Cue people assuring us it’s not bad at all as we’re still above countries in sub Saharan Africa.
what working people in little England are about to find out the hard way is that the naughty eu was in fact protecting them against vwhat dishi rishi calls opportunities
>The questions of how this can have happened, and what can be done to change things, can be left for another column. (**Part of the problem, in any case, may have been government by newspaper columnists**.)
Very astute observation!
If anything I think the education system is what has really failed UK under Tories.
Bright people are rejected from top roles based on class and these “assessment test” which basically is a test system that only wealthy have time and resources to prepare for.
Give it a decade and disposable income in major eastern european countries (poland, romania, czech republic) will bypass that of the UK.
How the tables have turned…
I think the real root cause is housing. Without the security of a roof over your head, it’s very hard to get an economy to work.
The country ties up everything in the value of its house anddelineates the haves from the have nots. The lack of high quality, relatively cheap housing means that people aren’t able to move efficiently around the country to where job openings may be.
So what we have in Britain is a situation where the network you have determines the job that you’ll get.
My understanding is that in other European countries capital is more tied up in their pension pots than their house value and renting is quite common. I feel that allows for more capital to be deployed efficiently than having it all in the housing market.
I do feel it is the ” boiling frog” thing, where little by little, things get worse, until the point at which someone suddenly stops and thinks ” How the hell did we get here”? As someone who has lived abroad for many years, and who now returns infrequently, I have to say that I have really noticed a steepening decline over the last few years. Increasingly angry, unhappy people, shabby infrastructure, visible poverty etc., and no one seeming to realize that Britain is falling behind. It saddens me, but I find family and friends in the U.K. become quite defensive if I tell them that this is the case. Britain is certainly not the worst place to live, but, neither is it anywhere near as pleasant as it once was.
It is quite a weird situation we’re in. Things are *objectively* bad, there are very few ways to get around seeing that we have endured a lost decade in which basically *nothing* has been improved in this country, yet idk there’s just very little talk about it, and what talk there is is so often confronted by a much more widely shared opinion that actually everything is fine and the only reason anyone could want to complain is to push some kind of anti-British political agenda. Its weird as fuck tbh. Frankly I’m in my early 30s now, I just want some part of my adult life while I’m still young enough to really enjoy it where it doesn’t feel like everything is kind of falling apart.
My grandad drove lorries.
My grandmother sat around.
They had 2 cars, house paid off before my grandad retired and webt on decent foreign holidays every year.
As others have said. The problem is housing, we reduce supply to drive demand to drive up prices because most MPS are landlords.
Labour created 2 million landlords, to add go the million that existed. The tories siphon of the nations finances to their mates.
The country is completly and utterly fucked
I feel like what we’re seeing is the rich are sucking all the money out of the economy and not paying taxes, so there’s less money circulating in the rest of the economy being spent and taxed and fuelling investment.
The population is going up but the tax isn’t getting paid because its being taken out of the system, making public services fail.
it will get better when they get brexit done……
boris told us, and i read it on a long red bus somewhere.
I personally don’t see it (live in Scotland).
Dentists and GPs are fine. A&E can have issues during the weekend. I am going to get AXA health insurance for my son, its £14 a month.
All my friends own their own homes (3/4 bedrooms for 200k). I get free electricity for my EV, my gym is £20, my mortgage is £600 and I am working from home saving myself a fortune in commuting costs.
In terms of spending power well M&S foodhall is never busier and everyone seems to have a new car in my street.
I really don’t see much change in society for those prepared to help themselves.
I vote SNP. Loathe Tories.
No economy can function properly when you have a state backed Ponzi (the housing market) dragging it down.
It sucks up disposable income, it prevents movement of labour, it makes the population more risk adverse and generally adds to a growing sense of desperation.
Until that is sorted, nothing will change.
It depends on how you look at it.
I just moved in from September and I am doing alright so far (Thank God). Coming from a lesser place to the UK is like heaven to me.
As horrible as it sounds, until the boomers are all gone I can’t see it changing. They still think they single handedly won the war and nobody deserves a helping hand and they make sure they vote to keep it the same.
We’ve had a Tory government for 12 years voted in by thick, selfish cunts.
Of course it’s bad.
So, before I continue, this is not a commentary on border control or immigration. This is entirely just from the viewpoint of my personal experience.
When I got into tough times (because of my own bad decisions that I take responsibility for) I ended up homeless. I literally had nowhere to go and would sleep in parks and woodlands, shoplift sweeties for food and generally live like a hobo. I turned to drugs, specifically benzos, because for 50p I could basically live “on easy mode” and stop caring about just how horrible my life was. I needed help. Badly.
My local council put me on a housing list. Years went by and nothing happened until I started to break down mentally and physically, I was literally going crazy and I had lost so much weight that I was having metabolic issues. Being in this state naturally attracted the attention of the police, I won’t go into details about what happened because it was harrowing but 4 years later that kind police women who took sympathy for my situation contacted social services and pushed for me to get housing.
Within days the council put me into temporary housing. And then 3 months later I got a roof over my head.
That is what I was dealing with – I can be a man and admit it was my bad decisions that got me into those tough times, but I was a naïve 19 year old who had no real life experience. I knew nothing. And because I made some stupid decisions as a teenager I ended up homeless and living in poverty for years.
Now, here is where things get shitty. After I was called into my meeting with the council, I waited probably about an hour in the waiting hall. While I was in that hall, I could overhear some eastern European folks arguing with the clerk about how they wanted a 3 bedroom house. And I, as a citizen of the UK, could not even get a studio flat to live in. What the fuck is that about?
Now, I’m not a xenophobe or anything, and, in fact, my Dad is an immigrant from Europe. So please understand that I am *for* immigration and managed open borders. I also think that, if you live in a less prosperous country and the UK is offering you a real opportunity to live a better life, then why would you not move to the UK? Of course you would, so I don’t blame them either. I also understand that the UK has a low fertility rate (wander why?) so immigration is a key tool to slow down an aging population. A necessity. I was against brexit.
I blame the council. I blame the government. They do not look after their own citizens anymore. The quality of life and opportunities for people in the UK are diminishing. I can’t help but feel if the government looked after their population a bit better then maybe I would have had a roof over my head before I got addicted to drugs and severely mentally ill.
And to back this up, it is now 5 years since I got a home and now I do very well for myself. I bettered myself to the point where I no longer needed the council accommodation. I haven’t been on any kind of benefit in years and I pay quite a lot in tax thanks to having a really good job. I even paid off the 10k of debt I racked up during those times. I have become a contributing citizen to society. And all I needed was a little bit of help.
Where the fuck was the help? Why did it take years and a police incident to get me homed? Why were the benefits so freaking poor? The benefits offered absolutely no security in life whatsoever. Absolutely everything about our system is broken when it comes to helping young people who have nowhere to go. The priorities are not where they should be.
And when I think about my own experience and realise that there are people worse off and probably don’t have a member of the police taking pitty on them, I honestly feel pain. All those folks who just need a bit of help and HOPE to become decent people are being completely shafted while money and resources are diverted to empty office buildings, large corporations, under-managed immigration, political elites, useless and stupid electric bike projects etc. etc.
Now to wrap this up, I guess what I realised (and I’m open to other interpretations) is that the government and local councils don’t have their priorities straight – maybe if they improved the life of their own citizens, they would maybe see the fertility rate go up as more young people feel secure enough to settle down and have a family at a younger age. I am 30 now and still don’t feel any kind of security to have a family, despite earning a decent amount and living well. Nobody wants to have kids because the climate is so shit. You see growth when your population is happy and prosperous. But this government doesn’t care about that.
We’re the second best third world first world country, after America.
The billionaires are doing alright tbf. There’s 20% more of them since before the pandemic despite the economy contracting and not recovering. In fact, they averaged +£600 million growth in their fortunes. Ol’ Rishi Sun himself is up £100s of millions.
The UK’s richest 1% are now worth £2.8 trillion, making them wealthier than two thirds of the UK population combined. So, y’know “Is life in the UK really as bad as the numbers suggest?” – not for some.
And the culprit is conservatism. Fuck any and all righties. YOU DID THIS.
Thatcher’s and Reagan’s policies are still ruling from the grave.
Once my current situation is done, I’m out. I can’t watch this anymore it’s time to leave full stop.
I’ve lived in China as an expat for several years and have to say UK is considerably better obviously.
HOWEVER, I left just before the country kicked off with riots just after Tories got voted in. Each time I returned for a holiday with family, I could see the steady decline. And, in China, I was watching it get worse, like literally imploding.
It was so blatant what they were doing- pillaging everything and leaving the dead carcass in the road. Education, health care, law, free press, small business, welfare. It was all going to sh!t.
Basically, there’s a wing of Tories that were so cock-hungry for the China method. It was so obvious what they were trying to do. Forced labour, abolish civil rights, factory schools, sell off our health care to big pharma.Then retire to a French vinyard and live off the off-shore tax deductable gains from privatisation.
What people need to understand is that it’s all about the pie. Let me explain: so there’s this pie right, and everyone likes pie. And because everyone likes pie, everyone wants a piece of this pie. But the pie isn’t big enough. So we need to make more pie. But what do you need if you want to make more pie? You need bakers. Because bakers make pies. But you also need more flour for the pie. And more eggs. But flour and eggs are expensive now. So we can’t actually afford to make the pie any bigger unless you all accept lower pay and give bankers – i mean BAKERS! – more money.
It’s simple economics.
I wouldn’t put it past the Tory ghouls for this to be part of their anti-immigration strategy. Make life in the UK so difficult and unappealing that migrants decide they’re better off staying in France.
Yet another prime minister has been fined for breaking the law and the country hardly bats an eyelid….
Pretty much everything about living in this country is awful nowadays. I really can’t wait to leave it’s shores. I just can’t see anything getting better anytime soon. Even if the tories are ousted in an election the only party that can replace them are little different.
Twelve years of tory government and brexit really haven’t done anything other than harm to this country.
I don’t waste money on cigarettes or drugs, I don’t drink much
We went to university to get good degrees
We work full time
We save money when we can
We got on the housing market in our 20s
We’re 90th percentile earners
We do everything “right” in economic terms, other than being born rich
Yet we constantly get slapped from every angle by the government – higher taxes, stagnating wages, worse services, literally no help at all for 15 years except the £400 energy payment this year, which was really just a gift for the energy companies
So what do we do? We’ve given up. We’re “lying flat” because it seems like no matter how hard we try or how much we work, it makes basically fuck all difference
Then the government wonders why we have no growth… it’s because we have nothing to aspire to, nothing to work for, and nothing to do other than watch our money being siphoned off to the rich
Why would I start a business when I don’t feel like there’s a safety net to catch me? Why would I innovate when it’s not rewarded?
They government just don’t get it – as a society, we’ve given up
95p for a fucking pint of milk, the cows are busting out rolexs
I read this earlier. I spoke to a mate who works for a well know pound shop that is in every high street. It’s every bit as bad as it sounds.
We should also note that billionaires in the UK during this same period have risen by 20%.
Along with the long line of costly mistakes the Tories have made from Trussenomics (30 billion) to Rishi overpaying interest on national debt (25 billion).We need to tax these people.
Then throw in the corruption on PPE contracts by qq peers etc.
And it’s clear we are being exploited at the top. This government is the worst on record how much more so we have to put up with????
Yer I do fear were slowly loosing our human rights which Blair and eu set up for us citizens. I honestly think they’ll end up tripling price of water if not paid back to the old days of having supplie cut off etc. We kinda getting fucked in the uk..
This country, in 2023 still has a Feudal system that most people ignore because some people get council houses. The only politicians are rich and there is no way for a ” salt of the earth” to ever get in power. The only people that become lying actors are uni educated ( and yes I include labour in that’s but to the tory extent).
So you really think a town like For eg Leeds wants to be rules by some southern, posh Tory cunt?
Get the tories out, get back in the EU.
Eat humble pie.
This country is fucked. It’s got nothing at all going for it anymore. It’s run by fascist kleptocrats that the idiot public keep re-electing.
36 comments
Non paywall version [here](https://archive.is/XYXOg)
Cue people assuring us it’s not bad at all as we’re still above countries in sub Saharan Africa.
what working people in little England are about to find out the hard way is that the naughty eu was in fact protecting them against vwhat dishi rishi calls opportunities
>The questions of how this can have happened, and what can be done to change things, can be left for another column. (**Part of the problem, in any case, may have been government by newspaper columnists**.)
Very astute observation!
If anything I think the education system is what has really failed UK under Tories.
Bright people are rejected from top roles based on class and these “assessment test” which basically is a test system that only wealthy have time and resources to prepare for.
Give it a decade and disposable income in major eastern european countries (poland, romania, czech republic) will bypass that of the UK.
How the tables have turned…
I think the real root cause is housing. Without the security of a roof over your head, it’s very hard to get an economy to work.
The country ties up everything in the value of its house anddelineates the haves from the have nots. The lack of high quality, relatively cheap housing means that people aren’t able to move efficiently around the country to where job openings may be.
So what we have in Britain is a situation where the network you have determines the job that you’ll get.
My understanding is that in other European countries capital is more tied up in their pension pots than their house value and renting is quite common. I feel that allows for more capital to be deployed efficiently than having it all in the housing market.
I do feel it is the ” boiling frog” thing, where little by little, things get worse, until the point at which someone suddenly stops and thinks ” How the hell did we get here”? As someone who has lived abroad for many years, and who now returns infrequently, I have to say that I have really noticed a steepening decline over the last few years. Increasingly angry, unhappy people, shabby infrastructure, visible poverty etc., and no one seeming to realize that Britain is falling behind. It saddens me, but I find family and friends in the U.K. become quite defensive if I tell them that this is the case. Britain is certainly not the worst place to live, but, neither is it anywhere near as pleasant as it once was.
It is quite a weird situation we’re in. Things are *objectively* bad, there are very few ways to get around seeing that we have endured a lost decade in which basically *nothing* has been improved in this country, yet idk there’s just very little talk about it, and what talk there is is so often confronted by a much more widely shared opinion that actually everything is fine and the only reason anyone could want to complain is to push some kind of anti-British political agenda. Its weird as fuck tbh. Frankly I’m in my early 30s now, I just want some part of my adult life while I’m still young enough to really enjoy it where it doesn’t feel like everything is kind of falling apart.
My grandad drove lorries.
My grandmother sat around.
They had 2 cars, house paid off before my grandad retired and webt on decent foreign holidays every year.
As others have said. The problem is housing, we reduce supply to drive demand to drive up prices because most MPS are landlords.
Labour created 2 million landlords, to add go the million that existed. The tories siphon of the nations finances to their mates.
The country is completly and utterly fucked
I feel like what we’re seeing is the rich are sucking all the money out of the economy and not paying taxes, so there’s less money circulating in the rest of the economy being spent and taxed and fuelling investment.
The population is going up but the tax isn’t getting paid because its being taken out of the system, making public services fail.
it will get better when they get brexit done……
boris told us, and i read it on a long red bus somewhere.
I personally don’t see it (live in Scotland).
Dentists and GPs are fine. A&E can have issues during the weekend. I am going to get AXA health insurance for my son, its £14 a month.
All my friends own their own homes (3/4 bedrooms for 200k). I get free electricity for my EV, my gym is £20, my mortgage is £600 and I am working from home saving myself a fortune in commuting costs.
In terms of spending power well M&S foodhall is never busier and everyone seems to have a new car in my street.
I really don’t see much change in society for those prepared to help themselves.
I vote SNP. Loathe Tories.
No economy can function properly when you have a state backed Ponzi (the housing market) dragging it down.
It sucks up disposable income, it prevents movement of labour, it makes the population more risk adverse and generally adds to a growing sense of desperation.
Until that is sorted, nothing will change.
It depends on how you look at it.
I just moved in from September and I am doing alright so far (Thank God). Coming from a lesser place to the UK is like heaven to me.
As horrible as it sounds, until the boomers are all gone I can’t see it changing. They still think they single handedly won the war and nobody deserves a helping hand and they make sure they vote to keep it the same.
We’ve had a Tory government for 12 years voted in by thick, selfish cunts.
Of course it’s bad.
So, before I continue, this is not a commentary on border control or immigration. This is entirely just from the viewpoint of my personal experience.
When I got into tough times (because of my own bad decisions that I take responsibility for) I ended up homeless. I literally had nowhere to go and would sleep in parks and woodlands, shoplift sweeties for food and generally live like a hobo. I turned to drugs, specifically benzos, because for 50p I could basically live “on easy mode” and stop caring about just how horrible my life was. I needed help. Badly.
My local council put me on a housing list. Years went by and nothing happened until I started to break down mentally and physically, I was literally going crazy and I had lost so much weight that I was having metabolic issues. Being in this state naturally attracted the attention of the police, I won’t go into details about what happened because it was harrowing but 4 years later that kind police women who took sympathy for my situation contacted social services and pushed for me to get housing.
Within days the council put me into temporary housing. And then 3 months later I got a roof over my head.
That is what I was dealing with – I can be a man and admit it was my bad decisions that got me into those tough times, but I was a naïve 19 year old who had no real life experience. I knew nothing. And because I made some stupid decisions as a teenager I ended up homeless and living in poverty for years.
Now, here is where things get shitty. After I was called into my meeting with the council, I waited probably about an hour in the waiting hall. While I was in that hall, I could overhear some eastern European folks arguing with the clerk about how they wanted a 3 bedroom house. And I, as a citizen of the UK, could not even get a studio flat to live in. What the fuck is that about?
Now, I’m not a xenophobe or anything, and, in fact, my Dad is an immigrant from Europe. So please understand that I am *for* immigration and managed open borders. I also think that, if you live in a less prosperous country and the UK is offering you a real opportunity to live a better life, then why would you not move to the UK? Of course you would, so I don’t blame them either. I also understand that the UK has a low fertility rate (wander why?) so immigration is a key tool to slow down an aging population. A necessity. I was against brexit.
I blame the council. I blame the government. They do not look after their own citizens anymore. The quality of life and opportunities for people in the UK are diminishing. I can’t help but feel if the government looked after their population a bit better then maybe I would have had a roof over my head before I got addicted to drugs and severely mentally ill.
And to back this up, it is now 5 years since I got a home and now I do very well for myself. I bettered myself to the point where I no longer needed the council accommodation. I haven’t been on any kind of benefit in years and I pay quite a lot in tax thanks to having a really good job. I even paid off the 10k of debt I racked up during those times. I have become a contributing citizen to society. And all I needed was a little bit of help.
Where the fuck was the help? Why did it take years and a police incident to get me homed? Why were the benefits so freaking poor? The benefits offered absolutely no security in life whatsoever. Absolutely everything about our system is broken when it comes to helping young people who have nowhere to go. The priorities are not where they should be.
And when I think about my own experience and realise that there are people worse off and probably don’t have a member of the police taking pitty on them, I honestly feel pain. All those folks who just need a bit of help and HOPE to become decent people are being completely shafted while money and resources are diverted to empty office buildings, large corporations, under-managed immigration, political elites, useless and stupid electric bike projects etc. etc.
Now to wrap this up, I guess what I realised (and I’m open to other interpretations) is that the government and local councils don’t have their priorities straight – maybe if they improved the life of their own citizens, they would maybe see the fertility rate go up as more young people feel secure enough to settle down and have a family at a younger age. I am 30 now and still don’t feel any kind of security to have a family, despite earning a decent amount and living well. Nobody wants to have kids because the climate is so shit. You see growth when your population is happy and prosperous. But this government doesn’t care about that.
We’re the second best third world first world country, after America.
The billionaires are doing alright tbf. There’s 20% more of them since before the pandemic despite the economy contracting and not recovering. In fact, they averaged +£600 million growth in their fortunes. Ol’ Rishi Sun himself is up £100s of millions.
The UK’s richest 1% are now worth £2.8 trillion, making them wealthier than two thirds of the UK population combined. So, y’know “Is life in the UK really as bad as the numbers suggest?” – not for some.
​
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11639813/Oxfam-Richest-1-living-UK-wealthier-two-thirds-rest-country.html#comments?link_id=1&can_id=2d4e51432373f51ae36dc74f9dcda543&source=email-wealth-of-the-super-rich-balloons&email_referrer=email_1790882&email_subject=wealth-of-the-super-rich-balloons
And the culprit is conservatism. Fuck any and all righties. YOU DID THIS.
Thatcher’s and Reagan’s policies are still ruling from the grave.
Once my current situation is done, I’m out. I can’t watch this anymore it’s time to leave full stop.
I’ve lived in China as an expat for several years and have to say UK is considerably better obviously.
HOWEVER, I left just before the country kicked off with riots just after Tories got voted in. Each time I returned for a holiday with family, I could see the steady decline. And, in China, I was watching it get worse, like literally imploding.
It was so blatant what they were doing- pillaging everything and leaving the dead carcass in the road. Education, health care, law, free press, small business, welfare. It was all going to sh!t.
Basically, there’s a wing of Tories that were so cock-hungry for the China method. It was so obvious what they were trying to do. Forced labour, abolish civil rights, factory schools, sell off our health care to big pharma.Then retire to a French vinyard and live off the off-shore tax deductable gains from privatisation.
What people need to understand is that it’s all about the pie. Let me explain: so there’s this pie right, and everyone likes pie. And because everyone likes pie, everyone wants a piece of this pie. But the pie isn’t big enough. So we need to make more pie. But what do you need if you want to make more pie? You need bakers. Because bakers make pies. But you also need more flour for the pie. And more eggs. But flour and eggs are expensive now. So we can’t actually afford to make the pie any bigger unless you all accept lower pay and give bankers – i mean BAKERS! – more money.
It’s simple economics.
I wouldn’t put it past the Tory ghouls for this to be part of their anti-immigration strategy. Make life in the UK so difficult and unappealing that migrants decide they’re better off staying in France.
Yet another prime minister has been fined for breaking the law and the country hardly bats an eyelid….
Pretty much everything about living in this country is awful nowadays. I really can’t wait to leave it’s shores. I just can’t see anything getting better anytime soon. Even if the tories are ousted in an election the only party that can replace them are little different.
Twelve years of tory government and brexit really haven’t done anything other than harm to this country.
I don’t waste money on cigarettes or drugs, I don’t drink much
We went to university to get good degrees
We work full time
We save money when we can
We got on the housing market in our 20s
We’re 90th percentile earners
We do everything “right” in economic terms, other than being born rich
Yet we constantly get slapped from every angle by the government – higher taxes, stagnating wages, worse services, literally no help at all for 15 years except the £400 energy payment this year, which was really just a gift for the energy companies
So what do we do? We’ve given up. We’re “lying flat” because it seems like no matter how hard we try or how much we work, it makes basically fuck all difference
Then the government wonders why we have no growth… it’s because we have nothing to aspire to, nothing to work for, and nothing to do other than watch our money being siphoned off to the rich
Why would I start a business when I don’t feel like there’s a safety net to catch me? Why would I innovate when it’s not rewarded?
They government just don’t get it – as a society, we’ve given up
95p for a fucking pint of milk, the cows are busting out rolexs
I read this earlier. I spoke to a mate who works for a well know pound shop that is in every high street. It’s every bit as bad as it sounds.
We should also note that billionaires in the UK during this same period have risen by 20%.
Along with the long line of costly mistakes the Tories have made from Trussenomics (30 billion) to Rishi overpaying interest on national debt (25 billion).We need to tax these people.
Then throw in the corruption on PPE contracts by qq peers etc.
And it’s clear we are being exploited at the top. This government is the worst on record how much more so we have to put up with????
Yer I do fear were slowly loosing our human rights which Blair and eu set up for us citizens. I honestly think they’ll end up tripling price of water if not paid back to the old days of having supplie cut off etc. We kinda getting fucked in the uk..
This country, in 2023 still has a Feudal system that most people ignore because some people get council houses. The only politicians are rich and there is no way for a ” salt of the earth” to ever get in power. The only people that become lying actors are uni educated ( and yes I include labour in that’s but to the tory extent).
So you really think a town like For eg Leeds wants to be rules by some southern, posh Tory cunt?
Get the tories out, get back in the EU.
Eat humble pie.
This country is fucked. It’s got nothing at all going for it anymore. It’s run by fascist kleptocrats that the idiot public keep re-electing.