I think the UK is pretty good actually. it's not perfect, no where is, but it's pretty damn good.
Right now we have:
A state funded health care system that works, not perfectly but it does work.
Good infrastructure. Yes, there is the odd pothole, yes the trains have their moments but it is mainly pretty damn good.
Free education to the age of 18. Again, it has the odd challenge but as a general thing, it works and every person has access to it.
Safety. Generally, the UK is a safe place to live, don't underestimate the importance of this.
Freedom. Again, there is the odd thing don't like but I can do pretty much anything I want to do without any real restrictions.
And many, many more.
So yes, we're not perfect, but we really are not in a bad place at all.
Standard of living has risen massively in my lifetime in the UK.
+1 on the dire state of the roads.
My dad has been involved in modelling/analysing the cost of potholes and in some local authorities they are paying more out in compensation to drivers than they are spending on filling the potholes. With that kind of feedback loop we are in serious trouble.
I for one hold a view that the government will continue to under fund the NHS to an extent in the hope that more people will opt to go private so as to remove the burden off the NHS.
That'll be interesting. I worked for Bupa a few years ago and they were really struggling - their costs were going up and up, which meant they had to put premiums up (it's an insurance model).
As we have an ageing population and older people have higher levels of healthcare need, their customer base was also getting older, again putting up premiums.
Premiums are now at a level that their customers can't afford... company in trouble.
Super low interest rates aren't helping here. People like my parents who are living off pensions/fixed income are getting less from their investments than they expected and although they can afford to go private, they can afford it less easily than they had expected... so more likely to stick with the NHS.
So, back to square one!
Personally I'd like to see a politically neutral, technocratic government, like Italy had after 2008. This is unknown (and apparently unpredicted) territory and neither left nor right wing ideology are helpful here - a pragmatic mix of policies would be more appropriate. Best outcome from the next election will be a centrist party made up of a Labour/Tory coalition.
Meanwhile, I'm going to read up a little more about Japan and their 20-year ongoing slump... looks increasingly like our likely future.
Jesus wept.
a) the country's going down the pan
b) why?
a) potholes
b) **** off.
/end thread.
There's always one.thestabiliser - Member
Jesus wept.a) the country's going down the pan
b) why?
a) potholes
b) **** off.
/end thread.
I'm always impressed with the number of people who think running a country is easy, and they could do it so much better 😆
Also, every generation thinks of the previous generation as some kind of "golden age". Rose tints all round.
'twas ever thus.
I thought the roads were bad in Stoke, then I went to Sheffield.
I'm always impressed with the number of people who think [s]running[/s] ruining a country is easy, and they could do it so much better
pesky autocorrect! fixed that for you 🙂
What is really grinding my gears at the moment is what feels almost like the open corruption of our politicos - Cameron and his tax thing ("it's just the proles being jealous" - actually no, it's the hypocrisy of it all, Cameron was quick enough to cast judgement on Jimmy Carr when it transpired that HE'D been doing the same thing, and is it not morally reprehensible for a PM in times of austerity to tell us to tighten our belts while he's minimising his input into the tax pot?) and now the Media secretary, it transpires, has a colourful past and the papers decided not to publish because it's not in the public interest? You lying, hypocritical poo bags - **** off and die, the lot of you.
Meanwhile, I'm going to read up a little more about Japan and their 20-year ongoing slump... looks increasingly like our likely future.
If it comes with the politeness, the work ethic, the cleanliness and the quality of service, I'd be happy with that.
Yes the country is "going down the pan" and it saddens me deeply.
Getting increasingly angry with anyone who voted Tory, especially if unrepentant.
The state of the roads is well down the list for me though, I'm afraid.
Jesus wept.a) the country's going down the pan
b) why?
a) potholes
b) **** off.
😆
People vote with their feet, if it was such a bad country to live in then there would be a big issue with the number of people trying to leave, from what I see in the news it appears to be the opposite?
For all my occasional antii-capatalist rants I still think we live in a comparatively great county. We're not shooting each other, we're fleeing the country on dodgy boats and risking our lives to do so, we're not being bombed or having homophobic beaatings being carried out etx...
Sure, our bowing to money has made us forget about others and that causes suffering and inequality...but in the grand scheme of how we could be living compared to others I think it's a great country right now....
If it comes with the politeness, the work ethic, the cleanliness and the quality of service, I'd be happy with that.
It might do, who knows. We may re-kindle our 'Blitz spirit' as we accept the reality that the state simply can't afford to provide the services we've come to expect without a massive tax hike which we're not prepared to take. We may find a model where people do more for themselves, or support community-based and charity-based provision of services instead of central government.
Currently, I'd say the Blitz spirit is in short supply, looking at how many people, in the midst of an environmental and housing crisis buy themselves bigger cars and second houses, knowing full well it makes others worse off...
I think you'll see a polarisation - scared and selfish people will get more scared and selfish, nice, mature people will get nicer and more interdependent. Both will co-exist, but at times we'll notice the former more than the latter as adults acting like children do tend to attract attention.
Getting angry with politicians is, IMO understandable, but it won't make your immediate world any better, or help you deal with the crisis. That said, as a lifetime Tory voter, I can't wait to get Osborne and Cameron out - they're far too into the political game and buying the votes of their base than the country needs at the moment
actually no, it's the hypocrisy of it all, Cameron was quick enough to cast judgement on Jimmy Carr when it transpired that HE'D been doing the same thing, and is it not morally reprehensible for a PM in times of austerity to tell us to tighten our belts while he's minimising his input into the tax pot?
Why (oh why) can't people understand that it is NOT the same thing?
Carr put all of his income offshore then loaned it back to himself in a scheme that has since been ruled against by HMRC.
Cameron invested in an company that happened to be domiciled abroad. It's no different to him buying American, or Belgian or whatever shares.
Tax is due when the money comes back onshore, of which Cameron payed the correct amount.
Why (oh why) can't people understand that it is NOT the same thing?
Totally get that it's nuanced, but did they not both use legal means (in Carr's case, at the time) to minimise their tax bill?
Totally get that it's nuanced, but did they not both use legal means (in Carr's case, at the time) to minimise their tax bill?
I don't believe Cameron invested offshore to minimise his tax bill - if he did it for that reason he's an idiot because it doesn't reduce the amount of personal tax due (when you bring the money back onshore).
What Carr did was on the ragged edge of legal, and was done to minimise tax.
I don't believe Cameron invested offshore to minimise his tax bill - if he did it for that reason he's an idiot because it doesn't reduce the amount of personal tax due (when you bring the money back onshore).
Ah. Well.... That's all right, then. 🙁 [/bit-of-an-unreasonable-huff]
Sundayjumper - Member
I'm always impressed with the number of people who think running a country is easy, and they could do it so much better
In my experience they are usually driving a taxi....
brooess - Member
We may re-kindle our 'Blitz spirit'
Is this the time when [url= http://www.theguardian.com/society/2010/aug/29/blitz-london-crime-flourish-blackout ]crime flourished[/url] or the other bit of it?
I feel like the UK is going down the pan?
OP, do you think the UK was ever Up The Pan in the first place??
Too many people focusing on "me, me, me" short term gains
Mainly in government and business.
A serious lack of "vision" in politics and the will to make any real changes.
gobuchul - Member
Have you ever been to Belgium?
Yes, I have been and even driven there. As well as France, Monaco, Italy, Spain...what's your point? France I drive through several times a year. Never have I had a puncture, never have I broken a suspension wishbone, never have I buckled a wheel.
Yet apparently in the UK all we can manage is a piss poor road surface with several layers of 'surface dressing' on top of it. The ironworks end up about 2 inches down from the road surface, and the potholes reappear in a matter of months if not weeks anyway. It's crazy.
Even major roads like the A12 have had serious 20-30 metre long deep craters in their surfaces for months on end. So long so in fact that everybody still moves out of that lane on autopilot even months after it was fixed.
[quote=footflaps ]
You should travel more...
Typical road in Accra by Ben Freeman, on Flickr
Ghana has worse roads than we do, so what? I think we should be aiming a little higher than that TBH, given we are supposedly 8th largest economy in the world.
For all my occasional antii-capatalist rants I still think we live in a comparatively great county. We're not shooting each other, we're fleeing the country on dodgy boats and risking our lives to do so, we're not being bombed or having homophobic beaatings being carried out etx...Sure, our bowing to money has made us forget about others and that causes suffering and inequality...but in the grand scheme of how we could be living compared to others I think it's a great country right now....
This.
There are quite a few shit things about this country but there's a lot of great things too. People who moan about it going down the pan have absolutely zero sense of perspective (or maybe you just live somewhere shit, or have a shit life 🙂 ).
Yes, I have been and even driven there. As well as France, Monaco, Italy, Spain...what's your point?
Belgium has shit roads. France and Italy don't.
It's a kind of shorthand for "Daily Mail reading Ukip voter", but the Tories and their LibDem collaborators have succeeded in doing a LOT of damage over the past six years.
Of all the problems and unfairness and inequality and injustice and general weltshmerz that haunt my thoughts in my darker moments, potholes are the one that most often keep me tossing and turning in the small hours of the night.
gobuchul - MemberBelgium has shit roads. France and Italy don't.
Still better than ours, or at least the areas I drove in were.
Of all the problems and unfairness and inequality and injustice and general weltshmerz that haunt my thoughts in my darker moments, potholes are the one that most often keep me tossing and turning in the small hours of the night.
🙂
The SE/S of Belgium did indeed seem to have shit roads, and rotting industry...some connection?
Potholes keep you what, now?
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Flanagaj -- You have a choice of 26 other countries where you can go and live today, complete freedom of movement. Or several others which will require you to make a worthwhile contribution in return for their accepting you. Which one will you choose?
Jools182 -- Have you considered that the problem is not "Britain" but "SE England". There's plenty of places in the UK where you can buy a house for under £100k still; which should be in the mortgage affordable range for most families on average (median) wages, with some prudent planning and expenditure, or do you think it was easy for everyone to buy a home and they all got it in their ideal location?
PS. I'd happily pay a little more tax (if everyone else did too). You don't have to believe the world is awful to want to make it better. I'm not sure roads would be my first spending priority - but then I'd be unpopular by suggesting that the NHS* wouldn't be getting more either. [* if I was controlling spending I'd be looking at ways of improving society that reduced the burden on the NHS etc rather than just giving them more £]
this is the man for the job!
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#voteyosser
'the past is a stick we use to beat the present'
we won the lottery being born in the western world. if we manage to avoid getting ourselves mixed up in a proper conflict, by which i mean one that genuinely threatens our shores, we will have lived blessed lives.
While there are more pot holes than there used to be, their impact on modern cars is significantly worse than on older cars due to most modern cars having big wheels with very low profile tyres (for styling) and harder suspension to keep the journos happy when reviewing them on a track.
I tend to go through the same conversations when I'm back in the UK.
Billy: Oh, you live in Scandinavia? I think I should emigrate before it gets worse in Britain.
Me: Why? Britain's great.
Billy: The schools are terrible. The NHS is failing. There's potholes in the roads. I've heard it's much better in Norway or Sweden or Finland.
Me: It's no different.
Britain has more surfaced road the Russia despite being 1/60th the area.
[i]There are quite a few shit things about this country but there's a lot of great things too. People who moan about it going down the pan have absolutely zero sense of perspective (or maybe you just live somewhere shit, or have a shit life ).[/i]
Wow...Grum just said something I agree with! 😯
The NHS is not failing, it's one of the best in the world. What fails is people's inability to get the best from the NHS; if you are dogged, persistant and articulate you can get superb medical care. Same goes for Social Services. Unfortunately few people have those qualities.
This thread is an interesting read. Its basic question is one I've begun to ask myself more frequently, now that I've reached the grand age of 35. 🙄
I often look at the physical environment around me - including people, mand-made things, buildings, rivers, flora, fauna etc - which led me to recently ask [url= http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/roadside-rubbish-is-it-getting-worse-everywhere ]whether roadside rubbish is getting worse[/url]. The rubbish that I see seems to reflect some interesting long-term trends.
As a society, I think we have become a lot more [b]commodity-focused[/b] and look towards self and possibly family more than before; but not further. Interestingly, this doesn't seem to be showing in greater levels of self-care - quite the opposite - but it is definitely showing in terms our collective to attitudes to the physical space around us.
I wonder, especially, why an [b]ageing society[/b] - where generally older people value cleanliness and order - is so accepting of the degradation of public space and all the litter in particular that entails?
I think we are now seeing the outcomes of 6-7 years of [b]austerity[/b] in the physical environment: this is the manifestation of lower public spending and an attitude that treats public spending as waste unless proven otherwise.
Changes in services like the NHS, social care and local government are less visible until the moment you need them: but you can [i]really[/i] see that there are far fewer new or refurbished public buildings, less "street scene" care (litter collection, graffiti), potholed roads and little new infrastructure to speak of.
This also follows the general principle of our [b]collective wealth now concentrating in few people and places[/b]. There are more smaller places to live (houses and flats). I live in an area that is generally looking more gentrified that 5-10 years' ago; but it is the public space - the parks, the roadside verges - and the newly-built space that looks smaller / worse / littered.
Set against this, we are enjoying the benefits of [b]technology[/b]: being able to control heating from our phones, stalking ex-lovers on Facebook and so on. I'm sure we're living more convenient lives as a result, although living in a digital world again shows in our lack of respect for the physical one outside.
On the whole, I'd far rather live in this UK version of a slightly tarnished Utopia - but there are plenty of other countries out there who have balanced all the above without trashing public space and public services.
Great place to live. I've needed a serious operation on the NHS in the last year and the Wife has banged out two kids on the NHS. Superb 'service' on all three occasions. Prompt clean, efficient & effective. Just incredible. Roads are overcrowded her in the South but a big part of that is because the UK is so ace loads of people want to live here.
If people think the UK sucks you have free movement in the EU, just move to any of the EU countries you think are significantly better.
It's a great place to live.
[quote=globalti ]The NHS is not failing, it's one of the best in the world. What fails is people's inability to get the best from the NHS; if you are dogged, persistant and articulate you can get superb medical care. Same goes for Social Services. Unfortunately few people have those qualities.
Sorry what?! Have you had to use an NHS service lately?
My local hospitals are understaffed by probably 10-20% or more. Their workload is ludicrous. It is quite remarkable there are not more clinical errors, that's a testament to how hard the staff work.
After giving birth, my wife was in hospital blocking a bed for an extra 24 hours because there was nobody available to give her the (5 minute) outgoing patient check. I was going and asking at the front desk for somebody to see her, every 30-60 mins or so for 12 hours and nobody had the time to do it.
My B-I-L was on some combination of drugs which caused immune problems. He was put in an isolation ward, but even after repeated requests they didn't lock his private toilet, so randoms left puke, piss, blood and runny shit all over it. Simply because nobody had the time to get the keys and lock it.
My father has some skin complaint I've forgotten the name of. He has laser/light treatment to treat it, but it has to be done on time, every time, to remain effective. His last two treatments have been delayed by months due to his appointments being booked 1) when no consultants of the correct type were in 2) when the equipment was having routine maintenance. Both things could have been avoided, if staff had the time and joined up computer systems to actually check things out rather than just whamming appointments into the book as quickly as possible.
At work I go by the mantra 'under-promise and over-deliver'
Our politicians generally do the opposite. Sometimes it's because they're just over-ambitious, sometimes it's because they're just dim, often it's because it gets them votes - we all like a freebie and we all like to feel rich after all. We do like to get angry at our leaders but I think a little more reflection on our own expectations wouldn't go amiss given the crisis we're in.
There's a balance between being grateful for what we have (one of the richest countries in the world and one of the free-est) and making the best of it through our own actions and they way we live our lives (don't be a git and be nice to other people) and holding our politicians to account and show our anger when we think they're making what we think are wrong decisions (not being angry about everything they do, and avoid blind partisan dogma).
Right now, I think we have incredibly high living standards but life is getting harder for a lot of the population and we're in a very serious long-term debt crisis which is going to hold down living standards for at least a generation. Somewhere in there, there's a balance of things to get angry about, things to demand of our politicians and things to shrug our shoulders about and be grateful for what we have...
Personally I don't think roads are really that high in this hierarchy. Inequality of wealth, tax avoidance when the government debt is so high, £170bn of foreign money in UK property pricing out the younger generation and decreasing disposable incomes, obesity and education (inequality of outcomes across the income and class bands) are priorities...
I think the biggest problem with the UK is not the politicians, the roads, the rich, the poor, the weather, the NHS, the Tories, Labour etc . . . . it's the bloody media!
The media make people scared, make sensationalist stories out of even the most mundane of events, make people afraid of pedophiles, potholes, cash for crash, immigrants, the weather etc, etc.
Last time it snowed for example, the BBC breakfast team told us to watch out, terrible weather, terrible driving conditions, doom and gloom etc. In reality kids round here had the day off school, threw snowballs, got the sledges out, I worked from home drinking coffee and most of us had a fantastic day enjoying the snow.
Linking to another thread, no wonder some people feel the need to film everything these days with a dashcam - the media has made them scared to even go outside without a fear that 'someone is out to get them' or that 'something might happen'.
Ditch the news, ditch the papers for a week and I bet you'll feel a lot happier with life in the UK?
