Fed up with the current state we are in

[SanctusInDistress]

Am I right to be upset over the current state of things and that the future looks bleak?

nhs- don’t get me started

jobs - where on earth are jobs? Barely anything there and when there are they are looking for somebody who has done that exact job in an equal organisation.

bills - spiralling

food - at this rate we will be either back to the middle ages foraging for postage, or eating cheap nasty ultra processed stuff all of the time.

working conditions - there are two camps; the quiet quitters with chúpatz to get away with it, and the workhorses being worked to death.

brexit - I’ve yet to hear of a tangible benefit (apart from blue passports).

politics - everybody has run out of ideas. They don’t know what else to come up with.

poverty in work - spiralling

house prices (in SE where I live) - where are people finding the money to pay these prices?????

going out - impossible. Theatre tickets, cinema, meals out. It’s just become too expensive except for rare rare treats.

everything is at a standstill, waiting for this election so that something can happen again (or not) to jolt the economy for ordinary folks like us back into action.

am I just being unreasonable with being fed up?

People don't want a champagne lifestyle, they just want to do decent jobs like being a teacher or nurse without having to move out to shitty bleak suburbs to afford a house, or use food banks to be able to eat.

The conservatives have decreased the deficit by 80% but you left wing nutters keep on bleating about services.

Yes, a curse on us left wing nutters bleating on when we can't find a dentist when we wait 24 hours with our elderly mum in A&E and our DH's have to wait four months for a cancer op. Stop our bleating when our best friends have to use their life savings to pay for a hip replacement operation.

We must stop our bleating when the rivers are full of sewage whilst the Tory government have reduced the Environment Agency's budget by 75%.

School falling down? Pot holes in roads? Council going bust? No housing? Mental health services on their knees? Quit your bleating.

Mental note to reign in bleating and quietly ponder on how it's all worthwhile because the deficit has been decreased. What a win for society.

Even George Osborne says austerity was a crock of shit.

@GoodnightAdeline Spme people are living champagne lifestyle. Others would just be happy to not fret about money.

I didn’t vote in the last GE.

I’m an immigrant. I arrived in the UK 30 years ago. Been working full time since then (and paying taxes, before anybody starts in that. I’ve never claimed benefits). I have settled status.

i own a very small leasehold flat, which I bought about 20 years ago, so even with all my rants, I’m one of the lucky ones who doesn’t pay rent.

I’d struggle to know who to vote; nobody has any ideas.

I forgot to add to my list about tbe sewage; we can’t even let off steam by having a dip in tbe sea unless you test it for poo first. We are so lucky!

I hear you OP.

What I find really depressing is people devoting energy and attention to minutiae that impact them personally and turning a blind eye to the big stuff.

Try to get them to engage with the impact of government cuts to education, health, Council budgets etc and they glaze over.

But close access to that cut through they use for the school run and you can’t shut them up about it.

I sometimes feel a lot of people in the UK have the government they deserve - they might not have voted for them but did they actively engage, try to be informed, think about how they could use their vote etc? No they were too busy posting on FB bout something inane.

Just leave this here. Someone hasn't any time for your whinging.

Yes things are shit but where is your resilience? Knuckle down and get in with it. There’s so much of this we can’t on our own change so channel your thinking and make sure that you are your family are ok. Do all of those things in your list impact you on a day to day? Honestly focus on you and the things that you can get joy out if otherwise you’re going to lead a very miserable life.

My resilience has gone. I'm in agonising pain. Daily. On strong painkillers. Working full time. Waiting and waiting and waiting for the NHS to help me.

I used to be resilient. Now I am just broken

People have very short memories but we didn’t have a pot to piss in when Labour got the boot.

They do, don’t they? We had a whole row of cubicles by comparison and functional public services.

What has it got to do with 'resilience' to be angry and despairing about rubbish health services, shit in rivers, soaring costs and plunging quality in everything while shareholders at big companies make massive profits, education being for those who can afford it…
And yes, many of these things do affect many of us on a day-to-day basis. Obviously.

YANBU. What a shit show. I was days away from being 18 at the last GE, it was so frustrating seeing an outcome I wouldn’t have chosen. Not that one vote would have made a difference on its own. I think everyone should be allowed to vote after 16 providing they pass a basic competency test to show they understand what they are voting for. Surely nobody in their right mind would vote for another four years of this.

We need a change of government urgently. The country was doing so much better before the past 13 years.
I may not agree with every single thing labour currently say but they are the only party who are big enough to beat the tories so much as I wish they were stronger on womens rights in respect of trans activism I won’t cut my nose of to spite my face by being a single issue voter.

Sorry can you link to a source for your claim that the Tories have reduced the deficit? I was just reading that national debt is highest it has been since the 1960s.

Budget statistics

I’m in the Labour Party. I don’t love Keir and wish he would be tougher on certain issues. I feel like he’s played too safe a game BUT you’d be insane not to vote for Labour in the next GE (unless you’re an aristocrat or oligarch I suppose). I moved to Manchester 20 years ago (from another country in the UK) and it’s gone so downhill in that time, it’s unreal. We have to vote Labour to bid rid of the Tories. Saying that, I do hope that if Labour win, then KS will be much tougher on certain issues (women’s spaces, problems caused by privatisation, Gaza, housing etc) than he has been so far.

I think everyone should be allowed to vote after 16 providing they pass a basic competency test to show they understand what they are voting for.

We have a competency test now. If you can't get a phot ID together, you can't vote.

Personally, the more the UK relies on people paying taxes who can't vote, the less comfortable I feel about it. We are creating a massive underclass who will be required to pay taxes and follow whatever laws the government dreams up without having a say in it.

If the path to citizenship was cheap, it wouldn't be such an issue.

It's unbelievably sad. I caught Andrew Marr on LBC last night who was saying he can't see any way in which things will get better given the massive hole in the public finances and that only the rich will be able to buy their way out of it. It is really making me feel down on a day to day basis.

YANBU. There are a lot of people in this situation but equally a lot seem to be doing very well, earning well etc.
Personally I feel despondent although I have just had excellent NHS care, have been on three 2 week cancer pathways in the past few years and investigated quickly each time. I am mid fifties, worked for almost 40 years and am knackered. i want to save for retirement but is seems impossible whilst trying to support two kids through Uni at the same time. I am in a low paid stressful job with loads of difficult clients who are infuriated with the frustrating benefits system, can't access social care, housing, everyone is angry and frustrated which I get but I just want to retire or move to an easier job but they just aren't there. Likewise both my student kids have been trying to get jobs at Uni so that we don't have to help them to the tune of hundreds of pounds a month but employers do not want to know when they are only in the Uni town for half the year.
I have no faith in either major party to address the main issues - health, immigration, poverty, housing.
Mental health issues are spiralling ( not surprisingly ) and everyone seems to have some kind of issues, can't cope, had adhd etc. you can't rely on colleagues to be at work, always off sick etc when already operating a skeleton service. As you say op the ones doing the work are being worked to death and the other half have all but given up.

I agree with you on everything except food. If you think food is expensive then you just don't know how to cook. Honestly food is SO cheap in this country. There is ALWAYS a deal on something. Have you visited a farmers market for fruit and veg. I have family who visit here from my home country and the one thing they can't get over is how cheap food is here, I agree with that.

Everything else, I agree with you. We are in the top 5% earners and we find everything expensive too. And before people harp on about how they cannot understand it, where or how do they think the more expensive areas are filled up with? Off course people have to live there.

I'm too old to emigrate now, but if I were younger I think I'd be looking. Brexit has screwed us over for a generation. I'd like to see Farage, Johnson, Gove et al tried for Treason.

if this is a reference to the Treasury joke 'we've spent all the money' it's been going for 50 years at least, every outgoing government. We also DID have Surestart Nurseries, Libraries and a functioning NHS.

Can only agree

My early adulthood was during the Labour years, my childhood in the Thatcher years. My experience was that life was better under labour. Thatcher did some good things but largely was bad for the vast majority of people. Labour then did lots of great things but some really rubbish things. Since the Coalition and Conservative governments things have deteriorated to the bleak 70s and 80s. Some are doing exceptionally well but masses are struggling. The system is stacked heavily towards those with wealth.

They haven’t.

We'd all be far better off if the nation hadn't closed for covid. The death rate would have been very similar. Every time I ventured that on MNet and suggested the cost of Furlough would bankrupt us and the result would be closed restaurants, and other service providers, fewer jobs, higher interest rates, etc., I was shouted down with utter vitriol.

How did all those on this thread think it would be paid for without consequences?

We shut down for the NHS, the NHS did not open up again for us.