this post was submitted on 21 Aug 2023
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Europe

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Documentary about the state in the UK. An interesting piece, albeit a bit depressing. Is it really this bad?

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[โ€“] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

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[โ€“] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

I couldn't watch this from the UK. I had to use a VPN. I have to say that from personal, and this is anecdotal however, I lived next to a food bank until a few months ago and every day that it was open (3 times a weeks), the queue for that place was spilling onto the streets. I remember remarking how many normal people I saw, families with children after them, people I would expect to see in a supermarket are waiting outside food banks.

I think that if you know where to look, it is that bad. If you don't, though, it can be easy to miss as most people suffer is silence it seems, out of embarrassment or something else, I don't know. I wonder how many of these people I saw outside the food bank tell people they know that they are forced to use a food bank? I'm not judging them for potentially not saying something to anyone, if they feel embarrassed, but at the same time if people suffer in silence, the issue can be ignored.

My personal opinion is that things are that bad, we just don't give it visibility and we don't talk about it.

[โ€“] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

Margret Thatcher has entered the chat

[โ€“] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

This is really sad to see. More and more food banks will be needed for the ones to come. Any idea of what can be done to end this? A change in goverment does not seem the answer. We had so many and it's getting worse every year, and not only in the UK.

[โ€“] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

We've not really changed government though - we've just swapped right-wing Tories for further-right-wing Tories, with occasionally slightly-less-right-wing Tories. The same government has fundamentally been in power for 13 years. We've said "More of that please" twice.

The last Labour government (Tony & Gordon 1997-2010) was thought by some to be drifting a little close to the right

This is our national punishment for not electing Ed Milliband because he looked a bit funny and ate a sandwich wrong in a photograph.

We're sorry Ed and can we please have you back. Your policies were actually really good and Clegg was lying about the student loan thing :(

[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

People are spending a considerable amount of their pay on just putting a roof over their heads, be it a rent or a mortgage payment. Plus in the last decades we have had a much bigger GDP per capita increase than salary increase, in fact salaries are hardly keeping up with the official inflation.

Greedy corporations are promoting the subscription culture, meaning that people have even less disposable income.

The point is that politics are currently serving the interests of multi billion dollar corporations and there is no political will to change the status quo.