Might have been grim for you but by some measures people were at their happiest in the 70's.
Of course they were. They were children.
Yep,my happiest moment was when they repeated a lot of Dr Who episodes during the strikes.(we were lucky and had a generator for the powercuts)
TBH ‘70 were grim but the ‘80s weren’t that great although I think they were probably better than now,if you managed to get a job you had a chance of affording a house.
There was also a better soundtrack to life and computers had started to take off and there was more of a buzz around then and the films were great and the fun cars started Golf GTi and the hot hatchbacks.
( Ignoring that minor inconvenience of the chances of nuclear obliteration)
Voters will take their chances to vote for whoever promises short-term relief as long as those those promises are kept,
No we moved passed that politically, no one trust politicians to do anything. There is absolutely now expectation that they will make anyone's life better, they just hope that pain will be inflicted on the people they don't like.
It sounds deeply cynical but it explains a lot of recent events. From Brexit, to the rise of Trump in the US and the rise of Reform in the UK.
TBH ‘70 were grim but the ‘80s weren’t that great although I think they were probably better than now,if you managed to get a job you had a chance of affording a house.
I was a student early to mid 70s so I thought it was a hoot. Started work mid 70s and still enjoyed it. Worked overseas for a bit, came back, got a job, enjoyed proper road rallying before the fun police put a stop to it. Agree with the house buying bit, I managed that in the early 80s before the housing market went berserk. I think that one issue takes a lot of the blame for the country's current woes.
Unless they’ve changed it,they were only allowed to work after one year,just checked and it’s now:
Up until 2002 they could apply to work if the process took more than 6 months. However under media pressure about economic migrants that got changed to 12 months and only shortage occupations. Which I think in real terms would be basically zero.
More recently Labour changed it to allow for all "high skilled".
Of course the massive irony is that the gullible clowns that voted for Brexit because they wanted less immigrants , have instead created a huge surge in channel crossing
They were warned but farage & the brexiteers dismissed it as 'project fear' etc
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-35519210
And just this week the police were complaining that having lost access to EU databases its much harder for them to track immigrants and people smugglers
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp3pl5093wpo
on top of that we lost the ability to return any when we pulled out of Dublin III
And now Farage will ride the wave of discontent about the channel crossings he helped cause in to downing street because the racists muppets believe everything they see on facebook or gbnews
They are Farage Boats
there's no nuance among the racists, just naivety
Well surprisingly they are spending more on some progressive programmes than the previous Tory council here in Nottinghamshire.
(That's not an endorsement but I'm seeing that via my projects.)
I fully expected to be out of a job this year.
Plenty of incompetence kicking around but that's not exclusive to Reform.
The root of Reform's existence lies with previous government's inability to satisfy the needs of society. We need to be angry at Labour and Tory really. Reform are just the result of that.
It's short-sighted to see it any other way.
As for dull politics - doesn't come into it we need progressive transformative politics - you can still have dull and regressive - that's what Labour have delivered.
Why is those who you suspect...
Might have been grim for you but by some measures people were at their happiest in the 70's.
The Beatles broke up, three-day weeks, one of the hottest summers (no A/C then), oil crisis, massive inner city unrest, 30% inflation, IMF bailout, Thatcherism, the Austin Allegro.
You probably weren't there, so do you want any more reasons for happiness?
You could always get a job then and things were beginning to improve after WW2
Edit: Wagon Wheels were huge, but I doubt that was the measure you had in mind 😂
Why is those who you suspect...
A few online sources are calling out the Mail for reporting this as "Man charged with murder" rather than mentioning that he's behind the flag shagging campaign they've been endorsing.
Currently having fun on Farage's FB page. He's posted a detailed plan of all the legislation and conventions he'll rip up and the legislation he will pass to enable him to deport 1 million illegal immigrants, but seems to have forgotten to mention the legislation he'll need to pass to reinstate the rights of ordinary British workers. I'm sure he'll be along soon to correct the oversight....
70s:
I got a grant to go to uni on a great course and examine moon rocks.
Rent was £5 a week and a small part of my budget.
There were hundreds of bikes in the school bike shed and most drivers had ridden a bike at some point in their lives so took care around cyclists - though many of both were pissed.
When a kid punched a teacher the teacher just punched him back harder and nobody went to court, lost their job or ended up on some register.
Dental treatment was painful but free (dental hospital Birmingham) Nobody needed private health insurance and hospital queues were days to weeks.
Old people died of heart attacks at 70 rather than suffering years of decline and dementia.
A couple with half way reasonable jobs could buy a house on a deposit saved in a couple of years.
people were were lean, fit and healthy unless they smoked or drank too much. Many jobs were physical.
No AIDS, just irritating things that responded to antibiotics
When you left the office to do some work nobody could use a phone or beeper to hassle you. You phoned in at lunch time in case anything urgent had come up and phoned in at the end of the day to say you were safely home. No-one was fussed if you ran up Cader idris in your lunch hour in a T-shirt and daps.
Countries were different with different high streets, different cars, different TV - foreign holidays were properly foreign.
The green grocer still sold vegetables loose, much packaging was paper and carboard and the food had that lovely cardboard taste.
It snowed enough to ski on the Birmingham hills
Cars were fun to drive and could be fixed with a bag of spanners: Mini, 2CV, Fiat 131, Escort - but rusted away before your eyes.
Blondie played Barbarellas and it was a couple of quid to get in
Hannu Mikkola in the Blue Eaton Yale Escort = motorsport perfection.
Britain had just joined the EU, from the day my French teacher told me that meant I could live and work anywhere in Europe I knew one day I would.
People were pretty well informed and read a lot. Conspiracy theory rabbit holes were few and far between. Fake news was still called propaganda.
Nut jobs leveraging religion were fewer and further between, peak secular, check out photographs of major cities around the world and note how few signs of religion there were.
Wars were mainly just proxy wars orchestrated by the main blocks. It was a nuclear powder keg you'll say, but ultimately no-one pressed the button even when ordered to do so. I guess the Russians loved their children too.
Rose tinted specs you'll say. Yup rose tinted specs. I wore them all the time, there was every reason to believe that if I gave it everything I'd got I'd get to live my dreams, and I did. That was the 70s: from the Midlands and poor enough to be on a full grant to what feels like success. Thank you the 70s.
I think those rose glasses were being worn by a straight white man.
Oh dear, we are in 2026 aren't we. Where it's even worse for those who aren't straight white men as far as I can see. Or am I in the wrong thread? This is a thread about a party with a high proportion of manosphere, sexist, racist, extreme right... leaders and supporters and they're scoring 30%. Clapton came out with racist shite in the 70s and Rock against racism formed. Women's rights and position in society improved throughout the decade and now? Many women now want nothing to do with men - that's the 2020s, men so toxic nobody wants a relationship with them. Try reading the Guardian, there's been a series on on it. Conversations with my gen-Z son are eye-opening, if you think it's easier for minorities, women, LGBT... I think you've missed the tide turning. That's the reality of the success of Reform UK, increased racism, sexism, hate of homsexuals, petty nationalism, they're feeding it and feeding off it.
TBH ‘70 were grim but the ‘80s weren’t that great although I think they were probably better than now,if you managed to get a job you had a chance of affording a house.
If you were a single person in their 20’s, not a cat in hell’s chance! The only way I managed to get somewhere to live that I could afford was to buy my parents council house, and they continued to live with me for the next twenty-odd years. I finished paying the mortgage just after my step-dad died, and my mum died a while before. If I hadn’t bought the place, I’d have been kicked out of the home I’d lived in for most of my life by the council, and probably left homeless.
Around Chippenham, house prices are some of the highest in the South of England, because of its location on the transport system.
TBH ‘70 were grim but the ‘80s weren’t that great although I think they were probably better than now,if you managed to get a job you had a chance of affording a house.
If you were a single person in their 20’s, not a cat in hell’s chance! The only way I managed to get somewhere to live that I could afford was to buy my parents council house, and they continued to live with me for the next twenty-odd years. I finished paying the mortgage just after my step-dad died, and my mum died a while before. If I hadn’t bought the place, I’d have been kicked out of the home I’d lived in for most of my life by the council, and probably left homeless.
Around Chippenham, house prices are some of the highest in the South of England, because of its location on the transport system.
As I understand it, it's even worse now. And therefore a '1970s' Reform UK will have even more devastating consequences.
It's worse because house prices are even higher. Cost of living even higher. Tax burden even higher. Etc
Racism, sexism and homophobia didn't exist in the 70s. It was all just bants.
This comparing life now to the 1970s is always going to be tricky with lived experience muddying the waters and reducing our ability to look at it objectively. Using your 2026 preconceptions of how happy you'd have been at the same age in the 1970s - an era you only have a memory of as a child/youth - is never going to be properly objective. The easterlin paradox comes into play.
And related (from BBC R4 'More of Less' the other week), the Healthy Life Expectancy age has dropped by a couple of years in recent decades. This does not mean we are actually less health now than in the past but because it is measured by respondents reporting their 'feelings' of how healthy they are instead of actually medically assessing them. People's expectations of how healthy they should be has risen and our preparedness to put up with niggles and signs of aging has declined. So we now perceive ourselves to be less healthy when in fact its not really true.
So we now perceive ourselves to be less healthy when in fact its not really true.
The obesity, dementure, diabetes... stats don't support that view.
As said above we can only look at it based on our own personal experience. For me the 70's were very good.
At the beginning of the 70's I was in my early 20's, just changed job to one that I liked and could see had the potential to develop into and advance. My girlfriend (who had a good Civil Service job) and I bought a house together before we were married. Never moved into it for around year but spent the time (and some money) doing it up. Got married, still together happily now.
Got some promotions at work and made a manager after a few years. In the meantime we'd sold our first house and bought another but then had to fairly soon sell it due to me getting a company move as part of the promotion. At the very end of the 70's I got another company house move back to area I'd previously moved from. These 3 house moves set us up very nicely.
Was I lucky, well I guess I was but.... I was working very hard so I was expecting to get some rewards.
Overall, apart from work etc... yes life was good. Travel into London was easy, especially at weekend and access to museums, show, galleries etc. And parking was easy as well.
There were still proper shops in the high street, not nail bars, barbers, charity shops predominating.
One negative was that I'd stopped exercising during much of the 70's. Up to my early 20's I'd been very seriously into sport (kayak racing) and was competing and training all the time. When I moved into the new job I referred to I stopped all that as I never had the time to train and if I couldn't train sufficiently I wasn't gong to be competitive. So I just knocked it on the head.
It must have been around the end of the 70's when I was looking at a holiday photo of myself and realised how unfit I looked (not fat btw but just unfit). So I decided to get back into sport and exercise but nothing competitive.
Sorry for the ramble but that's how it was for me.
This was an interesting article, I’ve been intrigued by just how many reminiscence Facebook pages are around and how the Brexit vote was assisted with its effective use of Facebook and social media.
IMHO It’s what we’re not seeing on Facebook/social media is the problem as that algorithm just keeps feeding us that stuff we love to hear.
But honestly ‘Danny-bones’ WTAF it’s frightening what’s doing the rounds.
https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/british-nostalgia-ai-slop-danny-bones-b2986350.html
TBH ‘70 were grim but the ‘80s weren’t that great although I think they were probably better than now,if you managed to get a job you had a chance of affording a house.
If you were a single person in their 20’s, not a cat in hell’s chance! The only way I managed to get somewhere to live that I could afford was to buy my parents council house, and they continued to live with me for the next twenty-odd years. I finished paying the mortgage just after my step-dad died, and my mum died a while before. If I hadn’t bought the place, I’d have been kicked out of the home I’d lived in for most of my life by the council, and probably left homeless.
Around Chippenham, house prices are some of the highest in the South of England, because of its location on the transport system.
As I understand it, it's even worse now. And therefore a '1970s' Reform UK will have even more devastating consequences.
It's worse because house prices are even higher. Cost of living even higher. Tax burden even higher. Etc
Add in the student loans and nursery costs, which weren’t a thing in the ‘good’old days and the whole oooh people are going to need to put more in their pensions for that £60k a year sweet spot pension.
Got to be troubles ahead.
Good grief.
That link without the paywall, third time lucky:
http://www.independent.co.uk/tech/british-nostalgia-ai-slop-danny-bones-b298.6350.htm
There’s actually some other reporting it’s pretty grim/frightening.
So we now perceive ourselves to be less healthy when in fact its not really true.
The obesity, dementure, diabetes... stats don't support that view.
Apparently they do. Though, I'm not the expert, just reporting the findings of the experts. This is pure supposition so take it as you will, but those with chronic health conditions at a given age probably having different issues now to back in the day - less smoking related emphysema, more diabetes from obesity and so on maybe.
I guess the nuance is - a person a with a specific level of 'health' would be more likely to put themselves in a different category now to the one a similar person with a similar level of health might have put themselves into 20 or 30 years ago.
I understand it's down to people's perceptions of themselves, I just doubt that many of those saying they're healthy are objectively healthy. In 1980 8% of men and 6% of women were obese. In 2024 it was 29% and 31%. People are living longer with statins, stents, insulin and a host of other pills and treatments to counter their unhealthy lifestyles but "healthy", I'm not convinced.
they just hope that pain will be inflicted on the people they don't like.
"Disadvantageous inequity aversion" for the googles.
It's always been a thing.
I see that Farage is poking the fires ready for the summer rioting season.
How long before Reform start doing merch for it?
Too right! Zia Yusuf was on the world at one spitting bile like he had a point to prove. Who can sound angriest about the police response to a tragic situation and how can it be the BBC's fault?
Calling for "pure cold rage"... (ignoring the wishes of the victim's family)
https://www.ft.com/content/1f9cf0bb-8e11-4808-a66b-08326d09d324?syn-25a6b1a6=1
Reform is so yesterday. Y'all need to get on board the Restore Britain bandwagon.
Edukator's right about perception of health. My colleagues at work are all younger than me (59) and they're all on meds: diabetes, gout, hypertension, happy pills... ****in' incredible. They all think I'm weird because I ride a bike into work.....
Calling for "pure cold rage"... (ignoring the wishes of the victim's family)
Ignoring the wishes of the family has got him a lot of heat on social media, just shows what a self serving opportunistic grifter he is.
Wasn't campaigning when it was white kids stabbing white kids, was he?
If Farage gets the riots hes so desperate for and his gullible followers all get arrested just so he can cry '2tier policing' from the safety of his private members club..... then who will paint the roundabouts
I can't recall anything close to last night's riots in Southampton, during the last 30-odd years I've been here, it's a very multi-cultural city... That got invaded last night by a load of right-wingers looking to cause trouble, thanks to ends of bell like Nigel stirring things.
