To feel so sad about what happened to our town?

[AbstractThought]

I wasn't born here, DH was, and I have seen it discussed on MN in the past. I am aware that many towns across the UK are in a similar situation, so this probably isn't anything special, but since most people talk about shop closures I wanted to look at it from a different angle.

In the past decade we have a ton more issues in the town than previously, often relating to homelessness and addiction, and the town centre, what's left of it, has become completely over run by these problems with groups of people fighting and street drinking. A lot of these people are in extreme difficulty, whether mental health related and/or drug issues. Crime shot through the roof, and even about 8 streets away from this it spills outwards to us in what was once a fairly quiet place to live.
We now have a constant stream of siren noise, day and night, helicopters are daily and whilst we personally haven't felt in any actual danger there is a horrible sense of decay and hopelessness. Just nipping to the closest supermarket is depressing, there are a lot of neglected animals and people having meltdowns in the streets.

It is how it changed so quickly though. I can't get my head around where it all started or why. I am aware of the contribution of politics, covid, all of that stuff, but it seems so incredibly extreme. The siren noise is the worst, it is piercing and never seems to end. This also seemed to explode around the same time as the area went downhill. Probably a mix of police and emergency vehicles. It is difficult to work or relax at home and if you are a light sleeper it can have an impact there too.

What I am wondering is if this is commonplace now, in what was once a thriving town? It is the sheer amount of troubled people which seems to have escalated the most, and I can't get my head around how this has evolved, in such a short space of time. It is like they weren't here, then suddenly appeared, it is difficult to describe it. Obviously the council can't do a great deal to help and I have no idea what the answer is. The most upsetting thing is that a lot of these people are so messed up that they can barely talk in a way that is decipherable. This includes children, and there is a growing amount of people who have barely any teeth. This is a fucking severe problem and I have no idea what will help it. We have mucked in with a few local charities but it barely scratches the surface in my opinion.
We are moving due to work relocation soon, so whilst it may not be 'our' problem after we have gone, this isn't the point. I am just so sorry that it has come to this, in likely even more places than just here. WTF happened??

Noone said everyone who calls themselves Christians are perfect, they are human. But all of the great things about this country- amazing buildings, social reform, ending slavery were fine by Christians. Someone said if people don't believe in God they'll believe in anything. At the moment that includes transgender ism, consumerism/extreme capitalism and even satanism/the occult is growing. People need to read Dominion by Tom Holland to see how everything we value (and are losing) is down to Christianity.

Via technology.
Restricting credit.
Interfering in people's bank accounts - it's already happened.
Removing people's jobs.

There are ways.

Done not fine

Via technology.
Restricting credit.
Interfering in people's bank accounts - it's already happened.
Removing people's jobs.

There are ways.

Passtheajax I hadn’t thought of any of that. I suppose my ideas about revolution are stuck in the ‘huge crowds with flaming torches storming palaces and grand houses’ mode.

@Barbadossunset I suppose my ideas about revolution are stuck in the ‘huge crowds with flaming torches storming palaces and grand houses’ mode.

I think we're enjoying the same daydreams there 😀I polish my pitchfork every week ha ha. But @passtheajax makes a very good comment. This is why a cashless society is something we should fight tooth and nail against. Once we've lost hard cash, 'they' can turn the taps on and off at will. People need to think about the freedoms we willingly give up in the name of progress.

Yes this is a very relevant point and I was thinking about this

A previous poster very deliberately talked about "denying human rights to 5% of the population", which is what I am referring to.

Yes irritates me as well

This is a problem

Also very high taxes on alcohol

Fentanyl which is epidemic in the USA is starting to make its way into the UK. It's hundreds times stronger than heroin.
There's a big problem with drunks and drug users in my town centre too along with naughty teenagers. It's always been a problem here but does seem to be getting worse

That's exactly what Margaret Atwood predicted back in the 80's!

Scary, and quite quick and easy to do as well. They did it overnight in the handmaids tale didn't they 😬

A major incident was declared in North Devon on Friday evening as an extraordinarily strong batch of heroin started to floor people. It was probably laced with fentanyl or nitazenes - there is a real problem with this rapidly developing in the UK. Especially in the West Midlands.

@Chockdavis In defence of (some!) state services, immigration is completely out of control.

I agree completely. But when I pointed out the high numbers of people in the country, another poster said that was a middle class issue and couldn't see the correlation between society beginning to break down at the bottom end and immigration. Another poster helpfully included a link to 'behavioural sink', which absolutely nails it. There are too many of us for the space we're living in and the whole thing is beginning to collapse.

And the Fentanyl is coming from China so I understand. So an already weak society is being weakened further by a hostile power and the Tories have handed it to them it on a plate.

Hanoi is not in India, pet.

Our town had a Tory sell off social housing earmarked for locals to a deprived London borough. They won a bid for it (council here couldn't afford to bid higher) and now there are thousands of people miles away from family, no medical records forwarded and severe MH issues in the area with no extra govt funding. This is the kind of thing happening to keep London for the rich at the expense of the rest of us.

Under funding of the police and social services by the govt is beyond a joke.

Lower taxes don't lead to growth, not growth that makes ordinary peoples lives any better, so what if a few multi nationals make huge profit?

UK had v lower corp tax for many years, didn't lead to any extra growth at all... we still have a low overall tax burden but is it reducing waiting lists? getting our roads repaired? rebuilding NHS dentistry?

Business always wants lower taxes because that means they can make bigger profits & pay themselves huge bonuses.

The USA is often given as an example for what lower taxes can do... yes great, tent cities for the poor, no national health service...

I beg to differ. Those you mention were capitalists enjoying the rewards of the industrial revolution who happened to be Christian by faith and could pretend that it was God's work.

‘It's interesting that Jesus (if he existed as one person) didn't set up his own church. I wonder why that is?’

It might be ‘interesting ‘ but it is also completely incorrect. Jesus appointed large numbers of people as ‘disciples’ and ‘delegates’ whom he told to go out into the country and spread the word of the Gospel. They were given the power to ‘cast out devils’ ‘heal the sick’ and by intercession, forgive sins .

In the case of the twelve Apostles, one is specifically appointed to head the Church, that is, the body of the Faithful.
‘You are Peter, and on this rock ( pun on the Greek meaning of the name) I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it’.

You may not believe in the veracity of this report, although it is very ancient, but it definitely existed from very early times, when there were still living people who had co existed with the ( possibly according to you mythical) Jesus.

BTW I am not a Catholic, just interested in early church history. Sorry for the derailment, but facts matter.

A good start would be to reverse how business rates are cheaper per square metre for a warehouse (i.e. Amazon) than for the High Street (M&S). There are different tiers of charges or multiplier. It's not just based wholly on rentable value. Fair enough in the old days to charge a premium for popular shopping street locations, but it's clear that's no longer suitable. On the basis of floor space, the Amazon warehouse should pay at least the same as M&S or Tesco, in fact probably should pay more. The days of "low quality poor location" warehouses paying lower business rates than prime High Street locations are over due to online shopping. Unfortunately, politicians are too scared to do it as it would annoy the "big firms" like AO, Amazon, and all the others who are internet only or who have moved over to internet. Either increase business rates or replace it with some kind of online sales tax.

Yes those things were written down several hundred tears after the "fact", translated numerous times etc. Just because something has been embedded in history, which is written largely by the Victor's, doesn't make it absolute truth. These things are one of my interests too.

Most pension schemes invest their funds in "large company" stocks and shares, so in effect, the ordinary man in the street DOES benefit from the profits/growth etc of large companies! (Well at least most of those who have private pensions which is an ever increasing number with the recent compulsory workplace pension schemes).

Also as someone who reluctantly left the UK because I could see the rot, there is a brain drain of British citizens and yet a crazy amount of mass immigration. Both of these together are going to have noticeable impacts. Things are really changing quickly now.

Women "not working" is actually a pretty unusual scenario if you look back into history. Women have traditionally worked, but more "locally", and had a much stronger local network of family. Go back to the farms and villages and the women would do a lot of work, i.e. picking crops, dairy work, etc. More recently, they'd typically work in the mills/factories within sight of their 2up-2down terraced housing. Difference was that there was the community of extended family, neighbours, etc., who'd "look after" the young children and elderly relatives when they were working. That's what we've lost.

Nowadays, mothers who work tend to dump their kids at a nursery and then often travel large distances to work, so are remote. Likewise the elderly are put into homes, again, often distant from their friends/family. The kids are also often separated from their neighbours' children etc.

Personally, I think we need a massive drive back to "localism" and rebuild communities. Incentivise people to live closer to their families, work closer to home, etc., and part of that is to reverse the centralisation of the better jobs away from London and a handful of other big cities which for the past few decades have sucked the life out of the regions. The sheer number of students who move away to Uni and then never return to their home town because of lack of jobs/projects is insane!

Mothers shouldn't have to dump their kids at a nursery at 7.30 and then suffer a 60-90 minute commute to a job in the nearest city! That's no use for anyone, neither the child, the parent!

Sorry, Vietnam, a country world-renowned for its democracy, wealth equality, feedoms and women's rights.