How do you feel about the state of the UK?

[CharlotteACavatica]

I rarely come accross anyone that doesnt have ALOT to say about how bad its all getting, me and dp are planning to move abroad to get away from this fast declining country - but how do all of you people here feel about it? My sister thinks this country is great and its getting better if anything!!!

Some of the info about Australia on here is just laughable if it wasn't so sad that people actually believe it. I am born and bred Aussie and I cannot let some of these things go unanaswered.

"our desired destination is Australia, and as i dont live there yet im not aware of all its problems, but so far i have been warned about the extreme heatwaves, deadly creatures, earthquakes, problem with co-existence with aboriginals, aside form the last, i'd take my chances"

Extreme heatwaves may be occasional 1-4 days of high 30s during SUMMER. so max 12 days a year. We have aircon/pool 15 mins from beach so no problem. As for deadly creatures - I have never seen one yet except for Steve Irwin's zoo and Underwater World on the sunshine coast. Sorry, no earthquakes here either. Think history shows a couple of medium ones in southern Australia but that is it. at co-existance with Aborigines. I lived in a country town for 30 years with high pop of aboriginal people and had no issues at all. Am now in city and haven't seen an aboriginal since I left previous country town. Lots of poms and NZers though!!

"The problem with Australia is that wages are very low. That's why you can't walk down a street in Britain without bumping into a load of Australian street cleaners whopping with joy over their incredible new-found wealth"

Don't know where you get your info but my dh is an I.T. worker on average wage and I am a SAHM and we are on a combined income of roughly equiv to 45 000 pounds. That does not include the 140 pounds equiv/fortnight I get from government. Most of our friends are on higher incomes and are all SAHMs too.

"yes Australia would be a lovely place to bring up kids...if you are blonde, blue eyed, play sport and have nothing unusual about you Personally I would like my children to mix with different cultures and not spit on aboriginees when they walk down the street"

Oh crap, I am in deep shit then because I don't have blonde hair, play sport and I am a bit unusual. For that matter I don't have any friends/family who fit that description either. Didn't realise I wasn't having a lovely life. I have never seen anyone spit on an aborigine in my life. As for diff cultures we are very multicultural society. I have chinese and indian restaurants just down the road

not going to comment beyond this regarding the gross inaccuracies about life in australia - if it is so crap - why is the largest immigrant group still people from the UK.

Completely agree with ghosty about healthcare in NZ. We've had fab care and paying a small fee to see the GP is a pleasure, considering the level of service we get.

The NHS is a great institution but it is failing. At least part of the reason is that it's routinely abused by a population that has no concept of the true cost of medical care. I prefer the Kiwi model which encourages a bit of social responsibility.

And again agreeing with ghosty: when you've lived in lots of countries you start to realise that there's no such thing as a good country or bad country. It's all down to a perception of how well the country matches your values and the stage you're at in life.

I miss the UK but there is no way we could have the quality of life that we have here.

eidsvold and mymama ... hear hear ....
NZ has one of the most diverse multicultural cultures I have ever seen ... I walk down the street here and see faces from every corner of the world ... I love it.
In Melbourne you can't move without seeing a restaurant of EVERY single nationality ... wow! Melbourne has the highest number of Greeks living in one city outside of Athens!

having origionated in the UK and lived in Portugal, Holland, and finally am a New Zealand resident I heartily agree with you, ghosty and welliemum

ghosty - my friend headed up the public health nurse team in Wellington, as well as working in paediatric a&e. There meningitis is at epidemic levels. She's a kiwi and wouldn't live anywhere else but is deeply concerned about the health care system.

The higher rate of meningococcal disease in NZ at the moment is caused by a specific strain. The govt has spent a vast amount of money developing a vaccine against this strain, and all children get the vaccine.

It's a worry for any parent anywhere - the risk in NZ isn't big enough to influence whether you move here or not.

which strain is it out of curiosity welliemum? [hello nearlythree - keep meaning to write! ]

It is Menigitis B (I don't know if it has a more specific name to the strain than that).

The word Epidemic means to me that people are dropping like flies with it. Yes, it is said that Meningitis is at 'epidemic' levels. My DD had a meningitis scare at 9 weeks old ... at the South Auckland Hospital where she was at they took no chances and she had a lumbar puncture immediately ... unlike the Meningitis scare my DS had at 6 weeks in the UK where it took 5 days for them to ascertain whether he had it or not.

There are many people who believe that the word 'epidemic' has been bandied about by the scaremongerers that have been pushing the vaccination for the MenB. The vaccine was pushed through very fast and now there is a worry that there are too many adverse reactions to it ... this is for another thread though but my DD was one who had a terrible reaction to it and has not followed through the program.

It is true that there is a higher rate of Meningitis in NZ per capita ... this is also to do with the living conditions of South Auckland and other cities (but mainly the poor part of Auckland) where families of 12 or so are crammed into 2/3 bedroom state housing. Again, my point is that NZ does have its problems - there is poverty here ....

I don't really know what I am trying to say here, only to reiterate that EVERY place has its plus sides and downsides ...
I miss the UK and Europe so much that it hurts - I miss the history, I miss old old old buildings (I used to work in a building that was built in 1621), I miss English countryside, I miss the English summer, I miss Winter Christmas, I miss Marks and Spencers, I miss London, I miss the shopping.
The trade off is that I live 5 minutes from a beach ... that anywhere I go in NZ I am not far from wild Pacific (STUNNING) coastline ... My DH and DS can easily get a ticket to see the All Blacks play rugby, I can afford to be a SAHM AND own my own business at the same time, I can get bloody good coffee, I can drive across the city in 40 minutes (unlike the 4 miles in 40 minutes it used to take me in my town in the UK), I can go to the south island and drink my MIL's own wine from her own vineyard, my children see sushi as a fast food like Mcds rather than some exotic weird food.

NZ is ultimately a cash poor country (see my post earlier about the working, tax paying population) but there is virtually no unemployment and everyone here works damn hard to make the country the best they can make it ....

I am proud it is my home and sad I am leaving it too soon ....

Ruty, it is the same strain that S. had. In itself I agree, it's no reason to avoid going to NZ. Our friend says that overcrowding is a big issue and it hits Pacific Island families hard as they live in overcrowded conditions. Certainly the stats my friend has were very different from the no. of cases here, but as I understand it there is no meningitis C in NZ. The vaccine sounds very nasty and my friend said there are now reports of fully-vaccinated children still getting it.

Ghosty, sorry to hear both your dcs had suspected meningitis, my dd2 had the same thing earlier this yr. She had her lumbar puncture and got the results within two hours of is getting to the hospital.

hi Beatieboo, i'm not disagreeing with the fact that the average ... however if we've got a choice of where we live and whether or not we have a mortgage or not I'm going to take advantage. even if we had to have a mortgage on moving over to NZ we would be going for all the other reasons.

in terms of what ghosty said then yes what we are doing is no different to what all the other kiwi/aussies do who come over to the UK, save up and move back better off financially, lots do, and it's not just the young, people work over here to top up retirement funds. it happens all the time, we have friends in NZ and i am well aware of the difficulties first time buyers have there. but we have experienced similar where we live here, southerners move up, cash rich, making it difficult for first time buyers to buy. it's just life with the ease of domestic and international migration, wanting to escape in search of a better life elsewhere and taking advantage of house prices in the process.

but we've done our struggling (so why would we be looking to struggle all over again?) it's not been an easy ride to be in a position to be able to look forward to potentially being mortgage free and are very grateful. we have NOT sat back and had the UK market give us an easy £ or soon to be $. and after all this is a NZ'r who has worked hard returning home, not an english couple who have no connections to NZ just wanting to profit. lol

nearlythree. It is very odd how different strains of meningitis seem to peak in different countries, more research needs to be done about causes and transmission of meningitis, as well as vaccines.

My friend attends conferences on this and she said the experts know so little.

its really weird nearlythree. I don't know why more research is not done.

ahhhhh where do i begin, the nhs is probably a good thing for those using it, but personally speaking as an over worked, underpaid, generally pissed off with the new, complete rip off that is the agenda for change, staff nurse i completely agree with mosschops30, as a student do your training, work for as small amount of time as you can and climb that drain pipe like your life depended on it, the state of this country is terrible, the governments foreign policy is diabolical and i personally would like to see blair and bush in court charged with war crimes, (maybe they could share a cell with saddam).
To all you grass is not always greener lot, good luck to you all, you wont be able to afford any grass soon because this bloody government will want to tax you per blade to pay for all the scroungers and benefit seeking immigrants that they cant afford, because alot of the tax paying people that keep this country afloat are leaving, i for one will take my skills and work elsewhere, i'll see all those of you with the same ambitions at the top of the drainpipe, we'll wave to all you lot at the other end, knees deep as Tony Blair pisses on you all from his great height!

May the backlash begin!!

Mmmm, for the immigrant loathing posters who plan to become immigrants themselves to get away from the immigrants here, you might be interested to read the following links.

7% of people in UK are from abroad

Notice how many immigrantsare from Canada, Germany, USA, France, Italy, Swedan, Finland etc but somehow I don't think the xenophobes are ranting about these acceptable immigrants.

net contribution to UK GDP by immigrants .

The last paragraphs say "Immigration post-1997 has contributed directly about 3 per cent to GDP with 1 per cent accruing in 2004 and 2005. Since adult immigrants do not draw on public spending as children they are likely to make a net life-time contribution to the exchequer and thus contribute to the welfare of the rest of the population."

IMO, immigration should be controlled but there is a difference between migration and immigration. I do hate the way that immigrants and migrants from certain parts of the world are demonised and blamed for all the ills of this country. Folks making these exaggerated, irrational and unfounded claims are themselves a negative influence on society and the country will be a better place when they finally clear off.

Schoko - "BTW, number of jewish people killed in germany during the war was 165 000. Shocking and bad, but hardly wiping out a whole race. The rest of the oft quoted 6.5 million was in other countries."

Oh, that's OK then. Had nothing to with Germany.

Purlease.

hubtodee
what I said was the bare fact. I didnt draw that conclusion from it, so please dont extrapolate to things that I might have said.
As I said before, the facts speak for themselves, and they dont need exaggerating.

This is what you said: "BTW, number of jewish people killed in germany during the war was 165 000. Shocking and bad, but hardly wiping out a whole race. The rest of the oft quoted 6.5 million was in other countries."

Could you then advise me which nation you think set up the systems of mass murder in all those "other countries" ?

btw - if you have some links to numbers killed in Germany, that would be useful.

schhh, you seriously sound like you are playing down the role Germany played in the Holocaust. Wiping out a whole race was most definitely its purpose, it just didn't succeed. Figures only tell part of the story. Do you think it really would have happened had the Nazis not started it and brought it to other parts of Europe? Do you not realise that once again anti-semitism is on the increase even here in the UK?

And a genuine question: has the racism that you are experiencing resulted in your children (or yourself) needing armed protection?

the facts are there if you bother to look for them. But if you want to keep telling yourself the same old stories, then you can do that as well.

and if you mean, has my family been physically attacked - the answer is yes.

So how can you defend what is going on???? Surely you can't feel safe either?

nearlythree - because I am NOT defending any racism...

But don't you think needing armed guards at a school goes beyond racism?

Hi Schhh, I'd be really grateful if you could answer my point in my 9:39 post:

"Could you then advise me which nation you think set up the systems of mass murder in all those "other countries" ? "

And, if you get a chance, could you elaborate on what are the "same old stories" to which you refer in your 10:06 post ?

Thanks.