AIBU to ask if there is anything at all that works as it should in the Uk?

[Lavendersquare]

Just been having a discussion with a colleague and between us we can't think of any public service/government department or agency that is delivering a decent service. Examples include:

Education
NHS
Immigration
Police
Social care
Roads
Railways
Dental Care

it never used to be like this, there was a time when things worked, were maintained and replaced. Now it seems everything is left to the last minute and patched up or left to deteriorate.

What's happened?

Does "slowest recovery in the G7" ring a bell?

Highest food inflation in the G7?

Highest electricity bills in the world at one point.

And while you're at it, please explain how covid or Ukraine etc put shit on our beaches and in our rivers.

13 years of the Tories.

Conservatism used to be about keeping what was good and worked well, and was generally a force for some good in society.

The current lot of Conservatives do not care about anything beyond lining their own pockets, and the pockets of their greedy mates. All the good Conservatives have either been removed from the party or left of their own volition.

Yes, the Tories "conserve" nothing.

Bringing the bee-killing neonicotinoid pesticides back was particularly suicidal.

Verdant, links please to item in speech marks. Your sources may of course be biased and, in any case, I believe that data point has been disproved. Again source for your claims re: food inflation and electricity. We need nuclear power stations for cheap electricity but that is completely unacceptable to the Greens, etc. Privatising the water industry has been a disaster, I’ll grant you that. How about the culture of welfare decency started and perpetuated by various Labour administrations (Browns tax credits, anyone) or the destruction of the nuclear family? The scale of the problems means that no government in power for a term can successfully deal with them. How about mass immigration under Blair from former Eastern Bloc countries?

The reverse to this is the huge state dependency and the growing feeling that ‘other people should pay’

It’s not going to work, dependency is too high. Drive away payers and we’ll all feel it.

Policies that go for that sentiment won’t help

One of the things I find most upsetting about the downward trajectory our country is on is the increase in rough sleepers.

Wasn't David Cameron going to end rough sleeping in 2010?

13 years of increasing state dependency then @EasternStandard?

Who's responsible for that then?

I see these posts on the state doesn’t give us enough, whilst direct payments for CoL go in, after furlough payments kept closed economy from tanking, people blaming the ‘rich’

Then your post again not looking at sentiment but the fault of someone else.

I look at Labour in Wales and it seems further along that path of dependency. I don’t want similar but that starts with people realising the state has paid out more than ever during the last few years. Not less. Huge amounts to nearly everyone. That’s the taxes part.

It’s a bottomless pit atm, more is given and more is demanded

I'm into personal responsibility @EasternStandard

@EasternStandard

it is widely accepted by economists that measures to reduce tax for the highest earners does not boost the economy.

in addition to this many economists agree that state spending programmes such as investing in infrastructure and increasing public sector pay is the best stimulus for economic growth when heading into a recession.

That’s good. I don’t mean you particularly

Just general the sentiment building, I find it concerning.

Massive state payments at the same time as they don’t give us enough is precarious for the economy

The state stepped in during two crises we can’t keep demanding more thinking it was nothing

I think London buses run more regularly and frequently than they did when I was at school in the 70s.
Otherwise, no, can't think of anything.

Yet taxes have never been higher, the public sector has never been larger and the number if civil servants is at its highest.

Almost half of everything spent in this country is by the state. Through taxed, borrowed and printed money. The government borrows close to £20b a month just to pay benefits and debt interest. The number of net contributors is dropping at an alarming rate while those dependent on those net contributors increases.

Nothing works because the government is corrupt and incompetent. They have shaped the civil service and public sector in their image by stuffing it full of incompetent people. The quality of our public servants is embarrassing. And finally the net recipient expect more and more from a shrinking number of net contributors, who are sick of subsidizing everyone else and leaving for higher paid careers in other countries. Welcome to a UK that is approaching developing country status in the next 50 years.

Does anything work as it should? Lol no.
What happened? The Tories. They are ideologically opposed to public services.

And finally the net recipient expect more and more from a shrinking number of net contributors, who are sick of subsidizing everyone else and leaving for higher paid careers in other countries

If that’s what people are going for and sentiment plus policy results in people getting fed up and opting out by moving then we really are stuffed

It's just normal to complain.

I remember years ago after railways were privatised everyone was saying how poor our trains were. Radio 2 (think it was them) went to Paris to interview commuters and they had all the same complaints about their trains.

American police have an atrocious reputation online, no doubt most are dedicated to their communities but they don't half get a bad rep.

The NHS may have issues but I think in USA health care costs are the main cause of bankruptcy.

Everybody likes to complain.

Can’t wait for Labour to get to show us all they’re not going to improve things.

I’ll be voting Labour btw (for different reasons) but I’m fairly confident NHS, prisons, crime, public services, immigration & many other things won’t improve much.

Tory waste and corruption for 13 years.

The Conservatives: transferring public money into private hands. Mostly theirs.

Did you notice furlough, SEISS, CoL payment?

You probably got one of them at least

Taxpayer money still. Never ending demand

When I had my children they used to say it takes 9 months of pregnancy to grow a baby and then 9 months for your body to recover.

I'm assuming it's similar when you take over from a Tory government.

If it took 13 years to run us into the ground then we've really got to allow 13 years to get back what we had prior to the Tories taking over in 2010.

I also assume Labour and the Lib Dems both have lists of things they can do that will a) save money given the massive waste a profiteering happening now. And b) make positive changes without costing a lot.

Things that are currently work well in my life (Scotland)

GP surgery, can quite easily get a same day in person appointment
HRT - had no problem getting this (and got the exact type I wanted)
Dentist - really lovely NHS dentist for the whole family
Free buses for my kids

Things that are pretty crap:

Council services of all sorts, especially pot holes in roads (I'm a cyclist)
Schools striking, much needed SEN assessments never happening.

My DGS started reception and my DD was getting called everyday, he just wasn't coping - despite having 1:1. Within the year he had a EHCP, an autism diagnosis and a place at a specialist school which he started a year ago and is thriving.

I know that's not typical at all so I'm extremely grateful the whole process was so smooth for him and his education wasn't disrupted long term.

While Tory MPs are still calling for tax cuts, public services will continue to deteriorate.

I think of the services and support that I and my babies/pre-schoolers got thirty years ago, and the system my DD and DGDs are dealing with now, and my heart breaks for them. No health visitor development checks, no paediatric dental services, no baby clinic, no speech therapy...all those things that I was able to access for my kids within weeks by simply walking down to my local clinic. Which also no longer exists.

Very good, I hope you'll remember your little pearls of wisdom the next time the tories and their ilk try to blame Labour for the fall out from the global financial crash.

There's zero doubt the tories are an acceleratant to our decline, like pouring petrol on a fire, but the fire was started long ago by the British public's apathy, greed and selfishness. The country is filled with millions of mini-thatchers, who care only for their personal little empire, and to hell with everyone else.

I'd also like @Teentaxidriver to explain why an energy rich nation like the UK is so vulnerable to global energy market variations.

Is it because the tories privatised energy and then decimated our energy security infrastructure?