This country as gone into terminal decline

[Carmes]

I have 2 young children in school.

I am becoming more and more anxious about what sort of jobs / careers they will have open to them.

I work for very large company with 10,000s of employees.

20 years ago whe I started work here there would be 100s of entry level jobs at any given time. These are jobs that don't require experience or a degree, ideal for a school leaver, and I know dozens of people who started their career this way.

Now there are maybe 10 jobs that would fit the same criteria.so. All the jobs have been offshored.
Now are the vacancies are for very specific technical skill set or experience.

This doesn't bode well for someone who has left school at 18'or even university.

Give Labour a chance, they’ve got 14 years’ worth of Tory destruction to fix. And we all know it’s far more difficult and expensive to rebuild something than to destroy it. For all Reform’s big promises, their policies would further damage the economy and would be catastrophic for the NHS and care sectors.

We would lose the NHS, I understand that Farage is very keen on a US style of health care. I think Reform and what remains of the Tory party will merge and win the next election, enjoy...

😂They had a chance- is not Brexit done? Are we just going to ignore all the lies they told and the damage that Brexit (their only policy) has done to the country?

I think there is a rather a lot to lose given the biggest amount of damage they have caused this country since the Second World War.

They gave no ideas or policies and the one they did have is hugely damaging. We need Europe.

What if that job doesn't pay you enough to have a secure place to live?

Wow, you think that anyone over 60 shouldn't be given life saving treatment. So if someone gets cancer they should just be left, same with someone having a heart attack or stroke? How callous you sound.

I agree with the OP. We are in terminal decline. And sleepwalking into it.

We think it’s normal to wait weeks to see a GP, and then to be fobbed off. There should be no wait and then no wait to see a specialist.

We send our kids to school and think that they are being educated. If you want that done properly, you have to do lots of it yourself. Even at a private school. Our educational levels are an embarrassment. Kids are achieving more in outdoor classrooms in the 3rd world.

Look around our towns - so uncared for - lack of maintenance, lack of cleaning, lack of investment.

Look how we keep our old people. Like miserable prisoners in their own homes - their kids have had to move for work and when they need help, it’s so hard to access/make it work.

Work also isn’t rewarded. In many cases, people are better off on benefits.

I worry for my kids. I have one at uni and worry about how the hell he’s going to get a job in this climate. I have one about to learn to drive. Hideously difficult to get a test.

People keep trotting to the doctors though, I have been once in 20 years and also for those 'compulsory' jabs in Covid, I'm mid 60s and certainly don't want my life prolonging

I would if their policies pointed to better times ahead…but they don’t. They point to more of the same. They don’t know how to do anything but tax. They don’t understand growth. They lean towards socialism far too naturally.
I’ve no choice but to give them a chance, but I’m not at all hopeful. In fact, I think things are going to get a lot worse over the next year or two.

I agree with you.
It is now the case that many people who work full-time do not earn enough money to live and have to claim benefits. This has blurred the boundaries between those who work and those who don't work and is part of the reason that benefits have become the norm.

Well, yes, the country has gone into terminal decline. I can't imagine it changing either within the next few decades (if at all).

In terms of employment, many jobs that were once something to aspire to (teacher, doctor, hospital, police) are now all crap with employees being stressed, overworked and just wanting to leave/retire.

Education has been grossly devalued to the point of much of it being meaningless. No-one in higher education is allowed to fail anymore and this has been going on for quite some time. When I did my degree, you had to be able to read and write to a high standard. About 5% of students got a first class degree. Now it's about 30% and you barely need to understand English to pass (cheating is rife).

On top of all that, a thousand other crappy issues with this country.

Absolutely correct. Totally disagree with the idea of just letting people die as if they have no use. Where does this end- lots of people can become economically inactive due to icancer, mnd etc whilst young- we just going to let them die. Start looking towards the people that have too much wealth and work out a way to share some of this out. I work hard in a manual job and have for the last 40 years - a job I enjoy but it low paid. The gap between rich and poor in this country and the world over is where the problem lies

yes it's beautiful to have babies but I disagree with you (if that's ok), WE as a system (right now) cannot afford unemployed 23 year olds girls with 3 kids from different deadbeat dads. Our NHS is going down the drain, we don't have enough police officers and my road is full of pot holes, can we instead encourage the use of condoms or make the deadbeat dads pay for their kids? How about we enlarge our workforce by bringing immigrants and having them pay taxes and contribute into the system instead of encouraging poor women into breeding babies they can't afford?

just saying.

No way on earth Tories and reform will win. The grey vote loves the NHS and so many are livid with the Tories.

We’ve got quite a while under labour, I suspect they will be very popular when the NHS,services, the environment etc get back on their feet and we have better deals and a better working relationship relationship with Europe alongside less debt.

Labour will never be as bad as the Tories and Reform are Tories on speed. Nobody wants that.

Whats that got to do with drawing a line in the sand for the elderly receiving life-prolonging treatment? Or did you just need some space to get that off your chest?

That’s where tax credits come in - a safety net but only if you’re working. Why should people (who are able to work) stay at home claiming benefits. There are families with generation after generation not working. The system makes it too easy for them. Work can be hard, boring and stressful but it’s what you do.

My DF has had 4 years of good quality life so far since his heart attack age 90. Don't write off over 60s!!

I agree with high streets being dire and the general decline of quality of life in the UK - but I absolutely disagree with this comment about immigration leading to lots of ‘little communities’ - we have lots of friends from all over the world! And enjoy diversity at work aswell. Also I definitely disagree with the LGBTQ+ community and think the UK is exceptional in its inclusivity and diversity as commonplace. Imo it’s well ahead of even most other countries in Europe actually for acceptance of peoples’ diversity!

So what do you plan to die of? What’s an acceptable thing for you as an individual to die from?

Because you are going to die. Alzheimer’s I hear is particularly cruel. Dementia is not very nice.
The chances of you just falling asleep one night peacefully and warm in your bed of old age I believe are virtually zero.

I don't think the UK is in terminal decline, but I do the UK and many other countries are going to have to make hard choices and shifts in perspectives and expectations to get through the population bulge as demographics switch.

I don't expect to retire until I simply cannot work, and in late 30s, made a career shift to work that I should be able to continue, health willing, for good long while and where it has been the norm for some time and will hopefully continue for people to shift from full time to flexi/part time as they get closer to 60, hopefully extended our ability to work. I don't expect my children to care for me if/when I get to that state, I've already started getting that support in place, though we have had conversations around it & how they see it. They have quite a few conversations about how they can help each other as they get older.

The government really needs to implement a scheme to motivate and support people into work.

The government has and funds schemes for this. I've been part of one designed to support disabled people into new work and supports while in work until 'stability' is reached, usually a few months, but can be over a year. They can be useful, but there are limits that often aren't thought of often, particularly it seems by government departments with these tasks.

I've seen staff members spend nearly 20 minutes trying to help a young woman log into their account on the computer to do job searches, she really struggled with it. Many entry and what are viewed as 'basic' jobs now have grown in complexity that means a growing portion of the population won't be able to access them. As a society, we have to figure out how to handle that and whether schemes into work is really the best place for them. It's a difficult problem that's always been with us, but I think is growing with demographic shifts and jobs getting more complex.

How many of them were full of self pity and “woe is me - I can’t do this and I can’t do that because of mental health?” They just got on with it.

That some of them had jobs didn't mean they were 'just' getting on with it. Many of the ones I've known, including those who had been conscripted, didn't. They self medicated themselves with what they could get their hands on and made their pain everyone else's problem. There is a reason there was so much talk and songs on 'mother's little helpers' to get through parenting, and plenty were using much more to get through work and general life, many expressing self-pity, woe, and someone else should do it attitude, some of them with a fleeting attitude towards employment.

Also, we have pensioners now who won't remember or ever had rations, which ended 70 years ago. WW2 has to stop being the touchstone for everything.

I agree with you.

make the deadbeat dads pay for their kids
I'm with you all the way on that one@penelopelondon!

We have far too much tax getting used for housing benefit funnelled to private landlords, we need far more social housing.

I'm the grey vote and barely use it, doesn't stop the constant pestering to have this jab, that jab, this done, that done, though, it's all free, they keep telling me but it's not, someone has to pay

Also, we have pensioners now who won't remember or ever had rations, which ended 70 years ago. WW2 has to stop being the touchstone for everything.

True dat!

I see we're now onto the slobs, immigrants and benefits scroungers.