It will effect the poor the most… when have the rich ever the cared about the poor
Its happening to people without a voice that represents them
When people have wilfully committed acts of self harm, like voting for Conservative governments four times, and voting for Brexit?
What should they do?, they’ve essentially put themselves in this position, no point screaming about it now.
If there is anything positive that can come out of this sorry situation, it’s that more people will realise that the “work more, work harder and you’ll be fine” line that they have been pedalling for the last 12 years, is utter bullshit, and the system is stacked against a lot of people, it’s just stacked against more people now.
I think lots of people are aware of it but feel they can make little to no impact. We don’t even have a general election for another 3 years
What are you meant to do about it?
Go to a protest for a few hours that at best achieves nothing, and at worst trouble kicks off and you risk being blacklisted or arrested.
The nearest election is still 3 years away, and your only choice will be which brand of neoliberal Thatcherite runs the country. Even the “protest” options aren’t great.
The best you can do is to keep your head down and try to keep enough savings to weather the storm and keep out of trouble. And that is what people are doing.
I really like John Harris, he’s one of the few opinion writers for the Graun that routinely ‘gets it’ and this piece was good too. But the editorialised headline and some of the questions posed get to me a bit.
We are acting like it. Tens of millions of us. We’ve had 12 years of being brow beaten into submission by austerity, our minds literally poisoned by social media and the MSM using models of our growing depression to target the most clickable and watchable media. Worry has become so utterly pervasive in our society that it is now a fully normalised part of day to day life.
The populace is either openly scared – for themselves, their family or for many of us for other people less fortunate than ourselves – or have turned inwards to ignore it as best as possible. A good example – you can now, with good reason too, answer any worry we have in modern society with ‘its going to get worse because of climate change’. How in the living christ are people expected to ‘carry on as normal’ when ‘normal’ is a now seemingly ancient ideal of happiness, prosperity, family building, home ownership?
We are perpetually angry, perpetually scared, perpetually bored, perpetually tired. This is Liberal Capitalism, perhaps its end-game, perhaps a blip on a road to god knows where. But one thing is for absolute certain – many things in life will steadily get worse but some things will get better. We will steadily forget what it was like yesterday as we always have and concentrate on an increasingly thin sliver of the immediate future. My only optimistic view is change will have to come because there is physically no other choice and the shower of Bastards that govern us won’t govern us forever.
The definition of arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, surely.
My theory is that there is no easy answer without admitting fault for being unprepared as a result of the past decade, so they wish to get elected and ‘start a fresh page’ (again).
It’s rather surreal to see the leadership contests go on, though. Boris is also AWOL. Zombie government!
Because we’re a country of people who talk too much and do too little.
Because we/I feel helpless to fix or change anything. This government is callous. I cannot relate to them. They have to idea how far removed from reality they are. They are vying to impress everyone except who really matters. It’s a losing battle. We are completely screwed and we are resigned to it.
40 years of an apathetic march to the right wing… Who actually cares any more?
What can we do? The political system is broken. Led by Donkeys, voted for by sheep.
When you try and talk about the various reasons for us getting into this situation ( brexit/Tories etc ) the people that support those things just shout louder and or downvote you to buggery
I had this conversation with some one the other day.
Why are people not out daily protesting? It’s the best tool we have, you see these countries with corrupt governments out in their thousands. Yet we just roll over and accept it.
Is it because people don’t have the time, and energy for it? I mean if your working full time and barely getting by do you have the time to protest? I just think this country has accepted the roll over and take it cause there’s nothing we can do approach, when there is people just can’t be arsed doing it.
Britain lost its collective resistance. We have taken to heart that strike action is bad, we have isolated ourselves with the goal of greed been good. All the while the powers that be, disseminating this ethos have been stripping and destroying the country. To no one, even their own supporters benefit but their own.
A lot of people are getting what they voted for. I live in a deprived northern area that voted overwhelmingly for brexit and the conservatives.
Now they’re all shocked pickachu because things are shit.
It’s hard to have sympathy for any of them to be honest because when you pointed out what would happen you just got called a leftie twat
Tbh I don’t see what anyone can do right now. Even a competent government would struggle in the current situation. There’s a global supply shortage driving prices upwards and the UK doesn’t make enough energy domestically so we have to import it at high prices. This is a failure of energy security years in the making and will take years to put right. Of course we all know who’s been responsible for a lack of investment in domestic green energy for the last decade, and has promised no more on shore wind farms recently.
Among many other reasons some of which are that many of us are exhausted in many different ways.
Because the boomer generation, being the biggest and most likely to vote, has the majority of power come election time. They are also, incidentally, the least likely to care about what happens to others.
because we have a government consisting of millionaires and billionaires, born into extreme wealth and privilege, who have never experienced anything else.
Not allowed to talk down Britain, remember!
Might end up designated as a terrorist.
I remember a bunch of news reports of working class folk who voted Tory because they “wanted to teach Corbyn a lesson.” I’m no big Corbyn fan, but you reap what you sow.
Because the government and rich don’t care about anybody else, and ultimately they are the people in control.
The Tories in control are aware of it. They’re doing it deliberately.
The people who are being victimised are voiceless by design. And the Tories want to keep it that way.
The working class needs to stop being distracted by the allure of populist Toryism and look at what they’re actually doing. They are driving the poorest and most vulnerable in our nation into destitution.
Because the traditional socially defensive movement was broken by Brexit, and now half of that movement will never admit that it was the elephant in the room that is causing all the problems ! They’ll never abandon it, so they’ll never be able to deal with its crushing consequences.
I hope we pull a French with the rich and the politicians. They all need to go. No one can live like this, no wage raise, inflation, and energy bills going through the roof. While the rich get richer.
Bellend tory party members with an “I’m alright jack” attitude
I feel like until we get proportional representation (yes this drum has been banged on repeatedly), things are just going to get worse. The system is distorted because we have essentially a minority elected group setting policy for the whole country. Personally, having no sympathy with either Labour or Conservatives (I’m thoroughly middle class), I feel I have essentially no voice. It doesn’t matter what I vote, either a Labour or Conservative MP is going to be elected in my borough.
What we really should be talking about is why do people keep voting to cut off their nose to spite their face. This is mostly self inflicted by the way the country voted. They literally told us what we were getting and the turkeys voted for Christmas anyway.
Why? Why do public schools not teach things like politics, rhetoric, taxes etc. All things that would help to educate the population at large when it comes to exercising their democratic rights. In my opinion, it’s because an uneducated population (in terms of politics) is easier to manipulate. When people aren’t taught about politics and rhetoric it’s easy to drum up nationalism or lean on peoples racist/nationalist/sexist/insecurities and tendencies to get their vote. The public at large know so little about politics, so little about the parties and so little about First Past The Post that it makes it easy for people like the Conservatives to win.
For as long as the UK has been a democracy, we’ve had a Conservative government longer than any other. A government which is typically *not* for the people and yet the people keep voting them in. Lack of political knowledge is the one thing thing that has stayed constant in that time.
Politics is something as a society we’re told is taboo to talk about and isn’t taught in public schools – but is in *many* private schools.
Edit: Some people have replied and instantly deleted their comment, so to address their come backs… Yes, some people don’t care about politics and yes that is their right, I absolutely agree.
However, people that don’t care about politics do care about the NHS, energy bills, fuel prices, food prices, housing, renting, tax, schools, university fees, working hours etc… These are all issues that are helped or hindered depending on the party/policies we as a nation vote in. So saying “Some people don’t care about politics” is just short sighted, because politics is the mechanism that effects the things they do care about. This is exactly why I think we should be taught more about it in schools, rather than allowing people to be ignorant about politics and come to conclusions we hear echoed so much in society like “*They’re all the same so I’ll just do X*” or “*My vote won’t change anything, so I’m not voting*”.
Vote for cruel clowns then be surprised when the country becomes a cruel circus.
It is the British way.
I’m 22 years old, no dependents, I live in a flat in a non-expensive area yet rent is now up to £750 a month. I can barely afford food, electric, gas or fuel to get to work etc. My grandmother has been having to help me financially where she can. I work a full time mid-level office job, I also get side gigs as and when I can. I have 0 time for myself where I work so much yet I still can barely afford to live – there is 0 money to enjoy life as a 20-something year old. It infuriates me that the way our country is going, it infuriates me that I know people my age who vote Tory, it infuriates me that no matter how much noise we make about this nothing ever seems to change. It’s been like this most of my life and people wonder why my generation are depressed. We’ve been handed a hopeless world.
Edit: I also have no parents home to fall back on, hence why I’m still out here struggling.
In my thirties, and frankly I’m just fucking tired.
I don’t care anymore.
I have never felt represented, any protest or action I have taken feels little more than a token effort, my quality of life has literally gone down, home ownership is a fairytale, and the never ending cascade of once in a lifetime events have long ago lost their sense of urgency.
The UK can burn down to the ground and I don’t think I’d be bothered at this point. Shit just feels inevitable.
Call it apathy (it definitely is) but it’s been the product of my entire adult life just becoming gradually more farcical.
32 comments
Rug sweeping and heads in the sand
It will effect the poor the most… when have the rich ever the cared about the poor
Its happening to people without a voice that represents them
When people have wilfully committed acts of self harm, like voting for Conservative governments four times, and voting for Brexit?
What should they do?, they’ve essentially put themselves in this position, no point screaming about it now.
If there is anything positive that can come out of this sorry situation, it’s that more people will realise that the “work more, work harder and you’ll be fine” line that they have been pedalling for the last 12 years, is utter bullshit, and the system is stacked against a lot of people, it’s just stacked against more people now.
I think lots of people are aware of it but feel they can make little to no impact. We don’t even have a general election for another 3 years
What are you meant to do about it?
Go to a protest for a few hours that at best achieves nothing, and at worst trouble kicks off and you risk being blacklisted or arrested.
The nearest election is still 3 years away, and your only choice will be which brand of neoliberal Thatcherite runs the country. Even the “protest” options aren’t great.
The best you can do is to keep your head down and try to keep enough savings to weather the storm and keep out of trouble. And that is what people are doing.
I really like John Harris, he’s one of the few opinion writers for the Graun that routinely ‘gets it’ and this piece was good too. But the editorialised headline and some of the questions posed get to me a bit.
We are acting like it. Tens of millions of us. We’ve had 12 years of being brow beaten into submission by austerity, our minds literally poisoned by social media and the MSM using models of our growing depression to target the most clickable and watchable media. Worry has become so utterly pervasive in our society that it is now a fully normalised part of day to day life.
The populace is either openly scared – for themselves, their family or for many of us for other people less fortunate than ourselves – or have turned inwards to ignore it as best as possible. A good example – you can now, with good reason too, answer any worry we have in modern society with ‘its going to get worse because of climate change’. How in the living christ are people expected to ‘carry on as normal’ when ‘normal’ is a now seemingly ancient ideal of happiness, prosperity, family building, home ownership?
We are perpetually angry, perpetually scared, perpetually bored, perpetually tired. This is Liberal Capitalism, perhaps its end-game, perhaps a blip on a road to god knows where. But one thing is for absolute certain – many things in life will steadily get worse but some things will get better. We will steadily forget what it was like yesterday as we always have and concentrate on an increasingly thin sliver of the immediate future. My only optimistic view is change will have to come because there is physically no other choice and the shower of Bastards that govern us won’t govern us forever.
The definition of arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, surely.
My theory is that there is no easy answer without admitting fault for being unprepared as a result of the past decade, so they wish to get elected and ‘start a fresh page’ (again).
It’s rather surreal to see the leadership contests go on, though. Boris is also AWOL. Zombie government!
Because we’re a country of people who talk too much and do too little.
Because we/I feel helpless to fix or change anything. This government is callous. I cannot relate to them. They have to idea how far removed from reality they are. They are vying to impress everyone except who really matters. It’s a losing battle. We are completely screwed and we are resigned to it.
40 years of an apathetic march to the right wing… Who actually cares any more?
What can we do? The political system is broken. Led by Donkeys, voted for by sheep.
When you try and talk about the various reasons for us getting into this situation ( brexit/Tories etc ) the people that support those things just shout louder and or downvote you to buggery
I had this conversation with some one the other day.
Why are people not out daily protesting? It’s the best tool we have, you see these countries with corrupt governments out in their thousands. Yet we just roll over and accept it.
Is it because people don’t have the time, and energy for it? I mean if your working full time and barely getting by do you have the time to protest? I just think this country has accepted the roll over and take it cause there’s nothing we can do approach, when there is people just can’t be arsed doing it.
Britain lost its collective resistance. We have taken to heart that strike action is bad, we have isolated ourselves with the goal of greed been good. All the while the powers that be, disseminating this ethos have been stripping and destroying the country. To no one, even their own supporters benefit but their own.
A lot of people are getting what they voted for. I live in a deprived northern area that voted overwhelmingly for brexit and the conservatives.
Now they’re all shocked pickachu because things are shit.
It’s hard to have sympathy for any of them to be honest because when you pointed out what would happen you just got called a leftie twat
Tbh I don’t see what anyone can do right now. Even a competent government would struggle in the current situation. There’s a global supply shortage driving prices upwards and the UK doesn’t make enough energy domestically so we have to import it at high prices. This is a failure of energy security years in the making and will take years to put right. Of course we all know who’s been responsible for a lack of investment in domestic green energy for the last decade, and has promised no more on shore wind farms recently.
Among many other reasons some of which are that many of us are exhausted in many different ways.
Because the boomer generation, being the biggest and most likely to vote, has the majority of power come election time. They are also, incidentally, the least likely to care about what happens to others.
because we have a government consisting of millionaires and billionaires, born into extreme wealth and privilege, who have never experienced anything else.
Not allowed to talk down Britain, remember!
Might end up designated as a terrorist.
I remember a bunch of news reports of working class folk who voted Tory because they “wanted to teach Corbyn a lesson.” I’m no big Corbyn fan, but you reap what you sow.
Because the government and rich don’t care about anybody else, and ultimately they are the people in control.
The Tories in control are aware of it. They’re doing it deliberately.
The people who are being victimised are voiceless by design. And the Tories want to keep it that way.
The working class needs to stop being distracted by the allure of populist Toryism and look at what they’re actually doing. They are driving the poorest and most vulnerable in our nation into destitution.
Because the traditional socially defensive movement was broken by Brexit, and now half of that movement will never admit that it was the elephant in the room that is causing all the problems ! They’ll never abandon it, so they’ll never be able to deal with its crushing consequences.
I hope we pull a French with the rich and the politicians. They all need to go. No one can live like this, no wage raise, inflation, and energy bills going through the roof. While the rich get richer.
Bellend tory party members with an “I’m alright jack” attitude
I feel like until we get proportional representation (yes this drum has been banged on repeatedly), things are just going to get worse. The system is distorted because we have essentially a minority elected group setting policy for the whole country. Personally, having no sympathy with either Labour or Conservatives (I’m thoroughly middle class), I feel I have essentially no voice. It doesn’t matter what I vote, either a Labour or Conservative MP is going to be elected in my borough.
What we really should be talking about is why do people keep voting to cut off their nose to spite their face. This is mostly self inflicted by the way the country voted. They literally told us what we were getting and the turkeys voted for Christmas anyway.
Why? Why do public schools not teach things like politics, rhetoric, taxes etc. All things that would help to educate the population at large when it comes to exercising their democratic rights. In my opinion, it’s because an uneducated population (in terms of politics) is easier to manipulate. When people aren’t taught about politics and rhetoric it’s easy to drum up nationalism or lean on peoples racist/nationalist/sexist/insecurities and tendencies to get their vote. The public at large know so little about politics, so little about the parties and so little about First Past The Post that it makes it easy for people like the Conservatives to win.
For as long as the UK has been a democracy, we’ve had a Conservative government longer than any other. A government which is typically *not* for the people and yet the people keep voting them in. Lack of political knowledge is the one thing thing that has stayed constant in that time.
Politics is something as a society we’re told is taboo to talk about and isn’t taught in public schools – but is in *many* private schools.
Edit: Some people have replied and instantly deleted their comment, so to address their come backs… Yes, some people don’t care about politics and yes that is their right, I absolutely agree.
However, people that don’t care about politics do care about the NHS, energy bills, fuel prices, food prices, housing, renting, tax, schools, university fees, working hours etc… These are all issues that are helped or hindered depending on the party/policies we as a nation vote in. So saying “Some people don’t care about politics” is just short sighted, because politics is the mechanism that effects the things they do care about. This is exactly why I think we should be taught more about it in schools, rather than allowing people to be ignorant about politics and come to conclusions we hear echoed so much in society like “*They’re all the same so I’ll just do X*” or “*My vote won’t change anything, so I’m not voting*”.
Vote for cruel clowns then be surprised when the country becomes a cruel circus.
It is the British way.
I’m 22 years old, no dependents, I live in a flat in a non-expensive area yet rent is now up to £750 a month. I can barely afford food, electric, gas or fuel to get to work etc. My grandmother has been having to help me financially where she can. I work a full time mid-level office job, I also get side gigs as and when I can. I have 0 time for myself where I work so much yet I still can barely afford to live – there is 0 money to enjoy life as a 20-something year old. It infuriates me that the way our country is going, it infuriates me that I know people my age who vote Tory, it infuriates me that no matter how much noise we make about this nothing ever seems to change. It’s been like this most of my life and people wonder why my generation are depressed. We’ve been handed a hopeless world.
Edit: I also have no parents home to fall back on, hence why I’m still out here struggling.
In my thirties, and frankly I’m just fucking tired.
I don’t care anymore.
I have never felt represented, any protest or action I have taken feels little more than a token effort, my quality of life has literally gone down, home ownership is a fairytale, and the never ending cascade of once in a lifetime events have long ago lost their sense of urgency.
The UK can burn down to the ground and I don’t think I’d be bothered at this point. Shit just feels inevitable.
Call it apathy (it definitely is) but it’s been the product of my entire adult life just becoming gradually more farcical.