poollounger

I think this is a great forum...but.....
Why do so many people on here continue to knock Britain?? Thousands of people are flocking to work there... yes they are not all coming for free handouts. There are problems yes, but Britain has a greater degree of multi culturalism than any other European city so this is to be expected. A country doesn't gain the wealth of a colonial past without having to reciprocate in years to come.
Live in Spain, France, the USA or anywhere else you choose to head...because you want the sun, the landscape, the culture, but please don't bore the people you meet by telling them how awful Britain is...it reflects on your own inability to live here, and not necessarily on the true state of the country.

sandrainaus

What a great post, I totally agree with you, Do not venture into the Australia forum they are mostly all british anti Britain.

JakeG

Hi Poollounger

I know exactly what you are saying however....

....people often don't give good reason why we like or don't like something (human nature) coupled with the fact that when you have gone through the hassle and cost of moving to a different country knocking your home country is a way of justifying the move, cutting emotional ties and giving yourself a boost all in one - (it's not right, it's just human nature). Surely you have heard the same from people moving from one job to another or changing almost anything else in their lives (from girl/boyfriend/wife/husband to a new tv). It doubles the positive effect for you to not only believe that the new thing is a 'good thing' but the old thing was 'bad thing'. People confirm the belief by repeating it to others just like everything else in life.

I know GB has plently of positives and just as many negatives as anywhere else but unless i am feeling particulary sanguine and at one with life the universe and everything I'll probably be doing exactly the same most of the time........sorry in advance

The other thing of course is that you are not going to want to remind yourself (or sound as if you are putting down your new country) by talking about the things that are better in GB than your new country. I for one when I get to NZ will unlikely be telling anyone (remionding myself) about how much better the huge range of choice is in GB in almost everything from broadband to cooking pots and wages to groceries at better prices and more often than not better quality than NZ. I will however probably be mentioning (if brought up in a conversation about why I left ...one that I probably wouldn't start.....that I am sick of living in a country that is crowded, jaded and mainly full of people given up caring about anything other than themselves and where I can only afford to buy a tiny box to live in.

Mr Impish

A good subject but I totally disagree with the poster.
The areas of England that I have been involved in have become increasingly worse places to live.
Rapidly increasing crime not only the quantity but the violent nature of it.
Complete lack of respect for any authority starting at home and continuing throughout society.
Most (no all) the immigrants don’t want to learn English or embrace English culture. Yes that happens in Spain but I don’t agree with that either.
We were taxed out of existence.
I don’t think British people are bored by hearing how bad life is. What they don’t like is being reminded how bad life has become and how its only going to get worse, much worse.. Most will never make the step and move abroad but the very fact that 100’s of thousands of Brits are leaving or would like to leave should tell you something. Have you maybe considered we aren’t just knocking Britain for the sake of it? Maybe it’s nearer to the truth than you like to hear! Maybe you have lowered your standards so far that you are willing to accept the way it is. I wasn’t so I moved to a part of the world where things like respect are not something of the past. Its alive and well and living in rural Spain and I love it.
Nice subject matter tho!

Hillybilly

I don't agree with that. I'm not somebody who "knocks" Britain on forums but I moved to Spain, not because of an inability to live in the UK (I could be living there still in a nice house, with good, enjoyable, very well paid, self-employed work etc etc) but because I freely chose to move, after a great deal of research and planning and having carefully weighed up all the pros and cons. I was 38 when I moved here, so still potentially had a long professional career ahead of me in the UK and it was not an easy decision to take.

Britain, v generally speaking, is not as "Great" as it once was IMHO - you only have to read the recent news - near bottom in developed countries league tables for quality of life for kids, a gun/knife culture approaching that of the USA, crime levels/threats which, whether actual/reported/perceived are very real on a daily basis and a high cost of living.

All of those factors entered into my decision to leave the country of my birth. Spain isn't perfect either! But it would take something very major to happen for me ever to consider returning. IMHO (!) I am a model law-abiding citizen: not a yob, not claiming benefits, pay high taxes and VAT, am never ill, have no kids, work hard, play hard and generally contribute to society and so have been Britain's loss and Spain's gain! There is no point in continually knocking the UK though - I have made my decision, am happy with it and to do so would be a waste of energy much better dedicated to getting on with life in my new adopted home country!

Nomore

Yes i agree with you there, all Poms...so anti-English
Except for me

I think they knock UK to prove they have made the right move, when infact they probably havn't. Not everyone is honest. I used to knock it when i lived there. How i under estimated it. I will go back and appreciate it for the better now. Thankyou OZ.

Rixxy

I guess the answer is we wouldnt have felt the need to move if things were so wonderful and rosy in the UK.

Horses for courses - ok for some not alright for others.

We didnt stay there and moan, we get out of it and are happy we did. By the same token others followed but couldnt settle and went back to UK.

Freedom choice and democracy is wonderful isnt it!

pjj

hi there i do love my country but it aint getting any easier to live in ! you say thousands of people of people are flocking to uk more like hundeds of thousands! you be surprised how many are getting handouts i done a finance deal last week to a polish guy the other day he was in full time work self employed he was renting from a private land lord and we had to check with him it was all above board that he lived there turns out that the beneifits office was paying half to his rent unbeliveable cor which some one would pay half towards my morgage ! i think alot of brits knock our country because it aint beening run properly ie the goverment are looking to tax you on the more miles you do in your car TAX TAX TAX ! ive just opened the paper today 15 year old boy shot dead is this what our countrys coming to !

pjj

FARE PLAY TO YOU I SECOND THAT !

mikelincs

I don't really knock Britain, but, having just returned from a few days there, we were really glad to be back home (and I mean here in Spain), all the news both in national, local and TV seemed 'doom and gloom' but I'm sure the weather plays a part, not that easy to be upbeat when the weather is atrocious, and as always happens, after a day of, well publicised in advance, snow, everywhere was closed, schools, much transport. The locla papers did have a letter comparing the snow of 82 to 20007

leighbloke

?????? Are toll roads not a way of taxing for the miles you do??? and Spain has far more of them than the UK.
Don't worry when Spain has an infrastructure on a par with the UK, it too will be looking at more modern methods of charging for the use of roads.


Regarding the original post, totally agree. I find it remarkable that so many people who have gained the wherewithal in the UK to allow to them to then go to another country and translate these skills or "nestegg" into another more comfortable life.

The best theory I have come up with is guilt - I think emigration is a selfish act (and there is nothing wrong with that) and the badmouthing is a form of justification for the selfishness???

mikelincs

I don't really knock Britain, but, having just returned from a few days there, we were really glad to be back home (and I mean here in Spain), all the news both in national, local and TV seemed 'doom and gloom' but I'm sure the weather plays a part, not that easy to be upbeat when the weather is atrocious, and as always happens, after a day of, well publicised in advance, snow, everywhere was closed, schools, much transport. The locla papers did have a letter comparing the snow of 82 to 2007, in '82 there were 7ft snow drifts and roads all over blocked, 20 schools closed, in 2007 there was, at most in the area 4 inches of snow, 65 schools closed. Are people that scared of the weather, or scared of children having to go to school in bad weather that they close the schools because that is the easiest option? The level of racial and other tension seems even higher than it was when we left, and people are getting scared to go out in the streets in some areas. No wonder so many people are leaving, but that only seems to increase the level of immigrants of all races living in an area, they now have one local council putting up road signs in Polish as well due to the number of Polish living in the area.

poollounger

Some interesting responses.
I don't believe that a change of partner necessarily means a better one as the first poster implies. It only means different, unless of course the partner one is replacing was a psychopath, violent, etc etc. We go through periods in our life when one person suits us better than others, and if we are fortunate we change together as we go along...if not we swap, and so it is with towns and countries.
Yes there seems to be more crime in urban Britain, but is this because it is more openly reported ?? Look at copies of the Times from a hundred years ago and there are as many reports of murders etc, in parts of London that were virtually no go...these are parts which now represent some of the most affluent sections of the capital...Docklands, Bayswater Road, Chelsea to name but a few.
I appreciate that some of the disgruntlement is a coping mechanism. If you are unable to make a go of it in your own country and you have to go abroad then it helps to focus on the negative aspects of the country you left. Why can't people just acknowledge that there were aspects of life in Britain that changed from the way they knew it, as happens the world over, and they just wanted something different ?
I suppose that I am just anti-moaners....I hate the Aussies and others in Britain who come here then moan about the Brits, the Brits abroad who moan about Britain.
As to why Britain has changed seemingly more so than other European countries...interesting one. I think it was personified by the recent Shilpa/Jade row on Channel 4's Big Brother. Shilpa still suffered from the colonial hangover that everyone in Britain is akin to those who ran and lived in India in the days of the Raj. She was probably unaware of the difficult upbringing faced by her antagonists in parts of South London...many people still have an idealised view of Britain or hark back to the life they knew, unaware that the whole world is changing.
One of the persons involved in the project that the press lifted the ' British teenagers are the worse off in Europe' headlines from is a friend of mine.
The comparison was with the wealthier European countries, continental Europe excluding the Eastern European countries. Scandinavia, the Netherlands, even France and Germany.
Ultimately we create the society we live in.....Spain may be like Britain twenty years ago, but in time it may catch up....unless of course the Spanish and those who inhabit the country develop differently. And don't forget the repression and difficult times of Spain under Franco....there weren't flocks of expats rushing to live in Spain through those years...
Please..enjoy your life in Spain, affluent or on a budget, illegal or legal, with elctricity or without electricity, but don't keep moaning about the country you left behind. It won't change a thing apart from yourself...negativity turns inward and destroys the person from whom it emanates.

helenp

I think a lot of it is where you live well personally speaking anyway, I live in a semi rural village where I feel reasonably safe to walk around in the day surrounded by British countryside which is beautiful. However I lived in Town for 14 years and I was more anti Britain then main gripes were seeing junkies on every corner feeling threatened just walking to the shop with my children. It was when my children got to school age that we decided to move somewhere safer i.e where they won't find syringes on the floor.
I think Britain has got many problems as has any Country, Spain is not perfect i.e drug problems and shootings etc around some coastal areas, as for political issues well wherever you move that will be the case I think somebady on this forum said 'Same sh*** just different bucket'.
We are not moving because we hate Britain just for a change Britian has given us financial means to do what we want in Spain so I can't knock it.

Helen

Rixxy

Of course not. Whilst some of us are genuinely searching for a better life for ourselves and our kids - which is not selfich in my eyes - we wouldnt go to a place full of violence and anger.

Which is why it beats me so many immigrants want to go to the UK! Although many come from a worse history of violence and anger.

They too are looking for abetter way of life and the ease of getting benefits in the UK is well documented.

To come to Spain one really has to work hard and integrate.

It upsepts me to see how the UK has fallen over the years - I was born there and stayed for 28 years before coming here.

Spain isnt perfect, no place is and at the end of the day life is what you make of it