Have we, in the UK, become selfish, lawless and irresponsible?

[Commencethe]

This Bank Holiday seems to have descended into chaos and honestly I am starting to wonder what is happening to people generally.

This weekend alone there have been reports, tragically, of teenagers drowning in rivers and reservoirs, emergency services unable to reach one incident because of illegal parking, beauty spots gridlocked with abandoned cars, beaches overwhelmed with people drinking and taking drugs to excess, fights, weapons, rubbish left everywhere, police being called because a pair of teenagers were apparently having sex openly in a park, and racist outrage because a tourist attraction acknowledged Eid and invited people to celebrate it.

What strikes me is that this feels much wider than just young people behaving badly. Adults blocking roads and verges because they cannot be bothered to park properly. Families leaving litter behind. People ignoring safety warnings around open water. Whole communities unwilling to challenge awful behaviour because someone else should deal with it.

And every time there is discussion afterwards, the blame immediately goes to lack of education, the police, the council, schools, anyone except the individuals involved, their parents, or society more broadly.

I also wonder whether increasingly populist politics and public discourse have plays a role. Constant anger, division and disrespect towards other people, experts, authority and even basic rules seems to have filtered into everyday behaviour. More entitlement, less responsibility, less thought for anyone else.

At what point did personal responsibility disappear? When did we stop caring about our impact on other people or lose any sense of community?

It all feels increasingly selfish, lawless and entitled. Less consideration, less accountability, less self discipline.

Have standards genuinely collapsed or am I overreacting and being unreasonable?

Completely agree. Why can't people focus on all the good stuff, of which there is plenty

The percentage of the worlds population that live in cities is growing. People who live in cities often have healthier more prosperous lives. You don't need to drive every where for a start

It isn’t just new people coming in- we are living longer. Many families divorce and end up needing 2 houses. Our elderly don’t move in with us they stay in big houses. Our students take up huge swathes of the city.

We haven’t built enough houses for a long time.

I’m not saying migration isn’t a problem- it is part of the problem. The boats are a particularly tiny part, it’s the over stayers and the ‘perfectly legal but overall more people than we catered for’ that are the problem.

Things haven't been the same since COVID. War broke out at our local beach the bank holiday weekend, teens tooled up, drinking and drugs. Passed out, adults getting hurt for trying to intervene.

Tbh our town is a no go area gradually. It's been taken over by the feral youth. The drug takers and alcoholics.

I was reading earlier about a war at a metro station and 6 metro windows were put in.

Shoplifting just blatant in front of you. It's twilight zone territory.

The weekend has been carnage.

However, some of the problems are due to a total lack of facilities.

1. People leaving rubbish. We know the type of place it happens at. Large and multiple bins are needed there. I hate taking litter home with me as the bloody bin is only collected once every 3 weeks. So I won’t leave litter at a beach but I will find a bin on the way home/petrol station/wherever. Councils need proper provision for litter at these places.

2. “anitisocial” parking. Either make proper parking facilities or have capacity limits on certain places. Again, total disorganisation and underinvestment giving inevitable results.

3. drownings in open water. We don’t have a swimming pool in our town. Even where there are pools they can be ££. So people end up in open water. Beaches need large life guarding presence on bank holidays. Paid and organised by the council.

Britain is a shit place in 2026. Society is disintegrating due to total government and council incompetence (all parties) over several decades. Education, healthcare, police, services - all is broken.

I know someone who had surgery last weekend for a dog attack. After she went home, the police called and asked if she was safe, which of course she was as she was in her own home with her own husband. They went on to say that therefore it was low priority and they were lacking resources to do anything. Next time that dog attacks, a child could die. And nobody has any shits to give. We are truly broken. When my dd broke her arm, we had to pay £500 to see a doctor and get an additional X ray as the NHS didn’t have any fracture clinic places. WTAF. A kid with a broken limb can just go and get fucked. And it was broken at school - nothing to do with anything I did.

We are broken beyond repair. No idea what the solution is.

We’ve not been out on the bank holiday weekend as both kids revising for exams and DH worked from home all weekend.

Man, have you any idea how that one sentence makes you look?

Did you believe the COVID vaccine was injecting little robots as well?

Also not understanding about cold water shock.

Imagine caring what a stranger on MN thought about my opinion and how it made me "look".

Do you believe in Santa?

lol that you don’t.

Children can be brought up to be decent, responsible citizens whether you live in a massive house or the poorest home.

My parents came from extremely poor backgrounds (not 2026 poor with xboxes, fancy trainers, days out). Thats not poor. Proper poor. Got a good education (which has always been free) and decent parenting taught them manners, respect for others and the environment around them.

Yes parentinv is to blame for the majority of problems this bank holiday. Ofcourse there will always be the exception but overall, rude, irresponsible people are a product of their parents.

The "acid rain myth" refers to the argument that the catastrophic environmental damage attributed to acid rain in the 1980s was vastly exaggerated or disproven by later scientific data. Proponents of this view, such as Steve Goreham and the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, contend that acid rain is not dangerous to humans and that its ecological impact was overstated.
Key points of the myth include:

• Human Health: There is no evidence that anyone has ever been directly harmed by acid rain itself. While sulfur dioxide ($SO_2$) gas emitted by volcanoes or industry is harmful if inhaled, the resulting acid rain is only mildly acidic (pH ~4), which is about 100 times less acidic than lemon juice.
• Ecological Impact: A 1990 National Acid Precipitation Assessment Program (NAPAP) report concluded that acidic deposition was not a significant factor in forest health problems in North America. Subsequent analysis showed that German forest dieback (Waldsterben) was caused by disease and weather, not acid rain.
• Lake Recovery Paradox: Despite a 90% reduction in $SO2$ and $NO2$ emissions in the U.S. and Europe since the 1980s, many lakes have not recovered their acidity, suggesting that natural factors or other pollutants play a larger role in lake chemistry than previously thought.
• Policy Misconceptions: Critics argue that the success of the 1990 Clean Air Act acid rain program is often misused to justify carbon cap-and-trade schemes, despite fundamental differences in the nature of the pollutants and infrastructure required.

While the term "acid rain" is still used scientifically to describe acidic precipitation from $SO_2$ and nitrogen oxides, the narrative that it is an imminent, catastrophic threat to human health and global forests is considered by these sources to be a debunked environmental myth.

Compared with when ? There has always been lawlessness.
There hasn’t been so many people living on this island. Combine that with hot weather and you have a recipe for disaster.
Nor have we had such fast communications. And a media determined to depress us and convince us all that we are on the point of some sort of civil war.

I don’t know if we have become more lawless, we have always been fairly boorish and uncouth. We are not as cultured as some.

There is hidden lawlessness too. Not just men brawling who are boozed up. But the person wearing a suit who defrauds their company etc. Insurance fraud.

I think we have become less able to understand what is real and what isn’t.

https://www.masterresource.org/acid-rain/myth-dangerous-acid-rain/

What made the acid rain myth finally evaporate?

Acid rain: menace, madness, myth

I agree with you, I thought the same thing this weekend. We took our toddler (18 months old) to a popular big beach for the day, I haven’t been since my older children were little. It was a disaster! We thought we could have a few hours in the pier then let my LO have a little run on the beach. The pier was heaving, people walking/running into each other barely any apologies. We stopped outside to get ice cream as it was LO’s first time as he had CMPA and we’ve been doing the milk ladder. We were stood out of the way enjoying the ice cream and filming LOs excited reaction when a drunk man from a drunken crowed fell over full force knocking me to the ground and almost tipped my pushchair! I was so angry, and LO looked terrified.

We went to the edge of the beach so he could run around the sand and he kept trying to pick up rubbish, so so much rubbish! We called it a day and went to get some chips, the tables were covered in litter that people just upped and left, used vapes, drinks bottles half eaten chips which attracted a herd of seagulls. We didn’t bother, we went home to order a takeaway. These are just a few things of what ruined a fun day out. Society is lost, really really lost. There was a teenage stabbing local to me on a beach (not the one I attended), which is very, very unheard of so people saying things like ‘this has always been the case’, I do not agree, at all! It’s getting worse, much worse!

We used to go to the beach often and have never experienced this sort of thing. Something has shifted, I’m not sure what.

I dont think it‘s acceptable- far from it!

I always feel sad we cant go to beaches or water parks this time of year (autistic child can’t cope whatsoever) and for the first time I’m pleased we can just play with water in the garden.

Well, councils are underinvesting, because they are underinvested in, and don't have the money for the absolute basics, surely? How many have declared bankruptcy recently? Like everything else since austerity. . .

That’s wealth related not because the environment is good for them.

Well I saw some of the social media videos calling for teens largely to gather at various beaches and they were of facecovered male teens holding fuck long machete knives. Waving them about.

What I don't understand is if you are a teen and think "oh let's go and have a look what's going on" what is going through your mind? Why would you want to be anywhere near there? They know that stabbings happen. They know randoms are killed. Life over before it has even begun. And worse case scenario aside, why would you turn up to give these hooligans

We've had to talk to our teens about what happens if they are out and a flash mob starts to form. My parents never had to consider these things.

The BBC article this morning on the increase, steep increase, of suspensions from school that have homophobia, sexism, racism or ableism as a contributing factor, which was indicated that not all of this can be dealt with in a classroom and there must but external influences, home life, which inspire this poison in the first place. Which is totally understandable, the rise of far-right politics has allowed, encouraged, persuaded many adults that only straight, pale males are of worth.

Many parents, and adults themselves, don't care about decency as long as they are popular. Many people are beholden to "likes" online as value of their worth and the most popular of posts are not people playing rounders in the park are they?

How much is social media? Especially for the youngsters. Get the right formula, get enough likes, you can then live like a millionaire. And the tech gods in silicon valley get richer and richer in their golden gated castles whilst teenagers get stabbed for going to the beach.

Social media is banned in this house, not youtube but tiktok, mainly, and snapchat. Doesn't really help that much with the society our teens are part of. But it's what we can do right now.

A farmers field near my village was taken over at the weekend with people. I’ve never seen him so angry! Police did nothing.

Im talking Bbqs, gazebos, horrendously loud music. Kids and adults shouting and screaming.

First time it has ever happened and non of them are local so no idea why they chose that particular field 😂

Because there’s no deterrent to abysmal behaviour. The police won’t do anything, often CAN’T do anything. When they do, the court system gives pathetic sentences. The whole country now panders to this pathetic, entitled attitude where no is responsible for their own lives or choices anymore.

there’s no incentive to behave or work hard, and no deterrent from being an abhorrent cunt. It’s all downhill from here.

Acid rain was never about individual safety. It was about buildings and monuments being damaged, from what I remember. It was the beginning of widespread awareness of environmental damage, along with holes in the ozone layer and CFCs.

Of course over time, understanding has got more sophisticated- both the messaging and the actual science. We’ve moved from ‘global warming (it’s fucking freezing here mate, bring it on)’ to ‘climate emergency’. Acid rain, the greenhouse effect and the ozone layer aren’t even mentioned anymore.

That doesn’t mean we don’t have a massive environmental catastrophe on our hands. And people can’t be arsed to wash out a mayonnaise jar, or separate their recycling.

I was saying exactly this to a friend today, many people no longer know how to behave.. littering, smoking/vaping and blowing it in peoples faces, barging onto trains and not letting people off first, aggressive driving, playing music out-loud for everyone to hear, I was hiking up Ben Nevis a couple years ago and there was a couple with a boom box hiking up it near me, as if everyone wants to hear your shit music up a mountain! Still though there are nice people around and it’s very easy to focus on the negative and spiral and think everything and everyone is shit