To think life in the UK feels meaner, sadder and more dangerous than it did two or three years ago?

[DervlaGlass]

Out on Friday night and it felt grim - chaotic, angry kids and huge groups of men just hanging around with nothing to do and nowhere to go

I know that's just one night but the sentiment just feels wretched day to day. Angry customer services staff getting abused by nasty customers and on and on it all goes. Job market dead, getting a GP appointment a pipe dream, statistically high earners can't afford a one bed flat on many cities.

When are things going to pick up? Or am I perceiving irrationally?

I think the move to everything being online has been catastrophic for this kind of normal, healthy human interaction

But that means we have to cut back in other areas and in particular welfare. It’s all well and good saying we need to do x y and z but we are stony broke and without curtailing our addiction to spending, we will continue to financially ride on the States’ coat tails.

Agree completely

That's why growth is so important. Because there's nothing but painful choices until the economy starts to grow.

But we were bloody stupid to outsource so much of our defence to the US. We should have been bright enough to figure out that they wouldnt always care about interests. That applies to the EU as well as the UK to be fair.

All true, but..... He was at least an optimist, he talked the country up. KS et al, are all doom and gloom, everything's broken, everything's shit. No wonder people feel disheartened.

We won the women's world cuo rugby, and everyone was suddenly happy. We just need a better narrative from our leaders.

People are fed up, frustrated and have little to look forward to especially with the Autumn budget around the corner. Christmas expense coming, higher bills through winter. Life in the UK is grim at the moment for many people.

I was out in the city last night in a busy restaurant full of good cheer, the walk through the centre had street music, football fans celebrating and everything from hens to preachers - all jolly enough. Very visible drug and alcohol issues and some groups of kids being daft, but nothing threatening. The park today had kids playing volley ball, a neat queue for the coffee shop, morning rugby and afternoon footy. Super busy and good to see plenty of kids on bikes and OAPs having a sit on the benches. I would say the city felt less polished and posh but the town feels like it has developed and there is plenty of life in both.

As regards to being out and about on a Friday evening, could it be the UK is now taking more cocaine than ever before? Or huge increase in steroid use at gyms? Both of these drugs make users short-tempered and aggressive.

There seems to be a strange vibe around physical contact, like if you accidently just touch someone it can be aggressively confrontational instantly. Men are angry at women, women are angry at men. It is not easy at all being a young adult at the moment.

The teens were explaining some stuff to me that is going around social media nowadays, ours hate it, and what they see or get pushed towards them, actually this was their friend, but they were putting social media in terms of weirdness and we were just chatting about being young in and around their peers.

Saying this there are some lovely young people around, they are probably not the ones hanging out on Friday night where there is an odd vibe. They are trying to be positive despite the difficulties they will be facing as they try to enter the workforce and takes steps to leave home. Giving their voices a chance to be heard, listen to what they are interested in or concerned about.

It's a very odd time. There are many teens who are worried about the planet, to the point that bringing children into the world is not really a possibility in their minds, to others who throw whole fast food rubbish out of car windows.

And right now in society it feels as though the selfish gene is louder and more prevalent than the consideration gene. It will flip though, it always does, nothing stays the same.

They didn't want to be in someone else's photo, they just wanted to enjoy their day, look at the landmark and move on.

I would date the change in mood back to the Brexit vote where people were given permission to openly hate their neighbour who they got along with for years. Everything has a side to take now

Yes 100%. My town is now a frightful place and it scares me when my children are out. It’s not the same as when I was growing up, now it’s full of drugs and undesirables.

Can't we still do all those things? Yes, culture is more online but can't we be the change? I know it's cheesy but if we try & revive healthier habits that would help.

Too much rolling news and social media fuels this. Life is what it’s been for years. 🙄

I agree. This is the first time that I actually despair for future generations coming through. It just feels like something is brewing on lots of levels, and that we’re escalating into something that’s not going to end well for any of us… tbh, it all started going downhill with the emergence of social media, IT, computerisation. From the 1990s onwards.

That's a very 'remainer' point of view, if you don't mind me saying. And I'm speaking as an arch remainer.

What the Brexit vote clearly demonstrated was that there were vast numbers of people who were unhappy, that the authorities weren't paying any attention to and the rest of us were in blissful ignorance about.

Calling the Brexit vote was a colossal mistake/error of judgement from Cameron, but those sentiments would have surfaced in other ways eventually.

So I think it goes back much further than that. The Blair years felt good for the country as a whole (not that I'm a huge fan of Blair particularly). But there hasn't been much to get excited about since then. Did we ever really recover from the financial crash?

I think we have been through so much as a society in the past few years: Covid and the lockdowns, endless cost of living crisis, one rubbish government after another, over-reliance on social media, poor access to the NHS and social services, AI changing the workplace and now devision against immigrants being encouraged by the far right.

But yet we are just expected to always carry on and be ''productive'' to keep making a few wealthy individuals ever richer.

No wonder people are snapping.

Ultimately people are human beings and we need some hope and enjoyment back in our lives and a sense of fairness.

The current mess is just making everyone angrier and more and more miserable and our rubbish ''leaders'' are simply too incompetent and tone deaf to effectively address the state we are in as a nation.

We are not a happy or mentally/physically healthy society right now and it is showing...

Nothing at all new in any of this. It also isn’t reflective of anything being terribly wrong in the U.K.

It started way before that. Brexit just brought the public dissatisfaction and mood to the forefront.

Seriously? Boris Johnson wasn't fit to be PM which is the consensus of people far finer than me. He and his Government wreaked untold damage on the country, which is largely why everything is broken and shit! But I guess his (incredibly disingenuous) buffoon persona was all that mattered? I do agree that we need an injection of optimism but not by a shallow, self interested and unscrupulous man with zero substance to back it up. Dear me, people have very short memories

Definitely noticed that myself. I think it's been getting worse for the last 15 years, and very much worse since the pandemic. It's everything at once. A perfect storm. War in Ukraine, the middle east troubles, poverty here, kids getting screwed up by the Internet, aggression and more stabbings, and criminals just getting bolder generally, ridiculous levels of shoplifting, you name it. The Britisj used to be fairly nice but they have become less kind and helpful. Don't know why..Probably a range of factors.

Actually I’m 66 year old and can’t remember a time when people weren’t complaining about the exact same things. I think it’s just human nature to think the past was better

Don't be daft. Remember how much Boris f...everything up. He was useless.

Absolutely. Communication skills have deteriorated massively.

We never recovered from the 08 crash, add Brexit & Covid and we are in a right state

Yes I am a remainer but I think the Brexit campaign gave us new reasons to not like each other, both sides. It divided the country like never before and it’s never been the same since