Week in the UK. Good or bad

Those were rather harsh weeks. The previous one I suddenly came down with COVID-19 and couldn't write anything. This week was full of whipping up hysteria concerning future local election and King Charles' Coronation. All in all... On Sunday , residents of Scotland and north England witnessed rare Aurora Borealis and all Britons tested new emergency alert system on mobile phones.  On Monday , the Euronews calculated that more than 4000 people have died while homeless in the last four years in the UK, Britain's international development minister stated that the evacuation of British citizens apparently had failed, MPs debated the consequences of Brexit for the first time since Britain left the European Union, and Labour warned that the UK will be hit with the fastest and harshest price rises in the G7. On Tuesday , the Bank England economist told everyone that British households and businesses “need to accept” they are poorer, government strengthened plans to tackle sewag...

 On Saturday, Conservative party accused of undermining the BBC by flooding it with cronies after chair’s resignation. Sunak under pressure to stop choosing Tories for BBC jobs after Sharp row . "To a Tory, the idea of being trusted with any kind of power or responsibility and then not abusing it for your own personal gain just doesn't make sense. Whats the point in being able to appoint the chair of the BBC if you can't basically auction the appointment off to the highest bidder?" "No one with any political affiliation should have this job. I accept that is a tall order, but that's sort of meant too be the point of the BBC." "Over 150 years ago, Britain discovered that merit based appointment is superior to cronyism. Incidentally, this was learned from observing the Chinese civil service who had been doing it for centuries. You'd think it'd be the expected norm by now." Yet, we were happy to know that in Sudan NHS doctors wer...

 On Friday, it occurred that despite numerous reports about preparations to the Coronation, British support for the monarchy is at an all time low, according to the pre-Coronation poll .  Redditors were merciless. "That's probably because they're a pointless throwback to when people were physiologically conditioned to believe the paedos were a benefit instead of the blight they actually are." "I used to respect the queen, just about, until I found out about her covering up for that nonce Andrew. Now I hope she burns in hell." "The media puff pieces on Charles have been incredible lately. No doubt the palace spends a LOT on PR." "I always thought I was a monarchist but really I just respected Liz. It should have died with her." "We're being told to stop moaning about being poorer, at the same time we're supposed to cheer and wave at billionaires in gold carriages..." Not only the RF have been losing their popularity. ...

There was rather controversial  the MSN headline, on Thursday, "NHS doctors denied seats on British evacuation planes left stranded in Sudan ."    It infuriated by it's message at first and then it's clickbaitness. Because it turned out to be an ill-use of the Independent news based on the Sky news piece which ran that  "it confirmed to The Independent that only British Nationals and their immediate family members with existing eligibility to enter the UK were being evacuated.This does not include NHS doctors who are non-British and visa holders, the British Medical Association (BMA) said." It raised a discussion in the Web. "I don't think there's any country on earth in this situation that would prioritise foreign nationals with work visas, over genuine British citizens, when it comes to evacuation priority." "Should we leave British citizens behind, in favour of non citizen medical professionals?" "I wonder if there w...

On Wednesday, the Guardian brought forth a revelation that the UK government has been helping to fund the work of a virulently homophobic religious organisation in Uganda, whose leaders have backed a proposed law that would make identifying as gay a criminal offence. Redditors ironically reacted on this news: "I can’t be certain, but I’d guess it’s very hard to give aid to anyone in Uganda that doesn’t have some level of homophobia / anti-LGBTQ within themselves. That being said, the point of these reports is to find out if the aid is being used to push homophobia/anti-LGBTQ. That kind of funding should be stopped."   "I'm sure there must be alternative charities that aren't also hate groups." "A quick google search reveals multiple charities operating in Uganda that don't appear to be overtly religious in their output so it can't be that impossible. I appreciate it may be difficult to totally separate them out when an issue is endemi...

 On Tuesday, the Bank England economist told everyone that British households and businesses “need to accept” they are poorer and stop seeking pay increases and pushing prices higher.   I'm not sure, if that was an implicit message for stirring more discontent. Yet, people started pointing fingers. The most liked comment on Reddit runs, "To be more specific, tories made them poorer." Brexit was on the second place to be blamed for. "Britons need to accept that brexit has made them poorer, only then can we start have serious discussions about if it was worth it and what sort of future relationship we want with the EU." "To be specific Tories + UKIP + Brexit Party + Reform UK made them poorer. Don’t let the shits like Richard Tice, Nigel Farage and Aaron Banks off with this."  On Tuesday, we also learned that government strengthened plans to tackle sewage after Labour pressure . Targets to eliminate sewage dumping in England’s rivers by 2050 will ...

On Monday, the Euronews calculated that more than 4000 people have died while homeless in the last four years in the UK, according to new figures, which means a death every 6.5 hours in 2022 .   Some readers blamed Tory for that. "For the Tories that a homeless death every 6.5 hours isn’t quick enough." "Councils have a duty to house them." Others started calculating, too. "There is something not right with these numbers. According to Shelter, there are 271,000 homeless people in the UK. A death every 6.5 hours is 1349 homeless deaths per year, or 5 out of every thousand homeless people per year. There were 667,479 deaths registered in the UK in 2021 with a population of 67 million. That's ten out of every thousand people in the UK die every year. The homeless have half the death rate of the general population; it's hard to see this as a "crisis". "I'm guessing you'll find that the average life expectancy of homeless peop...

On Sunday, the Met Office's Space Weather arm promised a rare show of the Northern Lights to residents of Scotland and Northern England on the Sunday and Monday nights. Some lucky guys shared their photos on Twitter. Thanks a lot for that.  And north-east Cornwall Yet, some users wondered if "m ore climate change? Watch out everyone." Also on Sunday, new emergency alert system was tested on mobile phones .  But there were some issues delivering a signal if your phone didn't support 4G/5G.  " Looks like a failure of the system somewhere if some networks didn't get it at all. Probably means we get another test at some point though." Redditors had noted that British media announced that as if it were kind of an event. Meanwhile, many developing countries already have similar system. " It’s hilarious reading about how bothered people are about this. Most developed countries have this warning system. Whenever I come back to this island to visit it’s l...

It was a day of celebrating Easter, Royal news, bad forecasts, and police arresting dolls, this Sunday. But debate about a female anatomical detail between Tory and Labour has become the most vital, judging by the web users response. On Sunday , the United Kingdom celebrated Easter and looked forward to King Charles' Coronation; and Suella Braverman scolded the police officers for arrested dolls on charges of racism. On Monday , election race continued, and we've learned more about about leader of British opposition and l eader of the Labour Party since 2020 Keir Starmer; ex-Cabinet minister David Davis said that turnout at next month's local elections risks being reduced by the introduction of mandatory voter ID; meanwhile, the Times reported that more than 1,000 migrants cross Channel in seven days. On Tuesday , junior doctors started their 4-day strike; Rishi Sunak greeted the US president Joe Biden who arrived to Belfast to mark the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday a...

On Saturday, the Guardian correspondent tried to find out why children in the UK don't play out anymore.   It could be related to video games, or smartphones with messengers. But the things turned to be around the police warnings and neighbours' threats.  According to comments, I wasn't alone in my misunderstanding. ""Back in my day we used to play out all day and all we had to do was make sure we were back by tea time. Shame how today's kids just sit at home on their video games and their instatoktube accounts." "Ugghh kids playing and being happy is so annoying, make it go away." There really are some utterly stupid and pathetic people about." Some allege that "the article covers a spread of people from parents who are level headed with kids who are considerate of others and who should be able to play all day in peace, to those that may feel like the world revolves around them." The problem of many anti-child biased people...

On Friday, the UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced that '100% Women Don't Have Penises ' as a response to  Labour Party chief and Leader of Opposition in the British parliament Sir Keir Stramer's recent statement claiming "99.9 per cent of women of course do not have penises." But he quickly admitted that when it came to these issues of protecting women's rights, women's spaces, he thought the issue of biological sex has been fundamentally important when we thought about those questions. British redditors saw pre-election PR in this pseudo funny question. "To think this is what a pm is being asked in 2023 compared to all the countries and world problems." "Making people terrified of and angry at trans people is the easier way to gain votes for the next election, hence the conservative focus on it. Talking about housing, the NHS and the economy won’t work, and immigration isn’t going to work unless results are seen, so trying ...

Thursday occurred to be a day of the corruption news. The I Newspaper issued the list of  Despite publications in mainstream media, it was quite a challenge to post a link to this news on British subreddit. It was removed because 'the domain is on a blacklist', 'for containing bad characters in the title' (the Guardian, btw), 'a paywall or requiring a sign up to view'. Those obstacles were overcome. Yet, they witnessed of great unwillingness some acute issues be made public in the Web. All in all, people blame government in that, not medical staff. "The data used to conclude these findings were collated prior to strike action. Lives are being put at risk by the government, not striking professionals." "At this point, I'm thinking, what will happen to the NHS and the ordinary people of the UK. It's clear that politicians can afford private care. I don't want the UK to become like America where there are people who don't have a...

On Wednesday, The UK mass media paid particular attention to a high rate o f suicide and self-harm cases in nurses and midwives in last decade .    That no surprise, "low staff levels, low pay for their skill level, long hours (with unpaid overtime), working in life of death conditions daily, no mental health support in the UK generally...Am I missing anything? The causes are obvious. We are just refusing to put solutions in place because they require time and effort." "This is sad to hear - Government please focus on one of the most important jobs in the economy and provide what they need. The fact that I heard people are on less than £25k with 20yrs experience is ridiculous." Also on Wednesday, a spokesperson for the country's National Security Council Amanda Sloat made Britons happy stating that Joe Biden 'is not anti-British.' British redditors reacted with sarcasm and annoyance at this statement. "Joe Biden barely knows who he is and where...