To be beginning to think there is some sort of bot presence here starting threads doing down the UK?

[MrsBixbysMinkCoat]

I am so fed up with it. Nearly every day there is a thread about how awful the UK is. Today it's about how filthy we are compared to other places. A couple of days ago it was about how shyte it is here. Moaning about the NHS, weather, transport, about how Ukrainian refugees feel sorry for us, about bloody everything.

There are lots of things I dislike about Britain in 2024. However, this is still a beautiful country where the vast majority of people live peacefully. The very worst thing about this country is that we don't realise how bloody lucky we are. It's not too hot like Southern Europe (sunning yourself on a beach in 38 degrees might be lovely; working in a kitchen every day much less so), not too cold like Russia or part of Canada. We don't get hurricanes like the Southern US has just dealt with. We don't get floods on the scale of Bangladesh. We don't get earthquakes like Japan or Haiti. We don't have volcanoes like Iceland or Italy. We don't have poisonous snakes and spiders like Australia or India. We don't have wild animals stopping us roaming freely like Africa. We don't have drug cartels running things on a huge scale like parts of South America. Neither do we live under despotic rule like North Korea. We don't live in daily fear or famine like the horn of Africa or of war like the Middle East. Our women are reasonably free and not forced to live diminished lives like in Afghanistan.

We live in a generally benign Western democracy and yes times have been hard and yes some of that has been self inflicted - eg via Brexit - and yes we have struggled with leadership too removed from working class priorities. Yes there are knife crime issues and gangs in some of our cities and towns and I wish there weren't. But on balance in a global scale this is fucking paradise compared to many people's lives.

Please can we have a thread bigging up the UK instead of this constant, neverending, tone deaf whingeing, that really is one of the worst things about the British (and possibly, the English most specifically).

I am so glad that you have posted this @MrsBixbysMinkCoat I am 100% sick and tired of this too. I have to bite my tongue and not post on these Anti-British threads - as it will come out as a massive tirade. I genuinely find it so insulting and sickening when people bash the UK, and it's almost always people who were born here, and have a bloody good life here, and have benefitted massively from being part of this amazing country.

As you say - and you have articulated it and written it brilliantly - the UK, is hands down, one of the best places in the world to live. You get soooo many posters on here (and on Twitter sometimes too) berating and bashing the UK and moaning about what a 'shithole' it is, and how they hate it. And I just think 'well leave then! Go and live in Afghanistan or Dubai, see how that works out for ya! Or even America! See how much better your life is there!'

Upshot is, if you HATE this wonderful country so much, then pack your bags and leave. Go on, I'll help you!

It's almost always the same type of person too! The liberal left who bash any Government that's in power, who hate the Royal Family, and who call anyone who voted for Brexit, a 'thick racist.'

I know there are mixed opinions about Brexit, and quite honestly, even though I was never anti-Brexit, I half wish it had never happened some days! It doesn't help that as soon as we left the EU, the Covid pandemic occurred, so it gave us a distorted and inaccurate result of the result of Brexit. No-one will ever know the true effect of Brexit because the Covid pandemic skewed the results.

Anyway OP, 84% of people agree with you! (At this point in time.) So don't feel too blue. A few are bound to challenge your views. But as you can see, many MANY posters agree with you!

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It's mostly a few posters, not the majority. Why not just ignore them and carry on with the discussion that was going on? Lots of people have contributed things of value to this interesting discussion.

@PrincessAnne4Eva
It's the "Aha! Found a flaw! She's just thick" tone to the "Ignorant." "read some geography" posters. I can not abide the superciliousness.

Your not unreasonable its funny how many people "hate" this country but are happy to live here and use the benefits we provide.

@MrsBixbysMinkCoat I understand. It's very frustrating. Sometimes when people quote me and start having a go (or even misread my posts and pick apart something I didn't even say) I feel like I have to defend myself, but I try to just scroll past them without even reading once I clock their usernames.

We’d be off like a shot and living in one of the many lovely European countries we could have moved to pre Brexit. Our kids would probably be accessing free uni education in Europe too but that was taken away thanks to Brexit so we’re all trapped here. Yet another reason to hate the UK.

Which lovely EU country do you want to live in? Can your kids speak the language to get into the free higher education?

Where would you go and what jobs would you have?

Why didn’t you go earlier?

There are plenty of English speaking uni course across Europe. Thanks to Brexit they’d be classed as foreign students now so it’s out of the question.

Wasn’t the right time. Loads of places we could have gone. IT

I haven't seen them, although I hide threads that are irritating. The less interaction people have with them the better. Don't want to encourage them!

Totally agree OP. I don't know if it's bots, but I do wonder sometimes if people are living in a completely different UK than me! I do live in a lovely part of the country tbf so for a while I thought I was just not seeing the bad bits until someone mentioned a town I know really well and described it as filthy and run down. It's not! It's always really busy and regularly cleaned. Nor do I ever see much rubbish or graffiti anywhere, and we holiday in the UK a lot. Ymmv

I am sure they will have a brilliant time at the UK university they are now enrolled in. Maybe you can look into a visa to emigrate. No point staying here if you are depressed.

Judging by the sky outside my window I dont think we bitch enough 😊

Neither should the council! How about we start training our kids really early on in their life that throwing rubbish on the ground is a disgusting anti social thing to do so that when they grow up they don't throw litter. There's a thing.

Yeah exactly. Funny how that poster conveniently makes the excuse that Brexit is stopping them from leaving the UK now. 🙄 Had plenty of years to go, but conveniently never managed to/never got round to it, and now HORROR OF HORRORS they are stuck living in the HIDEOUS UK!

Do me a favour @L1lyflower ! If it had been that bad in the UK, you'd have upped sticks YEARS ago. And even now you could make it work if you really wanted to leave. A neighbour of mine - and her husband - sold up and moved to Spain in 2022. (When they hit 60 and both retired.) Another family I know - 2 adults, and 2 school age children left to live in France last summer (2023.)

Using Brexit is a lame excuse. You could go if you wanted to. You won't go though. You know when you're well off. It's just insulting and pretty disrespectful that you won't admit it.

What makes me LOL is that the UK bashers seem to assume that ANY other country will be better than the UK, and also that their 'favourite country/countries of choice' will want them. And they will be warmly welcomed by all the natives, and have a wonderful life in a country that is SOOOOOOOO much better than the 'shithole' that is the UK!!!

All the LOLz! Naïve much?!!

!

@SleepToad
Personally I am reconsidering my position on the house of lords having been for many years an advocate, the fact that someone who writes musicals about cats gets to decide the future of the country seems wrong!

If you mean Andrew Lloyd-Webber, he has retired from the House of Lords.

I've lived in two other European countries apart from the UK. Everywhere has its pros and cons. I do think that the advent of online shopping and out of town shopping centres has decimated UK high streets but I think other European countries are not far behind.

Our nearest local town in Portugal used to have one biggish supermarket and lots of local shops. It now has Lidl, Aldi and two more big supermarkets. Last time we went back to visit the small local vegetable shops, butchers and bakers were much fewer in number. Property prices have also risen hugely and the locals struggle to get rentals. Salaries, especially in the service industries are low and because it is a popular tourist area there are many second homes and Air Bnbs.

I think that if you have money you obviously don't feel the changes as much and at least they have sunshine but if you can't afford to pay your rent then that isn't much of a consolation.

I think the problem is that life is just so more expensive now and if you haven't lived anywhere other than the UK there is a tendency to think that this is just a UK issue. It isn't.

If it wasn't the right time then, it never would be. It's one of those "wishful thinking" things, like the fact that I'll never move to Australia. It's much better in thought than in practice, otherwise I'd have already done it. It's much easier to regret something you never tried. One of the reasons people don't do these things is so they can wallow in their amazing alternate life occasionally, when real life gets too mundane. Or maybe that's just me 🤦‍♀️

Gosh some posters were so thrilled to have a chance to lecture you about mentioning Africa OP. Well done for putting them back in their box! I think in some ways it's illustrative of the tone of a lot of MN posts and threads, there's a lot I enjoy on here but I have to take a break sometimes from the relentless sniping and negativity.

I'm worried about lots of things not being or working as they should in this country, but I still think we're incredibly lucky to live here and I agree there is something almost artificial about some of the threads that get started, especially the politics ones.

Britain is a great place to live for many reasons. I love living in London. However, there’s no escaping that there has been a fast decline in many areas over the last decade.

People like me who were born in England and grew up here will notice the difference and have a right to not be happy to see the decline in living standards and expect better.

Someone like OP who grew up in what sounds like an awful place, is comparing that with here and quite reasonably believes the UK is fantastic in comparison. It’s similar in a way the Kemi Badenoch who claims that mothers gave too many rights here etc. She’s comparing the UK to places she’s grown up in which had far worse standards.

Of course if you come from a place where the police will stop families at gunpoint and steal their shopping, roads full of potholes and not being able to get the police to attend a crime, or see a GP for weeks is completely fine.

However, many of us are used to better and are concerned that if we can fall so far in a decade, what will things look like in other decade? I for one do not want to be saying well at least it’s not as bad as in X country in East Africa. I’m aiming higher for me and my kids.

My local town centre is like thst too ,I think the days of people going into their local town centres to shop are long gone ,having said that in the very nice middle class village thst my parents live in there Haa been an influx ,of nice independent cafe,s and bistro,s which do very well.

She’s comparing the UK to places she’s grown up in which had far worse standards.

How do you know this is her motivation?

The place I grew up in was a beautiful place full of wonder, not a terrible place. But it had very significant downsides in relation to a core feeling of safety.

I guess I am reminded of the Dr Suess book "Did I ever tell you how lucky you are?". We are so lucky to live here - even now when things are hard. This country isn't beyond hope. We need to recognise how immensely privileged on a global scale we are to live here, and work towards helping it get better instead of just pointing out all the problems and feeling miserable.

I completely agree. It’s very obvious. It’s either bad actors, tinpot political propagandists, or the gutter press like the Standard, DM, Daily express etc. probably all of the above. My job is analytically- based with a heavy degree of tech, and it’s clear as clear can be. I’m also not at all confident that suspect threads are being taken down. No serious information manipulator or propagandist is going to sign up with a fresh account and use a clear unobscured IP address! So many will appear to ‘check out’ but aren’t who they seem.