To feel a bit bleak about London

[schoolfeeslave]

To start - I am a born and bred Londoner. My parents are from another European country and I have an EU passport. My DH is as British as can be.

I have always loved London, it is my home and I feel grateful to have been born here. It can be a bit transitory - only 2 from an NCT group of 7 still live here, for example - but I have always just wished them well (and secretly felt bad for them that they were leaving 🤭).

However, over the past year or so, many friends and family have left - quite a few because of the pay in other countries (Middle East/ US) is just so much higher than here. Others because they can't afford a home here.

Today, another good friend announced that they have given notice at school and they leave at Easter - back to the country I "come from"- purely because they just see no future in the UK. Our kids are in yr6, it makes no sense to go then but they are because they are just utterly fed up with the country. My home country is not as wealthy as the UK but they don't care - they feel poor here with no quality of life. They have no jobs lined up to go to.

Two other children are leaving school to move out of the UK/ London at the end of term tomorrow. Again, a weird point considering they won't get to do all the yr6 leaving events.

This is not the norm and I don't think VAT on school fees is completely to blame.

My DH wants to change jobs but the market its awful, he has been looking for months but after rounds of interviews he has just been told the job he went for is going to move to New York following the Labour budget. We both feel stuck in our jobs and doubt there will be pay rises this year.

The future just feels a bit bleak.

Is this just my pocket of London or is this more widespread?

Britain is definitely pretty rubbish at the moment and I strongly suspect it’s going to get worse before it gets better, but if you’ve only got a British passport and you don’t have lots of cash, it seems a bit pointless to dwell on it, so I wonder whether it seems more apparent to you because you’ve got options and close knowledge of another country, as well as lots of friends who sound like they’re in a similar situation, options wise, so you’re able to make more of a comparison and see the close up positives of living outside of the UK.

However crap it gets, I still think it might be a bit short sighted to think that any other country is going to be a better bet, long term. I think most places are going to have their share of problems over the next decade. And nowhere on earth is quite like London!

Yes, I think you are right - we have options and in some part I think other people choosing to leave is making me question our decision to stay?

I think I am a bit shocked at my friend deciding to go home, I just didn't expect it. Although her parents still live there (I have aunts/uncles/ cousins but we aren't that close) so maybe it is an easier choice for her.