UK has gone to shit.

[Ilovegreentomatoes]

What is happening to the uk? No food on the shelves, the cost of living has become extortionate coupled with stagnating wages it seems this is a country where unless your in the higher income bracket you really can't afford to live anymore.
Poverty is going to be rife I dread to think the amount of people who will be choosing between food or heating this year.
Aibu to think this country has gone to shit of the likes we have not seen for a long time.
I am lower income and feel like I can't afford to live anymore.

@PattiPritell

You can't compare whole of EU vs UK. Would you conpare whole of Asia vs Malaysia? Or whole of North America vs Florida?

You can because it is showing that there are more foreign born people 13% in the UK than in EU, 8%
It is a percentage. of the whole population not a single figure.

You can't. Whether some people here want to hear it or not, you cannot compare UK to basically a whole continent with vastly different cultures and economies The heck are they teaching at schools here

Well the country is grinding to a halt without immigrant vets, fruit and veg pickers, nurses, doctors, hauliers and and on on.

So our net immigration figure is obviously too low.

Also. On top of comparing non comparable, UK figures include eu immigrants, the eu figure includes only non eu citizens.
So... Yeah. Incomparable

travellinglighter
The average closing price for the pound was $1.38 in 2019 it’s $1.28 this year. Did Boris write that the dollar was higher two years ago on the side of a bus and you just believed it?

Your stats appear to be the wrong way round:

Average exchange rate in 2021: 1.3842 USD.
Average exchange rate in 2019: 1.2772 USD.

www.exchangerates.org.uk/GBP-USD-spot-exchange-rates-history-2021.html
www.exchangerates.org.uk/GBP-USD-spot-exchange-rates-history-2019.html

Shortage of fuel was very localised. LONDON.

Written presumably by someone who never left London

JC was promising free broadband, unicorns and magic money trees for all. Why would anyone want that?

Actually, what has become very clear over the last year and a half was that there was always money to spend on what was important. It's just that the Tories didn't want to spend money on us, on our schools, on our hospitals and on our public services.

Eat Out to Help Out cost £850 million.
'NHS' Track and Trace cost £37 billion.
The furlough scheme cost £68.5 billion.

And yet we have been subject to a decade of austerity that did nothing except increase both misery and poverty.

@RaoulDufysCat

JC was promising free broadband, unicorns and magic money trees for all. Why would anyone want that?

Actually, what has become very clear over the last year and a half was that there was always money to spend on what was important. It's just that the Tories didn't want to spend money on us, on our schools, on our hospitals and on our public services.

Eat Out to Help Out cost £850 million.
'NHS' Track and Trace cost £37 billion.
The furlough scheme cost £68.5 billion.

And yet we have been subject to a decade of austerity that did nothing except increase both misery and poverty.

So true. We’ve been politically abused for 11 years and people have gone back with their hands out for more three times. It’s like Stockholm Syndrome.

Then we get Johnson babbling about levelling up and being a high wage economy, but when his Advisor, (whose name I now forget) recommended a sum to repair the Covid damage to education, Johnson refused to sanction anything like the full amount. From memory I think he allowed one fifth - so levelling up my eye.

@jgw1

*I almost have to tread carefully here to avoid 'deletion'.

I hope I am allowed to ask- in what way are you so sure a parallel universe in which Labour won would be worse? Seriously, I'm a HCP- I am obligated to work under the auspices of 'evidence based practice'.

Where's yours?*

JC was promising free broadband, unicorns and magic money trees for all. Why would anyone want that?

And why is that a bad idea? Maybe if everyone had decent broadband so many disadvantaged kids wouldn't have fallen even further behind during the pandemic 🤔 @jgw1

@Suzi888

Humans have happened, with their panic buying ways!

I can’t see that many people genuinely having to choose between food and heating and if they are, then they need to take a good look at their expenses.
My job involves working with people who are struggling and when you sit down to look at their finances, there are astronomical sky tv packages, mobile phone packages, personal ‘grooming’ costs, cigarettes, alcohol, constant minor home improvement costs (new rugs, sofas, colour schemes etc.) Brand new cars, designer clothing… maybe I’ve been in the field too long!

I would hate to talk to somebody as judgemental and uncaring as you if I was struggling.

@Fordian

lexmitior and, where's the 'on the ground' commitment to high quality education, training, preceptorships, apprenticeships?

Eleven years of Tory rule.

The latter? (apprenticeships). My DH works in a huge waste disposal company (in IT). They pay the apprenticeship levy. They have tried over three years to set up apprenticeships (in help-desk IT); but, every time, the 'academic content provider' has turned out to be some bogus, Tory 'grant' fuelled non-existent shell company with no actual academic 'content' to offer; 'office' in some derelict downtown high rise with dial-up, more or less. Who then goes bust. Year after year.

They've given up, and see the AL as 'just another tax'.

Is this real?!

We really are as corrupt as many third world countries

@PattiPritell

We became a service industry country eg banking (M Thatcher) Which was very successful (SE booming) lots of taxes into the country. Then banking crashed 2008. Then the taxpayer bailed them out. Then we had austerity for ?10 years I suppose to pay back the bail out. Then we had brexit, then we had covid. Now we've got the world firing up again much faster than expected and therefore shortages of fuel etc etc - this is affecting everywhere including China. You could blame M Thatcher but in fact it is human greed - Lehmann Brothers collapse, Bank of Scotland - they conned people( US mortgage issues) and ripped them off.

So compared to other EU countries we had a bigger banking crash as had more invested in it. We had brexit which is still being sorted out.
Also we went into services industries and therefore less manufacturing industries some of which other EU countries kept.

We also had huge numbers of immigrants compared to other EU countries so that also contributed to us not sorting out our economy.
Lots of factors.
Perfect storm.

Wrong the banking crash wasnt caused by bankers, it was caused by the poor and disabled of the UK clearly, that's who payed it back so to speak, are you saying austerity was an ideological choice to punish people who have very little agency in their own life as it is? That cant be right the Tory party would never do that while enriching themselves and their donors would they?

The corruption is the only thing this government has 'levelled up. The bogus apprenticeships are an absolute disgrace. Just another way for them funnel resources to their rich pals.

@Thecurliestwurly

I agree. Labour has lost its way amongst ID politics and ideological authoritarianism. They have been a terrible opposition just when we needed a really strong one.

I was thinking about the state of the Labour party the other day. If by some strange occurrence they were in power now, they would ultimately get blamed for the issues we might see in the next couple of years that the Tories created. Political parties like to be seen to clean up the mess of the opposing party - jump in too early or get too involved and you ultimately get blamed for mistakes that aren't yours. Maybe this is tactical? It is frustrating though, I want them to put more pressure on Boris, but they seem content to let him dig his own hole. Bit of a wild theory. Maybe they are just unintentionally weak at the moment.

The Tories basically spent their first 5 years blaming Labour for everything (2010-2015) backed up by a meek Tory media. That proved effective and helped win the 2015 election on the message Labour couldn't be trusted and the Tories had cleared their mess (austerity) with responsible government.

It was all bollocks but it's all in the messaging.

@Dontforgetyourbrolly

If everyone stopped reading the daily mail I'm sure we'd all feel better. That's the worst reporting I've ever seen, basically they saw how tragedy sold papers during civid and have just run with it! They ought to stick with photos of Arg on the beach . And of course the Tories will remain in power , what's the alternative. A whiny solicitor who's only policy is " Boris bad me good " ?!

Didn't newspaper circulation drop significantly during Covid though? Naturally as less people were out to buy them though obviously.

Nobody under the age of about 50 were buying newspapers even before Covid. They're basically a joke now but Boomers still buy them.

Just because people don’t buy physical papers so much doesn’t mean they don’t read them. I read three papers regularly online.

Just because people don’t buy physical papers so much doesn’t mean they don’t read them. I read three papers regularly online.

Yeah but the average Millenial/young person who reads Mail Online are reading the sidebar of shame about celebrity nonentities, rather than reading the "Jeremy Corbyn ate my baby" hysteria that you get from the newspaper. It's two entirely different entities.

@User135644

Just because people don’t buy physical papers so much doesn’t mean they don’t read them. I read three papers regularly online.

Yeah but the average Millenial/young person who reads Mail Online are reading the sidebar of shame about celebrity nonentities, rather than reading the "Jeremy Corbyn ate my baby" hysteria that you get from the newspaper. It's two entirely different entities.

Exuse-moi. 😂 I am average millenial and I don't read Mail's celeb shaming. I am there for their hillariously apocalyptic take on everything and the black and white headings.

No disrespect to anyone but I really think some people are trauma bonded with certain newspapers. When Covid was at it’s height and we were scared for our lives they gave us hope and direction. So now although reading these papers causes us misery and anxiety we continue to do so. I have found that reading the more upmarket broadsheets tends to be less anxiety inducing as the words aren’t as emotive and the predictions are more balanced. They even contain some good news.

In any situation of intense emotion- the longer it goes on, the more we normalise it. There certainly are major problems but I am sure they will be resolved in due time with the minimum disruption possible. What we have lost is hope and trust that it will and belief in the government. Who, to be fair did pretty well during covid.

@Suzi888 With that attitude I think you probably have been in the field too long! Do you honestly think people who can't afford to buy food or heat their home is going to have all these big sky/broadband packages? The only way I can think how is that if they signed a contract pre pandemic and they are now stuck with it. It's not as simple as just phoning a supplier like Sky and saying 'Hey I can't afford this now' it states in the contract you have to either pay it till the end of your term or you have a large amount to put out to get you out of contract and that's just one example. People pre-pandemic could probably afford more but day-to-day life has got expensive. Fuel has went up, heating has went up, food has went up, etc. People have lost their jobs, how could they budget for that happening? The government isn't going to help people anymore. I'm glad you're okay though Suzi because god forbid the pandemic affected you and you were on the breadline now. It's not always as easy as saying how could people get into this situation? I know someone who worked their asses off and had a decent amount of savings but got told to stay in when COVID kicked off, she ended up on furlough and she wasn't buying anything she didn't need nor smoking/drinking like you mentioned and now she has no savings and no job because the place shut down. How was she going to see that one coming?

Theres too many people on this little island.
Government need to look after the British people b4 trying to help the world.
I'm second generation born Indian/british so I'm not racist b4 anyone starts. 😂 Realistically speaking, too many people and stretched resources, and not forgetting greedy companies/businesses.

I'm embarrassed for you that you think being 'second generation Indian/British' makes you incapable of being racist. Have you met Priti Patel? She seems racist as hell to me! 🙄🤔

I'm still waiting on @BoredZelda to provide the evidence for the research they've read. Apparently this research indicates that public sector isn't a problem and they don't need to be part of Boris' 'high wage economy.' Which makes zero sense as public sector pay is wide ranging just as it is in the private sector.

It's the third time I've now asked for the research. I'm very happy to say I'm wrong if I can see the evidence. However, I have noticed a pattern of posters saying things very confidently without providing a shred of evidence in order to shut down questions over government policy. I would say if this evidence isn't provided it's a prime example.

Like I say i am happy to admit if I'm wrong if I can see the evidence

Apparently this research indicates that public sector isn't a problem and they don't need to be part of Boris' 'high wage economy.'

Instead of asking three times for it, your time would be better spent brushing up on your comprehension skills because nothing in my post came even close to saying that.

Why don't people on here believe that there are so many families like this?

Why do people everywhere believe these anecdotes are typical of people in poverty?

You live within your means. If you overspend then that results in you being poor/running out of cash. No matter how much money you have to start with

Well done for showing you haven't the least idea about poverty.

What if the overspend is to provide the basics, food, heat, a roof over your head? You can't take a third job because there is no more time.

Then what if the food you have access to isn't the cheapest because you have no way of getting to Aldi or Tesco. And the cash point nearest you makes you pay to get your money out. And the electric you pay for is higher cost because you can only have a key meter. Then the only credit available when your washing machine breaks is a payday loan? Because these are the things that happen to people in poverty, which keeps them in poverty longer.

Blaming people for their own poverty is quite a privilege. Maybe just be thankful for what you have.

@Ilovegreentomatoes

What is happening to the uk? No food on the shelves, the cost of living has become extortionate coupled with stagnating wages it seems this is a country where unless your in the higher income bracket you really can't afford to live anymore. Poverty is going to be rife I dread to think the amount of people who will be choosing between food or heating this year. Aibu to think this country has gone to shit of the likes we have not seen for a long time. I am lower income and feel like I can't afford to live anymore.

I hate the Tories and would never vote for them but your post is just utterly ridiculous OP

"no food on the shelves" - that is just bollocks
as is "you really can't afford to live anymore."