How do you rate the standard of living in the UK?

[Socci]

Today my mum said that she would consider migration to another country if she was younger because she feels that the standard of living in this country is not good enough and is getting worse.

What is your view on this? What do you think is good compared with other places in the world? What would you change?

My uncle emigrated to Australia about 30 years ago and he and his wife have never been completely happy.

So is it a case of the grass is always greener?

crunchie, some bits of Canada are really boring. Montreal, however, isn't. Really lovely place.

Still cold, though, and a bit small, I found, eventually.

I like the fact that we live in a multi-cultural society and ds won't bat an eyelid when he sees someone with different coloured skin or hears a different language or accent on the bus.

oh god Canada
and so bloody cold
or bloody hot
that you can't go outside
I mean what's up with that?
Montreal I am prepared to concede may b ehabitable

it's funny about the education system. In the UK, we all moan about education but in other parts of the world, they all rave about our education. Canadians are under the impression that the UK has a fantastic education system (according to my SIL who teaches and works with kids)

weird. which one is the truth I wonder. god knows. DS isn't in school yet.

hc, it's really only the flat boring bits in the middle that are really like that. I hear Vancouver has a good (if wet) climate, with mountains and sea right there. (Unfortunately, it's full of weird knit-your-own-muesli sort of people ... probably I'd be right at home there, actually ...)

And the Eastern seaboard is lovely, we had a great holiday in Nova Scotia a few years back, lovely cheap lobster and crab to eat, lovely terrain, beautiful moderate weather, etc etc.

Toronto and Montreal have ok climates. And Toronto is pretty multi-cultural, but still, packed with square-heads, and not my cup of tea. Montreal is just lovely, the mountain, the fleuve, the tamtams ... I miss it so much, but I doubt I'll ever move back.

weeeell DC what about Ontario?
Toronto is a fairly decent city but I have been there is the summer and the winter and frankly I was mocked for wanting to go outside at all
the humidity
the mosquitoes

and in the winter I tried to walk to geta a newspaper adn thought I might die
they boast in Toronto about being able to get from one sid e of the city to the other without stepping outside
drove me mad I must say

Yeah, hc, the winters are brutal. Montreal winters are worse, frankly. I used to bicycle in them, though.

You can still go outside, but you need the right gear. Lots and lots of layers.

I do not miss the winters.

I love the UK and even quite like the NHS. I think the UK has a long way to go when it comes to being family and child-friendly though. A loooong way.

I'm with hmc and I wouldn't live anywhere but the UK.

i'm from ontario (toronto area).

it gets hot and humid, but we like the heat and humidity.

it gets bloody cold as well but you just seem to get used to it.

we're going back in may. i'm thinking southern ontario, near niagara. winters are a little less harsh (only a little) and the summers are lovely.

Nowhere's perfect.

I dislike people taking our benefits and NHS system for a ride - unfortunately those who need it most seem not to know how to 'play' the system.
I think we are now being over-taxed, albeit in sneaky ways.

But I love this country, and cannot imagine living anywhere else.

I think the next few years are going to be very telling in how Britain changes, and in what direction.

I couldn't think about going to Australia - all those snakes!

you can tell NQC is canadian... she used the word 'brutal'

i fancy OZ but DW is a little scared of moving so far away.

I like the hot weather and cheap prices... and I love those houses on stilts in north queensland.

NQC - I apologise! I completely misread your post as saying the exact opposite!! Sorry...

Crunchie - I could never deny that racism exists in Australia. But we don't have any far-right movement like in Britain, and the white supremacist/nationalist stuff is smaller and less obvious han in Britain.

Interesting what you say about Australian men... when I lived in the UK I could not BELIEVE the institutionalised sexism, and the behaviour of the men. My experience was totally opposite - Australian men of my experience are generally far more enlightened... :)

Oh, do people here not say "brutal"?

And did you not notice me calling you (ok, everyone from Toronto) a square-head?

What are those funny names for Toronto? Hogtown ... isn't there Toronto the Good or something? It's a deeply weird town ... I was told they used to cover up all the shop windows on Sundays, so people couldn't window-shop on the Sabbath ...

yup, hogtown. and I am a squarehead. I used to be a redneck, close-minded, checky shirt wearing, triple pleated chino wearing, cowboy sportin geek.

eerr... toronto isn't that bad. it's just a slightly cleaner version of any other large US city.

No problem, bloss.

I don't know if the Aussie right-wing movement works this way, but the Canadian one has been stymied by the problem of working out who they're opposed to. They know they don't like Native folks, or Black people, or East Asians or South Asians. But what about Eastern Europeans? Or the Irish? What about the Scottish?

If your country is really multicultural, people have a hard time getting together a good gang of racists without a lot of infighting!

I like the way this has turned into a discussion about Canada

No, you're right, DC. But I don't think I could ever live in an American city. (Maybe NYC or SF or Boston? Maybe.)

What is it with all those checked shirts?

Oh, and I so don't miss how twitchy most North American men are about their masculinity. My brother is like that, and it just annoys me.

of course. i really must stop obsessing. it's all i think about right now.

Mosschops30 we have lived in Sydney as dh is Australian.

I don't remember smoking being allowed in restaurants, can't comment too much on pubs as pubs over there were a pale comparison to what we would call a pub. Most brightly lit and full of pool tables and gambling machines.

In Sydney there are more imigrants than you would ever see in the UK, not that I found it a problem (but at one stage working in a recruitment company approx 90% of job applicants could not speak english very well).

There were no NHS dentists even for children.

Taxes were higher than the UK and pay was definitely lower.

Housing in the very outer suburbs was affordable but near the city it would compete with London prices easily also transport is not a good so a lot more driving is required.

My sil says she will need to move because of local schools and just like London most feel the need for private education to get the best education. She also paid privately to have her children (more subsided through work than here) and MIL was recently diagnosed with breast cancer she also felt she had to pay for treatment quickly and has got into a fair bit of debt over it.

So I would say don't go to OZ expecting everything to be better as in a lot of cases it is comparable. Of course it depends where in OZ you are actually going to live and what your jobs are etc.

We did visit at Christmas and ds1 was so happy there I for the first time felt maybe it was a better place to bring up children, but I don't think we could afford to live where I would like to live there even though dh has a well paid job and we have a house in London.

On the whole I have to agree standard of living is relative to how much you earn and the type of things that make you happy. My only real gripe about the UK is the diabolical education system here. I personally prefer living here but would move to OZ if it was best for the whole family.

Sorry, dinosaur, one bad side effect of being from a new nation with no sense of national identity is, we happy to talk about being Canadian for hours. We giggle like school children whenever any part of the American media deigns to notice our existance.

It's quite embarassing, really.

Actually, I think Australians are just less prone to political extremes. The Communists were never as strong here as in the UK. We don't have your bizarre animal rights activists who kill people in order to save animals. We don't have the National Front. We don't have soccer hooligans (except for some strongly ethnic hold-outs, eg Greeks vs Macedonians)... Politically we are pretty apathetic - not something that is uniformly a good thing but at least preserves us from some of the worst extremes.

no Toronto is very nice and friendly
they can make a decent cup of tea
there are some decent restaurants
just wouldn't want to live there though

Me neither, hc. (But you can buy your "hippie crack" there pretty easily ...)

bloss, the same is probably true of Canada. We've had one bomb, once, or something. We're all pretty moderate, really.