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?

That's fine as long as my mortgage is written off to the same amount that my house value reduces by, I would be all for your idea then. But how are you going to sell that to the banks?

Many people who own houses aren't especially wealthy- I bought my first flat for £70k with a 7k deposit (compensation from an accident which left me missing 2 toes one foot and in constant pain) as a new grad physio, on a salary of 17k a year. Did it up and gradually worked my way up the housing ladder.

You can lower energy costs through reducing tax on them, fuel duty etc.

No but the gap between Labour and Reform is growing alongside the failure of Labour.
It's pretty universally accepted that Starmer isn't a good PM, he's more interested in poncing around the world stage in private jets (which remember was the accusation he levelled at Sunak!!) than dealing with domestic issues. Everything he does has poor optics, the press conferences with Trump were horrendous etc.
They are sucessfully managing to piss off both Left + Right with their policies and Reeves is constantly "surprised" that hse policies are negatively impacting GDP, labour market etc.

Only Labour die hards believe Labour are doing a good job at this point yet this is meant to be the honeymoon period for governments!

The reality is US and China are fighting for dominance of AI. Whoever wins rules the world. We are largely irrelevant now. Every empire falls even the Romans only lasted 400 years most 100-200. “The west” we have had our day.

Enjoy the small daily pleasures. I wouldn’t have lots of children either. 1 max 2.

The UK is a very safe country. It sounds like you live in a very rough, rundown area - that's not reflective of the whole of the country.

It won’t be Jezza taking the votes away- this current Labour government is the worst of my lifetime and I’m including Thatcher there!

Why do many moaning threads at the moment. Every generation had its issues and ups and downs. This country is still a high GDP, wealthy country. Our governments are just crap at managing it. They never seem to spend money in the right places. We need to reduce our social security and get people working. Up our GDP per person and productivity.

Food cost and choice is still way better and cheaper than most other comparable countries. Wages are rising and currently higher than inflation. We have had (before Covid and Ukraine war) a rise in living standards for most people, cheap food, cheap services, cheap clothes, cheap electricals etc etc although that rise also led to high housing costs in some parts of the country.

There is something odd going on. I think if the government and the media, and the opposition parties, didn't continuously tell us how shit everything was, the mood might be better. It's a government of doom and fear.

So much is being our control. I do wonder where we would be if not for COVID and Ukraine.

And don't forgets all these wealthy olds, including me, will soon die off and leave lots of money to the following generation, as long as Racheal doesn't get her hands on it that is.

You can blather on as much as you like. It's not a certainty that Reform will be the next government.

The global financial system / late stage capitalism sits at the root of a lot of this.

It’s a little worse here in the Uk than economically comparable countries due to austerity / lack of investment followed by Brexit, but other countries have similar complaints.

ETA bombs in the UK???

You can bury your head in the sand as much as you like, it's not a certainty that there won't be a Reform government.

Why do you lot always throw insults around so quickly?

Our landlord raised our rent 22.5% last year. Have our wages risen? Of course not. Everything has gone up in price. I don’t see how this is going to get any easier.

The most obvious how would you collapse house prices, some sort of government edict???

For a start you stop propping them up. Help to Buy, shared ownership, Term Funding Scheme, they are just ways of making the unaffordable affordable and keeping the prices propped up. Then if that doesn't work you can easily do other things. For example in the Netherlands I believe they have a restriction on the mortgage lending multiples. At the moment in the UK I think this is recommended to banks. Recommend a lower figure and prices will collapse. Or restrict the total amount of lending banks are allowed to do on mortgages.

History tells us though governments are far more likely to enact policy to prop up prices rather than let them find a sensible level though.

Houses cost a lot to build and the builder has to pay his workers, if you tell them they have to sell at a loss or even make no profit they will stop building. Their workers will be out of a job and the housing shortage would get worse. Or if it's not quite that a catastrophic they will reduce the number of workers, reduce wages and build sub-standard houses with cheap poor materials.

Do houses cost a lot to build ? Or is the value in the land that they are built on ? Land which goes from being practically worthless to worth a fortune on the basis of someone in planning signing a piece of paper. Build substandard houses with cheap poor materials ? Don't make me laugh. What do you think they are doing anyway ? Do people really think the quality of new build houses is acceptable in this country ?

How do you force people to sell houses, let alone at much less than they paid for them? The market would totally stagnate and no one would be getting on the property market.

It's actually really easy to make someone sell anything, but houses in particular because they are rooted to the spot and can't be moved. All you need to do is demonstrate clearly that the house is going to be worth less in the future than it is now. Taxation is one method of doing this.

How do you get landlords to lower rents, when often they are hardly making money already, many landlords have already sold up. if they were forced to reduce rents the quality of the properties would have to go down as they wouldn't be able to afford maintenance. Or they would be converting everything into HMOs where they can charge per person, this is already happening as letting houses is getting uneconomic for many good landlords.

When they sell up cheap, people will now be able to afford them. Not all houses can be converted to HMOs because councils won't let them. Being a landlord is either a viable business or it isn't. And if the house is sold it is sold to an OO or to someone who can make it a viable business.

I agree but that aside, their housing costs relative to wages were far, far lower. That’s what has really changed.

Did you honestly think that Labour would have anything other than an insanely difficult job with the economy in the state it was in after Brexit/Covid/years of austerity? Even before they got in, people were predicting they'd be massively unpopular because you can't make an omelette without breaking eggs, and they can't fix the economy without pissing off a load of people.

Not saying they're perfect. They're definitely the least-worst option at the moment though.

Anyone who seriously think Reform are a good idea needs a long lie-down in a darkened room and all sharp objects kept away from them.

It's not a certainty that Reform will be the next government.

I really hope so. But we are in a worse position a year in to their term than we were at the start of their term, so it doesn't feel hopeful. This lot feel like they dont have a clue - with people with no idea being given high levels of responsibility - look at the Emna Reynolds LBC interview as an example of incompetence.

Of course they will keep blaming the Tories as a cop out, but things are worse now directly due to labour changes.

Working for nhs and as a governor of a state primary, the damage they are doing is terrible to witness. Our governing board had such high hopes, a year in we are all struggling to maintain any positivity in the face of huge real term funding cuts.

But they aren't "fixing" the economy. They are making it demonstrably worse!

It's not a certainty that Reform wont be the next government

It's not a certainty that they will.

Same, our mortgage went from £1100 a month, to nearly £1600 a month with interest rate rises. It's not easy to find an extra £500/nearly 50% on a 3% pay rise!

This all leads to a stagnating economy. We used to enjoy the odd take away or meal out, UK holiday. This has all gone now, all money needed to just pay the bills, so shops, restaurants etc are struggling and laying off staff.

You're buffering at this point. Unless you want to fill a thread with just repeating the same thing.
Just because you don't think it will happen, doesn't mean it won't.
Labour have lost most of the Red Wall where traditionally they would dominate.

I agree with what you say: marital rape, no mortgages for women. Also children had no rights but were seen as 'chattels', with their interests disregarded in divorce settlements.
I can quite see why people want to turn the click back! 🤔🧐🤨

Personally, I find it sad that so many people are full of self pity for our lives today. I'm not denying that money is tight for many etcetera. But you just have to look at the Ukraine to reslise how fortunate we are.

Are they? Worse than when we were experiencing 12% inflation, half the country were furloughed at tax payers' expense, billions of tax payers' money were being funnelled to Tory donors who were apparently suddenly PPE providers, and Sunak's solution was 'eat out to help out'?

Most of the problems they're dealing with, they inherited from the previous administration and there are no easy, quick fixes.

all my friends, family and myself seem pretty happy with good quality of life. Cost of living is a dream compared to when I was stuck in a 5 year fixed term mortgage I took out before the banking collapse and interest rates plummeted, I worked part time, and had to spend all our money on childcare for 2 kids.

I was born in World War 2 so my experience is probably longer than the majority of posters here. I am too old even to be one of the notorious boomer generation. 😁All I'll say is that every decade had its joys and its horrors. I could fill this thread with memories of each of them, good and bad. But what would be the point? They're history - learn from them and move on. The real problem is we don't seem to learn.

However, we are here, this is our time and we just have to take a deep breath and fucking get on with it.