Everything is wrong in this country

Really, compared to where? Have you lived outside UK.

1 in 7 children in the UK go to school hungry.
Children fall asleep in class through hunger.
Teachers are freely giving children breakfast, as they find it too distressing to watch a struggling hungry child.

This report was in 2013 and the numbers have risen since then.

Don’t tell me that we are not regressing

Doom, doom; thrice times doom.

oh dear, you are the negative moaning empty glass type whitewavemark2.

Someone to be avoided at all costs.

Whitewave.

Pleeeese get a life!

A tweet

Today
@BorisJohnson
lied to the BBC, claiming child poverty had gone down.

In fact, it’s gone up every year since 2010. Now, a staggering 4.1 million British children live in poverty.

A government allowing this is disgusting.

A prime minister lying about it is inexcusable.

Of course we have poverty. Almost all countries do. It’s a very sad fact of life. But, we also have free education for every child, free healthcare for all who need it. Our elderly have free access to public transport, prescriptions etc. Our unemployed have free financial support. Many of our poor families have free housing.
Compare all of this with some other countries like Africa and parts of S America. It doesn’t sound too Dickensian to me.

My goodness Whitewavemark2....you are a depressing person. Your face must be so long your chin is dragging the ground...Hahaha. Try being more positive. There is beauty all around to see and positivity. Now smile and bring that chin back to where it should be.

WWM2, I can't help feeling that you are wasting your breath (words) on the brainwashed majority. They sit there in their rose-tinted spectacles reading the Tory tabloids, watching the Tory BBC, happily convinced that all is well.

Despite all the evidence, it's only much later, when they rely on the so-called state 'care' system, having lost every penny, that the true reality hits!

Austerity is officially over haven’t you heard? Let’s get Brexit done (well, the WA bit) and watch the Tories spend some money on us all. It’ll seem a lot better soon WWmk2 you’ll see.

You seem of a gloomy disposition if you don’t mind me saying so! All your threads are put downs of the Conservative Party.

"I have never met a Tory voter who wasn't living a nice little life in a comfortable house, inherited money from the family (gained from property price inflation) funding a second home in Europe, children/grandchilden in private schools, probably a private or professional pension, shops in Waitrose, has several cars, holidays overseas, income never a problem."

Well, you haven't met me then. I vote Tory and yes I am now living a nice little life, because I WORKED for it - ordinary working class background, left school at 16, worked hard ever since as has my husband, who comes from a similar working class background, we've bought our own property over the years, never received benefits, our kids went to state schools, we paid to get them through uni, we saved for our retirement and paid into a works pension, now retired, have never inherited anything, don't have a second home, have one or two holidays a year, and have one car. I have not had any more or less opportunity than anyone else, but have made a success of my life by working hard, always living within my means - and believe me we were bloody hard up when our kids were little, my husband worked two jobs to keep a roof over our heads. This country is one of the best countries in the world and I wouldn't want to live anywhere else. Yes, the UK has its faults and there is always room for improvement, but people need to learn to help themselves and not just rely on the State to provide. I also agree with a previous poster - if you have a young family, and you are hard up, then stop having more kids! Single mothers with six kids? And they expect the State to keep them? That is wrong on so many levels. Rights also come with responsibility, and we should all learn to exercise both.

Excellent post Opal.

By 2023, 40000 miles of roads in th3 U.K. will become unusable according to a report in the Telegraph.

Why?

Potholes of course. No money to repair the roads because of Tory cuts. Councils have a £556000000 shortfall.

Many roads are set to “fail” in the next 12 months.

and a corrupt government.... they dont like spending money on the hard working or those that are too ill to work. its them and us and always will be.

A lovely, balanced perspective Opal that’s more like it!

Why do so many want to disparage our wonderful country and the freedoms we enjoy, our welfare state, our tolerant society? Beggars belief.

I agree about (some) single mums. Their partners or ‘baby daddies’ bugger off and the State is then expected to step in and become ‘dad’.

Some fact checks:
Immigrants (both in the UK and the US) pay approximately twice as much in taxes as they claim in benefits. Their main detrimental effect has been on lower-end wages which have been slightly depressed - part of which has been due to the little publicised EU Posted Workers Directive which allows EU firms to pay "temporary" employees the same (low) wages they would pay them back in their home country. An (enforced) minimum wage of £10 an hour would stop the latter.

A socialist country is one where the production of goods is mainly in the hands of the government. As only 30% of the Venezuelan GDP production is in government hands it CANNOT be a socialist country. Indeed it is being held to ransom by its capitalists and foreign investors much as Chile was in the 1970s.

Venezuela has the same alternatives that face this country - continue to give in to neo-liberalism and see poverty increase and the wealthy prosper, or nationalise, and run (democratically) production for the many.

I had better say that the big banks and corporations are what I mean. Small businesses (most struggling in the capitalist system) would be invaluable to a socialist society for local production and distribution.

The UK is still a country where people can prosper and get on in life.

These increasingly ridiculous claims about how dreadful it is to live here will have the opposite effect to that intended.

It all smacks of desperation.

There is no appetite here for an extreme Socialist government which is apparent in all the opinion polls thankfully.

May I offer another perspective. I was born and brought up in India and was fortunate to have had a comfortable life, even though I witnessed extreme poverty and deprivation. I had no interest in moving to live abroad but in 1982 I met and fell in love with a dashing Englishman who had come out to run some training courses in India. Two years later he had to return to England and if we wanted to stay together I and our baby daughter had to follow. So I left everything familiar to me and came here for love. The point I now wish to make is that I have seen real deprivation and desperation. To be poor in India is to sleep on the streets and to have to beg for food - there is a basic government health care system but nothing as comprehensive as the NHS and you have to pay for medication. Homelessness may be increasing in the U.K. and there are problems with the NHS but there is help and support available on a scale the poor in India can't even dream of. What puzzles and frustrates me is if there are so many shortages and so much want in this country why is there so much waste? The amount of food households, supermarkets, restaurants etc throw away everyday would probably feed a good proportion of those in need here. The value of the amount of medication and mobility equipment wasted everyday would certainly fund a lot more services, staff and other facilities for th NHS. We can all do our bit to improve things or we can throw up our hands and bemoan the situation. The choice is clearly ours.

well i have worked hard all my life.....but i live in a council house ,paid my taxes.and still do when asked .yet when i applied for disabilty benefits .omg it was like getting blood out of a stone. i only have 34 percent working kidneys.slipped disc/hernia.liver damage .2 fractured skulls/IBS and hearing problems. oh and musklesleton /arthritis problems. and the assessments that i have to go through to prove i am not faking it ,regardless of a file of hospital papers.NHS do a wonderful job trying to keep things floing. was in friday for dehydration problems. they saw everyone and there was loads in A &E. but they never got flustered and saw everyone.tory cuts mean more in the tory pockets. when do they ever have to choose between eating and heating.

One in 50 households use food banks to stave off hunger.

The level of food bank use has risen by 73% since 2010, due entirely to austerity cuts by the Tories

je who is advocating an extreme socialist government?

I am so grateful to this country for accepting me because I was lucky enough to have a British passport. I have received so much help and support and much as I love South Africa where I came from originally, there was no future for me as an aging 'white' woman in what is by all accounts a Marxist government, with high levels of violence (my partner was shot dead in a car hijacking) bigotry and reverse racism. Yes, there are many problems facing the UK today, but those seem to me to be part of an increasingly global situation that is affecting us all. Thank you, Britain for giving me a life

The unemployed can fill the jobs.

Whitewave- so relieved you are not my next door neighbour!