Visited the UK a few weeks back, wasn't so bad
Discussion
As the title says, I was in London, Warwick and then North Wales.
To be honest I was expecting worse.
In Australia we hear a lot about your issues with crime, illegal immigration and rising costs. But from my two weeks there, all seemed to be ticking along as it always was (I lived there 20 years back for 8 years).
If I was to be picky I found the unrelenting speed cameras on the motorway a bit of pain, and there seems to be a bit more traffic, aside from that, it was 'as you were'.
Just pointing out maybe it's not as bad as many on PH and the media seem to think.
To be honest I was expecting worse.
In Australia we hear a lot about your issues with crime, illegal immigration and rising costs. But from my two weeks there, all seemed to be ticking along as it always was (I lived there 20 years back for 8 years).
If I was to be picky I found the unrelenting speed cameras on the motorway a bit of pain, and there seems to be a bit more traffic, aside from that, it was 'as you were'.
Just pointing out maybe it's not as bad as many on PH and the media seem to think.
robm3 said:
As the title says, I was in London, Warwick and then North Wales.
To be honest I was expecting worse.
In Australia we hear a lot about your issues with crime, illegal immigration and rising costs.
The level of crime is sensationalised. I live in the outer suburbs of Manchester and work near the city centre. I may be fortunate, but the crime hasn't impacted on me as a middle-England, middle-aged man.To be honest I was expecting worse.
In Australia we hear a lot about your issues with crime, illegal immigration and rising costs.
Illegal immigration is extremely sensationalised and the people coming on boats are only a very small proportion of it anyway.
Living costs have risen, but a visitor wouldn't necessarily notice a mortgage increase or rising supermarket prices from a historic low.
Many public services have declined and many of the people who deliver them are having a very, very difficult time.
Edited by MC Bodge on Sunday 12th November 21:36
robm3 said:
As the title says, I was in London, Warwick and then North Wales.
To be honest I was expecting worse.
In Australia we hear a lot about your issues with crime, illegal immigration and rising costs. But from my two weeks there, all seemed to be ticking along as it always was (I lived there 20 years back for 8 years).
If I was to be picky I found the unrelenting speed cameras on the motorway a bit of pain, and there seems to be a bit more traffic, aside from that, it was 'as you were'.
Just pointing out maybe it's not as bad as many on PH and the media seem to think.
The devil is in the detail.To be honest I was expecting worse.
In Australia we hear a lot about your issues with crime, illegal immigration and rising costs. But from my two weeks there, all seemed to be ticking along as it always was (I lived there 20 years back for 8 years).
If I was to be picky I found the unrelenting speed cameras on the motorway a bit of pain, and there seems to be a bit more traffic, aside from that, it was 'as you were'.
Just pointing out maybe it's not as bad as many on PH and the media seem to think.
It isn't that theres a speed camera every 12.5 feet, it's that some cretin can drive onto a roundabout and ram you and then claim they had "right of way", and when you phone the police they tell you to get lost not interested, then shortly after despite said prevalence of speed cameras every 12.5 feet they can afford officers to carry out speed gun duty to make up their crime solved targets. It isnt that traffic is merely worse... It's that the very actual last journey I did was from Enfield town to waltham cross on Saturday morning, 2.6 miles each way and it took me over an hour. And Im not even surprised or thought it mention worthy but for your bringing it up
Countries funked.
Teddy Lop said:
The devil is in the detail.
It isn't that theres a speed camera every 12.5 feet, it's that some cretin can drive onto a roundabout and ram you and then claim they had "right of way", and when you phone the police they tell you to get lost not interested, then shortly after despite said prevalence of speed cameras every 12.5 feet they can afford officers to carry out speed gun duty to make up their crime solved targets. It isnt that traffic is merely worse... It's that the very actual last journey I did was from Enfield town to waltham cross on Saturday morning, 2.6 miles each way and it took me over an hour. And Im not even surprised or thought it mention worthy but for your bringing it up
Countries funked.
OP, one of the big problems is the number of "We're Doomed" people in the UK.It isn't that theres a speed camera every 12.5 feet, it's that some cretin can drive onto a roundabout and ram you and then claim they had "right of way", and when you phone the police they tell you to get lost not interested, then shortly after despite said prevalence of speed cameras every 12.5 feet they can afford officers to carry out speed gun duty to make up their crime solved targets. It isnt that traffic is merely worse... It's that the very actual last journey I did was from Enfield town to waltham cross on Saturday morning, 2.6 miles each way and it took me over an hour. And Im not even surprised or thought it mention worthy but for your bringing it up
Countries funked.
MC Bodge said:
Teddy Lop said:
The devil is in the detail.
It isn't that theres a speed camera every 12.5 feet, it's that some cretin can drive onto a roundabout and ram you and then claim they had "right of way", and when you phone the police they tell you to get lost not interested, then shortly after despite said prevalence of speed cameras every 12.5 feet they can afford officers to carry out speed gun duty to make up their crime solved targets. It isnt that traffic is merely worse... It's that the very actual last journey I did was from Enfield town to waltham cross on Saturday morning, 2.6 miles each way and it took me over an hour. And Im not even surprised or thought it mention worthy but for your bringing it up
Countries funked.
OP, one of the big problems is the number of "We're Doomed" people in the UK.It isn't that theres a speed camera every 12.5 feet, it's that some cretin can drive onto a roundabout and ram you and then claim they had "right of way", and when you phone the police they tell you to get lost not interested, then shortly after despite said prevalence of speed cameras every 12.5 feet they can afford officers to carry out speed gun duty to make up their crime solved targets. It isnt that traffic is merely worse... It's that the very actual last journey I did was from Enfield town to waltham cross on Saturday morning, 2.6 miles each way and it took me over an hour. And Im not even surprised or thought it mention worthy but for your bringing it up
Countries funked.
UK media is sensationalist but Australian media is even worse. Add to that, you're not permitted to slightly praise another country without a 3 page tirade on how Australia is the bestest place in the universe.
As for speed cameras, anyone complaining about the UK needs to go and drive in Australia where they hide mobile speed cameras behind bushes and there are no tolerances or leeway, you can get done for 1 KM over the speed limit. A few weeks back I was barrelling down the M4 at 90, since moving to the UK I haven't had a single speeding ticket, I had 3 in my last two years back in Oz, all from mobile speed cameras (for the west Aussies, is SSGT Zhao still issuing the tickets, I'm convinced he's not real). My interactions with the UK rozzers have been pretty positive, in Oz you really didn't talk to the coppers.
Back on topic, the UK is a nice place. Generally friendly and nice people, fantastic scenery and quite liveable cities and towns with loads to keep you occupied. Sure it's expensive but Australia will easily beat the UK on that. Food could be better, produce, as in the food you buy from a supermarket is top quality and fairly cheap for a western country but restaurants are really hit and miss. One of the few things I miss about Oz was being able to determine the quality of an eatery just by the way it looks and smells. That's about my only big complaint about the UK.
robm3 said:
As the title says, I was in London, Warwick and then North Wales.
To be honest I was expecting worse.
In Australia we hear a lot about your issues with crime, illegal immigration and rising costs. But from my two weeks there, all seemed to be ticking along as it always was (I lived there 20 years back for 8 years).
If I was to be picky I found the unrelenting speed cameras on the motorway a bit of pain, and there seems to be a bit more traffic, aside from that, it was 'as you were'.
Just pointing out maybe it's not as bad as many on PH and the media seem to think.
Agreed, I returned to the UK for five weeks last year and found it delightful - a complete contrast to the doom and gloom of both the media and my family members! I’ve now stopped reading the news as I find it too influential (for all the wrong reasons)To be honest I was expecting worse.
In Australia we hear a lot about your issues with crime, illegal immigration and rising costs. But from my two weeks there, all seemed to be ticking along as it always was (I lived there 20 years back for 8 years).
If I was to be picky I found the unrelenting speed cameras on the motorway a bit of pain, and there seems to be a bit more traffic, aside from that, it was 'as you were'.
Just pointing out maybe it's not as bad as many on PH and the media seem to think.
P.S. If you think supermarkets are expensive in the UK, come to Australia for a proper pants pulling down.
There are people living amongst us who, if all of their (frequently 100% theoretical) complaints about life in the UK were resolved, would immediately start complaining that they had nothing to complain about!
The immigration is front and centre in this respect.
We've got an ageing population, yet people don't want to work for longer, so we simply have no choice but to allow immigration.
The problem is that quite a lot of those people who don't want to work longer also don't want immigration, so how does the government square that circle?
Whip up lots of antagonism towards the boat people they think they can control relatively easily in the hope that it'll be enough to keep people's attention off the massively larger number of legal migrants.
Unfortunately they look a bit silly when they can't control that either!
The immigration is front and centre in this respect.
We've got an ageing population, yet people don't want to work for longer, so we simply have no choice but to allow immigration.
The problem is that quite a lot of those people who don't want to work longer also don't want immigration, so how does the government square that circle?
Whip up lots of antagonism towards the boat people they think they can control relatively easily in the hope that it'll be enough to keep people's attention off the massively larger number of legal migrants.
Unfortunately they look a bit silly when they can't control that either!
The problem with national borders is that it gives the false impression of uniformity. The U.K. is very diverse with huge differences in wealth, class, ethnicity and culture between (and even within), areas, towns and cities. Those differences seem much larger than many other countries I’ve lived in. If you went to some sleepy village in Surrey full of city types, thatched cottages, village pubs and £5 million houses then went to the poor areas of former industrial towns up north there doesn’t seem much in common apart from the language (and even then in many places you don’t hear much English these days).
Skeptisk said:
The problem with national borders is that it gives the false impression of uniformity. The U.K. is very diverse with huge differences in wealth, class, ethnicity and culture between (and even within), areas, towns and cities. Those differences seem much larger than many other countries I’ve lived in. If you went to some sleepy village in Surrey full of city types, thatched cottages, village pubs and £5 million houses then went to the poor areas of former industrial towns up north there doesn’t seem much in common apart from the language (and even then in many places you don’t hear much English these days).
Why do people keep coming out with this ludicrous hyperbole? 
In the 2021 census, 91.1% of residents in England & Wales spoke English or Welsh as their first language. That leaves 7.1% who speak English either well or very well, 1.5% who speak it poorly and just 0.3% who couldn't speak it at all.
Even if that 7.1% chose in their entirety not to speak English despite doing so well, I'd question whether 8.9% of the population is enough to constitute many places as opposed to some places, and once you factor in the relatively large number of people living here from Western European countries who don't tend to congregate in specific communities, the reality is that the place most of these non English-speaking communities are living is rent free inside the heads of the UKIP and GB News brigage.
Sounds like the same with most news, it's always the doom and gloom you're going to hear about.
The UK doesn't feel like it's a total car crash although there's certainly room for improvement. London isn't awful and in some places is very nice, depends where you are and what you're doing. On the flip side, I moved from the edge of a London borough about two months ago and I'm pleased with the change, despite not being 'in London' so to speak.
Go to some of the rough places in London or pop up to Bradford to see how things have panned out in some areas.
The UK doesn't feel like it's a total car crash although there's certainly room for improvement. London isn't awful and in some places is very nice, depends where you are and what you're doing. On the flip side, I moved from the edge of a London borough about two months ago and I'm pleased with the change, despite not being 'in London' so to speak.
Go to some of the rough places in London or pop up to Bradford to see how things have panned out in some areas.
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