Anybody else feel like we are heading for an equivalent of the "winter of discontent"?

[Ihatethedawnchorus]

There just seems to be more and more talk of strikes from different areas and it just feel likes a build up of general discontent(not blaming anyone, things are bad, not likely to improve in the short term and people are getting desperate and disillusioned with good reason)

I agree with a vast amount of the sentiment above - it feels very bleak, and so frustrating, that most of these issues are man-made (often literally, made by men... but also humans in general) it's not as if the bleakness is due to an incoming era-ending asteroid (yet, I mean, I don't rule it out).

But I also remind myself, life has been shit before - the crash in 1929, the World Wars, and new hope has emerged before... we have had boom times, it's just this bust (political, social, ecological, economic) feels like it's been going on a long time (since at least 2006, as a PP mentioned).

We absolutely are.

I'm trying to think positively regarding myself as I've never had to live through difficulty / difficult times before, I hope it will make me more grateful and tolerant, like my Grandmothers generation. However I am sad for my child who will likely not have the same childhood I did.

I remember the winter of discontent. My father had a petrol station and garage and we ad to hand pump the petrol for customers when there was no electricity.
My English teacher was very left wing and told us about how she had her heating on full and all her windows open to consume extra fuel to put the pressure on. I hero worshipped her and opened my bedroom window a little bit extra to support her.

Local bus strike last winter hit us very hard - then Dh went where bin men were on strike for work and now train strikes affecting us. On top of that family in and heavy users of NHS says it's terrible state and fear it's close to collapse - my DC school has struggled all year for teaching staff.

I don't remember at all the 70s - but I do feel worried/resigned.

On top of that there feels like a real dearth of political talent in UK but worse not just confined to us but many political world leaders seem lacking.

Are there any countries you would be proud to be a citizen of?

I live in London in a very big block of flats with many nationalities. Many are no better or in worse positions than us.

if you look at history, dreadful situations often are global. It's worse now with globalism.

my late father used to talk about the importance of cheap goods. I have never thought this could be achieved without cheap labour. We used to have this argument 25 years ago.

now I think, jeez, I didn't want to be right about this, but the damage of cheap labour and not paying people decently has been immense, globally.

Oh and the first thing mum said after her 18 hours on a trolley in A&E...well, almost the first thing - overpopulation. I don't know why that's such a verboten word.

There's definitely something gone wrong with a desperate shortage of "good" politicians actually wanting the top jobs. We had a poor choice between Boris and Corbyn. USA have had a series of poor election choices (Trump, Biden, Hilary Clinton, etc). We (most countries) are being given a very poor choice of potential political leaders!

We have good politicians, but they want to stay in the shadows. No surprise really when the media constantly attack them. Look at Tim Farron, by all accounts an excellent hard working Libdem MP in Kendal. He took the Libdem leaders job and would have made an excellent long term Libdem leader, but the media hounded him out when they discovered he was an active churchgoing christian! The decent ones just don't want the media scrutiny and ruination for themselves and their families.

Unfortunately, mention over-population and you're treated as a racist.

But it's not really over-population that's the problem, it's decades of not preparing for more people, whether it's town "planning", schools, GP surgeries, hospitals, roads, public transport, etc. It's all creaking under the strain of too many people, far beyond what it was designed for.

Even utilities - we've had a huge new build housing estate very close to our estate, and now it's occupied, it's very noticable that the internet is slower, we've had a few power outages (apparently blown fuses from too much demand), and the waste pumping station now frequently floods. The developers should have been forced to properly update the entire infrastructure as part of the planning permission process! And then it's now almost impossible to get a GP appt (no new GPs despite hundreds of new residents), school is full meaning people having to drive their kids miles to the next one (no new classrooms), and so it goes on.

My mum actually said to me yesterday "this feels like the Winter of Discontent."

It was before my time - what impact did it have?

We really do need a party willing to do things differently, in particular with housing. Housing is most people's biggest worry and need. Why aren't the major parties tackling this?! We need more social housing, more help for first time buyers, more high quality flats for single people, e.g. with a balcony so they still get outdoor space and have somewhere to dry their laundry.

Energy is a massive worry. How many pensioners will we see die because they are too scared to put on the heating this winter 😢

Fertility rates have dropped or are about to pretty much everywhere in world -
data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN - it won't impact for a while as people are living much longer.

Covd mainly - and I know it wasn't all - killed older people are we shut the world economy down in an effort to protect them.

I'm in Wales
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-61966876
More than a fifth (21.3%) of the Welsh population - that's 662,000 people - were aged 65 years and over, up from 18.4% a decade before.

...
And the over 90s population has risen to 1% (from 0.8%) to 29,700. Conwy has the highest proportion - 1.5%.
...
Wales also had a lower proportion of people aged under 15 - 16.5% - than in England (17.4%) and lower than regions of England, apart from the south west.

Most of the delays in hospital here -and they are considerable -are linked to a lack of workers - lack of care workers mainly so people can't be discharged - but also lack of NHS staff - I suppose you could turn that round and say too many sick people many of who are older but that's a bit unfair on the patients.

icelolly sidebar - I don't want a balcony. I have one, but it's space that I would prefer indoors. Most flats have balconies.

I don't sit out much because it's noisy. Hearing other people's phone talk, music etc.

@TheGirlOnTheDragon

When will people stop voting for this??

Maybe when there's a viable option?

Mercurial I've been hearing that for decades

look at global population figures. There might be a reduction long after I'm dead but I doubt it.

I talked to mum about this but she said it didn't seem noticeable apart from rubbish and blackouts

in my childhood days, I'd keep my coat on after school and sit in bed to read. So that was normal for many of us, so I guess mum will notice more this time than last time.

a home with the heating on a lot wasn't a norm in the 80s, I don't think.

it's decades of not preparing for more people, whether it's town "planning", schools, GP surgeries, hospitals, roads, public transport, etc. It's all creaking under the strain of too many people, far beyond what it was designed for.

I do think there's been a lack of political will to deal with the aging population issue and well as a population unwilling to accept hard choices needed to be made and other issues like rising house prices and failing wages and job security.

When will people stop voting for this??

Labour government running NHS and Education - they've been voted in over 20+ years now - SNP up in Scotland and whoever running N.I all have problems - I'm not sure Tory in UK parliament and England are doing great but not sure any of them would be.

@lovescats3

whats NOT needed is people manically posting/sounding off in sound bites winding people up.

We used to spend a lot of time abroad around then. I wanted to get a t-shirt that said ‘I didn’t vote for it, ok?!

I think it will not be the same as the winter of discontent...

Inflation was a big problem from the mid 70s through to the early 80s. Winter of discontent was 1978-1979 where workers were striking and a Labour (Callaghan) government was calling for wage restraint to control inflation. In the early 80s there was a very deep recession with very high levels of unemployment, worsened by fiscal tightening by the US (Reagan) and UK (Thatcher) governments.
The economic situation is worse this time because of government debt.
In 1978 Q1 government borrowing as a percentage of GDP was 44.4%, which went down to 21.7% in 1991, up to 36.1% in 1996, 34.0% in 2008 before the printing of money to bail out the casino capitalists. 48.4% in 2009, leaps to 62.4% in 2010, increased to 78.4% in 2019 pre-pandemic. Now 95.9% in 2022.
World-wide governments borrowing and central banks printing money, buying bonds to prop up the markets had created inflationary pressures, even before the pandemic and the war in Ukraine.
Such high levels of debt will restrict government's ability to stimulate the economy during what looks like a coming recession.

When comparing with history it is worth pointing out standards of living in the late 70s / early 80s were much lower than they are now
www.ons.gov.uk/economy/grossdomesticproductgdp/timeseries/crxx/ukea

But personal and household debt is much higher now.

I agree with PP in that just hiking wages up is not the answer. It just pushes inflation up more as more money in pockets = more spending.

Trouble is, MPs received a pay rise , agreed by themselves, of around £2200 this year.

Let's also not forget the vast expenses that they continually receive.

will consider this good point.

It’s averaged out over 6 years, so I’m not talking about the last 2-3 years. As I said it doesn’t have to be a lie to be of no help to normal people. It can be absolutely true that on a macro level the economy is doing well whilst individuals or UK public debt are in a dire state. I happen to agree that trickle down is bollocks. But there are objective facts and they must be engaged with.
GDP forecast for the UK from the OECD and IMF are still higher for the UK than France or Germany.

The problem with assuming that the current situation is due to things you happen to not like is that it’s not going to help find a solution. If I have an eye infection I don’t go to a podiatrist. The current problem is probably a combination or things like supply chain issues (china is still locking down cities, the microchip shortage due to covid had a massive impact for a while etc) because of the COVID pandemic and then energy and food shortages due to the war (and that will be from the cost of production as well as a drop in actual current supply of food). So solutions will be around food production in the UK (given that so,ecountries are now banning export of foodstuff) looking at alternatives for energy (germany is expanding its use of coal) possibly more borrowing to reduce consumer prices (France is spending billions on capping energy prices).

Brexit and this particular government probably not so much. What you can blame the government for is an inadequate response or not having a clue how to fix it. On which I would wholeheartedly agree with you.

We voted for this shit show...
Coz covid
Coz immigration
Coz sovereignity

We Brits were more than happy to come out and cheer for the royal family rather than fight for a republic.

There have been several posts like this. Sounds all rather ominous. Alien invasion? Zombie apocalypse? Deadly mutation of 🐒Pox? New deadly Covid variant? Nuclear war with Putin? A big tsunami? All of the above? 😅

Lol not sure, but it sure would explain some of the crazy new "do as we say not as we do" laws being made by those in power of late, worldwide, and the likes of Boris just not giving a damn even when it's glaringly obvious they have been caught outright lying...