Do you trust the state to protect and provide for you?

[TFloss]

Read a Times article on 12th June - ‘Middle-class vigilantes are turning against the state’. It talks about a growing trend of middle-class Brits taking matters into their own hands due to perceived failures of the state, particularly around police and public services creating a shift toward self-reliance, driven not by ideology but by necessity.

Doing own police work to solve crimes, private healthcare, private education, private security/community networks to prevent crime, more use of private transport, use of private mental health services, private carers, private bin collections.

Is this unreasonable or are you seeing this? Are people feeling like they have no choice but to step in where the state has stepped back?

There has been too many spongers for so long and it has wasted so much public money. People vote for low taxes because they don't trust the government, not the other way round.

No. Anyone who thinks they can trust the NHS or the public education system to look after them in this way is delusional now. You've on your own with that.

But I would draw the line at vigilante policing. There's a world of difference between accepting you will have to pay for your healthcare, pension and possibly also children's education because there isn't enough money to go around to provide an adequate level of public service to everyone and thinking you are above the law and can take justice into your own hands.

The first is sensible self-reliance, the second undermines the rule of law, without which we can't have security or proper democracy.

I have never trusted or expected the state to provide for me and neither have generations of my family.

I have never had an NHS dentist. I have an NHS GP but also use private healthcare and have for many years, because services are better acceptable. When dd was unwell MH about ten years ago?n CAMHS were hopeless in every way . Our children started in State primary and the standards were dismal so we moved them

I have never received a state benefit except child benefit. We missed nursery vouchers in the late 90s. We both have occupational pension schemes and paid our children's university fees and maintenance in full. DH pays for his mother's carers.

Why would one expect the state to provide if one is capable of working?

Vis a vis security we live in a gated road, behind electric gates and are very well alarmed. However, DD had her rucksack stolen on a bus a few months ago. The police were outstanding and identified and arrested the culprit via CCTV.

No, I expect it to carry on taking loads of tax from me as it has for the last 30 years and withhold my pension until after I am dead.

The Times has form for writing this type of rubbish. Healthcare is an issue but there have always been limits to the NHS and we are now asking it to keep unhealthy people alive a lot longer. State education is no worse than it has been in the past. Crime has been much higher in the past, thefts of cars are 13.8% down from 2018. The state has limits and is financially challenged but it was never as comprehensive as we might think

I don't trust the state to provide for me or my family. Waiting for a hospital appointment takes up to a year. Getting a GP appointment is like striking gold. I saved so if it ever needs an important operation I'd rather pay privately than wait for years with pain on an NHS waiting list. Schools are going downhill too. Over crowded classrooms and less resources than ever. It's very sad when I think back to when I was a child. Not only could you ring and get an appointment for the GP but they come to your home to see you too. Maybe I'm just old, but looking back to when I was a child there seemed more support and less shortages of resources.

Don't forget you are not allowed to be unable to work due to health until you are over 22. I wish my foster sons would disappear until he is over 22.

Agree we heading towards a two tier system where anyone that can pay goes private and a basic system run down for those that can’t pay.

There are those that rely on the state wholesale another thread a single mother poster having her 5th baby working as a part time cleaner. I cannot fathom having that much faith in the system supporting me and more and more children I cannot support myself. Mind blown.

Thanks, The problem is that when it comes to the police there isn’t another option. You just call 999 and get what you get, and for some that experience even today is atrocious.

Absolutely don’t trust the state. I’ve recently enrolled in private healthcare via my work place. 10 years ago, I would have never contemplated going private as I trusted and believed in the NHS. But over the last couple of years I’ve had the mis-fortune of seeing first hand via experiences with family members how poor the NHS is. It really is the worst. I have lost all trust in the NHS - they’re scarily incompetent.

Sorry but anyone who has had the most glancing interaction with the NHS over the past five years can tell you this is nonsense.

For most people in urban areas in the past ten years getting a GP appointment is a bit like hunting an extinct species.

It's nothing to do with being a Times reader or any other political stereotype. I'm not arguing against the validity of the NHS. But it's demonstrably true that it's deteriorated to the point where primary care is almost non functional (acute is a different story).

I'd agree with you on crime, although it doesn't particularly feel that crime figures are improving. Education is a postcode lottery, it can be fantastic in certain places but it can be Third World standard in others.

The wider point is that while the state provision for all these services can work well if you're lucky, you'd be a fool to assume it's always going to come up with the goods.

After recent experience of police & ambulance refusing to attend, I have realised the state is failing.

Hospital is terrible, lots of bad things happening to friends & relatives.

Tbf when my dh had a medical emergency the nhs were great. But routinely, generally not so good although my GP is fantastic (and yes, I can get an appointment when I need to).

I’d also say anyone who doesn’t have a private pension in place is foolish. The state pension will slowly be eroded over the next few decades, to a point that it will be worth next to nothing, and will only be attainable when you’re past 70. I feel sorry for anyone under 40, because they will be the ones to experience the collapse of the state pension as we currently know it.

People who can will.

Our MP"s will ensure the state takes care of them, not you or I.

Been completely let down by the state when it comes to education amd healthcare. We are very much net contributors and don't need much but when we have it's just not there. 6 month waiting list for debilitating and life threatening conditions. It may sound selfish but we do everything we legally can to avoid paying tax now. I always believed in tax until the last few years but it's a very broken system.

To a point, but only at a local level. We are fortunate to have a brilliant GP, and have never not got a same day appointment, and they are mainly skilled and helpful. Our 2 daughters school is very good, although struggling more year on year, due to reducing funding and the SEN crisis. Their teachers are consistently excellent, but being stretched thinner and thinner.
But I know we are very lucky with these, they definitely aren't the norm, and we recognise things could easily change, it feels quite precarious. If our girls dont pass the 11+ the local comp is terrible, but we couldn't afford private, I wish there was the option to take the state funding of about 7k per child per year, and top it up privately. Which I appreciate creates even more of a 2 tier system, but like most parents, our priority is our own children.
It does feel like our current system is unsustainable. We can't up taxes as this will cause more if our remaining net contributors go abroad or look for loopholrs to reduce tax payments. The increasing aging population, immigration, increased SEN need is being funded by a shrinking group of people, many of whom are fed up with paying lots of tax and not seeing much for it, and then paying extra for private healthcare and education on top.

Totally understand. It feels like there’s a lot at the top who just use these loopholes to pay little on their wealth but people who are doing quite well working PAYE jobs but not massively rich are paying it all through tax and getting little back.

I also know of various tradesmen/ other self employed people that barely declare half their earnings.

What middle class people can afford private everything? I do think living standards are dropping for the middle class but the idea that they can afford everything private? How?

No I don’t trust them. I expect them to though & they’re failing miserably (same as tories). NHS is broken & needs a massive overhaul but instead, their answer to it is chuck more billions at it. No dentists. Still too much going to foreign aid. Unemployment up, GDP shrinking & meanwhile, they’re all over FB telling us what a wonderful job they’re doing.

Do I trust the state? No..

Schooling is appalling

NHS is appalling (took DH over a year to get a cancer diagnosis, I’ve been waiting 20 weeks so far for an urgent appointment…) I had the ambulance service call me and ask me to make my own way to a&e when I was having an anaphylactic reaction as they had no ambulances

State pension - won’t be around by the time I retire

Police - told my sister she deserved to be raped as she’d had a couple of drinks…never turned up when I called due to someone trying to break into my house, and the rural police around here are a laughing joke with the locals, tractor gets stolen here have a crime reference number even tho CCTV clearly shows the faces

We do have an NHS dentist who has damaged my tooth so badly I’ve gone private as I don’t trust them to fix what they have done…

Never claimed benefits…never been entitled to them even when we have been made redundant and had nothing.

I pay/have paid a lot of tax since I was 18 and I am net contributor, however whenever I have needed any of the services have been let down tremendously

Private healthcare all the way now

Have a pension

Have big dogs if anyone is stupid enough to break in…

What I do think is interesting to note is that my Great, great, great grandfather came to the UK from County Cork, my grandfather from Russia, my father from Germany. They all arrived as refugees with little or nothing. Not one ever received a penny from the state. They all made significant amounts of money.

I shall never criticise an immigrant but I think they should have to make their own way.

This keeps on appearing on MN on a regular basis, this myth about higher taxes and better services Scandi model.

Their taxes are higher at the bottom level, not the top. Most of Scandi countries don't have IHT tax at all. Their welfare support is much more generous but also very time limited, people don't spend years living on state support.

Their prices are much higher, just read the thread about expensive holiday destinations - it's Scandi. Rightly so, because people who work even in low skill jobs are paid decently.
Just read the doc linked on this thread and then comments
Part II - To ask what you'll be doing to avoid the Labour tax - Scandi model | Mumsnet

Everyone there agreed that we can't have the same model in the UK.

Private healthcare, education and I’ve rescued my own stolen car (and know quite a few people who’ve done likewise). I’m aware I still rely on the state (for example, who trains the doctors treating me privately?)- very much not a right winger who only wants to pay for the army. But I have no faith in any of it now and I’m investing and planning on the basis that the state will do nothing for me.