To think the uk is on its knees

[Ilovemycatalot]

Just this. Every day negativity. No one is happy with life or working conditions. The country is at an all time low. Living standards getting worse by the day people getting poorer. I know we are not in poverty like some countries but honestly can’t see us ever returning to decent living standards unless you’re the few top percent earners. Tell me I’m being dramatic perhaps I am but can’t see much of a way back from this .

I think there is a serious issue in a country when couples who have full time responsible jobs like nurses and firefighters can’t afford to own and run a home, raise children, and are finding it hard to make ends meet.

I was looking through admin jobs in a Canterbury newspaper recently and honestly the wages offered were not much
more than I was earning when I got married in the mid-90s.

Wages have stagnated in the UK and yet most costs have risen.

I think a fundamental issue with successive
UK governments has been that instead of looking to Europe where the taxes are higher but in general, all the important state services work well: eg primary, secondary and tertiary education, nursery care, health, social care and public transport, they have looked to America where state provision is whittled to the bone, holidays are short, it’s becoming normal to have to work two jobs in order to survive, and huge numbers of citizens with chronic illnesses or disabilities fall
through the net.

This is what happens when capitalism and consumerism is allowed to thrive unregulated and important societal values, such as how you treat its most vulnerable members such as the very young and the very old, are ignored.

People always complain about regulation in the EU as though it’s a dirty word, but it really isn’t, it’s designed to curb and control the greatest excesses of market forces and capitalism, preserve a degree of fairness, dignity and civility in family life and wider society.

As ever there is a sensible balance to be struck between free and flexible trading and encouraging enterprise, and preserving the well-being, safety and dignity of employees.

Imho, before we chose to cut ourselves off from the largest trading block in the world, we could have learned a lot from our European neighbours whose economies are fairly boring, stable and predictable (the British press choose to call them “stagnant”) but the problem with the hugely variable UK economy and house prices with all their dips and troughs is that although it’s great for the city and those who are playing the markets, it exposes the poorest members of society to unacceptable economic hardship; hence the proliferation of food banks, homelessness and the disaster we call “social care” which is anything but.

So typical of the Tory mindset that half the population being on benefits reads as lazy and feckless, when the reality is that wage suppression means that it's very difficult to live without them.

So a win win for Tories. They keep big business happy with lower wages, and get to demonise ordinary people.

The whole system is a mess.

Wasn’t it Gordon Brown / Labour who expanded working benefits?

Looking back I see pp have already said this.

Unintended consequences.
Labour decided not to put limits on numbers of east Europeans entering the UK when other EU countries did.
Lots of immigrants working for low wages - great for business for a number of years - less good for the low paid.
We end up wiht Brexit.
Labour introduced tax credits - G Brown I think. Hmm good idea but there's no propery scrutiny.

Maggie Thatcher decided we should be a financial service economy which did us proud until the crash in 2008 by greedy bankers - probably would have been fine if they hadn't got so greedy or had been properly regulated.
We are then having to bail out bankers, and imv that is what caused the need for austerity.
Austerity - good idea for a few years to balance the books but unfortunately first Brexit then Covid meant the economy tanked further.
Now we have the Russia war. Having global implications no one had planned for.
I'm not sure where we go from here. I don't hear Labour listing their amazing plans to fix everything.
Perhaps we will all become a bit more independent, tougher and flexible. No assumption that the NHS, Social Services, Benefits will pick up the pieces.

I don't really care who it was, the end result is a win for the Tory mindset.

Both of them are quite capable of creating ideological messes.

@Goldpaw, I really don't think the Tory mindset has won. IMO it is essential that we all take responsibilty for our lives. Have children when your relationship is stable and you can afford to feed and rear them to adulthood.

It's a bit contrarian, but we don't actually bail out bankers, because mostly they are pretty sharp on keeping their own money. Banks are different.

@Nyasia I never mentioned a political party.... i was responding to the poster who said so many are on benefits.

But as you mention political parties... .... Income Support was bought in by the Tories in 1972, under Edward Heath, income support has been called many names over the last 50 years, the latest is Universal Credit.

If there was no income support, employers would still pay the min they can get away with, just as they did before 1972, why do you think it was bought in???

At least Labour tried with the MW to increase the pay of those on very low wages and guess who opposed that? Yep business leaders and the Tories.

I wish people appreciated this instead of just quoting what they read in the Mail or on FB etc.

We ve had low wages for many years in this country but only the Tories gave us Austerity and 12 years of 0 to 1% public sector pay rises (on average)

Agree but we also have to have the means to pick up the pieces when people are not responsible and the best way to limit the numbers who behave badly is education and early interventions.

We also need to be able to step in when life gets in the way...... illness, accident, death, divorce or when disability occurs in children.

OR we go for the Poor/Work House option... which i believe some would be very happy with, after all, we can't have the homeless and beggars getting in our way coming from the Opera can we?

Have children when your relationship is stable. So what happens if your husband dies, or loses his job? Or any of the one hundred unexpected things that throw a spanner in the works.
A friend of mine has has to give up work to care for her mother who has Alzheimer's. Should we let them starve?

I sympathise for your friend @beguilingeyes . Altzheimer's is a cruel disease, perhaps one of the worst of the numerous misfortunes that can befall a person, and yes, of course your friend deserves society's support, not least for saving society the greater cost of full time care.

When my DH arrested at 50, he lived only because he was already in an ambulance: 90% will die instead.

However, I do think that large companies, notably supermarkets, systematically take the piss in offering PT work up to 16 hours per work, rather than at 20... because 18 hours weekly is the point where employers have to fund pensions, holidays and statutory sick pay. So much cheaper for them.

Perfectly put.

this is a crunch point but we’ve been through worse.

Supplementary benefit appeared in the mid 60’s. it was known as Sup Ben not income support.

Talk about being pedantic!!! Heath gave us family income supplement and the point is, forms of income support were introduced long before Blair.

Happy?

Im not being pedantic.

The thing was already in place

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supplementary_Benefit

@Lostinalibrary absolutely correct and has been allowed to continue for far too long at great detriment to the taxpayer.
Tax credits were introduced to top up low wages created by the introduction of the Minimum Wage and has made some business owners seriously rich.
How is it right that taxpayers are subsidising employers to this extent, because that's what it is.
With diminishing wages, were are now in a situation where the put-upon taxpayer is unable to properly fund the public services we all rely on,
This country is in a serious mess and it would take a very strong government to sort it out.

Can't leave now, cos of Brexit!!

National minimum wages are higher in real terms than they have ever been.

Re strikes in France yes they are happening but the recent ones have been because the French Government wants to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64 ….whereas in England it is …….

The average working week is 35 hours …whereas in England it is ….

if u work more than 35 hours the time accumulates to give a day off …whereas in England it is just expected..

France spend more on the infrastructure so they have decent trains etc

and so on

i

And even end of bloody life - we can't even grieve.

My friend’s mum died on the 21st of December, just before Christmas. The cremation took place today.
Disgraceful wait for public services.

It's hard to avoid low wages when every man and his dog wants to buy everything for the least amount of money - hence people go to local shops then look on the internet for the cheapest product and buy from there.
We are our own worst enemies. We also pay cash in hand much of the time to keep it cheap - taxman (and us) miss out.

We buy everything from the east China etc, because they have the lowest paid workers and thus the lowest prices. I don't see how we can compete wiht that.

That's a weird question. Why would you call anyone lazy?

I'm just telling you an example from our local area, but I get that it upset you because you don't like the idea of anyone in Europe doing well for themselves!

And of course not everyone lives in detached houses. There's lots of lovely places to live here - semis, apartments, etc - like in every country. I think I missed something because I don't understand the lazy comment.

I can't say as it's too outing 😄But to be fair its a cultural as well as cost of living thing. I think a lot of people inherit their houses here, &/or live so close to family that they just get a much cheaper way of life, with free childcare and so on (most people I know literally live next door or down the road to multiple family members). Plus it's the countryside so not like the cities most likely....Most people are on low paying jobs but because of this set up, they live lovely lives and because the area is SO beautiful noone ever sells their land, just passes land down through generations. Bills are not that high so you can have a lower wage here, live month to month, but it doesn't feel as scary if that makes sense to not have a savings buffer.

Saying that there's no way they'd still live like they do in England with their jobs...cost of living is so much lower here for a start...quality of life is very good, and the healthcare and senior care is so good. Public services and all that are strong, so I just feel like there's much less stress, a feeling of more support, people have comfortable retirements so are just so much more able to help with the grandkids and all that....

There's always downsides of course! But just wanted to let @clavinova know that we aren't all French people desperately striking and wallowing in a pit of European misery!

beautifulpaintings
I can't say as it's too outing

How can it possibly be 'outing' - you've only told us that you left the UK five years ago and you know two people who work in a local shop.

beautifulpaintings
I think I missed something because I don't understand the lazy comment

You implied that anyone with a low paid job in retail in your country could afford to buy/rent a detached house.

But in our area, using one of your examples, I know two people who work in a local shop (similar to a supermarket, but smaller), they both live in detached houses in a beautiful countryside area, and do their lovely hobbies at weekends

In fact, thinking about it - I know a few single women like that as well - and they live in lovely detached houses in beautiful English countryside (one of them overlooks a vineyard) and they do their lovely hobbies at weekends - but they didn't buy their detached houses solely from earned income working for other people in a gift shop/clothes shop (as they do now) or indeed working as a care worker/at the till of a supermarket. They previously had better paid jobs and wanted something less demanding when they got older, are divorced/widowed or inherited from parents.