Weren't things meant to get better?

[BeachTree]

2 years of pandemic - restrictions, rules, missing out, illness, misery

We're emerging from this slowly and now we are facing
*Inflation
*Incredibly high petrol and diesel prices
*Ukraine War
*Blooming Brexit ( clearly was going on pre-pandemic)
*Refuse collection strikes
*Train Strikes
*Cost of living crisis - huge increases to food and electricity
*insert various other crappy things going on right now

Weren't we meant come out of this and start living and enjoying things again.

We've got our own Government agreeing to literally pump shit on our beaches.

By the time the Conservatives go there won't be an NHS. They are dismantling the post-war welfare state introduced for the good of EVERYONE in the country.

The Governments plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda is inhumane and like something out of a dystopian novel.

Dark times indeed.

Dh and I were saying that we don't remember everyone being so pessimistic as this before. We're both in our 50s.

Exactly

I had the Christians Hooverville in my brain with the first lockdown. Inflation, recession, not a surprise. Yet people still wanted lockdown.

strikes - amazed they didn't happen before, could have maybe stopped lockdown if there'd been a general strike.

Pinkpeony felt every word of that. Hugs if you want them.

I just don't see a way out of it for years and years. So much damage has been done, so much damage is being done, so much damage still will be done, before anyone in government gets to thinking about improving things despite the obvious old shit that Truss is telling us.

I remember people on these boards speculating that we might get the roaring 20s after the covid pandemic; like the roaring 1920s after the First World War and Spanish flu. Now it feels like we've gone straight to a 1930s style depression.

I don't think it's ever really reasonable to expect things to always or even mostly get better.

But as far as the pandemic stuff went, I am not at all surprised we are now facing serious financial issues, and various health and psychological issues related to the attempts to manage the pandemic. That was always going to happen if they took the kind of actions they did. (I don't blame any party for this in particular, any of the others would have done the same or worse.)

And the fact that the Ukraine war followed on was not good - I would imagine that the vulnerability of most nation-states after the pandemic was part of the reason Putin chose to act when he did.

I think recovering from the pandemic will take 10 years.

Maybe scientific and medical development has got better since covid started? But can it be funded? The development? The rollouts? The staffing? The infrastructure?

I think recovering from the pandemic will take 10 years.

Any by that point we will be having to tackle the changing demographic of the population so it won't be getting better

I remember people on these boards speculating that we might get the roaring 20s after the covid pandemic; like the roaring 1920s after the First World War and Spanish flu. Now it feels like we've gone straight to a 1930s style depression.

I forget, what happened in the 1940s ?

I had the Christians Hooverville in my brain with the first lockdown. Inflation, recession, not a surprise. Yet people still wanted lockdown.

regardless of what happened here we would still be impacted by lowdowns/covid impact in China which is hitting supply chains.

Mangy "And the fact that the Ukraine war followed on was not good - I would imagine that the vulnerability of most nation-states after the pandemic was part of the reason Putin chose to act when he did."

many anti lockdowners also pointed out that the approach taken left us wide open to or enemies.

I was queried on another thread when I said my nearly 90 year old mother never knew it so bad for everyone- yes she remembers being bombed, and crossly making bread in the 70s, worrying about my Dad working in London with the IRA stuff. She doesn’t recall such a dismal time where the rich are obscenely increasing profits, gov’t not caring or working much, and kids going hungry alongside terrible decisions about sewage in seas and gov’t partying. She’s always voted Tory and is supremely disappointed. She used to liken current times to the 50s with rationing etc, then the war, now says it possibly was like the 1920s that her parents told her about.
I think it is really everything at once - and so many of the country are divided and anxious to blame other ‘groups’ than their own we haven’t even got a community type spirit or focus to do anything.
A lot of our issues imo are impacted by the sheer refusal over the last 12 years to invest or plan for the future and our infrastructure- as a PP said it’s just been campaigns not governance. It’s a bit late to redress that, but we should never let any government focus only on their own personal profit lines again.
My vague hope is that I believe it has been shown things go in cycles through a century and the 20s are often bad with a right wing/autocratic trend, but then we go on to more democracy - hope so for future generations at least.

*our

Yes but we didn't have to spend a shitload of our own money!

They are already high. Not related to COVID either apparently. Could be due to staffing issues in healthcare, poor lifestyle in lockdown, stress, maybe even vaccine side effects. When they work out what the causes are I'd love to know. Can only see it going up.

Plus life expectancy is reducing in some places, now that is a real achievement from this government!

It will last as long as the Ukraine war does, there’s no easy fix whilst it’s happening

It’d be different if Putin hadn’t invaded but agree with other posters who say Covid response also lowered resilience

Sounds like the fourth turning theory to me. It helps to see things as cyclical. Helps me stay positive.

I've been stuffed by the timing of it though, but hopefully my kids will enjoy the boom time if it appears again.

She’s always voted Tory and is supremely disappointed.

So are a lot of people. Won't stop them voting Tory next time though

I never cease to be amazed by the low energy thinking that if you unquestioningly give your vote to the same party every single chance you get, they will somehow "look after you".

If people shopped around for their MPs the way they do for their baked beans or car insurance, we'd be in a much better position and getting better.

Indeed.

It was sold as a solution to immigration. Several people I’ve spoken to voted for Brexit because they were scared by news reports of the masses of migrants congregating at Calais, and threats from the EU that they would force us to allow a significant proportion of them into the country.

Yep.

It was sold because the middle-class benefited and the working class didn't. Now the middle-class are feeling the pinch, everyone has it hard.

As someone who came from an area with abysmal living standards when inside the EU, I'm not going to lose any sleep over people complaining they no longer can get baristas and low paid hauliers from Eastern Europe to do thy bidding.

As for the energy problem, that's not changed by having a Conservative or Labour gov't. Actually, if we want to look for a scapegoat, Blair's gov't implemented the quasi-market energy scene we have now along with the incentive for wind and gas with the Renewables Obligation mandate.

The pandemic has shown everyone that modern Just In Time manufacturing and services cannot work when there are lockdowns, and also that relying on China for a good chunk of output that feeds your economy is dumb.

Now we have a clueless political leadership race over essentially which face you want to be on telly to tell you to enjoy rolling blackouts and using whatever shops and pubs are still open this winter for your daily allowance of warmth. Food may or may not be available.

You are not obligated to have things get better. The universe does not work that way, and having 200 years of things improving has clearly rotted everyone's brains to the point of thinking that progress is some inalienable right of every human.

It is not.

None of it has been helped by having a PM who persists in chasing fun & blowing money rather than concentrating on leading the country (while having still getting paid in taxpayers money!)

Although climate change is the one thing that is likely to keep creating more and more issues, for all of us.

Excellent point.