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!

The feckless and work shy, who breed like rabbits

No one breeds like rabbits! 🙄

@mathanxiety I know a disproportionate amount of poor black people have lost their homes due to property tax. Not repossessed, but had to sell. These were people in very cheap homes who struggle to pay rent. As someone poor I am not a fan. I would have to sell and rent when I retired if this came in here. And renting is such a shit show in my City that it would terrify me.

Isn't it just?

It's an inevitable consequence though, of a public electing deeply unserious people, who are largely wholly unsuited to the task of governing a nation, in part because they are not qualified, but also because they have no genuine interest in governance, and are merely there to enrich themselves without a care for how that appears.

Look at the complete contempt shown by this Government for parliamentary procedure, the fact they continually make large policy announcements at public appearances instead of in the house. Their Foreign Secretary can not be scrutinised by his peers. They routinely fail to provide official documentation that the law requires them to when they are legislating, senior ministers are routinely in breach of parliamentary code, the most senior members have been proven to have lied, on the record, repeatedly, yet face no consequences, they will appoint people that they know are sexually inappropriate to government office and still refuse to do anything when that is exposed, both the previous, and current PM have both been fined by the Police while in office for completely disregarding laws that they themselves enacted, and this is before we even get to the endemic corruption, cronyism, and malfeasance in office with regards to appropriate use of public funds.

They are utterly contemptuous of not just the law and parliamentary procedure, but the people they are actually supposed to be answerable to, i.e. the electorate. And yet still there are people who are adamant they will vote for them, again.

I can only conclude that those saying they will vote Tory somehow enjoy being in an abusive relationship with their own government, and get a kick out of being taken for absolute fools, again.

Sadiq Khan is Prime Minister now?! Wow.. when did that happen. I could've sworn we'd had 13 years of Tory governments.

Your first sentence is true up to a point - they don't urge people to die prematurely, they just do it without permission from what I've seen, that is to day in Surrey. They don't ask for permission beforehand, they beg for forgiveness afterwards as the saying goes - but of course the second is irrelevant as there is no accountability at all, the system is rigged.

Epsom General Hospital is awful - the paramedics are fine, so is A&E up to point but in the Acute Medical Unit in April this year they appeared to be trying to kill off Dad; his stats were fine so why wasn't he being discharged? All fun and games, we said we wanted to leave, got the consulttant's okay, suddenly the matron appears out of nowhere with a bag of tricks, including surrounding us with her mates, one of them filming us on their smart phone to provoke a confrontation. We produced our LPA in Health and Welfare, they pored over it with a fine tooth comb nastily to see if there was a loophole to exploit. Scum of the earth, I doubt motivated by kindness to Dad. But then he was 94 so who cares?

We got him home by taxi, he got to see the Coronation and the summer.

Sadly, he took a turn for the worse in October and it had to be hospital again - we opted for another ward at Epsom general - Mary Seacole. Seemed okay but in retrospect they tried a different approach, tea and sympathy which worked a treat. He was dead in three days. I suspect the 'you must prepare yourself for the worst' talk they did on us was actually the legally required talk a hospital must do to put a patient on end-of-life pathway care, only dressed up to mislead. We couldn't have done a worse job than them, but a) we were at cross purposes of course and b) Never underestimate the effect of long-term fatigue on a carer. Whichever option you choose may be bad, some are worse than others.

My point is, it is not an 'argument'. They go ahead and do it anyway. At A&E we did not want Dad DNR - they cheerfully went ahead and overruled our wishes.

So the US. Politics is quite divisive there, the next presidential election will be interesting. But if you’re in favour of lower inequality the U.K. is lower than the US

I think that most of this govt think that people who use public transport are losers and we should all be driving around in our Tesla's.
I'm not so sure about people getting inheritances from Boomers either. If people are living longer a lot of their capital will be funding their care.

Most people don't need much care. Its a few conditions that are expensive for care such as dementia.
Most people carry on in declining health and only need more than cleaners and similar in the last year to 18 months of their life. And in most cases that can be met by home carers.

Your are right booking is not difficult but where the system fails in when people don't know when they will have a couple of hours to do a tip run. People have to work short notice, or are ill or just can't be arsed tidying the garage until they find the energy to do it. Not everything can be pre-planned with military precision.

One thing that does make me crazy is that everyone on the planet has a phone now, yet it's impossible to actually speak to a human being connected to a company any more. Those awful menus that don't relate to anything you actually want. Or you get a automated chat bot. It's infu5.

@mantyzer thank you for providing me with a new perspective xx

Chat bots are just rubbish

Litter on the streets is not a cut back issue. Its a people issue.

Just like shop assistants being rude. Shops look like a jumble sale whilst the staff stand around. I went to crew clothing today. Mardy unhelpful stafff, no customers and clothes all over the floor.

There has been a total fall in standards that is not just economy related.

Every time I'm on an English train I ponder the irony of foreign governments using the profits they make from ownership of English train companies to make their own publicly owned rail system better and cheaper.

I don't think they care.

Their voters have watched them run our country into the ground and kept coming back for more.

So why should they change?

@beguilingeyes Oh God yes. No longer being able to speak to, or even be served by a human being drives me insane!

Pity is not a helpful emotional.

There's something almost masochistic about how some people talk about living in the UK.

I saw a tweet that said if you wanted to see the Elgin Marbles, from many places in the U.K. it would be cheaper to fly to Greece than take the train to London.

1966 was the best year, passed my driving test, bought a car. Had a decent job.
Could go anywhere.
Now roads in bad state, traffic lights everywhere, Stupid Low Traffic Neighbourhoods.
Councils and Banks wanted to help, wanted to make life easier for us all.
Not the same now. 'Helping' is not on their list. But 'Control' is.
Local Authorities the new leaders of 'can't be arsed' tribe. So Labour and Tories and the others, There is no difference.

@fetchacloth

I will vote for whoever can win in my constituency who isn't a Conservative Party candidate.

Every time I go to another European country, then return home, I'm struck by how far they have come on, and how far the UK has declined in comparison in the last 10 -15 years.
I was in an EU country most recently in August. The prices there were reasonable and everything was clean, even the toilets in the airport. Coming back to the UK, everything was grubby, everything was overpriced, the airport was overcrowded, the toilets stank of piss. The traffic and the state of the roads driving home was horrendous.
Public services are disintegrating. The UK is degenerating into a kleptocracy.

There's a bit of a difference here:

My view is that it started to go to shit when the Tory/LibDem coalition introduced the strict austerity measures back in 2008. Public funding was cut everywhere and we've never recovered.

Which country was it?

Wrong year it was 2010 when austerity started.