To think that hygiene standards in public spaces in London/UK are way below what's expected from a developed country

[Playdoughy]

I'll start with coffee shops, chains in particular - if it's past 9am, tables that are free are covered in empty cups and dirty bags from previous customers, surface wet, soiled, chairs covered in stains and crumbs - and this remains like this till end of day.
Toilets, even in nice restaurants are smelly, sinks full of hair, water (or worse) stains, at best you can expect to find the toilet seat wiped - maybe. But beneath it you'd find urine and feces weeks old, the actual toilet bowl stained, at best you'd expect the clean bowl but a heavy build-up under the rim. Floors, walls - that seems to be cleaned only when the establishment is first open.
And people don't seem to mind, people don't seem to clean behind themselves either...
The only exception are 5 star hotels really, if you can even call that a public space.

I am mentioning this as a heavy contrast to some parts of Europe for example, where tables get cleaned behind every customer even in chains such as McDonald's or Starbucks - these actually look inviting, clean and airy. Toilets are airy, clean and properly washed every few hours (not just checked for dead bodies and a tick on the schedule hanging on the door). Yes, you can find a filthy toiled but it would be fresh stain clearly coming from a person without any manners visiting in the last hour or two post last clean.

Now, the reason why I am writing now after years living here and thinking that it's just simply a different hygene standard people got used to.
Few weeks ago, through work I found myself in an establishment akin to private club. It is a public space in the sense it is busy and frequently visited (although by a selected group of members), and after queuing for a toilet I found myself in a public toilet that was actually proper clean.
So I realised - the hygene levels here are very high, it's just that it only applies to a selected group of people - while the assumption is that your average person should be completely fine with sitting on a stained chair or feeling like they are walking through a sewage if they decide to visit a toilet during their meal in a restaurant.
How, why and when has this become acceptable?

I have just driven across Europe after visiting family in Austria. Restaurants and services in Austria are spotless and pretty much every service station in Europe was the same. The moment I was back in the UK I noticed the rubbish on the roadside and the grim service stations. Sadly it seems in the UK we have been conditioned to accept filthy services as the norm.

We had no litter bins for a long time when the IRA and other paramilitary groups were at their worst. I think that started things, then you had the mass unemployment of the Thatcher years, and over the last 20 years or so the greater use of cheap and nasty fast fashion. Local authority finances mean that streets and their premises get cleaned less often, transport too given the lack of funding.

We were even happy to have a man who was scruffy and unkempt as Prime Minister. When you saw him alongside the French President, or the then Dutch Prime Minister, you felt ashamed of this country.

I'd venture that tourist traps are especially bad for this - tourists often don't respect their surroundings, and minimum-wage employees are especially demoralised by their frantic, high-cost-of-living surroundings (and who could blame them).

The worst toilets I have ever come across were at Barcelona airport. The smell of the whole bathroom area was appalling, but there was no other option. The toilets obviously had never ever been bleached as the whole area below the water line was brown 🤮. That was about 15 years ago, and thankfully I haven’t ever experienced anything that bad since.

What's that got to do with the EU?

Not sure if I am looking back with rose tinted glasses but I am sure years ago more people took their dirty plates and stuff on trays to the racks (in places like IKEA where they have racks). I still do it but see lots of piled high trays just waiting to be cleared.

A lot of "litter" has been there weeks and months (if not years) if the council don't regularly do litter picks. It's easy to "assume" it's recent, but a lot of the time it isn't. That's why some places continue to look "tidy" long after a major event because it's effectively been "deep cleaned" and can take a long time for litter to build up again.

There is a road near us where litter in the verges has literally been there for years as the council never clean it up, so it's all "trapped" in the hedge rows etc. I walk it daily and can recognise the same litter from years ago, often more noticeable when you see "old" wrappings/tins/containers for things that are no longer made which have been there for years.

We have some local volunteers who call themselves "wombles" who go out occasionally to do major litter picks and they regularly post photos of what they've collected to highlight how old some of the things are and how long they've been there, such as "Bar Six" wrapper (discontinued in the 80s!), Player's No 6 cigarette pack (discontinued 1993!), as well as wrappings where the branding/designs are decades old and no longer used, i.e. McDonalds wrappers!

I've noticed this. I think it's the relentless drive for efficiency and that employers drive costs down by treating cafe staff like a disposable commodity.

Right across the British economy, treating staff badly, paying them NMW. Read up on Gail's - they are horrendous, importing people from the Punjab and exploiting them.

It's hardly a surprise that these staff aren't then given the time to do any of the clearing and cleaning up. It seems to be seen as a "nice to have" rather than an essential. I bet they expect staff to do the cleaning at the end of their shift and don't pay proper cleaning staff.

I don't recognise this. Live in a naice south east town and everything is spotless. By contrast i spend quite a bit of time at relatives properties in southern france and Spain & they are worse. Rubbish on road sides, masses of grafitti, so much dog crap! Also worse for cigarette butts and gum than the UK. Toilet facilities are really hit and miss and quite primitive in some cafes.

I am sure years ago more people took their dirty plates and stuff on trays to the racks (in places like IKEA where they have racks). I still do it but see lots of piled high trays just waiting to be cleared.

This, i am 40 and get so cross that the younger members of our department never wipe in the tea area or tidy after themselves. The older staff do.

The odd thing is that taking European countries as an example, I think it’s generally cleaner here. Can’t speak for further afield. Especially when you mention toilets, they are definitely better here than eg France or Italy. Clearing of tables isn’t an issue where I live either

When in the EU, we benefitted from having higher wages than the cheaper/poorer parts, which meant we had a pretty constant labour oversupply. This helped keep british wages low, especially relative to housing costs.

Now we have left the EU, there are barriers which prevent people from the poorer/lower wage parts of the EU coming to the UK in search of higher wages. As a result we no longer have a labour oversupply, and wages of those at the bottom have increased rapidly.

Why do they have to come from the EU, we have had record breaking migration levels, the Boriswave brought in millions, I'm confused

Your experience of British toilets and my experience of British toilets are very different. I don’t recognise your descriptions at all - and I am not hanging out in exclusively upmarket places.

The parents who use the park are very good at picking up the litter but every weekend it gets messy again.

I agree that it’s since Covid, but I don’t think it’s the public’s fault. I think companies massively lowered their standards during COVID for obvious reasons (ie hardly anyone was working). Nowhere was open, and we became conditioned to doing more stuff for ourselves online, or using machines instead of humans. We’d wait hours on the phone to a company without complaint because we understood they were working with a skeleton staff.

And then when retail, leisure and hospitality companies reopened they were quiet because a lot of people were nervous to go out, so they had fewer staff on. Gradually things returned to pre-pandemic levels of busyness, but companies haven’t gone back to pre-pandemic levels of staffing - partly due to rising overheads but also because we got used to everything going to shit.

And also because there's not a lot of people who actually want those jobs. Our labour force has shrunk, and workers vote with their feet.

Is that you 👀 😂

Moaning about companies is pointless as so many companies are struggling especially hospitality

Moaning isn’t pointless. Why do you think companies spend a fortune trying to gain customer feedback? You can’t buy a pack of chewing gum these days without them wanting you to ‘rate your experience’. Our gripes are very valuable to them!

Not to mention a higher than ever proportion of adults in the UK not in full employment?