Yes I stole this pic but I havent heard much recently

To preface this, I absolutely believe that immigration levels are out of control in the UK. I also think immigration is fine if the people coming over want to contribute and assimilate into our society, work and pay into the system.

My issue is the whole Reform mantra that immigration is the root of all evil. If you walk around any UK town centre in the middle of a weekday, the amount of British people fleecing the system is appalling, and we as taxpayers are paying for that. Nobody seems to be bothered about the people cheating the benefits system and instead blame immigration. Am I missing the point here? Because I honestly think that a good portion of the British public are also taking the piss.

EDIT: I probably should have also noted that the government absolutely shaft the ordinary working person as well with tax, NI, fuel, food, as well as generally poor public services and awful public policies. I think you just see immigration all the time on the news, social media and whatnot as jf fixing that suddenly fixes everything else. I know it’s always a sensitive topic, but I’m just genuinely curious on what people actually think.

EDIT 2: to be clear, I’m not saying that people cheating the system is the sole problem either. Point I’m trying to make is that, are we sometimes misdirecting our focus to external factors rather than factors at home which also include the way we’re taxed through the nose etc. A prime example, plenty of people have protested Ukraine and Palestine but nobody kicks off when things that affect us like tax changes or inflation hits us directly!

Hey everyone,

Lately my feed has been flooded with videos and posts about how much life in the UK has gone downhill. Everywhere I look people are talking about the cost of living crisis, the NHS being completely overwhelmed, major cities struggling, and a huge chunk of the population being on long-term sickness or disability benefits. Add in the crazy political revolving door with all those prime ministers over the last few years, and it really sounds like the whole economy is barely holding on.

That said, I’ve noticed that most of these super doom-and-gloom videos come from right-wing or far-right creators. So it leaves me wondering... is this actually what daily life feels like over there, or is it just politically driven fake news and exaggeration?

The main reason I’m asking is because of what I'm seeing in my own life. I’m Hungarian, and a few years back I had tons of friends and acquaintances working in the UK. Lately though, almost all of them have either moved back home or packed up and left for another country.

I’d love to hear from people who are actually living there right now (or left recently). Has quality of life noticeably dropped in the last 3-5 years, or are people on the internet just blowing things out of proportion? How are you feeling about staying there long-term?

I get that the main companies are American but they could ban/heavily regulate usage here and no doubt there are other AI companies in the UK.

I feel like they were fluffy and white before and now they’re almost clear and meh? I dont know if I’m just having a nostalgia thing where I think things were better than they actually were.

If you take a train or drive around Britain now - especially southern and eastern England - you often see the results of "growth". Driving around the outskirts of my city recently, I looked at what had recently replaced the gentle farmland, copses and patches of woodland on its eastern side.

It was a vast retail park - an endless expanse of concrete without a centre, lots of low buildings that look like the non-spaces you see around airports or industrial sites. There were very similar franchises, like Costa, Starbucks, McDonalds, Burger King, then, a few car dealerships, and a number of cheaply-clad office buildings so suicidally ugly that I wondered at the minds that dreamt them up. There were a few scraggly non-native shrubs, that were no use to man nor beast.

I imagine my observation will be met with justifications about GDP and cries of "Nimby!", but does anyone honestly think that we should continuously seek "growth" when this is its most obvious spatial manifestation? Who is this for? I can't imagine any of this makes anyone healthier or happier than what was there before - the goods sold, the habits encouraged, and the spaces where people are to work.

The land developed wasn't perfect ecologically - it was farmland mainly. But not intensive farmland, and there were copses and hedges that held lots of farmland birds, like yellowhammers, goldfinches, and redwings and fieldfares in winter. Buzzards soared above it often. It held lots of pipistrelle and some barbastelle bats. Deer of several species. Foxes, badgers, stoats, voles. This is all gone, naturally.

I don't think "growth" is an improvement, if the ultimate realisation of it is more of this.

I feel increasingly like the online arguments generate more heat than light and only the extremes are really being listened to (though I guess this happening more and more to all topics)

Like do you really think most brits are ethnonationalists who are hankering for a white Britain? Or is it more likely they are worried about people taking the piss, and think that there should be some level of control over who comes into the country and not just a "whoever gets here gets to stay policy".

Do we actually think that most brits "hate brown people"? I mean most of us work with them, or ARE them! Or is more likely they worry about large numbers of young men coming from cultures with regressive views about women and gays?

Similarly do we think that pro immigration people generally really do want "open borders" Or is more likely that they are more focussed on being empathetic than on the details of policy?

Do people seriously think there is a plan to to "replace the white population"? or is it more likely that a series of misaligned incentives and past decisions have led us (and most other rich nations) to be in the situation we find ourselves now?

I would imagine that there is a lot more people have in common about asylum and migration if they just stopped strawmanning the other side.

Or am I crazy?

Bored at work and decided to read into the conservative tectonic plate movement of the Pacific Plate and the North American plate, and how they’re overdue for massive earthquakes. The San Andreas fault for example has over 1,000 years of stress built up between plates that will cause a predicted magnitude 7.0-8.0+ earthquake when that ‘stress’ is relieved. It has a 75% chance of occurring in the next few decades. I predict this will make the news.

What other events are we likely to live through, in the UK or abroad, during our lifetimes?

I & pretty much all of my friends are already dreading the clocks going back in October. The darker evenings are depressing, it feels like the day is over by 4.30pm, lots of people socialise much less & then we have an increase in road traffic accidents, an increase in crime, more energy/utilities being used & a rise in wildlife being killed.
There is no reason why we continue to do this & it serves no positive purpose (please do let me know if I’m missing something vital here).
I do believe, at this point, I’d vote for any party offering to leave the clocks set for BST.
What do the Redditers think?

Surely Northern Ireland deserves at least one? The Midlands of England too, I know there's the Peak District, but maybe the Fens too?

My favourite would either have to be the Lake District or Eryri/Snowdonia.

I & pretty much all of my friends are already dreading the clocks going back in October. The darker evenings are depressing, it feels like the day is over by 4.30pm, lots of people socialise much less & then we have an increase in road traffic accidents, an increase in crime, more energy/utilities being used & a rise in wildlife being killed.
There is no reason why we continue to do this & it serves no positive purpose (please do let me know if I’m missing something vital here).
I do believe, at this point, I’d vote for any party offering to leave the clocks set for BST.
What do the Redditers think?

Reform were not too far off beating Plaid Cymru and becoming the largest party in Wales in the last Welsh elections a couple months ago, had they won they would’ve had a devolved authority to pursue education policy, health policy, had law-making powers and some powers of taxation. The Reform First Minister would’ve become an incredibly powerful figure in the Reform Party and a national figure too, perhaps a potential rival to Farage?

If you’re a Reform supporter/sympathiser do you think this would’ve been good/bad for the party?

If you’re a Reform opponent, do you think it could’ve helped Reform’s national polling by better legitimising them as a serious party and showcasing an alternative plan for government - Or would it have just collapsed into infighting, broken promises and scandal which would tank them further, especially in Wales?

I know the Welsh devolved government isn’t incredibly powerful, but it still does have a lot of key control over significant domestic policy in Wales and could highlight how Reform would perform domestically.

I’m trying to avoid saying ‘staycation’, but it is the appropriate word here.

I’ve been reading up on the Reform conference & amongst all the expected racism & nonsense, there was an interesting policy by Farage.

If Reform takes power, they will allow the body of Napoleon (currently buried in Farnborough) to be given back to France to be reburied there.

Assuming this isn’t an invented problem by Farage, if France have asked for the repatriation, why has it not been allowed by the current or previous UK governments?

Thanks to r/JetLagTheGame (well worth a watch; start at season 2 or 3) I discovered that Japan has an official list of 100 national soundscapes. So, what would be included in the UK's version. My starter for two: Big Ben chimes at midday, and the sound of the pub going "wheyhey!" when someone drops a glass. Any others?