4 ms·

As someone who doesn't live in the UK, the impression I get from headlines is that the UK is becoming poorer by the day, the NHS has collapsed, crime is explodi

• pydry 4y ago
  The reality is not good - from the outside and the inside.
• jaqalopes 4y ago
  Anecdotally, my buddy (31M) in London says he's having the time of his life. Making a lot of money at BP, parties every weekend, just moved into a nice flat with a partner. I suspect, just like in America, that if you're inside the "formal economy" (corporate job with real benefits and potential for career growth) your life is pretty great. If you're outside that (service worker, gig economy, small business owner, NEET) then things are pretty grim.
  • havefunbesafe 4y ago
    Nooooot a great time for innovation (read: productivity)
  • ChuckNorris89 4y ago
    >Making a lot of money at BP, parties every weekend Sounds just like the roaring twenties.
    • piuantiderp 4y ago
      Except the furniture is Ikea
  • _puk 4y ago
    That the same BP that is making record profits during the cost of living crisis? [0] I suspect the "formal economy" is hurting in a number of places, just not the energy sector. 0: https://www.bigissue.com/news/social-justice/we-asked-experts-how-oil-giants-shell-bp-make-record-profits-cost-of-living-crisis/ https://www.bigissue.com/news/social-justice/we-asked-expert...
• satao 4y ago
  That's the rising income inequality working the way it does. Inequality is the reason many third world countries are as bad as they are. Now the US and the UK are seeing rising inequality and for sure you'll see they having more of this stupid problems happening.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• mytailorisrich 4y ago
  Economy is not great but certainly not in free fall. Most people are ok. Crime is no worse than in other major European countries. There are no riots in London (looking at you, Paris...)
  • makomk 4y ago
    On the other hand, according to certain parts of the UK press those riots in France are a sign that their politics is far healthier than the awful state of politics here (looking at you, Guardian)...
    • mytailorisrich 4y ago
      On the contrary, those riots show that every important issue in France is hijacked by violent far left militants who don't want to debate but to bring "the system" down or just destroy as much property as they can get away with. That is not healthy. Riots on the pretext that the retirement age increases by 2 years to an age still below the EU average is not a sign of healthy politics.
      • Iwan-Zotow 4y ago
        People on the streets don't want a debate ?!? Macron put pension reform up without vote, and without debate. Shove it down people's throats
• juniordev7 4y ago
  [flagged]
• indy 4y ago
  Living in London: food is more expensive, there's greater political polarization and it seems like there's a strike every week. So things are getting noticeably worse but I wouldn't use words like collapse just yet.
• antibasilisk 4y ago
  London has experienced the worst drop in quality of life by far, other places are also being hit but they're kind of used to it by now and they can't really fall much further anymore.
  • dukeyukey 4y ago
    I've lived in London for the past 6 years and I wouldn't say that at all. Food and energy has gone up (comparably to the rest of Europe), but there's a feeling that Sunak is more competent than the previous lot. Plus we're getting loads of tech investment.
    • antibasilisk 4y ago
      I lived in London pretty much since I was born (2000), I moved away last year because of how bad it's gotten, and it has very little to do with food and energy. There is basically no sense of social cohesion left anymore, you cannot expect safety, you cannot leave a car parked outside and expect it not to be broken into. I've had a guy almost pull a knife on me because I accidentally came up behind him and he thought I was from an opposing gang. This sort of thing was a not-so-uncommon experience for my peers at school.
      • dukeyukey 4y ago
        This is just so alien to me. I'm in a not-so-great area of North Islington, and never even _seen_ violent crime happening. I can't walk down the street any more without saying hi to people, the chippy guy who goes on Sunday runs, the coffee shop owner who lets me know when they're trying a new roaster, the elderly women walking their dogs at lunchtime. It's almost like my old hometown.
      • adamauckland 4y ago
        You were born in London and say "gotten"?
        • antibasilisk 4y ago
• debacle 4y ago
  I have a lot of friends in the UK, and my perception 15 years ago was that it was a country in decline. There was a general feeling of malaise, with not many hopeful for the future. Has only gotten worse, it seems.
  • tom_ 4y ago
    2008 was probably not the best time to ask that question - and it's probably not the best time to ask it now either. (Unless you want a negative, doom-laden answer, in which case you got lucky both times!)
• matthewmacleod 4y ago
  It's hard to get a handle on any kind of objective reality. Headlines always catastrophise. Anecdotally at least: - Brexit is a pretty notable economic negative, purely in the sense that it's added a lot of drag to EU trade and made it harder for workers to access the UK market. Nobody likes loads of red tape. It's hard to separate this from the many other influences from COVID through to Ukraine. - There has been a pretty clear spike in the cost of living, which has a direct impact on things like poverty. Notably the housing market was very disrupted by the policies of the previous prime minister; again, it's hard to separate this from anything else but anecdotally a very large number of people noticed that they suddenly had to find hundreds of pounds of extra money every month due to housing end energy costs. - The NHS is not in a great state, no. Several years of underinvestment and the pandemic came home to roost, and combined with the pandemic and rather a lot burnout it is not sounding great from anyone who works there. - The economy isn't in "free fall" but does have several things dragging at it – including supply-chain difficulties, inflation, worker shortages, and other challenges. It's hard out there. - Most noticeable and in-your-face thing for someone like me—in the fortunate position of being on the breadline—is an obvious deterioration in services and availability. Lots of strikes in various industries, quality of everything suffering, difficulties getting basic goods sometimes. It can feel pretty oppressive, though of course nothing compared to how some people must be struggling to get by at all.
• maffydub 4y ago
  I live in London and am married with 2 kids, working in tech. Personally, I'm not seeing too much difference. * Energy prices are higher, and this has had a knock-on effect, but I see it more on childcare (e.g. nursery) than food. * There have been shortages of some foods - specifically there were shortages of tomatoes and peppers for a week or two a month or two ago, but not recently... and there are shortages of eggs, which I understand from my cousins, who are egg farmers, is primarily due to bird flu (most eggs in the UK are from British hens). * Regarding NHS, we've not needed to use hospitals recently, but access to GPs has been same as usual. * I've not seen an increase in crime. * I hear that poverty is rising, but don't have direct experience. * The Royal Mail is almost certainly dying, but I think it's been on its way out for years. Like I say, this is just personal experience - I appreciate that I'm quite lucky at having an OK-paying job, so could well be insulated from problems that others face.
• skippyboxedhero 4y ago
  It seems that way because part of the problem is that grievance has become the most valuable currency. Food here is, empirically, still unbelievably cheap. I can buy a 500g bag of spaghetti for 28p, lentil and beans are cheap, bread is relatively cheap, chicken is so cheap that you wonder how safe it is...still...but the problem is that in the UK, if anything doesn't benefit you immediately then people will complain. RM...they had a monopoly, their workers are almost always threatening industrial action, like they aren't "hanging by a thread"...they have a licence to print money, workers just won't turn up to work because they feel aggrieved. NHS...funding is through the roof, the biggest individual component of the budget with a deficit of 5% and tax % of GDP at all-time highs...workers on strike, "they get paid more in Australia" (true of almost every job in the UK because Australia also has significantly higher CoL). Crime? Again, we have an underclass of people who commit all the crime, repeat offenders often walk free over and over, shoplifting isn't investigated, robberies aren't investigated...and people wonder why it is attractive to commit crime? Poverty hasn't increased, unemployment has dropped like a stone over the past ten years, all this time we have people like you: the economy is in FREE FALL, poverty is going to rise soon...it hasn't happened, the issue we have is that people are constantly feeling aggrieved. This seems to be a disease of the West too, you see the same thing in the US where there are real economic issues but there is very little discussion of them...all it is just single-dimensional, "things have never been so bad" grievance-building. But no, nothing has really changed. Life carries on unsurprisingly. The UK has issues, food prices aren't one (in fact, food prices are far too low still), problems that do exist remain unaddressed, problems that don't exist absorb all of the attention.
• johndunne 4y ago
  I’d say they’re overly dramatic headlines. For example, the nhs is under funded, as always, but still functioning with long wait time s for non emergency surgery/consultation. Poverty is rising as a consequence of the cost of living crisis. The Royal Mail has always been an overly priced service buts there’s loads more competition. Personally, I reckon we should just let the service die!
  • Symbiote 4y ago
    Saturday deliveries and 5 weekday deliveries seem unnecessary, but universal letter and small (CD-sized) parcel service seems worthwhile. If the logistics work, delivering letters only if there's a first class letter to be delivered, if there's a standard letter that's been waiting more than 2-3 days, or if Royal Mail feel like it (e.g. delivering to this road for someone else's first class letter) might save a lot of money.
• swarnie 4y ago
  I've experienced none of what you've described. 32, tech worker, just bought a house in a village in the south... Yes my vegetables are a bit more expensive week to week, maybe i need to go to another store to buy one or two specific things but generally life is fine. Still getting pay rises, still getting bonuses. Generally life is more comfortable for me than its ever been. Someone set fire to a bin last week, does that count as an increase in crime?
• pjc50 4y ago
  The reality is very difficult to assess, but there are some clear markers: NHS waiting times have increased, and there is an unprecedented series of strikes by NHS staff some of whom are badly underpaid and all of whom have been exhausted by the pandemic. Food bank use is clearly rising. Royal Mail international shipping was down for at least a week due to ransomware: https://techcrunch.com/2023/02/23/royal-mail-restores-global-shipping-weeks-after-lockbit-ransomware-attack/ https://techcrunch.com/2023/02/23/royal-mail-restores-global... ; they are in general badly managed, but few delivery companies are ever loved. Crime is not necessarily exploding, but confidence in the police is rather low. A Metropolitan police officer was jailed for 71 counts of sexual assault earlier this year, having done quite a lot to raise the crime rate all by himself. We are not yet back to early 80s tent cities.