To be fed up of the constant bashing of the UK?

[Drind]

I am currently away for Christmas with extended family and family friends in a very nice part of southern Europe.

It is lovely here, but I’m thoroughly fed up with the endless comparison to the UK. We all come from a smallish town in the midlands and if we see something nice here it is immediately ‘yes that’s lovely. Not like the shit hole we live in’. We see a palace and it’s ’you wouldn't see that in our town centre, would you?’ Well clearly fucking not because we live in a old fishing town not in the middle of London.

Then we’ll go to a nice restaurant and it’s ’no point in opening a Michelin restaurant where we live, it’s too deprived’. Or walking back to the hotel it’s ’at home you’d be watching chavs vomiting in the streets, not like these lovely clean streets’.

It is so wearing. I defend the UK and I’m told they’re joking and not to take it so seriously but it is endless.

Various mentions of the ‘lower class’ people at home too. It is driving me mad. Why are people so obsessed with doing the UK down? I know it has got its problems, but it is not that different from other European countries which also have their prosperous and struggling areas.

Not sure it matters but these are left leaning people too, not people desperate to criticise the country as a way of voicing political criticism.

Going for a drink later before food and it’s already started. ‘Well they don’t need Wetherspoons here do they because they live to a better standard than us’. Give me strength. The negativity is so draining.

It sounds like they doth protest too much. To make themselves feel good about where they currently are, they have to exaggerate problems in the UK. It’s like bonding against a common enemy. Tedious

Ask ChatGPT what the equivalent town to your hometown is in the south of France (socio-economically, size-wise etc.) then suggest a day trip to that town. Any time anyone rags on Britain, just say “let’s go and hang out in <equivalent town>”. This can become your go-to phrase for “compare like with like or shut up please”.

I think the dreadful state of most of our public services, coupled with years of a high cost of living, has made many people feel dissatisfied with life in the UK. I live in a beautiful part of Wales, we have woodland, rolling hills and beaches all within a short distance from home and I love it. If I lived in a run down industrial town/city, I might feel the same as your companions!

Fucking Hell it is regional dialect and it’s Mumsnet.

I live there too. We have rolling countryside, waterfalls, mountains and beaches on our doorstep. But they’re never going to be on the local high street.

smallish town in the midlands

that's not the entire UK, is it?

maybe the place where they are now IS a lot better than the old town in the Midlands.

Comparison with countries which are pretty much neighbours, and not some utopian paradise, does show how bad the UK is to be fair. Our standards of living are shockingly low. It becomes more obvious when you are abroad

Fed up of is fine, weird contribution to the thread.

OP, spend time with different people when you get back.
Constant lowering in standard of living is hard to deal with in UK but it's rarely a major topic of conversation among the people I hang out with (including family)

Of course it’s better! We’re on holiday in an expensive Swiss city staying at a 5* hotel. Of course it’s better than home. The comparison would be to Mayfair.

They’re not really talking about any lowering of standard. They’re just obsessively comparing the UK and where we are to sneer at the UK, and sometimes its residents.

Northern girl here too.
Just a comment to the OP...we are not all pedantic idiots like 821, and I agree there is too much UK bashing.

I dunno, complaining about Britain is the height of Britishness imo 😄

Oh Christ! Switzerland is incomparable to pretty much anywhere else in the world!

tell them they’re sounding like raging snobs and you’re tired of the negativity. You have come away for a lovely indulgent break and they are ruining it.

you won’t be coming away with them again.

keep calling them Nigel, or Farage… that’ll sort them. Ask them if they need another flag to hang from a lamppost to show their right wing credentials

I think a lot of it is driven by the SM onslaught organised by the far right / Farage's lot, It's all over social media, and pumped with misinformation too.

But yeah, pretty dim to compare where you live with an elite / idyllic location in Switzerland.

Even Switzerland has down at heel suburbs of Geneva and Zurich, for example.

And are they rejoicing at the price of a beer and a meal in Switzerland?

As someone in their mid 50s I am afraid the huge drop in living standards, in international power, in respect and in public services that this country has experienced is so palpable its hard not to notice the contrast. We are a shadow of what we were 40 years ago. I can see why people would feel this way.

Having said that, constant negativity is futile, self defeating and tedious so people owe it to themselves to find positivity where they can and keep moving forward.

OP has already said they are left wing 🙄

"Not sure it matters but these are left leaning people too, not people desperate to criticise the country as a way of voicing political criticism."

George Orwell may have disagreed with that ;)

I live in England OP. I get fed up with it too.

On Christmas day I cooked a beautiful meal, lovely British food, then went with friends to walk the local lanes. Biting cold but glorious sunshine, Beautiful woods and valleys.
The air was clean, there was no traffic. It was quiet and peaceful. We saw deer & kestrels. I'm happy with my surroundings regardless of what others think.

I meant they’re not wrong, most of the UK is run down and pretty dirty, but if you’re on holiday somewhere as upmarket as you say you are then it’s not a fair comparison.

I suspect they’d protest that it’s the ‘lower class’ people voting for Farage. Not the clever people like them who’ve got an intelligent view of how awful Britain is.

No but they understand they have to pay it because the Swiss are paid a fortune and have a much better standard of living than people in the UK. Who’d pay £20 for a burger where we live? Remember when that nice restaurant opened in the nearest city to us? It’s closed now. Well, of course it has, how stupid are they to open a nice restaurant in one of the most deprived areas of Britain?

And on, and on.

I am always so happy to get home after a holiday - I love the UK, even though it’s got some difficult bits and there are some problems that need working though in some areas.

also where you live is not just about graffiti or street sweeping or smashed windows. It’s about people and I have found overwhelmingly that the British and those who live here long term, make the UK more amazing than just cleanliness. We have humour and sarcasm and satire and stiff upper lip. Our pubs are brilliant, we’re friendly without being mugs. And we don’t riot for nothing or down tools after 35 hours work or strike endlessly.

yes yes, there are some strikes and I don’t disagree with most of them. But Geez. Thank God we’re not French…

40 years ago they’d have been whinging about the state of Britain exactly as they are now.