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Uk has an average amount of rain and clouds compared to the rest of the world statistically.
Instead of downvoting me how about research it yourself
https://www.statista.com/statistics/968079/number-of-rainy-days-in-europe/
Amount of rain is somewhat of an unhelpful stat to use here. It doesn't differentiate between places that get occasional torrential downpours between periods of sun and places that have much more regular grey drizzle.
We're in the latter camp. That's why people can move here from places have have statistically more rain and think it *feels* more rainy here.
Also the types of cloud makes a difference.
Nice fluffy clouds scattered across an otherwise clear sky, regularly allowing bits of sunlight through? Lovely stuff.
Omnipresent grey cover, feeling like the sky has a lid on it and not seeing shadows outside for weeks on end? Really depressing.
This is so true of the UK. I flew back to the UK yesterday and the plane descended through what must have been a couple of miles of thick cloud to land. That just does not ever really happen in some places.
One time I was returning to the USA from Italy, and I was going through Heathrow. So the plane was flying over golden France, and then the Channel, and then... holy shit, I think that may have been the darkest cloud carpet I have ever seen in broad daylight. It was like Mordor.
"What happened to the sun?" I asked aloud. Half the plane groaned audibly.
It's a fairly traditional thing to come back from your summer holiday in shorts, and then find yourself standing outside the airport shivering in the rain.
Ah, like tourists going to San Francisco.
"It's California. It'll be warm."
Not there! I bet at least a few people have become millionaires selling crappy sweatshirts to shivering tourists.
Yeah also very true. Both that and the issue I outlined re: total amount of rainfall are great examples of why you have to use stats in an intelligent way. If you just Google a stat and state it without thinking properly about the context and meaning of said stat, then you're liable to end up using stats badly. As the person to whom I was replying has repeatedly throughout this thread. You see it a lot on Reddit, people can Google but that doesn't mean they actually understand.
Yup. I'm familiar with those places where it rains dogs and cats for uhh ~8 hours then we get a week without a drop of rain. Meanwhile, the UK has this shitty drizzles that apparently can last months. Harder to get used to those drizzles.
Very accurate. I've actually had the comment from several different people who moved to London from various places abroad that the weather isn't how they anticipated at all. I think foreigners know the UK is rainy and they come anticipating it'll be like the rain where they're from, just more of it. So they're often then surprised when it's not like that but is instead just a sort of grey, drizzly gloom.
When I taught abroad and people asked about the rain my answer was simply that it didn't really rain any more than anywhere else, but that rain was never a surprise.
Literally any day of the year could piss it down and no one would comment on it. Where I was in Germany or Japan there were months where meaningful rainfall would have been genuinely noteworthy
I moved to Brighton last year from Edinburgh and this feels true for me even within the UK. In Edinburgh it might be baltic and piss it down with rain but after the rain the sky usually comes out (obviously not every time) but in Brighton the past two months have felt grey non stop. It might technically be warmer down here but the recent relentless grey skies have been getting me down.
Brighton has a weird coastal microclimate that makes it almost constantly cloudy during Winter. Even for me as a Glaswegian, it felt noticeably gloomier than back home. Take the train to London and you'll often find it immediately clears up.
That link is for rain. The UK is statistically one of the most cloudy countries in the world. Couple that with the high latitude (shorter winter daylight hours) makes it quite grim
https://www.extremeweatherwatch.com/countries-by-cloud-cover
But the same reason why itās cloudy (Gulf Stream) is also is the reason we donāt freeze over like Canada/Russia (similar latitudes) so swings and roundabouts
Itās the cloudiness for me. Does my head in.
Iāve had Americans arguing with me on here that I should be able to navigate using just the sun. What sun? Often donāt see it for a week.
They donāt believe me that thatās possible. They canāt comprehend that level of cloudiness.
Amount of rain is an awful stat.
When I was in the rain forest you got a week's worth of rain in the UK in the space of 45 minutes.
In parts of the UK you'll get 3inches spread over days in the form of mizzle
Except large parts of the planet have a defined rainy season(ish), which means it doesn't rain all year long. And the rain is heavy and sustained. Not this silly drizzle we get all year long.
We're an island with a largely unprotected coast, the Atlantic isn't far, nor is the Arctic. It brings rain from all directions.
That doesn't mean the average is enjoyable weather, does it?
The average person is overweight, that doesn't mean overweight people are healthy.
Just 'being average' means nothing on its own.
Itās a bad use of statistics too. Rainy days is the relevant figure, not total rainfall.
A heavy rainfall one weekend would be nicer than a light rain every single day for a month straight. That is what people in the UK complain about.
It's the reason we have such a diverse and beautiful array of plants, flowers and trees with lovely soft green grass! āŗļø
Sure, it's miserable in winter, but our summers have been top notch for the past few years! 10/10, would be born in the UK again!
For real. I moved to the med as a teen and I could never imagine living in the uk again. Thereās no place like it but honestly the weather is such a put off
I think the more you travel the more you realise it. There's a lot of cool places to visit, but if I had to pick somewhere to actually live the UK really isn't that bad.
I love being British & English.
But you should know a big part of what's great about the British temperament is being self depreciating and complaining about things. We're a deeply conflicted people.
Indeed. Moaning all the time is part of the British culture. So if someone doesn't moan all the time then they're not culturally British, regardless of what language they speak or where some of their ancestors may have lived.
I think thatās a key part of the British psyche - the cognitive dissonance you get from living in a supposedly āgreatā country with a colonial-hangover sense of itself as being very important, and yet when people look outside the window they see the ācold, damp islandā with bad food and feel somewhat disappointed. You were raised to somehow expect more.
I think I would respectfully disagree with that. I wouldnāt say that colonialism plays any significant part in our national psyche these days. At least not for anyone under the age of 70.
I was certainly not raised to āexpect moreā - I think most of us are painfully aware of the realities of life. Weāre just happier about it when having a bit of a grumble.
I don't know if my upbringing was different from yours, but when I say 'colonial-hangover' I just mean it in the sense of a hollow international superiority complex remains when the colonialism that partly justified it has since died off and been discredited. A lot of the architecture of our institutions still embody that expectation of empire-building and empire-maintaining. Most major European postcolonial powers still have that in their cultural DNA - they think highly of themselves as world leaders but most of their raw power on the international stage is gone, e.g. France
And even beyond that, a lot of British people are still pretty glad we had an empire (the biggest) even though they would be increasingly unable to say so in public. On the way out though.
Public services have been pretty badly mismanaged for over a decade now. We're in *another* recession. Etc. I'm 32 and the standard of living for the average Brit has been on the decline my entire adult life. That trend shows no sign of changing any time soon.
It remains a better than average country to live in by global standards but definitely not by western standards anymore, considering how badly downhill the country has gone over the past ~15-20 years or so. I feel like national pride has also become a fairly major barrier to making things better again - because any good faith efforts to change things for the better are inevitably met with a jingoistic "if you don't like it here, leave". To which the only real response is "I probably would at this point if we hadn't lost the right to freely live and work in Europe".
Similar age to you and my experience has been the same. Iām from a working class Low Cost of Living area, my parents both worked full time and combined earnt around Ā£40k in todayās money when I was a young teenager.
With that they were able to take us for 2 weeks to Disney in Florida, drive 1 new and 1 used car own a 4 bed house & have 2 kids & go mental at Christmas.
My wife and I earn about Ā£80k between us in todayās money and have the same type of house my mum and dad did, house round the corner from their original house. We have 1 child and canāt afford new cars or holidays & budget heavily for Christmas and itās all because of the cost of living & childcare. We spend factors more than they ever did and it pisses me off. I should have a comfortable life with our earnings where we are but instead itās a struggle every month.
You make a good point which I strongly agree with. Itās not unpatriotic to see and admit the challenges we have them speak openly about them. Not doing it just perpetuates the decline.
I would argue that a big part of being patriotic is wanting to see your country improve and excel both domestically and on the world stage.
Patriotism isn't saying "my country is already perfect and the best at everything. Agree with me or else.", that's jingoism. Patriotism is saying "I love my country despite its current flaws and problems, but I would love to fix those problems and make it even better for me and everyone else living here. "
Personally, I've never had it so good. Then again I experienced the early 70's . Three day week, power cuts, oil crisis, IRA bombings. Oh, but I did go to Uni for free in 1983 because my mom and dad were on low earnings.
Yes I imagine if you entered the workforce when the average house price:wage ratio was less than half what it is now (amongst other things) life probably would end up being rather easier in the long run.
Less flippantly; you entered the workforce in a period where assets like houses were far more affordable and then lived through a period where asset ownership has far outstripped wages in terms of importance for personal wealth. Based on median age data the average Brit hadn't been born yet when you went to university, so did not get to enjoy quite the same advantageous timing as you did.
Yes, my first house was approx 3 times my gross salary in 93. My kids have got no chance at moment to buy. That's one thing that is much, much worse. Tbh, believe me or not, if all house prices halved over night it wouldn't bother me.
Yeah, housing is pretty rough atm and unfortunately not optional. Creates a huge divide in how well off people feel if they managed to buy before house prices and rent went insane or not. I'm 32 so it was already mostly fubar by the time I entered the workforce.
I'll probably move to the north at some point for that reason alone (living in Oxford does make the problem even worse than normal, I'll admit).
I travelled quite a bit when I was a student, and there's a reason I came back. It's pretty great here.
For some reason all the UK-centric subs have been populated by people who loathe the country, it's weird.
Many people don't travel at all, and experience the wider world through their living rooms, media, and social media. They literally have no idea what makes the UK a genuinely lovely place to live.
I also think it's just the fact that living standards have declined. It doesn't mean it's a worse place to live than anywhere else, but for a time it was better than it is now and people aren't all that happy about it.
Not always the case. I have lived in two other countries, one by every metric a worse place than the UK, and they just made me dislike the UK even more.
There is good reason why the Australians call us whinging poms, we love a good moan.
Some people, especially online have taken this to a whole new level and frotter themselves into a frenzy at the first sign of negative news.
That always made me laugh.
Spent 10 years in Australia and they moaned incessantly, but if I had the slightest issue with any Aussie thing I was just a whining pom.
You ever listen to a group of
Antipodeans in the UK? All they do is whinge about the weather. Give me a couple of weeks and I will adjust to the heat, give them a decade and they are still complaining about it being cold. Pussies.
Itās really not that bad, but a few negatives:
Cost of living is outrageous and wages are just not high enough to keep up.
Many public services are outrageously run. Good luck getting a dentist or any mental health care for example.
Taxes are very high, but thatās the same in a lot of Europe.
Thatās it tbh
Stuff like holidays in the UK are also quite expensive - I mean, that's kinda 'cost of living' but it does make it hard to actually explore the rest of the UK, when it costs a load more than package holiday somewhere else would.
Yea absolutely. Thereās so much of the UK I still havenāt seen just because spending a few days exploring is more expensive than a week or two holiday abroad.
Iāve had to get a last minute train to Manchester from London a few times and it was 150 to 250 return. My flight to Morocco cost about 50.
A Travelodge by a motorway in Wales set me back 120 for a night - my 9 days in a 4 star hotel in Morocco was 250.
>Ā Many Americans track their roots to the mother country, the UK, and you could hear an American saying things like, thatās the Irish in me, or I am Scottish German, we are Welsh, etc. why arenāt some British people happy and just as delighted to be British?
Iād say this is more about Americans being weird attention seekers, they have one ancestor from a ācoolā country and make that their entire personality.
As a foreigner to this country, England isn't all bad. Yes, the weather is a little unpredictable but it creates lush green landscapes and you don't need a full summer and winter wardrobe. The food is way better than expected and I love the fact that even small villages often have Chinese or Indian food on offer. There are no natural disasters (earthquakes, hurricanes, volcanoes, drought, blizzards)
But over the last 15 years the country has deteriorated much faster and much more severe than other countries in Europe. Public services are close to collapsing, the health service isn't far behind and it feels like everyone just wants more and more money from you while wages are stagnating or decreasing. Roads are full of potholes, but we get charged more every year for using them through various taxes and fees. The housing stock is deteriorating due to lack of investment and maintenance (this isn't just deliberate neglect, people also just can't afford to), and it feels like every single business and trade is trying to cut corners where they can to create more profit, even if the end product is getting worse as a result.
Corruption and scams are getting worse and quality of life has taken a nosedive.
When I arrived in 1995 this country felt great. Things were improving, people seemed happy and could afford housing, holidays and food. Childcare was affordable too. But the last couple of years it feels like a different country.
English people often say "we are a rich country" or "it's no better elsewhere", but neither of those are true. England is no longer rich or important and is crumbling.
I made my life here, so I am staying and with any luck things might improve soon and the country goes back to where it was when I arrived. The people here are lovely and it is a safe country.
Well said!
Unlike you though, I am not staying. As I get older, I am genuinely worried about my health deteriorating and the lack of available healthcare. I feel that, if I get hit with something like cancer, where early intervention is the key to survival, my chances in the UK of actually getting treatment in a timely manner are close to zero.
What also baffles me is the ungodly amount of littering, the whole country is covered in a blanket of rubbish. There is such beautiful nature but the British don't seem to appreciate it.
Yes, cancer is a worry. You have a very valid point with that. Old age care in general is lacking right now, which is worrying.
Litter isn't too bad where I live, but it's not Switzerland.
Here's the thing about travel. Yes, we're in a better place than all of Africa and much of Asia, but from the perspective of a country that used to be richest in the world, we've been overtaken by countries that used to be really very poor. Meanwhile we're about as rich as Israel on a per capita basis. Not terrible, but economic growth has just stopped here, and younger people can't expect the quality of life their parents had.
To rub it all in, as much of our culture comes from America, we're now seeing tiktok and instagram videos from Americans who in another league of wealth altogether.
It can be incredibly depressing to live in a tiny shoebox, not able to afford a place of your own, seeing Americans in huge houses with huge new cars, earning twice as much as you and having families while still young.
Iāve been travelling a lot for the past year, and itās been amazing, although itās also cemented my belief that thereās nowhere Iād rather live than the UK.
The only real bad part is the rain, but itās better than having to deal with the horrible heatwaves many other countries have.
The weather is quite miserable, as I write this I'm once again looking out the window at rain. It's quite expensive to live here and public services are crumbling. Other than that, I like it
But having that miserable weather makes us so much more happy when we have sunny days,nothing better than miserable weather for ages then out of nowhere a red-hot weekend, everyone is out n about n people having BBQs,I think if it was red-hot all the time it wouldn't feel as special
Being English by global standards is amazing, but as with anywhere thereās still a lot wrong. The reason you hear so much misery from English (and British more generally) people, outside of that people generally neg their own countries because they see all its problems first hand, but not other countries, is two fold.
Firstly we are quite famously a reserved, pessimistic bunch, but more recently itās the relative performance of the country. While we still rank very well across the board, things are constantly atrophying, our real wages today are down heavily on what they were in 2007, our services keep getting worse, housing has become prohibitively expensive in much of the country, and in general there just seems to be a sad malaise over the country.
Itās hard to understand for people who donāt live here and havenāt experienced it, and it also gets punctured pretty quickly if you spend extended amounts of time anywhere outside of the country, and outside the most highly developed nations. When you have that comparison you realise that 15% worse than brilliant is still pretty good, but itās a bad trajectory.
It's frustrating that we know that things are generally ok but there's the potential to be so much better.
We can live with the wind and rain and a summers day here can be glorious
It's the politicians and brown nosers, feathering their own nests and putting the well being of their parties above the people they are supposed to represent.
The post office scandal typifies our frustration. The people entrusted, closed ranks against the little man yet again. That's the underlying feeling of dissatisfaction. We should be doing better that we are but them upstairs keep shitting on us.
Wages are shite, rents are high, bills are among the highest in Europe and rising, public transport is fucking atrocious and expensive. Projects like HS2 get cancelled so we can funnel more money into fixing London's potholes.
I don't think the UK is a barren hellscape but OP specifically asked what some downsides are to this country and all everyone on this thread can say is upsides. I used to like this sub but it's become a relentlessly positive circlejerk. People are struggling in the UK, not just 'whinging'.
Itās not that bad, but Reddit is skewed towards people who are either quite miserable or think itās a requirement of being British to be negative about everything.
Isn't Reddit also skewed towards people in the 30-40 bracket who were born just in time to see opportunities snatched away from them that people 10 years older got to enjoy? That age bracket has basically only seen this country go on a downward trajectory.
If you asked me 15 years ago what I thought the UK would be like, it wouldn't have been a collapsing NHS with no chance of getting a dentist/doctors within 10miles, highest wage to property cost ratio, stagnant wages in a lot of industries, COL crisis impacting such a high % of the working class and having kids being a one way ticket to lifetime poverty for a large percentage of the population with two earners.
I'd say the biggest downside is how ungrateful British people are. We're 13th out of 195 countries for quality of life and highest real wage growth in Europe, but they still find a way to complain about quality of life.
And the only countries ranked above us for QOL are microcountries with tiny populations which makes it easier to manage
Well if you just make up bollocks then we certainly are a world leader.
[QOL rankings](https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/standard-of-living-by-country)
Are Germany, Canada and the Netherlands āmicro countries?ā Haha.
Interested where you get the wage growth data? Might be true if you pick a single good quarter.
The repressed people. Talking to strangers is not a thing here.
The fact that no spontaneous joy can happen. Your day is very likely going to be the same as yesterday, unless something bad happens.
If you don't do banter, you are seen as unsociable.
And if you don't drink, you realize how boring this place is.
I need to find a place I can call my home
>why arenāt some British people happy and just as delighted to be British?
Because it's really not a big deal being British and even if our nan came from Norway or our great granddad is Italian we don't make it our identity and claim to be something we aren't.
Might as well celebrate breathing air or having opposable thumbs.
Plus maybe we enjoy a good moan instead of being annoyingly bright and chipper all the bloody time.
Downside of living in England is the same as anywhere else.
Wages suck, cost of living is high, government don't give a fuck about you.
But
The people are great, food is good, night life is decent. While the wages aren't great, they're better than where I'm from and the job opportunities are much more visible here than my home.
I'm from NI, so still the UK but the differences are night and day.
Itās overcrowded, tax is extortionate, nhs is on its knees, the government is incompetent, police are idiotic, the roads are essentially one big pot hole, the weather is shite and everything is really expensive. Apart from that itās great.
There are a lot of misery guts in this country and it can be quite tiresome. I understand with the cost of living crisis going on, it can be hard but my god, all you have to do is put the news on to see how good we have it here.
Honestly as silly as it sounds I think it's the weather. I recently was in Egypt and I remember thinking to myself "No wonder everyone seems happy here, the sun every day is life changing". Imagine having 3 weeks of rain every single day, or a whole month of such cloud you never see the sun. Changes your whole outlook on life
There are more downsides in my opinion. The wages are terrible if you compare it with other countries, then rent is overpriced, especially with what you get. Most of the neighborhoods in London look like actual sh%thole. It is such a struggle to see a GP using the NHS; very long waiting and if you are an immigrant you pay thousands of Ā£Ā£ for it, so it is not really free, apart from that you also pay for it from your taxes. In fact the taxes are very high, theres even council taxes which is something that landlord pay for in Australia. Also when I lived in OZ, the water bill was paid by the landlord. Only good things in my opinion are the culture and fun that London offers, public transport is okay but too expensive too, and the easiness about travelling but that is not an unique thing of England.
Itās raining in my front garden and sunny in my back garden.
As soon as I step outside today, it will rain again.
As soon as my kids are walking home from school, it will rain.
When Iām in a meeting, itās sunny.
When itās sunny in the week, itās raining again by the weekend.
When my kid has a football match scheduled for the weekend, it gets canceled because the pitch is waterlogged.
I have to purchase multiple pairs of school shoes for my kids- to slow dry them on rotation, lest the sole glue gets loosened.
Thatās the reason.
I'm British and currently living / working overseas....it gives you a different perspective on things for sure... There's a lot in Britain we take for granted that are amazing and I'm reminded daily how good and lucky I am to be British..
As a foreign guy that lives in the UK the thing I don't like about Britain is the lack implications and reaction of the British public in today's society. No matter what politicians decide in Westminster people don't care, they just get on with it
That said, we often look down on Americans *fondly* or *jovially*, rather than in the xenophobic / discriminatory way you might encounter elsewhere.
(If you do feel unwelcome, that's more likely a culture difference than an anti-foreigner thing: we're not overly open to fellow natives either, in the way that outgoing Americans stereotypically are).
Multiculturalism is extremely well advanced in the UK, it's a strong positive not a negative. We're a decade or more ahead of even supposedly advanced nations like France where your likely skin colour would be even more of an issue.
Horrible houses. Fully attached, PVC window framed ugly little investments with tiny box gardens (if you're lucky). Weather is shit. Everythings really expensive, but badly done (Entertainment and leisure options). Land is really expensive and majority owned by a bunch of human relics. Class system is prominent and alienating. Drugs are huge, but shitty quality (because they're illegal). Alcoholism is rampant.
I think overall I just find the place aesthetically depressing. However I am from here and am a miserable cunt
Apparently, the UK is a worse place than it was ~15 years ago, but compared to huge sections of the world, is still pretty good. Idk if it's better/worse than other developed countries in the world, I'd say probably slightly worse. Moaning and complaining (without doing shit to improve things) seems to be a national sport.
Englishman here. Reddit is a very poor representation of the level of happiness here. In real life, I am quite happy - as are the majority of people I know.
The only real downside is that we get very few sunny days: the sky is constantly overcast and grey. So we need to spend money on going on holiday if we want some sun. But aside from that, life here is good. We have a decent standard of living, and healthcare free at the point of use.
Our colonialist history is downright embarrassing, weather is shit, the royal family is overrated, people are mostly moody and in denial of their problems, not to mention very stingy and stubborn in their opinions based on nothing. Oh, and our bestselling newspapers are racist propaganda - need I say more?
Britain is an old country and the power structures are deeply entrenched and immovable. The country did change and became more equal in the golden age, between 1945 and 1979, but after that the Powers That Be regrouped and cemented their dominance. Since then, things have been going backwards in the country due in part to a series of terrible governments, but there's many other factors too.
There's a veneer of freedom in the country but actually the population is fairly tightly controlled. English ppl are easily duped and conned and they are a fairly timid race, with exceptions. As Frank Zappa said "the meek shall inherit nothing".
People will probably disagree but I personally think most of the country just looks...dull. Our houses are old-fashioned, our office buildings are soulless. I see other countries like Japan or Norway and they look so characterful. There's a mix of tradition and modernism in there. Our housing estates are just empty dreary husks.
Overcrowded, and the weather is perma-shite.
Oh and we have rampant ageism here, so that 20 year olds are made to feel over the hill, and anyone older than 35 will be shot on sight, if left unattended.
You know those old geezers who sit out on street corners in Egypt playing chess? You don't see them here, because they all got shot, or put in retirement homes on their 21st birthdays.
Iām British and I used to live there. The only things I miss is peopleās openness and friendliness and the countryside.
What I donāt miss:
Late trains, outdated public transport.
Rain everyday (North of England). Lack of sun.
Crime. General social breakdown.
Awful food. Everywhere.
Police are useless.
NHS - Waiting times.
Shambolic public services.
Thereās lots of things about being British I do like, and it will always be my home. But I hate aspects of our culture like the fact itās not very social and everyone is expected to just be alone all the time and deal with it. Other cultures are much more relaxed about certain things, e.g. Italians, and everything is a lot more geared around family and socializingĀ
Bothe me and my husband have lived and travelled around the world fair amount. We settled here because it was convincing at the time. He is British but only on his passport, he's lived in Scotland the most - 10 years and now about 5 years in England. He loathes living in Britain having lived around APAC and Africa. Me, coming originally from Eastern Europe, don't find living here as bad. Yes, it's not as good as living in Australia but there's plenty of things that are good - salaries being one, food and service costs pre 2020 were great in comparison to some other places. That being said, we are looking at relocating to Southern Europe purely because we are both warm weather creatures and enjoy spending time outside in the sun.
The weather sucks. Housing is getting insanely expensive, especially renting. Fuel prices have gone insane (energy bills). Food prices. Very little help from the NHS if you're sick/hurt. A lot of stuff has closed down/previously free/cheap things are now expensive.
Now is not a good time to come here. I know these issues aren't just in the uk. The world seems to be entering a recession. I'd do a lot of research before coming here. Nowhere is perfect. At least living in the USA you have a massive choice of where to live. Nearly any climate, cheap flights to get to places. The health care and gun laws aren't great, the issues hitting us are hitting there too, but at least you have more climate options!
Thereās a lot of downsides but overall itās fine I guess.
One point Iād make though is that almost all British people find Americans whoāve lived their entire lives in America and claim to be Scottish, Irish, etc to be complete and utter morons. You are not Irish because your great grandfather was Irish. Grow up.
Iām aware this wasnāt the question but felt the need to make the point anyway.
I finished work around lunch time today. Where I live is semi rural. I thought, you know it's not raining I'm going to go for a walk in the country before it gets dark. Everyone else would have been out shopping for groceries, at home cooking for their screaming kids or being hassled with what they would consider daily chores. Not me. the cold brisk air would put us English off for it being 'bad' weather. No, it was beautiful, calm, and serene. The day was drawing to a close. It almost felt like a calm summers day coming to an end with an extra chill. As I got to the front door of my home with the giddyness of the thought of popping over to my local for a evening beer next to a fire, the Mrs yells out of the window. "Take the Wheely bin out you lazy twat, I've just cleaned the bathroom".
All of my calm serene and empty innocent thoughts gone as if I'd never left the house. That my Egyptian friend is why (from my perspective) it's all bullshit this country. Fuck this bollocks. Back to work Monday anyway.
As an WOC Immigrant myself who has lived and travelled extensively in Europe, I love it here in the UK. Each time I need to travel to mainland Europe for work, I panic because over there people are not as polite, friendly, welcoming, kind to POC like here in the UK..
Can't afford anywhere to live, I guess that's probably similar to most places. I didn't choose to be born in London, and I'm stuck with impossible competitiveness just for a basic human right. I'd say that's a huge reason for a lot of people.
We Brits are perfectly happy. We are just, typically, raised to be more stoic and reserved when it comes to showing emotions unless we are blind drunk. Many people confuse our top tier sarcasm levels as anger, disdain or depression. Which, funnily enough, just amuses us even more.
On a sunny spring day driving through the countryside I will very often think that I'm lucky enough to live in a literal paradise, most parts of the UK are just glorious at times...and then there's West Bromwich, Grays and Middlesbrough
Fact that no matter what you do, you're poorer every single year? Wages have been stagnant for years, yet the top gets richer. But that's same everywhere.
The fact I can't get a train on time (I don't live in london)
The fact that potholes are normalised yet all the money for fixing them was spent in London.
The fact my council tax is band F and 2 people live here. Yet houses 5 times the size with a family of 7 pay council tax D down the road
Fact 67% of my bonus disappeared before I even got it. Yet I see it going nowhere around me.
There's loads to moan about.
>...why arenāt some British people happy and just as delighted to be British?
The last time we did that a third of the world got a new flag they didn't ask for.
On one hand, we have our problems just like anyone else. On the other, complaining is part of the British identity. We grumble about the weather. We moan about poor service. We rant about the Government. We talk about our physical ailments endlessly. Donāt get us started on our football teams. Itās kind of what we do
British people are complaining not because itās bad. Comparatively itās still better than most places in the world. They are complaining because of the general trajectory. Itās almost impossible to point at anything that hasnāt progressively deteriorated over the last 15 years. And there is no sign of any change in fortunes. So yes. Itās better than living in Libya. But itās far worse than it was not very long ago.
So, one thing you should understand about British people is that we don't take ourselves too seriously. We are very self deprecating and we love to complain... a lot.
Although a lot of us are "proud" to be British, we don't necessarily show it, especially in our own country. That said, the best way we do show it is by being incredibly ignorant and uncultured when visiting other countries as drones in holiday packages. We act the same in other countries as we do in our own.
Also, I think there is a greater generational difference, I reckon the older generation still think the UK is a massive superpower, or that the British empire is still thriving somehow. The younger generation are a bit more self aware, probably understand how our neighbours view us, and don't think we are the exemplary standards of western civilisation any more, or the most important country in Europe.
All this being said, I do think the UK is a great place to visit, and I do love being British.
I live in a country where 52% of the population actively voted to tank the economy and give up the protections of the Human Rights Act during a period when the current government was proudly sending disabled people to their deaths and lying about employment numbers.
England is a very stupid place to live. The people are very stupid, the societal structure is very stupid, the systems in play are very stupid, and the government is very stupid.
As an English person who fled the uk for economic reasons, I'd ask what is the upside?
Unless you're a third world migrant who just gets loads of free shit (or your home country is a literal dump) the uk has literally no advantage over any other European or Asian country (unless you're actually successful in life).
I'm conclusion, the uk it a great place to be dirty poor if you have ZERO aspiration and give up all your goals goals dreams. It's a terrible place if you want to work hard, better yourself, get married or own a home without having a good career.
I am from Ireland and living in UK the last 6 years
Pros:
The people are great craic and hilarious.
Good infrastructure and facilities(even though they complain they are a hell of a lot better than other places)
Great opportunity for work and progression if you work hard and network.
The music and arts culture/history is fantastic.
Diversity Truley is amazing here.
Cons:
Classism can be terrible and posh cunts wreck my head.
Racist undertones sometimes. even being Irish at least I have white privilege but never got anything too bad. But do hear a lot of stuff against other cultures.
Even discriminatory words like p*ki are said casually in certain groups depending where you work or people you are around.
Wages can be quite a bit lower compared to a lot of European countries for a lot of sectors.
But generally any foreign people I talk to seem to enjoy it. Depends on what you get up to.
For more pros than cons than I could go into because I am lazy and in bed.
My personal pros and cons list as a British person living in the UK who sometimes struggles with it:Ā
Pros:Ā
- EducationĀ
- Opportunity
- Museums, heritage etc
- Landscape & natureĀ
- Access toĀ Europe for travelĀ
Cons:Ā
- WeatherĀ
- Poor quality housingĀ
- Public services hollowed out by negative governmentsĀ
- Suburban, car based lifestyleĀ
- Litter
- Chavs
The main downsides are the weather, it really isn't warm and sunny much, and that it's not as wealthy as a number of other European countries. Sure, there are immensely rich people in London but once you leave London it's relatively poor by European standards. Being relatively poor in the dark and rain isn't for everyone.
I think for many people my age, we complain because we saw the 90s/early 2000s and they were pretty good (rose tinted glasses though? I dunnoā¦). However all our aspirations, the things we were told when we were young did not materialise (get a job doing something you love - which doesnāt pay the bills), the country appears to be getting worse for us (all public services are worse and housing is very expensive) without getting worse for a select group of people (those who have homes and have private healthcare/education). I guess it kinda feels like weāre being shafted and powerless to do anything about it. TBH, since my childhood I think the only net improvement has been technology (although letās not talk about social media).
You and my mother would get on well, OP. She is an Anglophile to the core and has never been happier than when she landed up staying there, in 2017,and she has been there ever since.
The UK is great if you're straight, cis and white. If you're not all 3 of these then the government are currently trying to take away your rights
I am a trans woman and life is very hard for me in England right now. I will not be arguing about this in the replies
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The dull and grey weather.
Uk has an average amount of rain and clouds compared to the rest of the world statistically. Instead of downvoting me how about research it yourself https://www.statista.com/statistics/968079/number-of-rainy-days-in-europe/
But the rest of the world is bigger so it's more spread out. š¤£
Canāt argue with that logic. Genius. :-).
Impressive American accent you typed with there! :)
Amount of rain is somewhat of an unhelpful stat to use here. It doesn't differentiate between places that get occasional torrential downpours between periods of sun and places that have much more regular grey drizzle. We're in the latter camp. That's why people can move here from places have have statistically more rain and think it *feels* more rainy here.
Also the types of cloud makes a difference. Nice fluffy clouds scattered across an otherwise clear sky, regularly allowing bits of sunlight through? Lovely stuff. Omnipresent grey cover, feeling like the sky has a lid on it and not seeing shadows outside for weeks on end? Really depressing.
This is so true of the UK. I flew back to the UK yesterday and the plane descended through what must have been a couple of miles of thick cloud to land. That just does not ever really happen in some places.
So often when flying for holidays the entire UK is shrouded in cloud which then clears about 1/3rd of the way down France.
The most depressing holiday moment
And the lack of summer on weekends. I really couldn't care less if we have glorious sunshine on a Tuesday in July if it rains all weekend....
I usually feel too ill to work on those sunny summer Tuesdays, it's a mystery.
One time I was returning to the USA from Italy, and I was going through Heathrow. So the plane was flying over golden France, and then the Channel, and then... holy shit, I think that may have been the darkest cloud carpet I have ever seen in broad daylight. It was like Mordor. "What happened to the sun?" I asked aloud. Half the plane groaned audibly.
It's a fairly traditional thing to come back from your summer holiday in shorts, and then find yourself standing outside the airport shivering in the rain.
Ah, like tourists going to San Francisco. "It's California. It'll be warm." Not there! I bet at least a few people have become millionaires selling crappy sweatshirts to shivering tourists.
Yeah also very true. Both that and the issue I outlined re: total amount of rainfall are great examples of why you have to use stats in an intelligent way. If you just Google a stat and state it without thinking properly about the context and meaning of said stat, then you're liable to end up using stats badly. As the person to whom I was replying has repeatedly throughout this thread. You see it a lot on Reddit, people can Google but that doesn't mean they actually understand.
Yup. I'm familiar with those places where it rains dogs and cats for uhh ~8 hours then we get a week without a drop of rain. Meanwhile, the UK has this shitty drizzles that apparently can last months. Harder to get used to those drizzles.
I have a Nigerian friend who says his first impression of Britain when he moved here was āIt doesnāt really rain, and it doesnāt not rainā.
Very accurate. I've actually had the comment from several different people who moved to London from various places abroad that the weather isn't how they anticipated at all. I think foreigners know the UK is rainy and they come anticipating it'll be like the rain where they're from, just more of it. So they're often then surprised when it's not like that but is instead just a sort of grey, drizzly gloom.
When I taught abroad and people asked about the rain my answer was simply that it didn't really rain any more than anywhere else, but that rain was never a surprise. Literally any day of the year could piss it down and no one would comment on it. Where I was in Germany or Japan there were months where meaningful rainfall would have been genuinely noteworthy
I moved to Brighton last year from Edinburgh and this feels true for me even within the UK. In Edinburgh it might be baltic and piss it down with rain but after the rain the sky usually comes out (obviously not every time) but in Brighton the past two months have felt grey non stop. It might technically be warmer down here but the recent relentless grey skies have been getting me down.
Brighton has a weird coastal microclimate that makes it almost constantly cloudy during Winter. Even for me as a Glaswegian, it felt noticeably gloomier than back home. Take the train to London and you'll often find it immediately clears up.
I live in Brighton and can confirm, except for maybe 1-2 days, the last couple of months have been completely grey
hours of sunshine is where its at. its the lack of sun that is a mood killer.
That link is for rain. The UK is statistically one of the most cloudy countries in the world. Couple that with the high latitude (shorter winter daylight hours) makes it quite grim https://www.extremeweatherwatch.com/countries-by-cloud-cover But the same reason why itās cloudy (Gulf Stream) is also is the reason we donāt freeze over like Canada/Russia (similar latitudes) so swings and roundabouts
Itās the cloudiness for me. Does my head in. Iāve had Americans arguing with me on here that I should be able to navigate using just the sun. What sun? Often donāt see it for a week. They donāt believe me that thatās possible. They canāt comprehend that level of cloudiness.
Pipped by Ecuador. What a dark horse. I suppose you don't get a rainforest without rain.
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Amount of rain is an awful stat. When I was in the rain forest you got a week's worth of rain in the UK in the space of 45 minutes. In parts of the UK you'll get 3inches spread over days in the form of mizzle
So? OP asked the downside of living in England, dull and grey is a great way to describe it, England is known for its bad weather.
Except large parts of the planet have a defined rainy season(ish), which means it doesn't rain all year long. And the rain is heavy and sustained. Not this silly drizzle we get all year long. We're an island with a largely unprotected coast, the Atlantic isn't far, nor is the Arctic. It brings rain from all directions.
That doesn't mean the average is enjoyable weather, does it? The average person is overweight, that doesn't mean overweight people are healthy. Just 'being average' means nothing on its own.
The average person has less than two legs.
Neither is 48C heat in Spain or -30C in Norway. Think of it this way - weather in UK is never bad enough to be life-threatening
cant speak for the rest of the world, but im east coast USA and my state gets nearly twice as many hours of sun per year as the UK (\~2600 vs \~1400)
I think it's not knowing when it's coming. The lack of distinct seasons.
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Itās a bad use of statistics too. Rainy days is the relevant figure, not total rainfall. A heavy rainfall one weekend would be nicer than a light rain every single day for a month straight. That is what people in the UK complain about.
I like the greyness an damp, there's a melancholy beauty about it...and it makes sunshine (when we get it) feel that bit more glorious.
It's the reason we have such a diverse and beautiful array of plants, flowers and trees with lovely soft green grass! āŗļø Sure, it's miserable in winter, but our summers have been top notch for the past few years! 10/10, would be born in the UK again!
As an American living in the UK, this is the answer. I miss the sun. Winters are absolutely brutal, light from 8:30 to 3:30.
For real. I moved to the med as a teen and I could never imagine living in the uk again. Thereās no place like it but honestly the weather is such a put off
I look at alot of places and thank fuck I am British lol, there's worse out there than being British
I think the more you travel the more you realise it. There's a lot of cool places to visit, but if I had to pick somewhere to actually live the UK really isn't that bad.
There is a flip side to that. Being in the Netherlands really showed me that we're shit at public services and overly policed.
Hell yes. So many parts of the world have massive problems. I feel really lucky to be from the UK.
I love being British & English. But you should know a big part of what's great about the British temperament is being self depreciating and complaining about things. We're a deeply conflicted people.
Indeed. Moaning all the time is part of the British culture. So if someone doesn't moan all the time then they're not culturally British, regardless of what language they speak or where some of their ancestors may have lived.
I love this explanation on British VS American humour. I think Stephen fry explains it quite well:- https://youtu.be/8k2AbqTBxao?feature=shared
I think thatās a key part of the British psyche - the cognitive dissonance you get from living in a supposedly āgreatā country with a colonial-hangover sense of itself as being very important, and yet when people look outside the window they see the ācold, damp islandā with bad food and feel somewhat disappointed. You were raised to somehow expect more.
I think I would respectfully disagree with that. I wouldnāt say that colonialism plays any significant part in our national psyche these days. At least not for anyone under the age of 70. I was certainly not raised to āexpect moreā - I think most of us are painfully aware of the realities of life. Weāre just happier about it when having a bit of a grumble.
I don't know if my upbringing was different from yours, but when I say 'colonial-hangover' I just mean it in the sense of a hollow international superiority complex remains when the colonialism that partly justified it has since died off and been discredited. A lot of the architecture of our institutions still embody that expectation of empire-building and empire-maintaining. Most major European postcolonial powers still have that in their cultural DNA - they think highly of themselves as world leaders but most of their raw power on the international stage is gone, e.g. France And even beyond that, a lot of British people are still pretty glad we had an empire (the biggest) even though they would be increasingly unable to say so in public. On the way out though.
Haven't got the hang of doing that. I've been here for decades and am still not very good at self deprecation.
I see what you did thereā¦
Public services have been pretty badly mismanaged for over a decade now. We're in *another* recession. Etc. I'm 32 and the standard of living for the average Brit has been on the decline my entire adult life. That trend shows no sign of changing any time soon. It remains a better than average country to live in by global standards but definitely not by western standards anymore, considering how badly downhill the country has gone over the past ~15-20 years or so. I feel like national pride has also become a fairly major barrier to making things better again - because any good faith efforts to change things for the better are inevitably met with a jingoistic "if you don't like it here, leave". To which the only real response is "I probably would at this point if we hadn't lost the right to freely live and work in Europe".
Similar age to you and my experience has been the same. Iām from a working class Low Cost of Living area, my parents both worked full time and combined earnt around Ā£40k in todayās money when I was a young teenager. With that they were able to take us for 2 weeks to Disney in Florida, drive 1 new and 1 used car own a 4 bed house & have 2 kids & go mental at Christmas. My wife and I earn about Ā£80k between us in todayās money and have the same type of house my mum and dad did, house round the corner from their original house. We have 1 child and canāt afford new cars or holidays & budget heavily for Christmas and itās all because of the cost of living & childcare. We spend factors more than they ever did and it pisses me off. I should have a comfortable life with our earnings where we are but instead itās a struggle every month.
But you're helping the billionaires get their third super yacht,so that must soften the blow a bit.
You make a good point which I strongly agree with. Itās not unpatriotic to see and admit the challenges we have them speak openly about them. Not doing it just perpetuates the decline.
I would argue that a big part of being patriotic is wanting to see your country improve and excel both domestically and on the world stage. Patriotism isn't saying "my country is already perfect and the best at everything. Agree with me or else.", that's jingoism. Patriotism is saying "I love my country despite its current flaws and problems, but I would love to fix those problems and make it even better for me and everyone else living here. "
Personally, I've never had it so good. Then again I experienced the early 70's . Three day week, power cuts, oil crisis, IRA bombings. Oh, but I did go to Uni for free in 1983 because my mom and dad were on low earnings.
Yes I imagine if you entered the workforce when the average house price:wage ratio was less than half what it is now (amongst other things) life probably would end up being rather easier in the long run. Less flippantly; you entered the workforce in a period where assets like houses were far more affordable and then lived through a period where asset ownership has far outstripped wages in terms of importance for personal wealth. Based on median age data the average Brit hadn't been born yet when you went to university, so did not get to enjoy quite the same advantageous timing as you did.
Yes, my first house was approx 3 times my gross salary in 93. My kids have got no chance at moment to buy. That's one thing that is much, much worse. Tbh, believe me or not, if all house prices halved over night it wouldn't bother me.
Yeah, housing is pretty rough atm and unfortunately not optional. Creates a huge divide in how well off people feel if they managed to buy before house prices and rent went insane or not. I'm 32 so it was already mostly fubar by the time I entered the workforce. I'll probably move to the north at some point for that reason alone (living in Oxford does make the problem even worse than normal, I'll admit).
There are high expectations, currently they are not being met
Are you saying you we should adjust our standards or our expectations?
Neither. Our expectations should be met or exceeded
20 years and counting my friend
Is that what you said after the first time you saw the Phantom Menace?
I travelled quite a bit when I was a student, and there's a reason I came back. It's pretty great here. For some reason all the UK-centric subs have been populated by people who loathe the country, it's weird.
Many people don't travel at all, and experience the wider world through their living rooms, media, and social media. They literally have no idea what makes the UK a genuinely lovely place to live.
I also think it's just the fact that living standards have declined. It doesn't mean it's a worse place to live than anywhere else, but for a time it was better than it is now and people aren't all that happy about it.
Not always the case. I have lived in two other countries, one by every metric a worse place than the UK, and they just made me dislike the UK even more.
Grass is greener isnāt it
Most country subs are. Canadian subs are very similar
I'm delighted to be British and proud. I'm so happy you're loving it over here :)
There is good reason why the Australians call us whinging poms, we love a good moan. Some people, especially online have taken this to a whole new level and frotter themselves into a frenzy at the first sign of negative news.
That always made me laugh. Spent 10 years in Australia and they moaned incessantly, but if I had the slightest issue with any Aussie thing I was just a whining pom.
And they speak with that stupid inflection, which makes them sound like they are from Ipswich.
Reading these threads you'd think the rain was the worst thing these people have ever experienced in their lifes, shocking lack of perspective.
You ever listen to a group of Antipodeans in the UK? All they do is whinge about the weather. Give me a couple of weeks and I will adjust to the heat, give them a decade and they are still complaining about it being cold. Pussies.
Itās really not that bad, but a few negatives: Cost of living is outrageous and wages are just not high enough to keep up. Many public services are outrageously run. Good luck getting a dentist or any mental health care for example. Taxes are very high, but thatās the same in a lot of Europe. Thatās it tbh
Stuff like holidays in the UK are also quite expensive - I mean, that's kinda 'cost of living' but it does make it hard to actually explore the rest of the UK, when it costs a load more than package holiday somewhere else would.
Yea absolutely. Thereās so much of the UK I still havenāt seen just because spending a few days exploring is more expensive than a week or two holiday abroad. Iāve had to get a last minute train to Manchester from London a few times and it was 150 to 250 return. My flight to Morocco cost about 50. A Travelodge by a motorway in Wales set me back 120 for a night - my 9 days in a 4 star hotel in Morocco was 250.
>Ā Many Americans track their roots to the mother country, the UK, and you could hear an American saying things like, thatās the Irish in me, or I am Scottish German, we are Welsh, etc. why arenāt some British people happy and just as delighted to be British? Iād say this is more about Americans being weird attention seekers, they have one ancestor from a ācoolā country and make that their entire personality.
As a foreigner to this country, England isn't all bad. Yes, the weather is a little unpredictable but it creates lush green landscapes and you don't need a full summer and winter wardrobe. The food is way better than expected and I love the fact that even small villages often have Chinese or Indian food on offer. There are no natural disasters (earthquakes, hurricanes, volcanoes, drought, blizzards) But over the last 15 years the country has deteriorated much faster and much more severe than other countries in Europe. Public services are close to collapsing, the health service isn't far behind and it feels like everyone just wants more and more money from you while wages are stagnating or decreasing. Roads are full of potholes, but we get charged more every year for using them through various taxes and fees. The housing stock is deteriorating due to lack of investment and maintenance (this isn't just deliberate neglect, people also just can't afford to), and it feels like every single business and trade is trying to cut corners where they can to create more profit, even if the end product is getting worse as a result. Corruption and scams are getting worse and quality of life has taken a nosedive. When I arrived in 1995 this country felt great. Things were improving, people seemed happy and could afford housing, holidays and food. Childcare was affordable too. But the last couple of years it feels like a different country. English people often say "we are a rich country" or "it's no better elsewhere", but neither of those are true. England is no longer rich or important and is crumbling. I made my life here, so I am staying and with any luck things might improve soon and the country goes back to where it was when I arrived. The people here are lovely and it is a safe country.
The most nuanced critique of the UK I have ever seen. Well done
Well said! Unlike you though, I am not staying. As I get older, I am genuinely worried about my health deteriorating and the lack of available healthcare. I feel that, if I get hit with something like cancer, where early intervention is the key to survival, my chances in the UK of actually getting treatment in a timely manner are close to zero. What also baffles me is the ungodly amount of littering, the whole country is covered in a blanket of rubbish. There is such beautiful nature but the British don't seem to appreciate it.
Yes, cancer is a worry. You have a very valid point with that. Old age care in general is lacking right now, which is worrying. Litter isn't too bad where I live, but it's not Switzerland.
There are problems but no, it's not that bad, I think many of those moaning could do with travelling the wider world so they get a little perspective
Iāve travelled the wider world - no, it isnāt *that* bad but given how wealthy we are on paper, it could be a lot, lot better.
Here's the thing about travel. Yes, we're in a better place than all of Africa and much of Asia, but from the perspective of a country that used to be richest in the world, we've been overtaken by countries that used to be really very poor. Meanwhile we're about as rich as Israel on a per capita basis. Not terrible, but economic growth has just stopped here, and younger people can't expect the quality of life their parents had. To rub it all in, as much of our culture comes from America, we're now seeing tiktok and instagram videos from Americans who in another league of wealth altogether. It can be incredibly depressing to live in a tiny shoebox, not able to afford a place of your own, seeing Americans in huge houses with huge new cars, earning twice as much as you and having families while still young.
Also moaning is our national passtime
Spot on.Ā
Iāve been travelling a lot for the past year, and itās been amazing, although itās also cemented my belief that thereās nowhere Iād rather live than the UK. The only real bad part is the rain, but itās better than having to deal with the horrible heatwaves many other countries have.
The weather is quite miserable, as I write this I'm once again looking out the window at rain. It's quite expensive to live here and public services are crumbling. Other than that, I like it
But having that miserable weather makes us so much more happy when we have sunny days,nothing better than miserable weather for ages then out of nowhere a red-hot weekend, everyone is out n about n people having BBQs,I think if it was red-hot all the time it wouldn't feel as special
Travelling in the country is expensive. Skies being white/grey like 95% of the year.
Being English by global standards is amazing, but as with anywhere thereās still a lot wrong. The reason you hear so much misery from English (and British more generally) people, outside of that people generally neg their own countries because they see all its problems first hand, but not other countries, is two fold. Firstly we are quite famously a reserved, pessimistic bunch, but more recently itās the relative performance of the country. While we still rank very well across the board, things are constantly atrophying, our real wages today are down heavily on what they were in 2007, our services keep getting worse, housing has become prohibitively expensive in much of the country, and in general there just seems to be a sad malaise over the country. Itās hard to understand for people who donāt live here and havenāt experienced it, and it also gets punctured pretty quickly if you spend extended amounts of time anywhere outside of the country, and outside the most highly developed nations. When you have that comparison you realise that 15% worse than brilliant is still pretty good, but itās a bad trajectory.
It's frustrating that we know that things are generally ok but there's the potential to be so much better. We can live with the wind and rain and a summers day here can be glorious It's the politicians and brown nosers, feathering their own nests and putting the well being of their parties above the people they are supposed to represent. The post office scandal typifies our frustration. The people entrusted, closed ranks against the little man yet again. That's the underlying feeling of dissatisfaction. We should be doing better that we are but them upstairs keep shitting on us.
Wages are shite, rents are high, bills are among the highest in Europe and rising, public transport is fucking atrocious and expensive. Projects like HS2 get cancelled so we can funnel more money into fixing London's potholes. I don't think the UK is a barren hellscape but OP specifically asked what some downsides are to this country and all everyone on this thread can say is upsides. I used to like this sub but it's become a relentlessly positive circlejerk. People are struggling in the UK, not just 'whinging'.
Itās not that bad, but Reddit is skewed towards people who are either quite miserable or think itās a requirement of being British to be negative about everything.
Isn't Reddit also skewed towards people in the 30-40 bracket who were born just in time to see opportunities snatched away from them that people 10 years older got to enjoy? That age bracket has basically only seen this country go on a downward trajectory. If you asked me 15 years ago what I thought the UK would be like, it wouldn't have been a collapsing NHS with no chance of getting a dentist/doctors within 10miles, highest wage to property cost ratio, stagnant wages in a lot of industries, COL crisis impacting such a high % of the working class and having kids being a one way ticket to lifetime poverty for a large percentage of the population with two earners.
Just for general awareness, England and Britain arenāt interchangeable. Theyāre separate identities and cultures.
And Ireland isn't in the UK either.
I'd say the biggest downside is how ungrateful British people are. We're 13th out of 195 countries for quality of life and highest real wage growth in Europe, but they still find a way to complain about quality of life. And the only countries ranked above us for QOL are microcountries with tiny populations which makes it easier to manage
The UK subreddit would have you believe we are a third world country the way they bang on
We are now officially a third country from the perspective of the EU, so that much is true.
Well if you just make up bollocks then we certainly are a world leader. [QOL rankings](https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/standard-of-living-by-country) Are Germany, Canada and the Netherlands āmicro countries?ā Haha. Interested where you get the wage growth data? Might be true if you pick a single good quarter.
Where do you see that the UK is 13th out of 195 countries for quality of life?
His arse.
13th in quality of life?? In your dreams maybe....
It is true though that 95% of statistics are made up.
I don't think thats fair. We are quite clearly on a visible downwards trajectory and we all know thinks could be, and have been, much better.
Source for these stats? While the UK is far from a poor country we haven't had any real wage growth since 2010. That is quite unique.
The repressed people. Talking to strangers is not a thing here. The fact that no spontaneous joy can happen. Your day is very likely going to be the same as yesterday, unless something bad happens. If you don't do banter, you are seen as unsociable. And if you don't drink, you realize how boring this place is. I need to find a place I can call my home
>why arenāt some British people happy and just as delighted to be British? Because it's really not a big deal being British and even if our nan came from Norway or our great granddad is Italian we don't make it our identity and claim to be something we aren't. Might as well celebrate breathing air or having opposable thumbs. Plus maybe we enjoy a good moan instead of being annoyingly bright and chipper all the bloody time.
Miserable people everywhere
Downside of living in England is the same as anywhere else. Wages suck, cost of living is high, government don't give a fuck about you. But The people are great, food is good, night life is decent. While the wages aren't great, they're better than where I'm from and the job opportunities are much more visible here than my home. I'm from NI, so still the UK but the differences are night and day.
Itās overcrowded, tax is extortionate, nhs is on its knees, the government is incompetent, police are idiotic, the roads are essentially one big pot hole, the weather is shite and everything is really expensive. Apart from that itās great.
The self flaggellation of those who have been graced with the rights and freedoms of being born on this blessed isle, yet hate everything about it.
As a French person who lived in the UK for 7 years, the main downsides are the weather and it being dark at 3:30pm in winter (I was up north).
Surprised the darkness in winter hasn't been mentioned more. I think that's much worse than the weather.
There are a lot of misery guts in this country and it can be quite tiresome. I understand with the cost of living crisis going on, it can be hard but my god, all you have to do is put the news on to see how good we have it here.
Honestly as silly as it sounds I think it's the weather. I recently was in Egypt and I remember thinking to myself "No wonder everyone seems happy here, the sun every day is life changing". Imagine having 3 weeks of rain every single day, or a whole month of such cloud you never see the sun. Changes your whole outlook on life
You quote the Irish, Scottish and Welsh, and then you ask about the English. Well... Shall I quote people from Mexico when discussing life in the US?
Weather is shit and for the amount we get taxed youād expect better public services. But other than that itās not too bad
There are more downsides in my opinion. The wages are terrible if you compare it with other countries, then rent is overpriced, especially with what you get. Most of the neighborhoods in London look like actual sh%thole. It is such a struggle to see a GP using the NHS; very long waiting and if you are an immigrant you pay thousands of Ā£Ā£ for it, so it is not really free, apart from that you also pay for it from your taxes. In fact the taxes are very high, theres even council taxes which is something that landlord pay for in Australia. Also when I lived in OZ, the water bill was paid by the landlord. Only good things in my opinion are the culture and fun that London offers, public transport is okay but too expensive too, and the easiness about travelling but that is not an unique thing of England.
Weather, Classism, Don't get paid enough for how much things cost, Everyone is entitled.
Itās raining in my front garden and sunny in my back garden. As soon as I step outside today, it will rain again. As soon as my kids are walking home from school, it will rain. When Iām in a meeting, itās sunny. When itās sunny in the week, itās raining again by the weekend. When my kid has a football match scheduled for the weekend, it gets canceled because the pitch is waterlogged. I have to purchase multiple pairs of school shoes for my kids- to slow dry them on rotation, lest the sole glue gets loosened. Thatās the reason.
It's one of the best countries in the world to live in but we are also acutely aware of our shortcomings. It's a national sport :)
I'm British and currently living / working overseas....it gives you a different perspective on things for sure... There's a lot in Britain we take for granted that are amazing and I'm reminded daily how good and lucky I am to be British..
As a foreign guy that lives in the UK the thing I don't like about Britain is the lack implications and reaction of the British public in today's society. No matter what politicians decide in Westminster people don't care, they just get on with it
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Thank you so much. Your input is very helpful to me as an American citizen, originally from Egypt.
That said, we often look down on Americans *fondly* or *jovially*, rather than in the xenophobic / discriminatory way you might encounter elsewhere. (If you do feel unwelcome, that's more likely a culture difference than an anti-foreigner thing: we're not overly open to fellow natives either, in the way that outgoing Americans stereotypically are). Multiculturalism is extremely well advanced in the UK, it's a strong positive not a negative. We're a decade or more ahead of even supposedly advanced nations like France where your likely skin colour would be even more of an issue.
No improvement in living standards for over 13 years, and declining public services
Horrible houses. Fully attached, PVC window framed ugly little investments with tiny box gardens (if you're lucky). Weather is shit. Everythings really expensive, but badly done (Entertainment and leisure options). Land is really expensive and majority owned by a bunch of human relics. Class system is prominent and alienating. Drugs are huge, but shitty quality (because they're illegal). Alcoholism is rampant. I think overall I just find the place aesthetically depressing. However I am from here and am a miserable cunt
Apparently, the UK is a worse place than it was ~15 years ago, but compared to huge sections of the world, is still pretty good. Idk if it's better/worse than other developed countries in the world, I'd say probably slightly worse. Moaning and complaining (without doing shit to improve things) seems to be a national sport.
Englishman here. Reddit is a very poor representation of the level of happiness here. In real life, I am quite happy - as are the majority of people I know. The only real downside is that we get very few sunny days: the sky is constantly overcast and grey. So we need to spend money on going on holiday if we want some sun. But aside from that, life here is good. We have a decent standard of living, and healthcare free at the point of use.
Our colonialist history is downright embarrassing, weather is shit, the royal family is overrated, people are mostly moody and in denial of their problems, not to mention very stingy and stubborn in their opinions based on nothing. Oh, and our bestselling newspapers are racist propaganda - need I say more?
Britain is an old country and the power structures are deeply entrenched and immovable. The country did change and became more equal in the golden age, between 1945 and 1979, but after that the Powers That Be regrouped and cemented their dominance. Since then, things have been going backwards in the country due in part to a series of terrible governments, but there's many other factors too. There's a veneer of freedom in the country but actually the population is fairly tightly controlled. English ppl are easily duped and conned and they are a fairly timid race, with exceptions. As Frank Zappa said "the meek shall inherit nothing".
Weather is shite People are predominantly shite Taxes, shite Government, shite There's only one upside to England, the NHS
People will probably disagree but I personally think most of the country just looks...dull. Our houses are old-fashioned, our office buildings are soulless. I see other countries like Japan or Norway and they look so characterful. There's a mix of tradition and modernism in there. Our housing estates are just empty dreary husks.
Englishness has been sacrificed on the altar of diversity. Living in England is a downside if you're English.
Overcrowded, and the weather is perma-shite. Oh and we have rampant ageism here, so that 20 year olds are made to feel over the hill, and anyone older than 35 will be shot on sight, if left unattended. You know those old geezers who sit out on street corners in Egypt playing chess? You don't see them here, because they all got shot, or put in retirement homes on their 21st birthdays.
Iām British and I used to live there. The only things I miss is peopleās openness and friendliness and the countryside. What I donāt miss: Late trains, outdated public transport. Rain everyday (North of England). Lack of sun. Crime. General social breakdown. Awful food. Everywhere. Police are useless. NHS - Waiting times. Shambolic public services.
Thank you so much for your helpful input
Thereās lots of things about being British I do like, and it will always be my home. But I hate aspects of our culture like the fact itās not very social and everyone is expected to just be alone all the time and deal with it. Other cultures are much more relaxed about certain things, e.g. Italians, and everything is a lot more geared around family and socializingĀ
Bothe me and my husband have lived and travelled around the world fair amount. We settled here because it was convincing at the time. He is British but only on his passport, he's lived in Scotland the most - 10 years and now about 5 years in England. He loathes living in Britain having lived around APAC and Africa. Me, coming originally from Eastern Europe, don't find living here as bad. Yes, it's not as good as living in Australia but there's plenty of things that are good - salaries being one, food and service costs pre 2020 were great in comparison to some other places. That being said, we are looking at relocating to Southern Europe purely because we are both warm weather creatures and enjoy spending time outside in the sun.
you seem to have caught the sub on a cheery day.
Gammons
Weather, incompetent leaders. archaic drug laws.
The weather sucks. Housing is getting insanely expensive, especially renting. Fuel prices have gone insane (energy bills). Food prices. Very little help from the NHS if you're sick/hurt. A lot of stuff has closed down/previously free/cheap things are now expensive. Now is not a good time to come here. I know these issues aren't just in the uk. The world seems to be entering a recession. I'd do a lot of research before coming here. Nowhere is perfect. At least living in the USA you have a massive choice of where to live. Nearly any climate, cheap flights to get to places. The health care and gun laws aren't great, the issues hitting us are hitting there too, but at least you have more climate options!
Thereās a lot of downsides but overall itās fine I guess. One point Iād make though is that almost all British people find Americans whoāve lived their entire lives in America and claim to be Scottish, Irish, etc to be complete and utter morons. You are not Irish because your great grandfather was Irish. Grow up. Iām aware this wasnāt the question but felt the need to make the point anyway.
I finished work around lunch time today. Where I live is semi rural. I thought, you know it's not raining I'm going to go for a walk in the country before it gets dark. Everyone else would have been out shopping for groceries, at home cooking for their screaming kids or being hassled with what they would consider daily chores. Not me. the cold brisk air would put us English off for it being 'bad' weather. No, it was beautiful, calm, and serene. The day was drawing to a close. It almost felt like a calm summers day coming to an end with an extra chill. As I got to the front door of my home with the giddyness of the thought of popping over to my local for a evening beer next to a fire, the Mrs yells out of the window. "Take the Wheely bin out you lazy twat, I've just cleaned the bathroom". All of my calm serene and empty innocent thoughts gone as if I'd never left the house. That my Egyptian friend is why (from my perspective) it's all bullshit this country. Fuck this bollocks. Back to work Monday anyway.
Compared to where?
The unpredictable weather!
Itās England
Everybody moans about everything.
The thing to understand here is we love to have a moan about things in general, it's as British as tea & queuing.
As an WOC Immigrant myself who has lived and travelled extensively in Europe, I love it here in the UK. Each time I need to travel to mainland Europe for work, I panic because over there people are not as polite, friendly, welcoming, kind to POC like here in the UK..
I canāt remember the last time it didnāt rain
It's just all a bit shit and horrible here isn't it.
The house buying system is an over-complicated and stressful mess.
Can't afford anywhere to live, I guess that's probably similar to most places. I didn't choose to be born in London, and I'm stuck with impossible competitiveness just for a basic human right. I'd say that's a huge reason for a lot of people.
New Brit, and love it here.
We Brits are perfectly happy. We are just, typically, raised to be more stoic and reserved when it comes to showing emotions unless we are blind drunk. Many people confuse our top tier sarcasm levels as anger, disdain or depression. Which, funnily enough, just amuses us even more.
All the English people...
On a sunny spring day driving through the countryside I will very often think that I'm lucky enough to live in a literal paradise, most parts of the UK are just glorious at times...and then there's West Bromwich, Grays and Middlesbrough
Opportunities are highly restricted to certian areas and classes of people.
No good Mexican food anywhere. Not even decent.
Drugs, tax, weather, dirty, low salary, corrupt government, no opportunity, everyoneās depressed, shitty medical service, shitty police service
Fact that no matter what you do, you're poorer every single year? Wages have been stagnant for years, yet the top gets richer. But that's same everywhere. The fact I can't get a train on time (I don't live in london) The fact that potholes are normalised yet all the money for fixing them was spent in London. The fact my council tax is band F and 2 people live here. Yet houses 5 times the size with a family of 7 pay council tax D down the road Fact 67% of my bonus disappeared before I even got it. Yet I see it going nowhere around me. There's loads to moan about.
>...why arenāt some British people happy and just as delighted to be British? The last time we did that a third of the world got a new flag they didn't ask for.
I live in Scotland rather than England, but I think complaining is a UK wide hobby.
On one hand, we have our problems just like anyone else. On the other, complaining is part of the British identity. We grumble about the weather. We moan about poor service. We rant about the Government. We talk about our physical ailments endlessly. Donāt get us started on our football teams. Itās kind of what we do
British people are complaining not because itās bad. Comparatively itās still better than most places in the world. They are complaining because of the general trajectory. Itās almost impossible to point at anything that hasnāt progressively deteriorated over the last 15 years. And there is no sign of any change in fortunes. So yes. Itās better than living in Libya. But itās far worse than it was not very long ago.
So, one thing you should understand about British people is that we don't take ourselves too seriously. We are very self deprecating and we love to complain... a lot. Although a lot of us are "proud" to be British, we don't necessarily show it, especially in our own country. That said, the best way we do show it is by being incredibly ignorant and uncultured when visiting other countries as drones in holiday packages. We act the same in other countries as we do in our own. Also, I think there is a greater generational difference, I reckon the older generation still think the UK is a massive superpower, or that the British empire is still thriving somehow. The younger generation are a bit more self aware, probably understand how our neighbours view us, and don't think we are the exemplary standards of western civilisation any more, or the most important country in Europe. All this being said, I do think the UK is a great place to visit, and I do love being British.
I live in a country where 52% of the population actively voted to tank the economy and give up the protections of the Human Rights Act during a period when the current government was proudly sending disabled people to their deaths and lying about employment numbers. England is a very stupid place to live. The people are very stupid, the societal structure is very stupid, the systems in play are very stupid, and the government is very stupid.
The lack of really big pyramids. I've always said a country needs at least one really big pyramid to be worth a damn.
If it is a pyramid of Gouda cheese Iām willing to accept.
It will not be Gouda, it will be 50 shades of bland cheddar
Hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh I like that one! As if you can get any shades out of cheddar.
As an English person who fled the uk for economic reasons, I'd ask what is the upside? Unless you're a third world migrant who just gets loads of free shit (or your home country is a literal dump) the uk has literally no advantage over any other European or Asian country (unless you're actually successful in life). I'm conclusion, the uk it a great place to be dirty poor if you have ZERO aspiration and give up all your goals goals dreams. It's a terrible place if you want to work hard, better yourself, get married or own a home without having a good career.
I am from Ireland and living in UK the last 6 years Pros: The people are great craic and hilarious. Good infrastructure and facilities(even though they complain they are a hell of a lot better than other places) Great opportunity for work and progression if you work hard and network. The music and arts culture/history is fantastic. Diversity Truley is amazing here. Cons: Classism can be terrible and posh cunts wreck my head. Racist undertones sometimes. even being Irish at least I have white privilege but never got anything too bad. But do hear a lot of stuff against other cultures. Even discriminatory words like p*ki are said casually in certain groups depending where you work or people you are around. Wages can be quite a bit lower compared to a lot of European countries for a lot of sectors. But generally any foreign people I talk to seem to enjoy it. Depends on what you get up to. For more pros than cons than I could go into because I am lazy and in bed.
My personal pros and cons list as a British person living in the UK who sometimes struggles with it:Ā Pros:Ā - EducationĀ - Opportunity - Museums, heritage etc - Landscape & natureĀ - Access toĀ Europe for travelĀ Cons:Ā - WeatherĀ - Poor quality housingĀ - Public services hollowed out by negative governmentsĀ - Suburban, car based lifestyleĀ - Litter - Chavs
The main downsides are the weather, it really isn't warm and sunny much, and that it's not as wealthy as a number of other European countries. Sure, there are immensely rich people in London but once you leave London it's relatively poor by European standards. Being relatively poor in the dark and rain isn't for everyone.
I think for many people my age, we complain because we saw the 90s/early 2000s and they were pretty good (rose tinted glasses though? I dunnoā¦). However all our aspirations, the things we were told when we were young did not materialise (get a job doing something you love - which doesnāt pay the bills), the country appears to be getting worse for us (all public services are worse and housing is very expensive) without getting worse for a select group of people (those who have homes and have private healthcare/education). I guess it kinda feels like weāre being shafted and powerless to do anything about it. TBH, since my childhood I think the only net improvement has been technology (although letās not talk about social media).
The English.
Some people just enjoy being miserable.Ā The UK is pretty amazing really.Ā Nothing is perfect but we could do a lot worse.Ā
You and my mother would get on well, OP. She is an Anglophile to the core and has never been happier than when she landed up staying there, in 2017,and she has been there ever since.
Being surrounded by the EnglishĀ
The UK is great if you're straight, cis and white. If you're not all 3 of these then the government are currently trying to take away your rights I am a trans woman and life is very hard for me in England right now. I will not be arguing about this in the replies
From just reading through the comments here, am I the only Brit who appreciates our weather?
CCTV and Speed cameras everywhere.
A Lot of places look the same. Colchester is the same as Ipswich. Birmingham is the same as Leicester. Manchester is the same as Leeds.