AIBU to think we are edging worryingly close to anarchy?

[Noras]

Am I unreasonable to believe that we are 2 or 3 steps away from anarchy?

Just that really. We see endless footage of quite aggressive and in the open. Shop lifting. People seem to have no shame eg driving over parkland or chucking rubbish out of car windows. Kids ran amok in Cornwall. People decide to live in caravans anywhere and just poo in parkland. Fly tipping is rife.
People freely wal: around the streets under the influence of drugs. People go to upmarket gyms with ankle tags and no sense of shame. People are more abusive and rude.

Society has also changed for the better, depending how you look at it. Our quality of life now is pretty good all things considered.

The threats against Khan have been horrific and largely motivatedby racism and/or Islamophobia.

Khan death threats

I’m sure that’s what he says it’s for. Does Farage also have a security team around him?

We can no longer afford our quality of life societally, which is why it is diminishing. HMOs were popular in Victorian London and they are back again as a housing solution. As long as you are happy to walk back to my grandmother’s lifestyle, then there’s nothing to see here.

Indeed, you hear about the far right all the time on here even though 75% of UK terror threats are from islamists (3 x more than the far right). I think Farage has way more to fear than Khan with those and the extreme left wing.

So london had no problems 40 years ago? London is a lovely place to visit now.

A team of heavies to intercept the milkshakes. I'm pretty sure he does.

the SkY iS fAlLiNg! THE SKY IS FALLING!!!!

🐔🐔🐔

He does have security.

MPs like Jo Cox, killed by a far right activist could have done with it as well.

Nail on the head.

I live in a quite "naice" village. The village convenience store (Co Op) suffers daily shoplifting from people driving through, the canal towpath is plagued with teenagers on electric bikes/scooters meaning walkers etc have to literally dive out of the way to avoid being hit, loads of thefts of plant from surrounding farms, strong smell of cannabis where the teens hang out, almost weekly vandalism of the village playground, tennis courts and village hall. Police presence is only their vehicles driving through, never stopping, showing no interest at all. I even saw a police car drive straight past a group of teens clearly vandalising a bus shelter.

The nearby "big" town is a lawless shit hole too. Burned out buildings left to rot for years, virtually no shops left in the town centre, open drug dealing on the streets, off road motorbikes openly driven around town in gangs.

But it's OK, because the council are raking in huge sums penalising drivers for driving through bus lanes and turning right at no right turn junctions!!

But it's getting worse and not as good as it was 20-30-40 years ago. It's on a downward decline. Just because it's better than Victorian times doesn't make it "good" in any way, shape or form. In a developed country, we shouldn't be accepting any decline in living standards.

I agree.
It’s the same in Ireland where I live.
Add to this we have protesters, protesting against high energy costs, blocking the main motorways at crucial points and blocking the exit from Ireland’s only oil refinery.
One third of garages in the country have already run out of fuel.
It’s a sh*tshow 🥲

I think a lot of lazy, feckless and unambitious people blame the government for everything instead of making any effort for themselves.

I didn't say that London had no problems then. I doubt there is a city the world that you could say that about. London was definitely a much better place back then though. It wasn't overcrowded and public transport wasn't a horrible experience. Now it seems that every time you get on a train or bus there are people shovelling family sized packs of crisps and sweets in their mouths or listening to deafening music or shouting into their phones. They shove and push to get the seat they so desperately need for a 5 minute journey. Also fights obviously happened, but it tended to be a punch up with fists, now it's knives and stabbings, if not shootings.

Our useful local Co-op closed after 8 years' trading mostly because of shop-lifting - this in a well-heeled area.

I agree. It feels people have no fear or shame anymore.
We need to work on bringing both those things back somehow…..

Yes, agreed. There's a lot of complacency about. Khan needs to address anti-social behaviour as that's what has a big impact on quality of life.

He keeps saying homicide has gone down. Could that be because stabbing has become so common that medics have developed some expertise in treating stab victims so they can survive?

Yes, this is the sort of thing that's happening. There is more lawlessness now than there used to be. Not that it was great before, but anti-social behaviour has definitely increased.

Shit I had no idea all of that was going on. What a fucking shit show. Rhe only politics we seem to get now is US centric even though Ireland is next door!

Do we fund Farage’s security?

Bollocks. You are talking absolute bollocks!

20,30,40 years ago adults needed educating to stop them from driving while drunk

No adult safeguarded a 16 year old from having her naked top half printed on Page 3.

It was legal for men to rape their wives

I live in a deprived part of Cornwall. I remember children in Year 6 malnourished, unclean and smoking cigarettes in the 1990s.

I remember children having no playgrounds, being neglected and playing in contaminated land on abandoned mining machinery.

I also remember children who lived 2 miles from the beach being too poor to go to the beach.

Let's not romanticise the shit times 😬

Yes while he’s on official business and if there’s a credible threat (which I’m almost certain he could successfully argue there is). If he fancied it just when he’s out and about in his personal life he’d have to pay I think.

But then some things were better then. Ie people could afford to maintain a home on a modest income without state assistance and they weren’t as likely to be stabbed.

I'm going to read this thread properly later

I'm just hopping on now to say that it really annoys me when people say it's about watching things on social media

In summer of 2024, my work was taking me to 3 different places (in or near London) where there was a lot of trouble.

So just that on top of the general decline was horrible

there were a couple of days where I had a long meeting in the morning and then again in the afternoon. I didn't feel okay wandering around even though it was nice weather and I needed the walk. There was a park, but it's pretty much a no go area. Some friends of my mums had moved out of there and said they no longer spend summer evenings in the park as an elderly couple. It's not safe.

I went into the local pub to cover my lunchtime,and locals were all discussing the trouble too.

I think there are some people who genuinely don't realise how much trouble actually doesn't get posted on social media.

@MyLuckyHelper Yeah and that's fair. But we shouldn't romanticise the past as if it was a safe and loving era either 💐