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!

Yes!!

Can yoy drive as a woman? Do you need to cover your face? . You know if you have a glass of wine you can be arrested at any moment. Lucky you aren’t gay I guess? Fucking ignorance on this site is staggering.

they will be back in a month….. I had a glass of wine and got arrested by security staff …. So unfair!

In some Middle Eastern countries, UAE for one, strictures are mainly enforced on women who live there full-time. Visiting Western women may get more lax treatment, plus places like UAE have compounds where Western people can let their hair down (drink alcohol etc)

So I can see why some Western women visiting might not notice glaring inequality at first glance .

I was with you until this comment OP. Bonkers to suggest quality of life is better in the US! Low levels of literacy, gun crime, unaffordable cost of uni, lower levels of female autonomy over their own bodies, high insurance for health care...Nope, I wouldn't say it is offering potential right now.

To be fair, Op is Catholic so might agree with extremely strict abortion laws in many Southern states for one.

(Many don't even have a rape exemption, so yes many are very harsh)

I believe women can drive yes. I didn't need to cover my face. I think only Saudi and Kuwait ban alcohol. I had lots of wine when I went

I am not gay but if I was, I'd refrain from engaging in such acts in their country and respect their laws.

Surprised you got arrested. I had no issues whatsoever.

I suspect that these people would probably leave if they could, but are trying too convince themselves that the U.K is definitely the centre of the universe 😆

Yes, women can drive (even in Saudi Arabia since MBS). In Dubai and the other UAE states you do not need to cover your face anywhere, but you will be asked to wear an abaya and scarf if you visit a mosque. You won't be arrested for drinking a glass of wine, or a cocktail in a hotel or restaurant bar, and probably not in the park with a picnic either. Even being gay is tolerated, as long as you avoid public displays of affection. Clearly, you haven't been there!

Before you ask, my sister lived in the ME on and off from the 1980s to 2018 so we have visited multiple times over 30 plus years, and she knew it well. She drove every day, worked in a mixed office, and walked alone on the street without being harassed, ever. Other relatives have just moved from Riyadh, but the female of the family drove daily too -- as her male partner didn't have a license.

I visited the mosque and covered my head out of respect. I felt so much safer than in London.

Europe is not doing better than us. In fact before Labour got back in we were doing better than now.

Exactly. If the EU wanted to improve the situation we can harmonise and allow free-er trade on goods and services and we both win.

Like it used to be before the EU then?

I just think back to my childhood in the 1970s. Trade unions wrecking the country with frequent strikes, British Leyland had 300 separate industrial disputes in one day back then. Blackouts because of miners strikes.

The kids with learning difficulties were ignored by the teachers and hit if they misbehaved.
Not everyone had a phone (we didn't), a car, colour TV. Only a few people had more than one TV. Not many people I knew had an annual holiday, very very few went abroad.
Clothes were often second hand. Toys too...I had 3 bikes from the age of 4 to 14 and none were brand new. We were lucky to have one football between 10 of us. Leather footballs were revered, in primary school we still had a ball with a lace.
No one had much money and eating out was never done. Take away was fish and chips... people travelled miles when a Chinese takeaway opened in our village.

So today isn't that bad.

Another child of the 60s and 70s who thinks that keeping things in proportion is important but we should acknowledge that consumer goods and food have become cheaper while the price of a home has become more costly. But on balance, the quality of life is generally better for most people now, even in straitened periods.

Can I ask which ME country you were in?

Very unpatriotic - can you really not see any positives which might mean people want to stay in UK?

Area is key here imo. Some places in UK have a lot of the key problems today, some are doing well, and plenty in-between.

Wait, so your sister lived in Saudi Arabia? Or somewhere else in ME?

This!

We need to go back to the population level of just after WW2, or at least the 1980’s.
The country feels far too full, the roads are shocking, in traffic volume, condition and driving standards, I make 6 x 10 minute journeys a week on little local roads and it’s horrific, near misses or aggressive drivers every single time. Hedgerows and roadsides strewn with rubbish.

The smell of cannabis is everywhere, sickening and all pervasive.
I live in a village in Staffordshire not a large city btw.
It’s also mystifying when you drive around, no matter what time of day streets are full of parked cars but the roads are also full of traffic, the road I have to take to get to my DD’s house is always packed coming my way, despite not really being ‘to’ or ‘from’ anywhere in particular. At 07.15 in a morning it’s insanely busy but there are no large factories or warehouses that way to explain it, neither is it the way to the M6 motorway, it’s bizarre and infuriating.

I want to move but you are talking an extra £80-100k for 5 minutes closer to DD.
I hate that there are another 200 houses being built in my village on the site of an old high school and park, we have one little school!

Don't you think it's unfair though that mosques mandate women cover their heads but not men?

I agree with this but otoh as the birth rate is very low we'll probably have the opposite problem in not too long...

Unless you're gay

Aren't those cars just doing what you're doing