That her words about the UK really depressed me?

[NaturalScone]

Talking to a Swedish colleague this afternoon, not had much of a chance to in the past and we ended up discussing the news.
She mentioned how peculiar our politics were, how we have such a massive wealth divide (as we all know) with little encouragement for people from all walks of life and backgrounds to have equal opportunities. By this she meant how Uni education is funded over there so nobody is in debt, which means many more young people are able to chase professional careers, without massive debt.
Also, the work ethic, how people in Northern Europe are encouraged to prioritise health and wellbeing as well as work, and how well housing, health, etc work over there.

I stupidly mentioned Boris J and she said he would likely already be sacked or various offences. I also didn't know that many European monarchs had to either self fund (?) or had most of their palaces belonging to the public.

Are we going backwards here? It left me feeling pretty depressed. I see people on here all the time saying we are so lucky here, but I think the bar is set really low compared to much of Europe. And now we are less connected to Europe, many people here only judge our standards by the US, as if the EU is somehow 'foreign'.
It all sounds a bit scary if I think about it, we do seem so easily led by a one-party representational media/press (right). And whilst I am not generally partisan, I do feel weirdly uncomfortable. She even said the tories were set to abolish channel 4 and soon the BBC because they were too neutral. I find that fairly terrifying and wonder where we re headed. I previously considered Brexit an issue of immigration, but to be honest I now wonder if that was a red herring and the true motivation was to get us clear of having to take on EU worker's rights and values.

I usually look for the positives in what we've got, because it feels better than admitting things are that bad, but now I just don't know. And not much I can do about it either!
Something does feel harsher and more divided nowadays, and politicians are able to do anything without fear of reprisal. The UK press is incredibly dire! Do other people see this?

No other country in Europe had 12 years of Austerity, that was a political choice, done by the Tories.
Brexit was also a political choice by the Tories too.

We went into the 2000s with the best pandemic prepared country in Europe, but by 2018 we had run down our stocks of PPE, allowed the NHS to have 100k medical staff vacancies and done nothing about social care, which led to a crisis of CV deaths in CH's.

However, they did well on funding vaccine development and on procurement, the rollout was also fantastic.
The UK has also done brilliantly on training up Ukrainian armed forces and on sending weapons.

Now no one has a crystal ball and i certainly don't pretend Labour would have done any better (maybe even worse?) but the state of the country, as always, is down to the Government of the day.

It's all very well for an academic to talk about how easy it is to emigrate if we don't like the UK. If you're not in that kind of job, and if you're not wealthy, it really isn't.
A couple of things friends from abroad who visit us say is that the streets here are really dirty, and the shops are all the same, wherever you go.

Like the US , UK is fast becoming a place where it can be a good place to live if you are earning well, have good affordable housing (owned or rented) and if you are fit and well and live in a nice area. If life takes a curve ball and stuff goes wrong, jobs/relationships/health it can quickly turn into a nightmare suddenly that rental isn't very secure, finding a new rental/different mortgage isn't that straight forward etc. Money brings options which is why Brexit was never such a big deal for the wealthy , you can buy your way in to moving overseas, not be reliant on finding a job which now isn't straight forward or set up businesses. I can see even here in Copenhagen that those curve balls are more summountable- rents are far more secure for a good period, benefits if neeeded are quite generous for a defined period to get on your feet, childcare way more affordable . It's not saying the UK is shit it's saying the UK does some things better but for the average family many things work better in Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Netherlands etc

I remember when Blair got in. Lots of excitement as people were consulted on what new things they could do to improve the country. Then when Cameron got in, and started to close everything down. Anything that wasn't bringing in a profit had to go. The organisation which educated teenagers to reduce the number of teenage pregnancies, the organisation that provided police forces with top class forensic research - just a couple I remember hearing were being shut down because they didn't "make enough money". It was totally obvious that all the shutting down of organisations that did good would make the country so much worse in the medium term. And then when the UK in the EU joined the extreme right wingers in Hungary, etc. Just because a few anti-EU nutters jumped up and down. Cameron and his buddies have so much to answer for. That's before we get on to the deeply depressing subject of Brexit.

If you don't want to say something, why not delete it rather than post it with a strikethrough? If you do want to say it, it's a hell of a lot easier to read without the strikethrough.

Our fate is largely down to the kind of politicians we vote for. Conservative politics conserve the status quo which by definition is backward looking.

For instance, we wouldn’t be in anything like the mess we are in with energy prices if Cameron had encouraged green growth when in power instead of cutting tariffs on green energy industry and restricting onshore wind.

Yes, please @Crikeyalmighty give it a rest with the strikethrough. It makes your interesting posts almost impossible to read.

Austerity didn't even close the debt but made it worse.

Can I amend that to "they'll put other people's money where their mouth is"?

Throwing a few billion onto the bonfire of the NHS won't properly fund it.

But let us see just how well the working class Labour cabinet do. And then how well the next Tory lot do. And so on and so on.

As for the OP, amazing that our country is so utterly dreadful that this Swedish person chooses to live here...

Just got back from Sweden to UK.

One of my children married a Swede, lives there, has taken citizenship; grandkids are dual nationals.

I spend time there, and also with children and grandchildren here in UK. And I have friends around the world, other European countries, US, family in Australia. I have lived and worked in Africa, elsewhere in Europe and in US. Nice place Sweden. Much easier for parents. Much easier.

Retired to UK. Why? - It's my home and I like the countryside, my neighbours, the language, my house, garden, climate.

But, individual circumstance aside, compared with Swedish society, UK is a shithole. Why? - Years of postwar social democracy in Sweden contrasts with (mostly) rule by Etonians and their buddies leeching on the rest of us here in UK.

(I recall when Douglas Home, 1296th Earl of that ilk, whatever, became Prime Minister. How the country laughed ( TWTWTW, anybody?): did they not know all that Etonian shit was over? ... Then, generations later, here we are back with Etonians running things, lying, stealing from us all ...)

It's the price we pay for democracy. And the value of democracy continues to be emphasised, not least by Putin and co. So I put up with it faute de mieux.

I do wish my neighbours and fellow citizens could have a look at what democracy can achieve, though, and stop voting in these Etonian shites.

Check out Magdalena Andersson. Then have another look at Boris Johnson. Check out parental leave in Sweden and UK. Look at Vård av Barn next time you have a sick child to look after and work calls you ... and so on.

Oh well. The garden looks well. And we remember Voltaire's Candide, 'Il faut cultiver ...'

But, yes, OP. Depressing.

Check out Magdalena Andersson. Then have another look at Boris Johnson.

December 2017
Swedish finance minister Magdalena Andersson in an interview has said that she regrets her government's decision to let more than 160,000 refugees into Sweden in 2015, and she said integration is not working.

sverigesradio.se/artikel/6848940

April 2018
“Considering we have lots of new arrivals who need to enter the job market, I don’t see any need for cleaning staff or dish-washers from other continents as labour migrants,” Finance Minister Magdalena Andersson told Svenska Dagbladet

www.thelocal.se/20180416/sweden-doesnt-need-foreign-cleaners-finance-minister/

November 2021
Andersson directly addressed the country’s 2 million-odd refugees and migrants. “If you are young,” she said, “you must obtain a high school diploma and go on to get a job or higher education.” If you receive financial aid from the state, “you must learn Swedish and work a certain number of hours a week.” What’s more, “here in Sweden, both men and women work and contribute to welfare.” Swedish gender equality applies “no matter what fathers, mothers, spouses, or brothers think and feel.”

foreignpolicy.com/2021/11/17/even-sweden-doesnt-want-migrants-anymore-syria-iraq-belarus/

January 2022 - somewhat awkward;

Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson claimed to have been deceived by "a dodgy operator", after a cleaning lady was seized for working illegally during a police visit to her home.

The opposition Moderate Party, who has named the emerging scandal Städgate or “cleaner-gate”, argued on Saturday that the situation raised serious questions about Andersson’s security arrangements.

The party’s parliamentary group leader Tobias Billström told Expressen it was “serious and worrying that the country’s prime minister could end up in such a situation”.

There was a real risk, he added, that immigrants without valid documents working for senior politicians could be blackmailed by hostile foreign powers.

In the UK, he wrote out on Twitter, an immigration minister found to have used an immigrant cleaner who was in the country illegally was forced to resign.

www.thelocal.se/20220109/police-raided-swedish-pms-house-and-seized-illegal-immigrant-cleaner/

The minister who resigned was Mark Harper -
www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/feb/09/mark-harper-immigration-minister-resigns

Ah @Clavinova i was wondering when we'd get an extensive cut n paste that is totally irrelevant to the OP.

Thanks for the reminder of the good old days when politicians resigned when they fucked up @Clavinova.

Mark Harper wasn't for ed to resign. He resigned off his own bat.

Swedish people do take great interest in the politics of our land as well. We are not at all apathetic as some would have you believe. Hence why we throw politicians out on their asses when they do something we don’t like.

Unlucky for the Swedish Prime Minister who was assassinated in 1986;

theconversation.com/who-killed-swedens-prime-minister-1986-assassination-of-olof-palme-is-finally-solved-maybe-140542

I think the Brexit vote was done to stop other tory MPs whingeing about Europe once and for all - I don't think for a minute D Cameron etc thought it would happen.
Which, I suppose, shows how out of touch they were with the electorate.

Indeed. No wonder he called for Johnson to go.

Talking to a Swedish colleague this afternoon, not had much of a chance to in the past and we ended up discussing the news. She mentioned how peculiar our politics were

Looks quite 'peculiar' in Sweden as well op:

June 2021 Swedish PM Stefan Löfven resigns after losing confidence vote.

www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/28/swedish-pm-stefan-lofven-resigns-losing-confidence-vote

July 2021 Sweden's Stefan Löfven narrowly wins vote to return as PM.

www.politico.eu/article/sweden-stefan-lofven-parliament-vote-prime-minister-housing-policy/

August 2021 Sweden - prime minister's abrupt resignation upends the country and its politics.

www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/08/23/sweden-prime-minister-resigns/

November 2021 Sweden's first ever female prime minister has resigned just hours after she was appointed.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-59400539

Magdalena Andersson has been elected as Sweden’s first female prime minister for the second time in a week...
Ms Andersson will now form a minority government...
Not since 1979 has a government commanded so little direct support in parliament.

www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/sweden-elects-female-pm-andersson-b1966093.html

Alexandra2001
i was wondering when we'd get an extensive cut n paste that is totally irrelevant to the OP.

Immigration has been discussed extensively on this thread and mentioned in the op - perhaps you were not paying attention. We were invited to "Check out Magdalena Andersson" in the post immediately above mine - I did.

Then, generations later, here we are back with Etonians running things, lying, stealing from us all

Viwires. So did you feel equally strongly about Etonian Labour MPs such as Mark Fisher and Tam Dalyell?

The UK has descended into a distinctly second rate European country led by a buffoon. Unfortunately the UK public has consistently voted to allow this.

Let alone the not Etonian but still privately educated Tony Blair!
A question; how many cabinet members went to Eton? The answer may surprise you. How many prime ministers went to Eton on a full scholarship? I'll answer that one. One. The current incumbent. They do not give those things away lightly.

My father in law couldn't believe how much he liked Malmo when we popped over from Copenhagen if it was UK it would be highly desirable.

Germany's state funded DW 2019 -
Bombs, shootings are a part of life in Swedish city Malmo.
At times it seems like Malmo has more in common with Baghdad than with other European cities.

www.dw.com/en/bombs-shootings-are-a-part-of-life-in-swedish-city-malmo/a-51337737

22 March 2022
Two teachers in their 50s have died after a violent attack at at secondary school in the southern Swedish city of Malmö.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-60830059

20 April 2022
Sweden’s neighbours know how serious the situation has become. Denmark recently cited Swedish gang crime and the risk of terror attacks when it decided to extend its temporary border controls to Sweden – an extraordinary decision given that the two countries have been in a passport union since 1952.
Paulina Neuding is a Swedish journalist who writes for Svenska Dagbladet.

www.spectator.co.uk/article/sweden-riots-quran-burning-again

She's not wrong. There's something about the British psyche that's addicted to suffering and creates anger at the prospect of anything being made better for anyone.