What will it take for the U.K. to stand tall again?

Kamiso

In the early seventies I worked with a miserable grumpy old man who kept insisting the country had gone to the dogs! He brought a pregnant young colleague to tears with his insistence that it was a terrible world to bring a child into.

Good job many of us didn’t feel the same way as we would have no children or grandchildren to enjoy or lives to really live.

Life is what you make it. You can choose to wallow in gloom and misery or make an effort to think of the positives in your life and just get on with it.

What you are talking about is quite different from what the OP meant.

In the early seventies I worked with a miserable grumpy old man who kept insisting the country had gone to the dogs! He brought a pregnant young colleague to tears with his insistence that it was a terrible world to bring a child into.

Good job many of us didn’t feel the same way as we would have no children or grandchildren to enjoy or lives to really live.

Life is what you make it. You can choose to wallow in gloom and misery or make an effort to think of the positives in your life and just get on with it.

mayisay we have always had immigration to this country. We
are a mixture and IMO that is a good thing. How long ago was it that Chicken Korma was first voted the nation's favourite dish?

James Oh Brien
@mrjamesob
·
20h
Boris Johnson, Jacob Rees-Mogg & Andrew Windsor are currently the faces of ‘Global Britain’.

This is the problem.

Totally disagree, mayisay. I think one of the benefits or positive points of the UK is our multi cultural society.

Been watching East Enders! wow.

I can remember at least fifteen years ago while on holiday in Canada, that a veteran asked me "What has happened to that once great country of yours?". So this was way before a Tory Government, and Brexit. I believe mass immigration has been a major factor, and we are losing our identity in England.

Thanks for the replies, A and C.

It starts with politicians of integrity. Look at how entirely embarrassing Johnson was as foreign secretary. Look what he said on numerous visits! The rot started then. It has continued at speed since Johnson’s premiership, and every minister is culpable.

The second world war , then Clement Attlee's government were the best times.

Moral leadership instead of self seeking lies.

Baggs

When do those who think the UK cannot currently "stand tall" think it last did?

I think the UK stood tall until fairly recently. I think before Brexit.

It was the intentional decoupling from the rest of the world that Brexit represents that meant that people in other countries started to ask what we were thinking. The fact that there was a cohort of people in this country who couldn't actually see the benefits of the union we were in and wanted to go it alone - effectively pretending that we are the Empire that we used to be long ago.

People I know from other countries, not just Europe, are looking on and wondering what we are thinking. And then we elect a government that are incompetent, that lie to us, and that only do things to enhance their own narrow agendas.

We break treaties and ignore the ones we've decided we don't like, and are starting to change things that we think are too restrictive, even though they make the world a better place. I'm not proud at the moment.

Youngsters leaving school don’t stand a chance of employment

Really? This might have been the case a while ago, but there are many apprenticeships currently being offered in care, hospitality, building trade, retail, and others.

They might not be the jobs the youngsters had envisioned, or offer the pay they would like, but it would be a start.

How many of us started on great wages, in the careers we really wanted?

If you get training behind you, you have a lot more to offer future employers surely?

PS Do not assume you know what I think on the subject. I'm genuinely interested to know when people think the UK last showed up well on the world stage.

When do those who think the UK cannot currently "stand tall" think it last did?

GG13 It is our govt that is sleazy and we need to know about it, if for no other reason that we don't vote them in next time.

2 calls to James O'Brien this morning - one from someone living in France whose neighbours have been asking since Brexit what's going on in the UK and one from a Scot saying that the Scots are asking what's going on in England.

I think there are good things happening in the UK but they are overshadowed by the bad.

We elected a government which many people knew would be disastrous but thought it was worth it to stick it to the Europeans. We renege on our promises and pretend we are the victims. We operate on a system of patronage which is encouraged by the existence of a constitutional monarchy. Individual smaller nations within the UK, and relatively remote regions of England, feel marginalised and ignored.

Nothing will improve until we have a new government. Even then, if we re-elect a government which is intent on telling the population they are working for their best interests when that is not the case, then nothing will get better. People are in it for themselves and devil take the hindmost.

I'm not sounding too optimistic, am I?

Honestly, I think this is it for the UK.

Whitewavemark2 some of the Government along with some opposition MPs are tarnished with sleaze and in some cases convicted of criminality, this does not mean that the whole population of the U.K. is unable to stand tall.

There are good things happening all round the U.K. , unfortunately the media is only interested in sleaze, scandal and sensationalist stories.

A caller to James OBrien just now mentioned a snap election.
How, or could, that come about?
Can someone explain please if it would be possible

I feel sad too that so many people can't even afford to live ! Everyone in this position are literally held over a barrel and nobody seems to care. How can they be expected to pay the obscene power bills or any other obscenity in the form of a rising bill ? I've never known anything like it in my life.

Why should there be such a diversity ? It reminds me of that song--" Only the strong survive, the weak fall by the wayside ".

Youngsters leaving school don't stand a chance of employment. Where does the future lie for them ? We're steadily going backwards and it's frightening.

I feel it will take many years and a thoroughly radical new voting system. Sadly I think that not going to happen other than via some awful revolution. We are really on a new and depressing low at the moment for me.