To be depressed about how expensive but shyt the UK is

[OptimismvsRealism]

God it's expensive God it's shit

Please regale me with examples of how other places are also shit and it's not just here

I just went to the Cotswolds!

I was underwhelmed. They were villages like anywhere else

We spend less on healthcare than other developed countries and then wonder why our services are poorer. We need to spend more, but most of the public do not appear to accept we need to do this.

Because it's gotten worse, and people are unhappy.

Agree! I'm not on much atm but this must be the third thread on this subject in a week. 🤔

I am under whelmed too. But I have friends from abroad who love the Cotswolds and think it is amazing. I think we just take things for granted that people from abroad value.

I don't see this sentiment anywhere in real life, only on here. It's oddly fascinating.

Well, quite. People talk about Sweden and Denmark but wouldn't want to pay their levels of tax!

The point is, they're not "villages like anywhere else". I've lived in England my whole life and travelled to many parts of it, but the Cotswolds is unique in appearance which is why it was designated an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) in 1966. It's a pity you couldn't see that because many people (British and foreigners alike) can.

Yep! You get what you pay for.

Just had a Dutch friend visiting and she commented on how much cheaper things were here ( and she had lived for a time in this country so knows reasonable comparison points)

I think it's because the UK is getting to a point where a lot of people are unhappy with what's going on

I'm entitled to my opinion. I just did a trip around five cotswolds villages, as I was told that they were a good place to see.

They looked exactly like any other UK villages to me.

I genuinely think it's down to who you "mix" with i.e. your social group. I volunteered for CA for ten years and met a great number of people who were really struggling. It's one of the reasons why I think volunteering for a charity is such a good idea as it brings you into contact with people you might not ordinarily mix with and helps you understand that not everyone has the same life as you. In fact, I'd make it law that any Boomer who calls people on benefits "scoungers" be forced to volunteer for a charity that provides services to vulnerable and less well-off people! 😂

It's shit everywhere OP unless you are wealthy. The UK is just shit in different ways.

We will be leaving in the next 10 years though because we would rather put up with a different countries shit bits whilst enjoying sunshine, an ocean and good food, none of which we have found the UK to have much of.

I think we don't pay enough for travel. Travel (as in foreign) should be a luxury because we are destroying the planet with it. It used to be a rare and special treat, but now people expect to hop on a plane 3 or 4 times a year.

It's not a good thing. We should learn to pay more, do it less often and value it much more.

Because you've been very laconic in your OP I'm not sure what your precise point is - but I actually think we need to get used to paying the proper cost of some of the things we've taken for granted for a long time. That's not to deny that suppliers aren't cynically exploiting the post-Covid situation - I think they are - but that's a different issue.

Do you mix with a privileged circle?

I've seen this sentiment a lot in real life

Exactly! People complain the UK is going down the pan, then complain when a government tries to change things which involve higher costs.

Scandinavia does have its issues, the cost of living is very high (housing, groceries and they have suffered with high inflation too) but as you say, the basic standard of living is SO much higher.

Scandinavia is predominantly a socialist region, which when gets pitched here, people draw similarities to Stalin and communism and kick back... it's a very selfish outlook.

The UK has spent years being divided by soundbites of misinformation, scaremongering and underfunding. If people stopped complaining about it and focussed on the good points, and invested time in themselves to grasp opportunity they'd find themselves in a much better position to make themselves happier and also make informed decisions about how to improve things.

We are still a strong partner with the EU in regards to trade, there is still decent opportunity for decent employment in the UK, we have some stunning parts of the world on our shores, and our access to anywhere else in the world is unprecedented I believe. Also, most countries speak our language ;)

@CoolNavyHelper
Sorry, I can't copy and paste without infringing subscriber rules. And I don't think you pasted a link to the figures you have, so I can't compare the two. But if your library still stocks the FT (mine does, just! but Southwark have prioritised library services) you can read it in yesterday's print edition. Or maybe get a pass to FT.com for a limited number of articles? The bylines are for William Wallis in Winchester, and Clara Murray in London if you wanted to query anything at the FT directly. Here's a quote:

Across all local authorities, spending on adult and child social care has increased from 53 per cent of expenditure in 2009-10 to 66 per cent in 2022-23, according to Demos.

In Hampshire, which is among the top four counties in terms of concentration of wealth, the figures are starker still: funding to the council from Westminster is down 46 per cent since 2011. The cost of providing adult and child social care has soared from £381mn in 2010-11, or 53 per cent of the budget, to £809mn this year, or 83 per cent. Hence the painful cuts.

“None of us want to be making these decisions. We find ourselves here because of the way local government finance is structured. I hope this government might change that,” said Adams-King.

You wouldn’t have to be self centred at all. If you need a knee op or are waiting to be seen in A&E yeah it could take ages. When the shit hits the fan and you need urgent care, the NHS is usually very good.

What's wrong with Britain? "I'm all right Jack"; general "fuck you" attitude; don't do what's right, do what you can get away with; lack of respect; entitlement; arrogance.

Dunno, maybe its the same in other countries, but its just not pleasant out there any more, is it?

Absolutely. There's a huge estate being built on the edge of a town not too far from me. When planning permission was originally granted it was on the basis that 14% of the properties would be "affordable housing". Hardly a high target in itself, but the developer has now negotiated that down with the local authority to just 6% on the basis they'll pay a large contribution to the supporting infrastructure work required instead. 🙄

Yes a lot of rich people that I've met through places like work, live in a bubble, as they tend to only socialise with each other

They seem to think that everyone lives like them.

They don't even seem to see that a lot of people live in desperate poverty in the UK.

I remember one of my male colleagues asked another colleague "where did she "summer' when she was a child".

After further chat, it turned out that he thought that everyone in the UK owned a second holiday home, to go and spend the summer in!

Yes. But most of us can't move to Scandinavia thanks to Brexit, so that's not a very helpful post. It also always amuses me how many expats feel the need to come onto websites like the Times and MN and smugly talk about how wonderful things are where they are. So why are you posting on a UK website, then?

Also Norway has its sovereign wealth fund so can generally throw money at problems, though even there life isn't completely perfect.

The UK is not that bad, the main issue is access to primary healthcare (and dental care). Sort that out, and make schools concentrate on teaching and learning instead of policing uniform rules and a lot of things would improve very quickly.

I am not sure life in continental Europe is a bed of roses at the moment either.

For example, a lot of people live in desperate poverty in Germany, too. It really surprised me when I saw it on a news website.

They also have rubbish trains and potholes.

Well you can still possibly move to Scandinavia after Brexit.

It'll just take longer, and you would have to get visas sorted.