To think that this country (UK) is going downhill?

[gem1981]

first please let me explain I think I am quite a normal (!) person and try to have a positve attitude towards life but recently well I am getting tired of constantly trying to find the positive in our country.

I don't know if my perspective has changed since I have become a parent or if things have actually got worse... but over the past couple of years I have noticed a significant shift in people's attitudes towards the country ...

Everyone complains about all sorts, petrol prices, food prices, taxes, council tax etc.

I go to my local high street and shops are closing left right and centre, there is litter everywhere, things look generally grey and most people look miserable.

It seems that no matter where you are in society you have some sort of struggle - paying for childcare, getting your kids into a decent school, even getting an appt with your GP.

I know I am moaning too ... but I just wanted to check with you lot ... do you feel the same or am I falling into a pessimistic hole?

I am not looking for a fight I just want your honest opinions - are you happy living in the UK or do you dream of emmigrating?

Thanks

Sister in law who used to live in the UK over 20 y ago was shocked to see how lots of things had deterioratyed., friends have made comments, dirtier, more beggers on the street (London).
NON-British friends who have lived a few years in the UK and after that in the US, none of them want to come back to the UK (less discrimation etc)

AGree with op, it's rubbish. Live in London though and it's just full up. Everything is expensive, schools are failing, too scared to get ill, you just read about everyone else having a better standard of living. People being randomly murdered. What's going on? (I don't read the daily mail, just those yellow boards that pop up all over the place saying 'fatal incident', 'serious assault' etc)

ajandjjmum - I like snakes more than rain

every place is going downhill.

that's not to say we wouldn't consider emigrating.

Agree with Callisto, We live on a small island that is physically getting smaller-literally falling away into the sea...
What do the government do? they open the doors to other countries by agreeing for them to be a part of the EU. That means for us Brits, that more places are taken up in every part of life here in the UK; schools, healthcare, jobs, housing...benefits that the british have worked for being dished out to those coming into the country, having not put anything in.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but if a British family went to live abroad, wouldn't they have to take out insurances for things like healthcare? but in England, immigrants get it for free full stop! My blood boils over this subject!

This is why I believe this country is fast running downhill. Things need to change here, though I'm not convinced they ever will.
I'd go to OZ or NZ in a heartbeat if I could.

Olive oil, I've lived in Perth and i would say the summers are pretty much unbearable unless you have VERY efficient air con and a swimming pool. given that even a crappy house round here is on the market for $2million, you have to be quite rich to guarrantee that. Spring and autumn are nice but summers.... shudder.

I live in mainland Europe (Belgium) and although I love the UK, I wouldn't choose to move back there now, particularly whilst raising a family ...

The UK is much more racially tolerant than Belgium where there are some very nasty far-right nationalist groups gaining popularity (in Flanders anyway) but I don't think you can accurately judge your own country's tolerance towards foreigners unless you experience it as a foreigner yourself. For eg when I visit my family in the wilds of Suffolk driving a foreign registered car, I usually experience two or three incidents per visit of youths leaning out of car windows shouting "f* off back to where you came from" while cutting me up and trying to run me in to the ditch (with child in car seat). Charming!

I find the health and education service here far superior to the UK (although the latter is very conformist and not terribly creative) and of course you have to pay very high taxes to fund them. Ditto transport and social services (rubbish collected twice a week for example). The food here is fantastic. On the other hand, the UK is much more creative and dynamic when it comes to business, the bureaucracy here is overwhelming and there's also fairly widespread low-level corruption. The architecture here is pretty dull and uninspiring - town planning virtually non-existent - and there's lots of dog by-product on the street. I think people in the UK are generally more open and friendly (initially anyway) and they are more respectful drivers and queuers!!

So - like anything else - tis swings and roundabouts. But I think the Europeans have their priorities straight when it comes to health, education and transport.

There are many things I love about London-don't know about the reast of the UK-but I think what is destroying it is the class system.
The overcrowding and general disrespect for the country at large is also a problem.

Good Lord Solo!!! Join the BNP, why don't you?

The world has seen immigration globally for CENTURIES! We are ALL immigrants on some level. We leave, people arrive, where we go they have to deal with our crap!
In Spain and France, there are many areas now where the locals can no longer by themselves a home because the stupid Brits have been paying well over the odds for holiday homes. Thus, communities are disappearing, infrastructure is suffering.
If immigrants coming into the UK are the devil's spawn, so are the Brits going in the other direction and pissing it up for others in other countries.

Deal with it! People have always, and will always move about! And I for one think that is a very dynamic and exciting process.

by "buy" !!

er, she has some valid points, no need to be spouting off about BNP tbh

Yeah, sorry.... BNP prob a bit harsh, thought that after I wrote it--- well, I was going for effect(!)

there has been an interesting series on immigration recently on C4, all valid points and an issue that needs discussing imo

not for shouts of oooooh you racist BNP etc

I am moving to Australia and have jumped through hoops for 18 months. We cannot have free housing or benefits for 2 years, we MUST support ourselves. And quite right too imo, you need to ADD to a country, not take away and live off your host imo

there are pros and cons to living in all countries, I have travelled quite a bit and realise that the grass is not always greener

olive, the UK has those same immigation provisions in place re state benefits etc. when i moved here 10 yrs ago and afaik, they are still in place.

I too have lived abroad a lot of my life, and travelled too. So, I feel I do have a sense of perspective looking at the UK versus other countries.

I just get so fed up with Brits going on about bloomin' immigration all the time, and then saying 'oh, I'll move to NZ / OZ / Spain / France....' Oh, 'cos that's better? Why do they think people from Eastern Europe are moving here? They want to make a better life for themselves. Why did the English go over and bugger it up for the Native Americans, to make a better life for themselves. You can't say it made things better for those that 'got there first', far from it, but whatever impact it may have in the short term, positive/negative, it will always happen.

The UK system may be feeling the strain, but who's to say that in 50-75yrs, it won't have all have swung the other way? One enormous recession and the Brits will all be jobless and looking for somewhere to go, and meanwhile, by joining the EU, Poland (as an example) will have prospered and developed, and be giving us all jobs??!! This is all conjecture, but hey, it's not beyond the realms of possibility.

People are just so short-sighted. We are a tiny, tiny piece of a massive puzzle. Of course, there are ways and means of doing things, and perhaps the current government is not exactly winning any prizes, but is that the fault of those seeking a new life in a new country?

Absolutely not once was my OP about immigration it was about how the UK is becoming a cycnical place to be where everyone is back biting trying to get one over on the next person.

At the end of the day it is clear that a large number of people are just not happy with the way our society is going.

How can it be short sighted to want to make our country better?

I am all for people finding themselves a better life elsewhere - but we have to ask ourselves why are people leaving the UK in droves, surely this is not a good sign?

Most non-EU immigrants to the UK have no recourse to benefits for a relatively lengthy designated time depending on their visas - excepting Commonwealth individuals here on ancestry/right of abode, dependents/spouses of EU/EEA nationals or spouses of UK nationals who have been married over a given length of time.

But of course, the rules are different for EU nationals entering the UK.

Just as they are for Brits emigrating to other EU nations.

My Dh's best friend moved to S. Africa a couple of years ago so that his wife could get a "better life" for her kids.
OK they have a big house and a swimming pool and yes there is warm/hot sunshine.
But they also have nasty storms that destroy anything they try to plant in the garden, especially vegetables.
They see poverty all around them, there are shanty towns near any big towns and cities.
You HAVE to keep your doors locked whilst driving, you can't park anywhere without people asking you for money for "looking after" your car.
Lots of women are SAHM unless they have a good job that the "blacks" can't or wont do.
So there is no way you could get a cleaning, childminding or even a shop job as there are not enough jobs to go around, even for the whites and coloured people.
When we visited them in February this year there were loads of powercuts as the country just can't keep up with development.
When we got back to the UK i was so glad we lived HERE and i would not move to S.Africa even if i was paid to!

Expat - Dh had an ancestral visa and there was no recourse to public funds ... he had the right to work in his field and pay taxes and NI for 5 years .... and get untold grief whenever he arrived at Heathrow...

exactly, nagpie, which is why i wrote 'for a relatively lengthy period of time' and then gave some exceptions.

because people like students from non-EU countries can be here for 10 years and have no recourse to public funds v. ancestry visa and work permit holders for 5 years, or non-EU spouses of UK nationals for 2 years, etc.

Ripeberry - I live in the UK because I have the chance to be a SAHM - if I lived in SA I would most probably be forced to work to pay for things such a medical cover, huge insurance costs, security ... and chances of a job would be slim ...

It's all relative, though, and what you consider a better quality of life v. what you are willing to put up with.

Our landlord's daugther - Scottish - and her SA husband are moving back to SA.

For them, it means being able to afford a home at all and better job opportunities for her in her field.