I've been to former Soviet bloc countries - not the ones gentrifying themselves - and I don't believe her tbh. Some absolutely horrifying sights, worse than anything I've ever seen here. And I've been to Bristol.
If you have a good one use it, l elevated from school across to the pub opposite my mam said, the Princess of Wales is still my local albeit is in Maybury in Woking which is now 90 miles away. My mates down there still drink in there and has little changed over the years and l love visiting. What we have lost here and Woking are clubs, sadly Woking WMC has gone were John ie Weller was club secretary and the Jam made the first impact, along with a lad named Rick Parfitt with two girl singers. Just as sad for me is the Bleak Pub, best known from HG Wells book War of the world as it's been remaned Sands night club a reference to the sand pits from the book.
I see someone's been charged with assaulting Hatt Mancock on the tube. Not a road we need to go down.
One of my best mates is Polish. He often talks about what life was like under Communism. He's lived in this country for at least 15yrs and due to work (we do the same thing) he's travelled extensively in this country as well as travelling around his adoptive homeland just to get to know it- including to the north-east. He's never made any comparison of that sort. I've worked with quite a few people from former Communist countries over the years and never heard any of them say such a thing. The other thing, of course, is that poverty isn't limited to the north-east. There are extremely deprived areas dotted all over the country. This sounds like bollocks to me.
It's a good story for the 'woe is us' self flaggelators who never go to these places - and if they did, it would be five star luxury they go to - to tell themselves though. 'never seen poverty and deprivation like it'. Try the other 90% of the rest of the world.
I first started travelling to former Warsaw Pact countries in the mid 2000s, so they'd had at least 15yrs of improvement since the fall of Communism, and it was quite clear that there were still levels of poverty well below the UK. Most of the countries that I've been back to more recently are clearly more prosperous than when I first went. Even so, it doesn't take anything more than a quick look on Google Street View to see that levels of public investment in places like Russia, away from the big city centres, still falls well below that of the UK and the rest of Western Europe. I have an inkling the story is an urban myth. It's part of the so called culture war that is whipped up on social media platforms to pit those that see themselves as being on the 'left' against anyone who questions such statements. Unfortunately, those that buy in to this 'culture war' don't seem to see that the division it causes is only preventing the obvious social problems we have in the UK today from being resolved.
Surely people are entitled to mention that we have thousands of food banks, people unable to heat their homes or cook, cities with hundreds sleeping in the streets, etc. Making out ordinary concerned people are involved in some kind of war is just daft imo.
Or indeed withdraw their Labour. Ordinary people work and pay taxes that are supposed to be for public services not to line the pockets of a network of old Etonian/Oxbridge "benefit scroungers" that masquerade as servants of the public, paid for by the public.
I think there's a determination from one crackpot fringe in particular to drag everyone into it which is beginning to backfire. It's perfectly reasonable to be concerned about those things but does it have to spill over into every facet of our existence? For example, watching a particular TV programme or enjoying a particular musical artist's work is now a political statement somehow, if you were to believe most of the internet. Everything has become about owning the enemy. Most people just want to live their lives in the best way they can. They don't want to be constantly hectored and lectured to by permanently angry people from either side.
It's becoming increasingly noticeable on social media. 'I dislike this show/music based on this legitimate criticism I have which informs my opinion'. 'you're racist/sexist/right wing/misogynistic/homophobic/transphobic!'
I wouldn't know tbh, just bored people shouting at each other imo. Everything's a conspiracy and the media is biased against them all
People are certainly entitled to express concerns and this is precisely my point. There are social problems in this country but people are too caught up in scoring political points to deal with it. "Its all the Tory's fault" or "it would be worse under Labour" is all pathetic and doesn't actually address what's going. The culture war is a real and observable phenomenon so talking about it isn't daft at all (and it was the OP who used the term 'war' in the first place). Harvard University, amongst others, have published papers on how this 'culture war', which mostly occurs on platforms such as Twitter but can clearly be seen elsewhere, is creating polarisation and deep rifts between different viewpoints and is hampering political progress, despite some of its chief proponents considering themselves to be 'progressives'. Propagating myths about the 'enemy' just prolongs the tit for tat points scoring. You might think that the nonsense people post on Twitter has no bearing on real world politics but it informs people's opinions and some politicians are noting how it is spilling over into political discourse between those in elected positions.
I just criticise whoever is in power when it's deserved imo ... ... the list of problems/scandals/cheating with the current Government is seemingly endless, hence the criticism. Everything from Boris, Cummins through Hancock, Truss and Williamson to the current lot is very unpleasant.
The people who are in government are legitimate targets for public scrutiny as they... 1. Are paid for by the general public's taxes. 2. Are guardians of the "public purse" which is also paid for by the general public's taxes. The media have a public duty to report the governments failings, and in the case of these lot, crimes. The alternative to this is a police state, which the Tories are attempting to establish with the legislation they are attempting to put through Parliament forbidding strikes and protests.
This is absolutely true and there is plenty to criticise the current government for. But criticism has to be based in verifiable fact, not in personal bias, rumour, hearsay, or misrepresentation, or it undermines the credibility of those doing the critiquing.
That's all true mate, I just can't see much wrong with the criticism so far. After twelve years, being generous, there's been no progress ... ... realistically things are much worse and multi-billions simply thrown away. As that great philosopher Rod Stewart just said I really can't think of a time when things were generally this bad. The whole country seems to have a massive black cloud over it.
As I've said, there's nothing wrong with criticism but propaganda and apocryphal stories are damaging.
