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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Is the UK beyond repair?

349 replies

Brrrrrrrrrrrr · 06/07/2023 16:43

I’m sure plenty will come along to say I’m BU but for the past few weeks I’ve really started to question where this country and our society is heading and whether or not things are ever going to get better and when that might be.

We have economic chaos driven by high inflation, increasing interest rates and a total lack of urgency by anyone in charge to seemingly do anything about it. We have a government in power that seem to have nothing but contempt for anyone that doesn’t resemble their backers, ministers openly mocking critics on social media and a PM who can not remember if he may or may not have had something to do with benefiting from £5 million of Russian money. What on Earth have we become?

Our Health service is being systematically picked apart and left to decay away much to the detriment of those who rely on it or who cannot afford Private healthcare. We have Medical professionals striking because they are underpaid again to the detriment of those who rely on said services, wait lists are through the roof and the levels of care being received are understandably inadequate.

The education sector is a ticking time bomb because teachers are seeing the demands of their roles increase, funding cuts, the behaviour of the pupils start to become impossible to manage and the prospect of an easier life switching to another career too hard to resist.

Food bank usage is at an all time high, not just by those in charge who don’t know poverty but working professionals who can not afford to feed their families because the cost of living has zapped every last penny from them. The reality on the streets of real life Is so far detached from that seen on social media that it’s like looking at a different planet.

It just feels bleak and I don’t see how things are going to change, I’m often an optimist but this is stretching any semblance of light in the tunnel. Anyone else? Is this the type of world you want your children to live in? Surely they deserve better? How can this be fixed?

OP posts:
Joey2323 · 06/07/2023 22:21

JaneyGee · 06/07/2023 18:16

If anything, they will make most of our problems worse.

No matter what drivel Labour politicians come out with, the Labour party is pro mass migration. Many on the left believe in open borders. Restrictions will be quietly dropped, and things will be made easier for migrants, both legal and illegal. Net migration is on track to be one million in 2023. Under Labour you can be sure it will be much higher. Kiss goodbye to what is left of the green belt, that's for sure.

As for the economy, one of the reasons we're in trouble is that we live beyond our means. We borrow and spend too much. Above all, we spend a fortune on welfare. The welfare state was set up to give ordinary working people a few years of peace and security before they died. Many of them were exhausted and crippled (and chemically poisoned) from decades slogging away in factories or fields. No one could argue with helping such people. However, it wasn't set up to enable hundreds of thousands of fit people to sit at home playing on their X-box because they've got a 'bad back', or 'depression'.

Labour is composed of fantasists. I'm a conservative (a moderate, 'wet' conservative) because I'm a realist. To those on the left, every migrant is a poor, frightened little refugee, and every welfare claimant is a Dickensian waif. Sensible, realistic people, who live in the real world, know this is nonsense. Yes, there are many, many migrants who benefit this country, and many refugees who really are refugees. There are also many people on benefits who really are crippled with mental or physical illness. But we all know that for every genuine individual there is a fake. God, I can think of a dozen people in my own life who cheat the benefit system, including a cousin, a brother in law and several neighbours.

You can make a case for higher taxes and more public spending. But you can't even trust Labour to spend public money on sensible things, like mending potholes, funding STEM courses, improving literacy in state schools, etc – things that help the economy. Instead, they'll waste it on hiring more 'diversity and inclusion managers' or funding students through utterly pointless degree courses in 'communication studies' or 'contemporary dance' or whatever.

Very sensibly put.

TooBigForMyBoots · 06/07/2023 22:28

We really don't have more than two parties though do we, in England anyway?

Huh? You definitely have more than two parties to chose from. Don't like Labour? Know that another Tory government will grind the UK further into the ground? You have other options. We are fortunate that way.

DontSetYourselfOnFireToKeepOthersWarm · 06/07/2023 22:30

TooBigForMyBoots · 06/07/2023 22:28

We really don't have more than two parties though do we, in England anyway?

Huh? You definitely have more than two parties to chose from. Don't like Labour? Know that another Tory government will grind the UK further into the ground? You have other options. We are fortunate that way.

No we don't - did you even read my post?

TooBigForMyBoots · 06/07/2023 22:35

Joey2323 · 06/07/2023 22:21

Very sensibly put.

@JaneyGee and @Joey2323 have you missed the fact that the Tories have been in power for the last 14 years?

Net migration has rocketed.
Education and Health is on its knees.
There's potholes all over the place.
We are seen as "Unstable" and a "Basket Case" on the international stage.

Because of the Tories. Not Labour, not the Lib-Dems or the Greens or even Sinn Fein or Alba. Because of the Tories.

Swrigh1234 · 06/07/2023 22:38

TooBigForMyBoots · 06/07/2023 22:35

@JaneyGee and @Joey2323 have you missed the fact that the Tories have been in power for the last 14 years?

Net migration has rocketed.
Education and Health is on its knees.
There's potholes all over the place.
We are seen as "Unstable" and a "Basket Case" on the international stage.

Because of the Tories. Not Labour, not the Lib-Dems or the Greens or even Sinn Fein or Alba. Because of the Tories.

No one on this thread has defended the Tories.

The point is that the Tories are not conservative. And Labour only ever get into power because they are not Tories. So both parties are currently scraping the bottom of the barrel.

Our political class has no calibre, competence, imagination or intellect. The technical term is that they are thick. And so it continues.

Swrigh1234 · 06/07/2023 22:38

Sorry forgot to say thick and corrupt.

EngTech · 06/07/2023 22:44

I have confidence in any politician as they will say anything to get your vote and make excuses when they don’t deliver

My cats could do a better job 👍👍👍👍

TooBigForMyBoots · 06/07/2023 22:45

Nobody could defend the Tories at this stage @Swrigh1234. They are utterly indefensible.

But encouraging apathy, "they're all the same", "things won't get better if you vote someone else".Hmm Is not the way forward. Also I recognise some MNet Tory loving regulars here.Grin

Maddy70 · 06/07/2023 22:46

I honestly think it is. I no longer live there I live in a multi cultural places with lots of different nationalities who all without exception comment on time ula decline it's not just me. We rely are the sick man of Europe

808Kate1 · 06/07/2023 22:48

User135644 · 06/07/2023 21:48

I think Labour are a terrible party tbf that still dine out on Clement Attlee and 1945, what have they achieved since that one term government in the 1940s?

The Liberal Party achieved more over the years when they got in and then Labour turned up to wipe their vote.

Awrite, calm down Lloyd George.

Nickknackpattywhack · 06/07/2023 22:50

Yawnnn, another Tory-bashing thread by the in-house band of Mumsnet Lefties who need to get a life IMO

DontSetYourselfOnFireToKeepOthersWarm · 06/07/2023 22:50

TooBigForMyBoots · 06/07/2023 22:45

Nobody could defend the Tories at this stage @Swrigh1234. They are utterly indefensible.

But encouraging apathy, "they're all the same", "things won't get better if you vote someone else".Hmm Is not the way forward. Also I recognise some MNet Tory loving regulars here.Grin

The problem is that labour are not the way forward either though. No-one is going to make the real changes that we need. They will just tinker around the edges, re-arrange the deckchairs and go a slightly different route that the tories would have taken, but in the end the destination will be the same.

user1497207191 · 06/07/2023 22:51

BringItOnxxx · 06/07/2023 17:20

Can we campaign for electoral reform? PR instead of first past the post? Would that help?

We had a chance to start down that route with the watered down electoral reform from the Tory/Lib Dem coalition, but it was rejected by the public vote, so unlikely to get another chance to vote for a decade or so. We missed our chance,

Brrrrrrrrrrrr · 06/07/2023 22:54

MetaverseMavis · 06/07/2023 21:41

Is this written by a paid writer posing as a poster on MN ? It is exactly what I was discussing in another thread a few days ago

I sure wish I was being paid…

OP posts:
Brrrrrrrrrrrr · 06/07/2023 22:56

Nickknackpattywhack · 06/07/2023 22:50

Yawnnn, another Tory-bashing thread by the in-house band of Mumsnet Lefties who need to get a life IMO

Have you seen the state of our country? Do you think they’ve done a marvellous job? Please, enlighten us with all the benefits our current government are bringing to the nation 🤨

OP posts:
echt · 06/07/2023 22:57

Nickknackpattywhack · 06/07/2023 22:50

Yawnnn, another Tory-bashing thread by the in-house band of Mumsnet Lefties who need to get a life IMO

Tell us all how fabulous it is under the Tories.

Go on.

Florenz · 06/07/2023 22:58

As long as Labour's answer is to keep things the same but throw money at everything to keep it working for a bit longer, nothing will change and things will continue to get worse.

FedUpWithEverything123 · 06/07/2023 23:00

I feel the same as you OP. I moved here 25 years ago, and the UK has always seemed shaky - but we now seem to have tipped over into real shitholeness - energy costs, food costs, interest rates, healthcare system, education system, unregulated immigration, poverty, low-wage economy, crime, drugs, violence, ridiculously low sentences for crimes, rape essentially legalised, males invading female spaces/sport etc etc.

TooBigForMyBoots · 06/07/2023 23:00

DontSetYourselfOnFireToKeepOthersWarm · 06/07/2023 22:50

The problem is that labour are not the way forward either though. No-one is going to make the real changes that we need. They will just tinker around the edges, re-arrange the deckchairs and go a slightly different route that the tories would have taken, but in the end the destination will be the same.

The way forward is a change of government.

DontSetYourselfOnFireToKeepOthersWarm · 06/07/2023 23:01

TooBigForMyBoots · 06/07/2023 23:00

The way forward is a change of government.

Nope, that's just the way sideways.

FedUpWithEverything123 · 06/07/2023 23:01

The education sector is a ticking time bomb because teachers are seeing the demands of their roles increase, funding cuts, the behaviour of the pupils start to become impossible to manage and the prospect of an easier life switching to another career too hard to resist.

I work in a school and this is so so true

SunnyEgg · 06/07/2023 23:01

Op some of those big things like climate change and AI are looming and I agree it’s full on.

Those things will impact globally, some countries will be hit harder than others to a certain extent based on geography.

I do think going from Covid to the war in Ukraine has just been massive and if the latter were to end, or inflation fall we would get small respite.

But yeh it is a bit buckle up butter cup and no I don’t think Starmer has the answers.

Smell the roses while we can I guess. I can’t do that much gloom these days.

FedUpWithEverything123 · 06/07/2023 23:04

TooBigForMyBoots
The way forward is a change of government.

What answers do Labour have? Fck all. I'm a leftie and even I think they are morally bankrupt with zero answers, and if even possible would make things worse

Nickknackpattywhack · 06/07/2023 23:04

Brrrrrrrrrrrr · 06/07/2023 22:56

Have you seen the state of our country? Do you think they’ve done a marvellous job? Please, enlighten us with all the benefits our current government are bringing to the nation 🤨

When you see the bunch of Keir Starmer's numpties they have on the front bench I don't think they could do much better !

SunnyEgg · 06/07/2023 23:05

Plus mass migration will start to really strain citizens.

It’s already starting, but if it does really kick in then powder key type stuff

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