Latest Moan From You and Me 2025

It does seem that every time the Tories are kicked out because of their behaviour, Labour has claimed it will clean things up. In reality they look at what the Tories did and get their snouts in the trough with that situation as their start point. In reality, little changes in that regard irrespective of the governing party.

 

@Obelix-Vendée One major difference between the model for the USA and that for the EU is that in many areas of government the individual States of the USA set their own laws and rules. The EU forced a 'one size fits all'. At least it did until it started to have an adverse effect on the likes of Germany and France, at which point many of the 'rules' seemed to be deemed advice by the more powerful countries of the EU.

 

I've never work less than 80 hours most of the time it was anything from 90-130 hours per week, + i've only every had 2 hoildays in my life!!! may be i should have refuss and done less it may have help me now, but when you like a job the job is part of you if you see what i mean

 

I can imagine that retirement must have come as a big shock then!
I am currently winding down, I have just gone down to a 4 day week.

 

What type of work were you doing? Those are ridiculous hours even if you enjoy the job. Farming is about the only work I can think of where those sort of hours come into play at times. It explains why suicide amongst farmers is so high.

 

Self employed people often work long hours but they rarely count them as the job can be their lifestyle.

 

My moan is M&S! Want to buy something for first time since their hacking meltdown. Told I need to change my password. Fair enough. Go through the rigmarole ... then try to use my new password to sign in, but it doesn't work.

Their products are not so wonderful that I am going to jump through all manner of hoops to get my hands on them. Make it easy to place my order ... or do without my custom!

 

Haulage/storage + Farming

 

@pete the point is that the EU spent the taxes it raised from all its members on least favoured areas so massive investment in southern Europe to bring it up to scratch and massive investment in poorer UK areas on projects the UK givt would never have funded. Even now they've all backed out of the northern powerhouse investments which could transform lives oop north.

The Labour party has always lacked ambition for the poor and thinks they need telling what to do rather than giving opportunities and helping them learn and move up and on, so much so that the red wall collapsed and gave the Conservatives a massive majority. They then promptly failed to deliver their promises. Making people feel forgotten and undervalued time and again is what turns them off and into the arms of the likes of Farage and his extremists who, like Trump and co, are out for power and money and not about to spread the love or the wealth.

EU rules do not govern everything and there are still clear differences in culture across the member states but having joint social, environmental goals and standards with an aim to level playing fields is no bad thing.

 

Can anyone tell me what the north is lacking, that is wonderful in the south, I dont travel much these days but I do obviously watch the TV.

There are depressed areas in the south as well as the north I think everyone thinks south is London, even Angela Rayner obviously thinks the south is better, I'm not so sure when I see places up north on the TV.
Down here we get the vision that nothing works up north but I tend to think nothing is farther from the truth.

I'm still waiting for a government that transforms lives in the south rather than just wants to cover the place in concrete.

 

There are poor and depressed areas all over the UK but London and the south east get the lion's share of government investment @pete

In England, about 20 million people live in or north of Derbyshire and the counties to its east and west yet they have less say over how their taxes are spent and invested than the 5.5m in Scotland, 3.2m in Wales and 1.9 in NI and certainly see less return for their taxes than the south east and the same neglect, lack of imagination and investment apply to coastal towns in England.

 

The problem is so called investment is concrete, if people up north want more investment then it will mean more concrete, by investment I assume you mean roads, bridges and the like, expanding cities, villages disappearing, just one massive urban sprawl across the countryside.
Industrial units being built on prime farmland, then all the new houses that come with all the new people that move to the area to work in the units.

If all that is investment you can poke it, because meanwhile all this is happening the people who have lived here for years are still stuck in their two up two down victorian terraced house, with nowhere to park on narrow streets that resemble coronation st. or worse.

And dont mention house prices.

 

Well I have lived in both the south and the north. South being near London and Somerset, north being Northumberland and Scotland
The north suits me much better for a variety of reasons. Much less densely populated and lots of pretty wild and unspoilt ( getting less by the minute!) areas. Few traffic jams and when/ ifthe weather is nice like this super summer we don’t get the same degree of humidity as down south.
The things I most miss about living in the south are normally a good spring. Up here in Scotland we tend to get winter and then summer with a very short period of spring. Nice pubs, it is better than when I first moved up to Scotland but still we don’t have many nice pubs with gardens to sit in. When I first moved to Scotland it was considered that it was only one type of woman who went into a pub on her own and no I don’t mean a nun!
There is virtually no common land altho we do now have the right to roam which is a relatively new innovation.
Yes we tend to get worse winters but we had no snow last winter and no real humdingers since 2010/11. I live in the hills so quite high above sea level on a single track road. In 23 odd years have only been snowed in once and that was drifting c/o The Beast From the East and was only somewhat stuck for 2 days until the farmer down the road cleared it.
I’m sure people are put off moving up north because they think we live in permanent darkness and below freezing for most of the year. I’m quite happy not to correct this and to a certain extent not have such a densely populated country.

 

I'm not sure that anyone in England gets more of a say in how their taxes are spent or what on. It's many years since I lived in the SE of the country ( Herts/Essex/Beds) but I'm sure there are many deprived areas there. Govts make decisions and as they are in London, the assumption is that that area comes first. True in some instances but I don't think all.
In all areas the cities seem to come first. Manchester and it's environs grow by the minute whilst Bristol is the only city which counts in the SWest. Green areas are gradually eaten up as these places spread. Down here, towns are gradually joining together due to the craze for house building ........ not affordable or social housing of course !!
If there are people who believe the North of this island is always dark and cold, they also probably believe that Martians regularly land on flat Earth
Amused to hear that Nigel has now adjusted his promise to stop the boats within 2 weeks of Reform winning the election to within 2 weeks of getting an appropriate law passed. He'd obviously caught the Trump Virus. So easy for any of us to make promises but not so easy to deliver them. That's poitics.

 

I've lived most of my life in the south-west, a small part of my childhood in the midlands. There are plenty of places in the north that seem attractive to me, but I'd never consider living in London or the south-east.

In the south west we definitely miss out on investment, especially for public transport.