Uk is in big trouble - what do you think will happen?

[hippysun]

Thames water on brink of collapse. All those CEOs getting fat bonuses. Water shortages and rising bills.

the cost of living is off the chart. Every bill has gone up. Pop in to Tesco for toothpaste, butter and chicken and it costs an insane amount for just a few items.

the government are crap and taxing the hell out of us.

my salary is stuck. I feel constantly poor now. 10 years ago when I earned significantly less, I felt ok money wise. Chatted today to a colleague about science graduate son who is stuck doing a minimum wage job as there are no jobs here. I’ve noticed this myself in my town. The council have a few, other companies outsourced to India years ago, the pharma company moved out years ago and the land will soon be a new housing estate.

the nhs is a total mess.

housing costs make me want to weep! No chance of moving. Feel bad for my kids. They just keep building expensive houses here all packed into poorly designed estates. Tiny gardens. But no infrastructure. The promised schools get cancelled and drs surgeries and hospitals are rammed with patients. My mortgage of course is up.

in my industry… everyone is obsessed with AI and I’m sad to say it has taken some jobs already. There is a huge push towards AI.

there seems to be underlying tension here re migrants. People getting increasingly annoyed.

this country feels like a right mess. Making rich people richer and poor people even poorer. The middle earners are getting squeezed. I hate it.

i don’t remember it being this bad ever before.

why is it so terrible? And what do you think will happen?

I really wouldn't at the moment.

The country has been left a total basket case by Brexit and 14 years of Tory incompetence and stupidity plus an overwhelming obsession with migrants to the extent that it's nearly always the first thing on the news every night even though nothing has changed from one day to the next.

Worse, what feels like half the country cannot wait to put Nigel Farage into no 10 so that he can impose the American far right's agenda on us and make the Liz Truss economic disaster look like a minor kerfuffle.

Please don't make this all about Reform vs Labour.
If Farage were to become the PM, and he might, he will still be faced will all the current problems that Labour are currently. There is no easy way out now and he would also become very unpopular rapidly.

It is a mess isn't it and prices are increasing at a frightening rate. I was trawling though my bank staments online trying to find the roofer I used about four years ago as he was really good. Got sidetracked looking at what my direct debits used to cost and out of interest I worked out the % increases.

Council Tax up by 20%
Gas and Elec up by 62%
Water up by 59%

Broadband up by 31%

I couldn't face looking at what I used to spend on food but I might go back out of interest, it will be quite a blunt tool as I will only be comparing the amount spent in 2021 with what I spend now rather than the actual puchases. I was young in the 70s and 80s and have never known it as bad as it is now, maybe because I had the energy and optimism of youth then and the hope that better days would arrive. We had the threat of the National Front and the BNP but they never got into parliament. I am sure Farage has studied their tactics and knows not to go down the path of thuggish extremism and so is far more dangerous. We also had mass unemployemt, there were 3 million out of work and it was really hard to get a job. The miners' strike caused huge divisions in communities that still resonante today so it was far from being the "good old days". What truly appals me is the housing crisis, rents are shocking and the hope of home ownership is never going to be realised for so many and I think that this is the most significant and destabilising crisis we are facing as a society

Tell me again how the anti-semitism within Labour is going?

It’s not as bad as the 70’s.

The IMF had to bail out the U.K. then. It hasn’t had to this time. Yet

Spot on - they don't even pretend to be even handed any more

I agree that house prices will need to collapse, but the people who make the rules are invested in property- those turkeys will surely do anything they can to avoid the Christmas option🤷🏻‍♀️

I agree that there is a focus now on consumer goods/ flash kitchens etc now but my grandmother, and her sisters, spent plenty on beautiful clothes and accessories! My granny said a good coat should be a weeks wages, and her 1st husband drove a pretty flash car. Working class people who earned money have always enjoyed a bit of bling!

The decline hasn't finished by any means. We are only at the start imo.

I wouldn't take it for granted that there can be a bail out this time.

Quite. National Front, anyone?
Until the race relations act was passed in 1968, it was perfectly legal for landlords/hotels/cafes etc. to display signage stating “No blacks, no dogs, no Irish”. It took years for that disgusting mindset to begin to turn around.

I mean, I know things are bad in many countries and there is good and bad everywhere but I wouldn't move back to the UK unless I was somewhere truly terrible where I was. My DC's want to work abroad and I've told them to go with my blessing. There seems to be a sneering contempt for young people here that there isn't in Europe.

It's not helpful though to keep screaming 'racist' 'stupid' etc at anyone who suggested they may vote for Reform. That's not the way to get people to not vote for them (which would be a disaster), if anything it pushes some further towards it.

The only way to stop people voting for them is to address the root cause of why people might make this choice in the first place.

Absolutely people were living like that. I was a teenager in the 70s , we had no car, no phone, no double glazing or central heating, late to get a colour TV, never went abroad, carpet squares over lino etc etc.
But everyone I knew was about the same, it was our normal.
edited to add, both parents worked, Dad in the Civil Service, Mum for a well known high street name.

Ultimately, unless proper growth can be stimulated, people will have to get used to much lower expectations and a lesser quality of life.

A harsh truth

I haven't called anyone racist. That is against Talk guidelines. I have said Reform is a racist party.

I will say this, though.

Last week there was a now seemingly (hopefully) departed poster on this site who posted hundreds and hundreds of posts that dripped in racism. Some of the contributers to this thread were enthusiastically backing them up.

It really opened my eyes.

Approximately 9 million working-age people in England are not working, out of a total working-age population of 35.6 million, representing about 25.3% of the working-age population.

It would almost be worth voting for him to land him in it up to his bulging, angry neck.

Obviously, I won’t because the people who will suffer most are those who are already in dire straits.

I agree. I’m a N.Irish prod living in England. The only thing keeping my spirits up is that we all have Irish passports. If I was living in NI, I’d seriously consider voting for a United Ireland if it would improve living conditions for ordinary people. And my grandfather was an Orangeman!

There are also an awful lot of older people who have most of their wealth in property though. Property prices aren't just about wealthy foreign investors ( although we really need to do what other countries do and ban people from overseas buying up swathes of flats to leave empty just like little gold bars out in the open in London). Older people wont drop the prices of their homes to sell them, either because they have been told they could get £400k for it or its their only home and downsizing still means they need most of the equity to buy a new place/fund their care.

It's been a lot worse than this. Low interest rates, generous benefits. People just need to count their blessings. Getting seriously ill is worse than worrying about the cost of living. Or having a sick child or parent.

But how many are sick or disabled? I don’t want to go back to Victorian cruelty. We are a rich country.

The issue is… if I (and I earn well above average salary) can’t afford a holiday, then that affects my mate and his business… he sells travel/hotels etc. he relies on commission and it’s shocking at the moment.

I can’t afford to eat out. That affects my mate that works in a restaurant. Etc. I don’t buy much these days. Hence why the high street is dead.

it all has a knock on… it’s not as simple as blaming it on our consumer spending

Yes I suspect NI will go before long. Although it does depend on how much the Republic are willing to take them on.

Almost a quarter of Labour MPs are landlords or own second homes.
Indeed, turkeys don't vote for Christmas.
The number of Labour MPs who are landlords (i.e., declare rental income from properties) is 43, based on a Guardian analysis that includes all declared rental income, even below the £10,000 threshold.
For non-rented second homes, assuming an average of 1.5 properties per MP (based on the Scottish Labour example where 10 properties were declared by 6 MPs), this leads to approximately 99 non-rented properties for Labour (66 × 1.5). Adding these gives 90 + 99 = 189 properties.

Not very willing would be my assessment