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!

Both my parents lived into their 90s. If I can emulate them, I will have drawn over 300K in State Pension. I paid more that in tax/NI. Or you can just refund me my tax/NI.

You're right. But the very rich - here and worldwide - are getting soo much richer

If everyone left the low paid jobs, then who would do them?
Why do we say that many low paid job are essential, and we clapped for them during Covid, but on the other hand say they deserve to live in poverty for not taking responsibility.

Are you so sure you'd make it to 100 anyway?

Don't many pensioners have assets as well?

That's the whole UK including the Scottish Highlands. The South East of England is much more developed.

The reality is, though, people have consistently voted for parties that have pursued mass immigration policies. The population has increased by at least 10 million and we now have a housing crisis.

The Green Belt needs to go and we need to build millions of houses, so that young people can buy houses and start families.

Britain's NIMBYs and NAMDs (Nothing After My Development), will just have to suck it up.

I have lived in the same town my whole life (Colchester) and would say that, yes, my quality of life is much lower than it was in the 1990s.

The main problem is the sheer number of people. We now have the population of a city crammed into a small market town. Developers have jammed as many horrible rabbit hutch houses into the town and its surroundings as they can. I feel squeezed and hassled and stressed. It isn’t natural to live like this. By the end of the week, my nerves are shredded. My local woods have been hacked down to make way for two new estates, and now the fields in the centre of the village are going to have 400 + new houses built on them as well. It just never ends. The traffic is awful, and even driving to the supermarket is an ordeal.

Many, not all.
DM has an elderly friend in her 90s and she in on pension credit. She has nothing to her name.

What assets?

Both my parents lived into their 90s. If I can emulate them, I will have drawn over 300K in State Pension. I paid more that in tax/NI. Or you can just refund me my tax/NI

If you were representative of everyone we wouldn’t have an issue. But you are just you….

Things like housing

care in the home needs to include house value not just care out of the home

Many, not not all

Future generations will have far more renters

If you don't like it, move...

You've got a house, but you don't want other people to have the opportunity to have a home - or just not near you.

you may not be an anthropologist or historian but this chat is not casual.

Not all pensioners have a house they own.
My parents are pensioners and are in a council house.

The reality is, though, people have consistently voted for parties that have pursued mass immigration policies. The population has increased by at least 10 million and we now have a housing crisis

Immigration is a popular way of finding the demographic changes because those immigrants won’t have been educated here and many leave as they approach older age.

I like the distinction between the seasons, diverse scenery, music, being able to enjoy both urban and rural culture as the country is not massive. But I don't think we are as honest as we should be about the lack of meritocracy.

No one said they all own. As I said future retirees will have fewer in own their own home & fewer in council housing & more privately renting.

But they still need to be housed while they're in the UK.

The Germans thought that Turkish workers would return home, but they never did. If the government is planning housing, pensions and services upon the assumption that immigrants won't permanently settle, god help us.

I think there's a lot in this. I think a lot of us in our 40s and 50s are thinking that things are worse than in the 90s - and they probably are and we're also at the unhappiest life stage. But things were truly grim in the 1940s and to an extent the 1950s. Things could be so much worse and I think some people would do well to remember that - I think things like brexit came about because people only saw the bad and didn't appreciate the good things they already had.

@ThisOldThang but that is how governments think & why they have favoured immigration. It’s not something I just made up.

Had a chat about this with a friend about this.

They said "the young, the lazy, the unambitious".

Today I went to a completely free nature reserve and used the facilities and played with my kids and laughed at my dog. We went to a lovely cafe where everyone was friendly and polite and indulged in cake. Later my children went to a local swimming pool with their dad and played on the free floats during the "family fun" session. I popped out for a short run and some alone time. When they came home we all ate a Thai inspired meal and watched TV together. As a woman I used my own car to get around and my own bank account to buy coffee and cake. I didn't fear for my safety or that of my children and happily went places on my own. I think there's a lot there to be grateful for.

We've just had the updated children's public health data through at work. It's bleak. We've got the biggest increase in the numbers of children living in poverty over the last ten years of any other peer country. It really is shameful.

Our children are the unhappiest of any in Europe.

We have the second highest rate of infant death in the developed world after Canada (which has historically had really poor figures).
We have a worrying rise in avoidable deaths in children - including the re-appearance of rickets and a resurgence of measles.

It's really unforgivable what has happened during the austerity years. Other countries haven't had the same devastating childhood impact that we have, so the global economic crash and pandemic aren't really excuses.

If I had a friend that had those views, then I would not be happy.

We've got the biggest increase in the numbers of children living in poverty over the last ten years of any other peer country. It really is shameful.

That is shameful, I don’t understand as children are the future. They need investment but so many begrudge it.