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?

It’ll happen again at the next election for sure.
Reform supporters (and the think tanks behind them) are the ones who are shouting loudest at the moment but will people really believe they will be able to form a coherent government? By then Farage will have had to provide actually detail on his immigration policies and the insurance based healthcare system.

Someone above said that 1/4 of people in this country are classed as disabled. Nearly 1 million are NEETs - young people who don't work and don't study. Living with their parents, scrolling on their phones and claiming UC. Why don't they do all these jobs that we supposedly need immigrants to be doing? How can the state encourage them to start picking fruit, stitch clothes, clean the hotels or work in a factory? I haven't followed the Reform, but I wonder what they think on the matter...

Our grandparents survived in wartime with very little, lived in constant fear and with an unknown future. Be thankful you don't live in Ukraine. Somalia or Gaza. Be grateful for what you have, budget, think positive, help others.

Moaning will get you Nowhere

Science graduate can't get a job when the whole of the UK is crying out for Science teachers....

My experience is the same daughter graduated last year with the First in bio medical science. She’s been doing a manufacturing type factory job with some scientific knowledge required but it’s a complete waste of her degree and air levels.
Pays 27 grand a year and whilst she’s grateful to have the job she can’t move out on that salary

Hmmm I actually don’t think we are all that far off food starting to cost a third of people’s income. The costs of food are rising faster than anything else it seems. Obviously this varies widely by income! But I earn significantly above the minimum wage and would say that I now spend close to a fifth of my income on food which is hugely more than it used to be and it seems unlikely to stop there… And of course housing costs were not swallowing up such a huge percentage of income back then.

I was a child in late 70s/early 80s in a comfortably middle class family, and can remember not having central heating upstairs, ice inside the windows in winter, using my sibling’s bath water when they were finished, my dad constantly turning the heating down or off, not being able to make international calls due to the expense (and constantly being told to get off the landline to my friends too!) and yes there was no Netflix/Sky, no mobile phones, no internet to think about. I remember our black and white TV being replaced and the excitement of getting a microwave, dishwasher, and dial up internet eventually

I agree living standards were generally lower then. My grandmother still had an outdoor toilet, a scrubbing board for clothes, a mangle, and even made all her own bread. But as a pp said, the vast majority of people are basically in the same boat, instead of the huge income and living standards disparities we see today flaunted by the rich and famous.

We were better off than many of my peers at the time, we did have 2 cars, a housekeeper/nanny, a lovely big house in a nice area, new clothes, and we did have some foreign holidays although we generally drove for days rather then flew, and camped rather than stayed in hotels. And I got my uni fees paid by the government!

But that's right surely ie an entry level job. Because she has a degree etc she will be able to move up the ladder but she needs the basic experience for a couple of years first.

I don't think we're in big trouble, yes there are issues, but there are issues everywhere. As previous posters have said the 70's snd 80's had bigger issues. My life now is actually better than 20 years ago, and I don't earn a big salary.

This is all true but at the same time we can recognise that the U.K. is in a very bad place economically and it’s starting to really show.

I think the difference is you used to be able to move out and live independently comfortably enough on 27 grand a year!

Shopping locally and walking a lot more actually sounds like a good thing overall. People were much fitter and more active. There was also considerably less inequality and more social cohesion. In any case, regardless of whether people like it or not, we are heading in the direction of a lot less discretionary spending. Unfortunately, we are worse off in many ways compared to the 1970s.

Yes the 90s were better as we mainly had a Labour government who invested in stuff. Then 14 years of decline and Tories leading up to today’s issues.

I wouldn’t underestimate the threat to jobs from AI.

Out of curiosity, I’ve been asking ChatGPT for marketing/ social media advice for a business I’m hoping to launch in the future. I’ve been surprised by the quality and thoroughness of the marketing plans it suggests based on the information I give it. Many people are offering this kind of advice for quite a lot of money and they may well be redundant in the future.

Well, yes, actually. Floods, fires, land that can't be farmed, diseases that can't be treated with antibiotics. It's real now, not some point in the future. Not a lot that politicians can do about that any more.

Overall, things have been declining since around the turn of the century.

Where on earth are you getting all this from?!

I’d love to see the stats for the claims you’re making here.

Hhhmm maybe but in 2001 when I moved to London I was earning 13K in a graduate scheme job. The only thing I could afford was a room in a house share. I did my 2 year dues there then was able to move onwards with my degree. According to inflation calculator, my 13K would be 27K today.

On 13K I lived independently but not to a good standard ie just continued my student standard of living. Zero savings, living pay check to pay check whilst paying my student overdraft off. Cheap food etc
I'm not 100% what graduate expectations are tbh in terms of the standard of living they expect in the early years of work.

I’m not sure there was more equality. Women had few rights, people of colour or homosexuals were marginalised, and l remember a distinct margin between the haves and have nots.

Social cohesion was due to more formality then than now, and more caring what people thought. But the NF and unrest was horrible.

There wasn’t much social cohesion in Northern Ireland either.

I presume this is the preamble to a “vote reform” message.

As though that would help, given the hidden focus on the ultra wealthy in populist clothing.

I agree that it was worse for women and minority groups. At least that has improved to some extent.

I agree there has been a huge issue with austerity and general lack of investment by the Tories. They never should have abolished the SureStart centres for a start. I am very pro-Labour, and they did an amazing job domestically in the 1990s, however it’s only fair to point out that there was also a global economic boom at the time which the U.K. was well positioned to take advantage of. Things weren’t quite so rosy in the Gordon Brown years due to a downturn.

Bring back the Spira chocolate bar. That would immediately improve my quality of life. I don’t think I am alone in that.

We’ll have Labour now rather than relying on the 90s anyway.

Yes it’s a horrible atmosphere at the moment. Please be assured that we all don’t feel like that 💐.

I agree with you that there has been significant progress made on minority rights of various groups since then. However if we are talking purely about economic inequity, it is significantly worse now compared to then

www.understandingglasgow.com/glasgow-indicators/economic-participation/income-inequality/uk

She will eventually move up the ladder.