot of this, people voted for it. Millions voted for Brexit, that is a lot of the supply issues and having an impact on inflation. People voted for the Conservatives, this is what you get with a Conservative government (I know the alternative was Corbyn, which was equally shit). Gaslighting, politicians have always lied, now is no different, except perhaps that more people seem to believe the lies.

My worry is they will keep on voting for it. They have already for too long.

And yes we've always been lied to by politicians. But this is on another scale.

and the fact that so many people are believing it ... that is a big part of my worry.

I think you are being quite arrogant beleiving that you are the only person who can see the truth, lots of people watch the actual news rather than the news according to social media, People are not stupid, they make voting choices based on the options they have and right now whilst lots of people think Conservatives, are shit they can see Labour are shitter.

Unfortunately yes I think you’re right op. The wealth divide will get much wider over the coming months. The government is saying we will level up the country whilst the precise opposite is happening- inflation and tax hikes will now cripple most on low incomes to the point homelessness will spiral. It’s already bad enough.

I fully believe this is all part of the plan- smash everything up so an incredibly small pool of people can hoover up the wealth of this country. Ask JRM, his father knew a thing or two about this. A once in a lifetime smash and grab by the actual elite not the imaginary one people thought they were voting against.

People say don’t watch the news. Well that’s just burying your head in the sand/up your own arsehole. If people actually looked at the news- and I mean especially the global press, they would see just how far we have fallen in a few short years and our international reputation is in tatters. Our only natural ally really would be someone like Trump or Bolsonaro which shows just how much we fucking suck these days.

The penny is dropping slowly, once this gathers pace you will see unrest as people realise it was all a con.

Nothing would make me happier than being completely wrong, but I expected there to be widespread shortages and businesses folding as they’re unable to function due to the actions of this govt, and that is exactly what is happening all around us now. That was called project fear. Somehow that’s morphed into all part of the plan anyway, and people hardly even notice.

Don't be ridiculous, the country isn't going to "collapse" (whatever you mean by that).

Humans always predict the worst. It's not helped by the negativity of the media (fewer papers sold and bulletins watched when nothing is going on) but we've always done this.

Currently climate change and supply shortages are going to bring about the end of the world. Before that it was Covid, before that it was Brexit, before that it was Al Qaeda, before that it was mad cow disease (in the 90s, it was on the news that a quarter of meat eaters might have CJD by the mid 00s), before that it was AIDS, before that it was nuclear warfare.

2012 was going to bring about the end of the world, so was 2000, so was 1900. In 1645 the end was imminent, we should have been wiped out in 1000, and countless other occasions before and since.

Whatever is giving cause for concern in the moment is blown out of proportion. Humans need to worry - we can't not.

@OhYouBadBadKitten

I suspect we won't end up with a total societal collapse.

I do however think we are in for a really rough winter. Every single sector is shouting about how they are struggling. When the boss of Iceland, Richard Walker, starts shouting about the myriad ways his company is being affected you know there is a real problem. He voted leave.

Fuel bills are going through the roof for people at the same time as the UC uplift has been removed. Foodbanks are seeing less donations and having to cut back what they can give out, at the same time as food prices are shooting up.

Gas prices are likely to see more industries shut down temporarily over the winter. The CO2 crisis has not gone away, though there is some temporary reprieve.

Farming faces multiple issues, from lack of being able to put animals into the food chain, to not being able to pick crops, to not having the fertilisers they need. (see gas prices again)

GPs can't do the blood tests they need to, which means they can't tell who needs further investigations. Ambulance waiting times are really terrible already. Pharmacies are worried about the distribution of medicine. Between covid, trying to catch up with a huge backlog and concerns about flu and other respiratory illnesses, the NHS is in for a really torrid time.

Red tape and the HGV crisis means that we are struggling to import from Europe. French fishermen are now threatening to blockade the channel tunnel and port of Calais. Everyone knows our country is vulnerable now - end of supply chain and lack of good will between us and Europe means that we can't cooperate our way to smoothing out issues.

At present, even the long term weather forecast looks deeply unhelpful for us this winter.

@MarshaBradyo I don't know what the end result of collapse will be.

But the post I've pasted is what I see as the beginning of where we're heading.

No I don’t think it will collapse. However, we’re being forced to adapt to some major changes.The pandemic has intensified the pressure on the NHS, public/private services, people on lower incomes. The environmental emergency has created more uncertainty. Add to that the Brexit situation which is now revealing the negatives of leaving the EU.

Who knows what the future holds but it’s good to be aware of the situation and try to follow sound advice. When I feel overwhelmed I stop watching the news.

@madisonbridges

No. Get a grip. Apart from the pandemic, there's nothing that I haven't been through before. Were you alive in the 80s?

I was alive and bringing up my children in the 80s. There were problems, sure, but there wasn’t a Government deliberately destroying businesses and people’s livelihoods by implementing policies that they were warned would cause such damage. And there’s the endless lies and the breaking of international treaties. It’s astounding.

Worse in the 30's - imminent war.
Worse in the 40's - war.
Worse in the 50's - Threat of nuclear war.
Worse in the 60's - Civil unrest, threat of nuclear war, societal upheaval.
Worse in the 70's - Mass unemployment, three day weeks, strikes, civil unrest. Threat of nuclear war, and the IRA.
Worse in the 80's - Unemployment, IRA, civil unrest. Russia and nuclear war, AIDS. White jeans.
Worse in the 90's - Civil unrest, IRA, the rising poverty gap, identity politics. Indie.
Worse in the 00's - Opening with the rise of Al Queda, the threat of global and domestic terrorism, societal fragmentation and the growth of social media. Brexit. Covid.

It has always been this way, but it is exacerbated by media, social media, and the relentless need for reaction.

Council tax is supposedly increasing by over £200 per year for the next 3 years from April...probably by more than that from year 4.

One thing that does seem to lead to protest historically is high unemployment. We don’t have that atm

It’s a weird mix currently of various things but I can’t see action occurring. Maybe more anger on SM and threads like these though because people feel angry or powerless to change overall voting.

[quote Penfield]@madisonbridges

I'm nearly 50![/quote]
Oh. I've lost sympathy with you. You've already lived through, maybe even voted for, the lying shits that took us into a war on false information that destabilised the whole of the ME and caused 100,000s if not millions of deaths, of deathsand you're worried about a week with petrol problems, and inflation which is nowhere near what you already lived through in the 80s? Collapse of society? You think we reassemble Syria and Yemen. For goodness sake, of course politicians tell you everything is going OK. To think politicians of any colour are going to behave differently means you've lost touch with reality.

I worry a lot for the future. I try to worry about tangible things (increasing cost of gas, soon to be increase in tax) and try to mitigate that by budgeting, planning etc. I was generally a positive person but recently I have been looking to the future very bleakly. I have two small children and worry I will not be able to support them financially in the future, I worry for the state of the climate and the state of our country. I generally have hope that there are good people out there trying to do good things and implement change. I try to focus on the little moments of joy and not let everything sit heavy on my shoulders! Its a really tough time. We are financially very tight and a good few years of no treats, no holidays, limiting our heating use, limiting use of car etc is depressing. Its not the childhood I imagined for my kids when I had them. But it is what it is, we can only do our best.

Oops, resemble Syria not reassemble. If only we could!

I feel like I've got so used to the lies and manipulation that our governments feeds us constantly that I can see through it and read the truth/subtext instantly now - not difficult I know - but it took me a while to cotton on.

Classic conspiracy theory talk. The government are feeding you lies, sheeple. Cover to our forum where we will uncover the TRUTH snd you will be able to see what is REALLY going on.

It's just another angle on the new world order bollocks.

We were badly hit by the global financial crash - just stepped on housing ladder and had very young children - so were more finacially vunerable than at any point before or since and job losses hit us hard.

My DParent had similar though - overtime dried up interest rates went up and the needed car broke - though I remember DPs panic around Black wednesday when interest rates went through the roof.

I do think they'll be a bad winter - but I think people worst affected will be using all their energy to get by and ever one else with more resources will hanker down and see what happens.

Plus I think most people can see through the government and it's spin - they've just looked at the alternatives and decided they're currently worse.

It's already collapsed. This is the aftermath.
My feeling is that it's due to people, especially women, not reading the news.
I mean the actual news, finding out what actually is going on, rather than the carefully selected articles served to each individual by the algorithms.