To feel our quality of life in the UK gets lower every year?

[Playingvideogames]

Off the back of another thread where I mentioned my childhood homes being bought by my parents for under 300k in the late 90s/early 2000s, and are now all selling for 700k+.

I feel like our quality of life just dwindles every year. Everything becomes more expensive. Housing is low quality, small and extortionate. The weather is awful 70% of the time. Everything feels so overcrowded with fewer green spaces and natural beauty as more housing estates go up. The roads are awful, choked with traffic and potholed. Constant roadworks here yet nothing ever seems to get solved. Customer service is a bit rubbish, nothing really works as intended. More and more rules about what you can and can’t do. People just seem stifled and stressed.

I’m sure people will rush along to say how wonderful the NHS is and similar, but I sometimes feel really envious of people living in places where (although not perfect) they have something reliable to enjoy - great weather, a nice big house, just more space and less overcrowding.

I don’t think I’m being unreasonable but I wonder if you do!

People bought plenty of stuff before retail parks and the internet. Yes, I do agree that people generally probably buy "more" stuff due to the convenience of Amazon and the internet, but it'll only be a relatively small amount. Lots of people used to go out shopping every Saturday buying things they didn't really need, i.e. clothes, makeup, accessories, etc for their Saturday night out and that's just one example. Likewise my brother used to go to Tandy virtually every weekend to buy electronic gizmos, components etc as hobby electronics was his hobby. Likewise my father regularly frequented a photography shop to buy lenses, special effect filters etc or his SLR camera (and bought several different cameras over the years too!). These are all the kinds of discretionary spending that people will buy from Amazon these days, hence all the shops that have closed over the past 2/3 decades.

Amazing theatre both in London and all over the UK regionally; museums, galleries, National Trust properties, some of the most awe inspiring countryside in the world, the BBC, Wimbledon, M&S.

The UK is still perfect. Come on

Far fewer people owned a home or expected to. Or went to uni or expected to.
The food was bland. Racism was rife. Life expectancy was far lower.Neurodivergence was just laughed at. Dyslexics were thickos, autistic people were weirdos, ADHD sufferers were lazy or naughty. Sexism and sexual predatory behaviour was totally normal and it was never the men who were blamed but the young girls who were ridiculed as sluts. Domestic violence was not tackled by police. Rape in marriage was legal. Homosexuality was an aberration. Having children outside of marriage was such a social disgrace, that perfectly capable women were forced to give up their babies for adoption.
We came a long way. And now we are back sliding.

It’s about context though. I was at high school in 80’s. It mattered less if you were ND at a comp because a) it wasn’t a thing and b) there was way less pressure at school. “Weird” kids could get jobs or go to Uni as you didn’t need richparents.
Being “ thick” meant got your qualifications in practical skills and are probably now doing really well.
Society was more openly racist/ homophobic/ sexist but certainly no worse than we are today with “hate speech” .
Thatcher was a female Prime Minister. Going topless on a beach was just European and not performative or porn as it seems to be now.
Food wasn’t bland in the 80’s.

Far fewer people owned a home or expected to. Or went to uni or expected to.
The food was bland. Racism was rife. Life expectancy was far lower.Neurodivergence was just laughed at. Dyslexics were thickos, autistic people were weirdos, ADHD sufferers were lazy or naughty. Sexism and sexual predatory behaviour was totally normal and it was never the men who were blamed but the young girls who were ridiculed as sluts. Domestic violence was not tackled by police. Rape in marriage was legal. Homosexuality was an aberration. Having children outside of marriage was such a social disgrace, that perfectly capable women were forced to give up their babies for adoption.
We came a long way. And now we are back sliding.

It’s about context though. I was at high school in 80’s. It mattered less if you were ND at a comp because a) it wasn’t a thing and b) there was way less pressure at school. “Weird” kids could get jobs or go to Uni as you didn’t need richparents.
Being “ thick” meant got your qualifications in practical skills and are probably now doing really well.
Society was more openly racist/ homophobic/ sexist but certainly no worse than we are today with “hate speech” .
Thatcher was a female Prime Minister. Going topless on a beach was just European and not performative or porn as it seems to be now.
Food wasn’t bland in the 80’s.

They had the YTS scheme as well. So school leavers could easily get a place on that if they couldn't get a job themselves

That’s ridiculously high, we need farm land, flood land, countryside, moorlands, lakes reservoirs, forests and woods. We can’t keep destroying those things, surely you understand this and why we need all those things? I think geography in schools should really be looking to educate people about the basics like this.

We don’t need more houses building, we need less people.

The countryside needs protecting. It’s clear Labour hate the countryside and people in it. Stop spending money on diversity and inclusion to help people who apparently won’t go into the countryside because of dogs and pubs- and start spending much needed funds on rural communities, fixing their infrastructure. Stop destroying communities. I’d like to see a ban on building on greenfield. Flooding is getting. Worse, our coasts are eroding, we can’t cope with the amount of sewage produced and its polluting our rivers and seas. We are over populated - it needs to stop.

Cut down the amount of people needing houses building cutting out people coming into the country completely apart from very select people.

I agree apart from

cutting out people coming into the country completely apart from very select people.

brownfield sites should always be first places to be developed. We import enough inflation as it.

Totally agree

the government bangs on about net zero but makes things even worse by building on green fields

Unfortunately, if you keep allowing people in, the problem will get worse.

I'm very literate thank you very much. But a bunch load of economists in a room they'll all come out with different answers.

Happy to accept there are both reasons for and against Brexit. The country voted to free ourselves from the shackles of Brussels and that's fine. It's in both interest to work together as partners but for us to keep our sovereignty.

AI

A lot safer actually. Walked around on my own at night and felt so much safer than I ever did in London, Paris, Madrid or anywhere else in Europe. Things were so clean as well. The GCC is a fabulous place to be. Compared to London I felt so safe having my phone out in public.

Who decides who the select few are?

Sorry? What do you mean AI ?

I'm talking about the abysmal rights for women not whether or not you can use an iphone

I wondered that? EVERY SINGLE member of the nursing staff was Filipino? Every one? And when you say ‘plundered….?’

Only those with high value skills and professional qualifications, or temps like seasonal agricultural labour. We should be training the rest from the existing population.

Artificial intelligence. Friend has a compsci and machine learning background.

Where are women safer walking the streets alone at night? I was there in the winter and I didn't have to constantly check over my shoulder. I knew I could go out on my own in the evenings and I'd still return home after unscathed.

@Jideom oh I see his business is AI - well as someone in music I agree with EU on this and stricter controls , particularly in creative industries - AI is still used a lot in EU though and particularly in science and technology to good use , so I’m not sure what he is getting at unless it’s not for positive purpose -

But who decides what are high value skills? UK Drs and nurses can't get jobs allegedly. Those are high value jobs. What about the jobs that British workers don't want to do like care work?

I think immigration needs more thought and planning than it is given.

More thought and planning are absolutely required @NorthXNorthWest . If I ruled the world, there would be more space for science/medical researchers, and scope for young unaccompanied people, like the Pakistani ITU nurse who looked after DH in the cardiac unit last year. Master's degree, and only weak in English, but she had only been in the UK for three months and was planning to stay for 3 - 5 years max. In general, it should be limited to fairly tech-y skills with a high salary floor. But care jobs are the elephant in the room, at present, with an ageing population.

Reductio ad absurdium. Obviously many people , including on this thread, live happily in Florida, Oz etc

But on a thread where you have mentioned weather & recent flood warnings in your area as a con of the UK, it IS relevant that more severe weather events are common in many of the places that have been mentioned : Florida, Texas, Australia, etc Indeed, there was a heading on BBC news yesterday about Florida being littered with dead iguanas due to a weather event (though that was a cold snap, more unusual)

It's also fair to point out that not having a Mediterranean style climate like Spain etc does mean we get milder climate all round rather than extremely hot summers.

Rights have improved in some ways, eg. Gay people couldn't adopt as a couple, or have a legal partnership in the 80s, hospital partner visitation rights & child custody I need to check but probably precarious