I don't like the UK

You are still fortunate.

There is too much emphasis on talking about "being led by" and not enough talk of "well does this seen right/reasonable to me."  If the latter was in order, then the former would simply be occasional "gum on your shoe."  I lament for the soul of man, not it's leaders.

Number said:

 It was about 2006-2008 that I started feeling deeply uneasy and very alone because others were not looking and saying "errrr, no !" to the direction of our human affairs.

1982 for me. Then 1986. Then from 2003 pretty much onwards, after I stopped doing the mental gymnastics required to convince myself that we were lead by anything other than Evil Clowns..

You were an earlier adopter of the WTAF scepticism of how things were being "allowed" to mutate into something that I find unfathomable and fundamentally worrisome.  It was about 2006-2008 that I started feeling deeply uneasy and very alone because others were not looking and saying "errrr, no !" to the direction of our human affairs.  I don't mean "important" and "lofty" powers-that-be, I'm talking about us little people here.....the electorate, the masses, the diverse, the "ones," my neighbours, my friends, my fellow humans who I actually know.

I still find it hard to believe how easily we have descended into a conceivably existential threat to our "everyday" lives by believing that money grows on trees and that we are all somehow owed something by someone or something all the time, no matter what.  That is not my understanding about how things ACTUALLY work - nor indeed how they SHOULD work.

Just my opinion.

Having worked in supermarket retailing for 30 years in both the U.K. for 21 years and in my native Ireland, I’ve also wondered the same as you do - yet on balance, the U.K. is doing better than my native Ireland, which is in terminal decline 

Zero said:

It's the 21st century... Our country should be better than this.

It should. I've spent since 2001 finding out why it isn't.

I then have spent much of the last few years suggesting that the majority of society shoud be asking the same question.

Preferably LOUDLY.

Indeed. We could be all worse off. 

Gosh that does sound awful. Sorry that's like that over there. The NHS is by no means perfect but it could be worse, the biggest problem in my experience and from what others say about it, is how slow it takes to get appointments etc. But in an emergency once the ambulance gets to you they are usually a big help, and unlike other countries we don't have to pay upfront to be treated and cared for. Like, a few years ago my Grandad had a heart attack and the paramedics got to him and saved his life and then he spent a brief time in hospital. If he'd had to pay he would be dead now as like my family he has very little money. The NHS isn't great but I'm grateful for it. Like a lot of things in this country it's poorly managed by those in charge.

Compared to the HSE in my native Ireland, I’d be far more likely to trust the NHS here in the U.K., as clearly demonstrated to us during Covid - I’ve lived 21 years in a socially deprived area of Manchester and having travelled over and back across the Irish Sea for many years in that time, I’ve observed how my native Ireland is in terminal decline and it extends way beyond just health services - I’d lived in Dublin for 3 years before I’d moved to the U.K. and heartbreakingly, all the areas of Dublin that I used to know are a shadow of their former selves, as is the Irish village in Rural Ireland where I grew up in the 1970’s and 1980’s - as an Irish patriot myself, it’s beyond sickening and heartbreaking to see this happening to my beloved homeland where I still have extended family and friends, even if they are indoctrinated and brainwashed - the most tragic aspect of this is that not even emigration is an option for young Irish people anymore since Covid, where young Irish people already face a very bleak future and even more so with the actual Irish babies of today, if they manage to reach their teens and if they reach childbearing age to have children of their own - Covid has cost us almost an entire generation of young Irish people so I’d rather take my chances here in the U.K. 

Poor lifestyle choices also affect our country.

Who influenced us to make those poor choices? The United States.

Lol that's terrible. You're in hospital and you have to clean your own room yourself??? Good idea though, better that than end up with an infection. When I've been to hospital I see a lot of people sitting on the floor and I'm just like what are they thinking!? The floor is by far the most infectious place to touch and so many people don't wash their hands.

I've had no problems with them but that's just my own experience. I think it's a bit of a lottery, some people are helped but some aren't. I read in the news about the ambulance wait times, that needs to be improved upon. In this day and age people shouldn't be having to wait hours for an ambulance. 

The clowns in charge have really railed this country with their spending cuts, and public services we all use like the NHS, transport infrastructure and many others (dental services, care homes, the BBC) were slowly but surely eroded to the point where they ceased functioning effectively. Whereas rents, utilities, food - everything else has inflated considerably except people's incomes. When I was at school I was told to work hard so I could get a good job when I leave. I worked hard, came out with great grades and found there was no job...

It's the 21st century... Our country should be better than this.

To be fair it's always been a game of chance with any medical procedure as to whether the doctor and circumstances etc. are going to work well,for you, but the odds do seem to have shifted adversely and steadily since the eighties.

On my last visit to a hospital my bedspace was so filthy that I acquired cleaning materials and did it myself properly before my procedure, in the hope of improving my odds of not catching someone else's infection from what might have been dried bloody sputum on my bedside locker thing...    

People die mainly in hospital in this country, so they are places to avoid as much as possible.

during a life threatening emergency the nhs wont save you in time or good enough.... life threatening you need to go private. im actually terrified of needing the nhs now because i know how incompetent they are and even a basic thing that shouldnt kill you, like a hernia... on the nhs it will most likely kill you...

cornwall is probably the best of england.
used to go on holiday to newquay with parents as a kid. its just so much better and feels a different country there. less depressing.... has that holiday feel, different buildings i feel too, either material or build style it feels different in buildings. ofcourse it probably will get ruined by over development. 

It's not the best country in the world but it isn't the worst either. We have the NHS, which has its problems but during a life threatening emergency we can use it without having to pay at the time.

The biggest problem this country has is the clowns running it! 

They should have known better. It was no secret what kind of person Johnson was and most people were well aware that the country had gotten worse during the last several years. Somehow those people thought the way to improve their lives was to give more and more power to the party in government during that time. 

If someone's terrible decisions have a large negative impact on hundreds of millions, it's absolutely fair to blame them. Even more when they refuse to admit any fault. 

I used to love all the soaps in the 80’s, usually for all the hunks (Lorenzo Lamas of Falcon Crest) - and Baywatch (David Charvet) 

I think that, my concious use of the word "daft" and fact that I blame no one in my comment, I feel content to stick with my proposition = the inability or unwillingness of many to "see" past the (false) promise of a simple, easy life....has a lot to answer for too....in addition to (shall we say) dodgy leaderships and dubious checks and balances.

Can’t really blame people though. They don’t know any better. I never voted for Tory but I guess people who did though it was for the best.