Are things becoming just a little bit shit?

[Bloomsburygirl]

I was wondering if anyone else has started to notice the deteriorating standards in public services and private businesses. I went to London over the weekend, and I was shocked by the filth and litter. I moved to the UK in 2011, and I visited many times before I moved. I do not remember rubbish strewn across streets like it is now. And every place I seem to go gives off a feeling that there simply are not enough staff anymore. Restaurant toilets and public toilets are filthy, it takes an age to be served, and don't get me started on public transport (I read the recent thread on this and agree with every word). It seems to me like the consequences of Brexit/pandemic are really starting to bite, and to be honest, I miss the way it was pre-2016. AIBU, or do others feel the same? And is this the new normal? Disclaimer - I still adore the UK and would never want to live anywhere else!

I agree with this 100%.
I don’t think Britain has anything to offer at all— health service past breaking point, services across the board are poor, schools just seem to pile stress on teachers and pupils alike . If I didn’t have dgc I’d sod off back to Europe.

Post-colonial phase, innit. See what happened to the Romans.

I've not yet read the full thread but I was actually going to start a thread on this yesterday.

I've been seeing a counsellor due to being under a lot of stress, and on breaking things down with her, I've discovered that a lot of it is due to the ineptitude of other people/organisations.

You can no longer rely on anyone to just get things done.

Absolutely everything has to be monitored and chased. I'm talking NHS appointments, school issues, anything that the council is responsible for, people carrying out property maintenance, etc.

Individuals and organisations seem to have lost the ability to manage a diary. Local authorities are the absolute WORST for this and always have been, but things have dramatically gone downhill since Covid.

Is that really true?

Welcome to Khan's London. Good old Layba.

Well, if tackling immigration gets the votes then one would assume that it's a valid cause for a vast number of the population...?

But immigration won’t be tackled in reality, not with a capitalist model.

You don't understand the mentality of people who will just dump stuff. Most people will book to go to the tip even if it is difficult. Some people unless it is super easy will not. And having to book a time and then go at that time just adds another layer of effort that some people will not make.
You can call it laziness, but it does lead directly to more people dumping.

We'd better start rejoining the EU as soon as possible then.

The Tories took 13 years to bring our country this low so I assume it will take a similar time frame to fix all the things they have broken.

This is how you know the Tories aren't targeting the rational with all the immigration rhetoric.

A rational person would look at how they've "tackled" it up to now.

I’ve lived in the same place for the last 27 years so I’ve got a baseline of what use to be done and what isn’t any longer.

The threshold date for things starting to go seriously downhill was around 2010. This was around the time many councils started to contract out their major services such as Highways etc. It wasn’t immediately apparent but after more than 10 years the signs are everywhere. Ambulance stations closing down, fire stations shutting. In the area where I live, on a Saturday night there is only 1 police patrol car with 2 officers in the immediate 70 mile area. Do you remember when David Cameron talked about his Big Society which had an emphasis on increased volunteering? Nobody knew what he was talking about at the time or why. We do now.

The Tories took 13 years to bring our country this low so I assume it will take a similar time frame to fix all the things they have broken.

It’s not been 13 years!! Posters are right that in started decades ago with prioritising shareholders & profits above all else.

I’ve seen a few comments that suggest this is happening in other countries too, particularly in the west, but I think a lot of these views are driven by the UK’s media. I think this is particularly true for those with Conservative links who want the government to avoid accountability by suggesting these problems are global.

My partner and I are both from different countries and travel a fair amount and notice better public spaces and better governance when we’re outside the UK (ie governments focused on core issues and not just pandering to their base). We’re planning to move. We want to live and raise our children in a place that feels like it functions, not like it is falling apart at the seams.

Where will you move to?

I agree it is not like this in all other countries. I assume people who say this do not travel much.

Yeah the cracks are really showing. Our town centre is disgusting, loads of rubbish, barely any shops left, the sports centre and pool has closed and they want to move our library(into a much smaller space which will be shared with another service) which will mean that there is basically no actual library any more. We have groups of men hanging around in the town centre drinking from morning until night which is intimidating when they are leering and passing comment when you walk past and women openly soliciting. The bus service is run on luck, you can be left for two or three hours without one showing up. Our council is on the brink of going bankrupt.

I moved to this town in 2010 and it was a totally difference place then.

It's NOT happening in other EU countries. I live abroad and travel between home and the UK not infrequently. The decline is apparent each time. Everything just looks so scruffy. This is not the case where I live, nor in other EU countries when I have travelled around on business and for pleasure.

I think that the last 13 years we've seen nothing but a managed austerity for most of us, while the rich have been largely protected. There have been no sensible infrastructure projects or ideas for growth, other than the discredited cut red tape for the rich and hope they invest. Brexit and COVID have made things harder and worse, and we've lost a lot of money to Tory corruption.

That said, I think our problems have been stacking up for a long long while. While the Blair/ Brown years saw growth plus some decent money put into NHS etc., the main driver of the economy were the financial services and the city's very special and dubious status as having access to the European markets without being subject to European legislation and red tape. Not enough was done to revive or create real engines of economy that could prosper when the banking Ponzi scheme went up in flames. There were a few marquee projects - but they were more about creating flashy headlines than creating new sustainable industries.

We as a country have gotn deep problems now that are not easy to solve. Labour and Reeves talk about growth but offer nothing about where that growth will come from. It's natural to look at Brexit and the disintegration of the social contract (and belief in the social contract) and think that if only these could be reversed we'd be on the mend. And I'm all for reversing them. But I think our problems are mich deeper than that - and, without adopting more extreme measures (taxing wealth to fund real investment in our future) I don't see a way forward for us.

Yes, I agree, the "rot" set in decades ago. But at least, these days, a lot more OAPs have the money to go private - not many did back in the 70s and 80s.

Yeah, everywhere is short staffed underfunded, demoralised, undergoing another reorganisation, under the shadow of redundancies...

I went for physio recently.

I got asked some questions off a screen and was given an exercise sheet and was advised to buy some equipment on Amazon to help.

No real examination or demonstration or massage or anything.

That could've been an email.

When I had physio a few years ago it was brilliant.

And what's the betting the poor NHS is paying a fortune for this new shit version.

I wish I’d moved to Oz or NZ whilst I was young enough to be accepted. I spent a couple of months in some lovely parts of Oz and have family in NZ. I regret not giving it a try now.

Even the music these days is shit

NHS waiting lists you say?

I am overseas now and distraught at the thought I have to return to the UK in a few days. Family keeps me in the UK but otherwise I would be gone in an instant.

That's what my husband says.

The NHS was not terrible years ago. People say that as a deflection.