To think a lot of the Uk looks like a state

[Novembermummy88]

Not sure if I am being dramatic or if years of austerity are really starting to show…? Lately I’ve really started to notice how filthy, run down and falling apart everywhere looks! I live in a town in the south east on the borders of the M25. Every where there are gapping pot holes (can hardly avoid the volume there are now and genuinely concerned I will lose a wheel at some point!), broken lamp posts, the volume of litter / filth on the roads seems very high and can’t remember the last time I saw a road sweeper, and things like pathways are a state, road markings worn out, SO many closed/dilapidated shops….the town just looks awful as do many of the nearby towns! Is it just the South East looking like this? Aibu?! Or have I watched too much Selling Sunsets and setting my expectations too high…???

@Guis And the best way to tackle that is education, unless you are suggesting a cull? The more girls and women in particular are allowed to stay in education the fewer children they have and the birth rate falls. Most of the world now has a birth rate of less than two. Which is also an issue in terms of having enough younger people to work in lots of countries.

Similarly, quality of life in London was much higher with fewer people, fewer food joints, and fewer people on the Tube. And civilised rent! I thought there'd be a tipping point and population would calm down. That was 20 years ago. Now I think there's no hope.

The population of London in 1600 was less than 300,000, but I doubt you'd prefer their quality of life.

It's not a total population that's the problem, it's an ageing population. Lower tax yields and older generations locking younger ones out of housing.

The roads are SHOCKING. I know we had the snow and ice but the holes are huge, dangerous and very damaging. Who remembers the smell of freshly laid tarmac and seeing the tarmacers working on the road? We don't see it anymore. Just a patch up job here and there when the council can be bothered. Councils also selling off land to private developers who promise to make road improvements but totally mess up the area and leave works half done. Far too many backhanders with greedy people buying land (once very attractive green spaces and fields) and letting it become a wasteland so they can bide their time for development.

The government have always been self serving but we have too many people with positions of power in this country. Too many non jobs full of self promoted useless idiots. This goes for councils, hospitals, schools (too many SLT), it's right across the board. The workers are well and truly stuffed because wage distribution is too high at the top (when those jobs never bloody existed in the past and are not needed now).

Builders are also very much in demand and we have chancers with no experience, qualifications or skills producing totally unacceptable and bodged work. Trades are not jobs anyone can do - you need to be skilled, whether that's construction, painting, plastering etc. We don't place enough emphasis on these roles and value them enough and so idiots (who should be labouring) are taking on jobs they shouldn't be doing and in turn sending very capable kids to university to end up in non office jobs. The Scandinavian counties value their trades and crafts (we don't).

Why do you keep saying English men? The poster didn’t specify their nationality.

Guis David Attenborough tried but people don't want to hear it, so he's back to wittering about emissions.

@horseyhorsey17 there were plenty of Lexiteers around at the time of the referendum but the right-wing voices were the loudest. There are many reasons why people voted to leave which are very complicated but it’s easy to call people stupid and racists. My home town received very little to no EU funding. The teaching of modern languages in the local comprehensives is very poor due to underfunding (rubbish pupil premiums compared to other parts of the UK). What possible incentive was there to stay in the UK? None.

i think we are all too complacent and complain in the wrong way. I see people wearing themselves in the ground on twitter complaining about things. Instead, contact big companies and your local councillors directly to complain about litter and badly maintained facilities. We should stop accepting the shit they throw at us.

Yep - this is what happens when People vote Conservative.

Blimey

It's usually a pre-war figure that gets pulled out

I'm comparing figures from within my lifetime. As I am posting on a chat forum and not presenting a paper, I think that's fair enough.

Lexiteers sounds like people who want to leave the legal system.

This has nothing to do with our government and everything to do with messy filthy people .

I fully understand these reasons, but they were the fault of the government not European migrants. But without wanting to rehash the old Brexit arguments - the reason a lot of people voted for Brexit is because they thought it would make the UK look BETTER, because it was already in a really poor state after 6 years of austerity by 2016. So it's not really fair to say people have been 'talking the country down' since, as many, if not most, felt that it was in a bad way before the referendum.

Ironically some of those people who voted for Brexit now find themselves feeling like they have to defend the sh*t state the county is now, despite having voted for something they thought would improve it but didn't.

I no longer live in the UK. On each return visit I am so shocked at the decline. And it's getting worse

Where do you visit?

Messy filthy people are making potholes?? 🤔

Post-war decades saw massive booms but those booms also resulted in people having lots of babies.

And that's the problem, isn't it? When quality of life increases, populations increase. You fondly remember the first part, but it came with a price tag of the second.

I live in Spain.
Our streets are cleaned every day, out bins are emptied twice a day. Police are on the beat (lots of them ). It's a very safe , clean place to live. Our state healthcare is amazing

Yes our taxes are higher but we have a socialist government delivering great services

Don't be silly. The mess is because underfunded councils have drastically cut bin emptying services - plus closing recycling centres round here - and the rubbish is now spilling out into the streets, parks, rivers etc. Growing population + fewer bin collections = rubbish everywhere.

A conversation. Not a cull.
It is certainly sad for all concerned when children are born and are unable to be fed, clothed, housed, medicated or educated.

I pondered if they were trying to bring it back to immigration as nobody that I’ve seen has ever said about groups of English/British men hanging around it’s always refugees or just teenagers. Unless the footballs on then they are all hanging around the pubs 😂

Putting on their steel capped boots and just smashing through the roads out of sheer vandalistic spite. Then emptying bins into the street while laughing hysterically. If it wasn't for them, Britain would be as immaculate as it was during the War, when everyone was happy and things were perfect.

I think our roads look quite tatty but, driving in LA a few years ago made our roads look pristine by comparison. The road surface was terrible. In terms of Europe, Switzerland and Austria look better, but I'd say France and Italy are pretty similar to the U.K.

Spain also has problems.

The energy rises is having impact as with cost of living too.

Most countries are suffering.

Your council may also be bad at managing money or labour so this may have nothing to do with austerity.

I don’t think you understand @horseyhorsey17 A lot of people who are branded as racists didn’t really care about immigration. They just didn’t see any advantage to them from the EU given their past experiences which was totally fair. Even people who did cite immigration often said they didn’t feel personal animosity towards immigrants but did feel worried about lack of GP appointments etc. These arguments got lost in the middle-class screeching.