Great video, nice historical context given (although you meant George IV not George I) and I take your point about our tendency to just leave things behind - but equally just LOOK at the people on holiday in Benedorm and Magaluf. Just LOOK at the people interviewed in our shitty seaside towns. People with no teeth and tattoos all over their face, unironically referring to the fact that the locals are lost to drink and drugs, while gesturing with a friggin beer can. Again, another pair sat in a doorway in the middle of the day with the left hand one looking off to his right while taking a swig. For what it's worth, I do agree the government has been disgraceful in its neglect and allowance of the wealth gap to widen - but for fuck's sake we're all doomed if we just wanna blame the government for everything. To sit there having done so much coke and amphetamines your gnashing your own face off, nihilistically turning a demented ink gun on yourself and spending the whole day slurping cheap canned cider and barleywine direct from the tin and in the street? Where's the quality? Where's the altruism? Where's the clubbing together?Where's the motivation? Where's the innovation?? Where's the self help? Where's the sacrifice? Where, above all, is the PRIDE?? The reason the post war years were successful is was people a) were glad to be alive b) were grateful for the little they had c) had a sense of community d) were willing to work hard and earn any improvement in their lot - not expect it be to be given and e) to scrimp and save towards lasting, worthwhile goals - like a house - and not piss it all away on Sky subscriptions, package holidays, credit card interest, car finance payments, takeaway food (doesn't anyone know how to cook any more??), throwaway fashion (damaging the environment and enslaving more and more Bangladeshi child workers), endless electronic gadgets - games, phones, gimmicks as well as TVs and computers - it's not the government driving people into poverty - it's themselves. Further still, god forbid in this day and age of "personal choice" and freedom, that we should ever have to do anything we don't want to.....with what's going on in Ukraine, even though I don't have the SLIGHTEST fear it will inveigle us here in the UK (Putin is weakling and a coward and WHOLLY incapable of doing shit to anyone - with the greatest of sympathy and respect to the Ukrainian heroes notwithstanding) - there WILL come a time when our national borders ARE seriously threatened (even if it won't be by clapped out, alcoholic queer bashing Russians and their hilariously bitter, spiteful, crapulous, embarrassing, small dicked leader). Who's gonna defend us? The army? The government? Gaaahhhh the programs I've seen where the interviewer asks "what would you do for your country if we got attacked" which has almost uniformly been met with a blithely nonchalant dismissal - with a sort of nervous laugh, a wave of the hand, a sucking of the teeth and an attitude - as if to say not just "I dunno - but I ain't gonna do nuffink" - but also "I don't care". We have become SO SPOILED AND ENTITLED AND SELFISH, well, we get the results we saw in your video. I refute the "Victorian" comparison - during the 19th century people expected NOTHING and we're prepared to do ANYTHING. Now they expect everything without doing anything for it. Yes, there must be government led initiatives - but there must be people to man them who aren't so far gone down the rabbit hole because they've given in to escapism and resignation to their Fate. I personally support the reintroduction of National Service - I think it would instill a sense of duty (to comrades, if not to country), a sense of purpose, a sense of community/cameraderie, a sense of deprivation/economy/stewardship, a sense of achievement, a sense of having a goal, a sense of reward earned - in short, a sense of pride. What's happening in Ukraine is not some distant war - it serves as a very timely and salient reminder of what the world is really like and that just because the chavs now go to Spain for their holidays and we had a mini plague, doesn't mean the country north of the Watford gap should automatically fall apart
Love your style of videos and humor! Been watching you on off for a while but recently your videos been so interesting ! Thankyou for keeping me entertained gained a new sub
No mention of Brexit which many people in these towns voted for & how come if they're so poor they always have money for tattoos? To be fair to these places they are still used as holiday destinations, I've never been to Blackpool but Skegness & Cleethorpes get quite busy in the summer
I have a friend from Japan who is a massive Blackpool FC fan. His entire room is decorated in god-only-knows how many thousands worth of tangerine memorabilia imported from the UK. He knows it's a dirtpoor place and says that's why he loves it. It is a true authentic piece of Britain. While everyone plastically supports teams in the Premier League, he wears his tangerine and white scarf like a right proper geezer in his boozer in Musashino and cheers them on from League One. Legend.
Plastically supports teams in the premier league? What am I suppose to do as a Manc. When both teams are in the premier league. Do I just support a team in a different city. Same can be said for Liverpool having two premier league teams. Also, I feel like it’s wrong to take pleasure in liking BFC because the area is poor. It’s a little crass to me. Why not try help fix the issue rather than importing useless football merchandise.
@@AdamOBrien29Welp at least I don’t spend my time insulting people online from my basement. If you ever need a friend and you’re in Manchester I’ll still be nice to you, perhaps you can learn some social skills. Have a top weekend rkid. 😊
The trouble is, i dont see how they can ever come back. When round trip tickets to spain cost £50 and everything there will be cheaper anyway, why would you ever go to these towns?
Maybe you can promote local culture, attract hipsters to gentrify the place and pull in the middle classes with them. Promote music, the arts, remote workers and build up local services. Maybe start out with a music festival or two. Alternatively you could try to attract business or inject a lot of money, like they did in the old rustbelt cities. I think small projects to create a new cultural scene could be a good way to go. edit: although according to the video (22:00) the opposite is happening.
In the 70ies people broke into empty houses and started living there. Why not doing it again? If you join forces ( don't do it alone) you can start living cheaply. In Italy you can buy houses which are empty for years for 1Eur. Same should be done in UK
@@frankfahrenheit9537 'In Italy you can buy houses which are empty for years for 1Eur.' if you can show the means that you can bring these places back to a modern living standard. And you have to show results after 2-3 years as well...
@@frankfahrenheit9537they've done it in Liverpool. You just need a progressive enough local authority and buyers who can afford the caveats of purchase
@@rookieflyer probably holiday homes as well as people pay out the ear for seaside homes as well as the population explosion and limited housing supply which people seem to ignore alot
I used to live in Ayr the old seaside town for Glasgow. As a student I worked in a busy holiday park. I saw the decline of the town centre, and campaigned with local people and papers for the council to do something interesting with the empty lots and shops to regenerate the place. No decisions made, no investment, no interest and no progress. Soon all of the brands left the highstreet only to be replaced with charity shops and phone accessory shops. I left in 2020 for Germany, I came back to see friends in 2023 and I cried seeing the place I'd made home for 8 years completely desolate. Train station beautiful gothic hotel, a victim of foreign portfolio neglect and arson, wrapped in a giant condom was the 1st thing you see on arrival, no taxis outside the "station", 3 atms all broken so we couldn't even get cash. The high street on a friday afternoon that a couple of years ago would have been bustling with people and school kids at that time of day - dead. A couple of newspapers literally tumbleweed-ed across the empty street. My old hairdresser gone, the now vacant debenhams sign hanging at an angle and missing a letter. It was eerie. After seeing my friend, we walked along the beach back to town. It used to be full of dogwalkers, kids in the park and music out of the play area and arcade, this summer day nothing. Just one lone dog walker on the whole green. Only a couple of souls seen on the walk past the bus station, up the high street back to the sorry looking train platform. Even the universities have divested in Ayr. My uni up and left. I'm glad I left when I did, but I'm sad I don't think I'll ever be able to consider it a home again.
Also from South Ayrshire, and stayed in Ayr for a while. A lot of people think funding was put into Prestwick and troon but realistically a lot of money in Prestwick, especially, is private capital. With the exception of money for the open in troon (and that's very recent) SAC really don't give a shit. Also glad I got out of Ayrshire when I did tbh.
Im from a third world country, but I travelled to England two times, got to know many counties. (From all the countries I ever travelled to, England was my favourite) I also went to Scotland and Wales. And I loved it so much. They are so beautiful, and so many people I met were so nice. I really loved my stay. It’s a shame this things are happening but I hope you come out of them.
I am an American who lives in Texas and I see this everywhere here in the USA. Small towns built on one factory or company are dying and have been for twenty years. By everyone living off the internet for shopping and work, most people are separating from their community and when the community dies so does all the small businesses. Great video!
Peter Santenello did a series of videos around Appalachia, and it was kind of grim. In one video, a big shop moved into a tiny town. Every other shop closed, the new big shop wasn't seeing any profits, so it closed too. Now there are zero shops.
Dennis, I believe the problem is somewhat different in Britain, compared to what is happening in parts of the USA. If you care to, please read my lengthy recent post. It is more fundamental and entrenched in the national psyche problem in Britain. I don’t believe America and Americans have quite reached this level….but the British example serves as a warning as to where arrogance and complacency can lead. It is easy to see how America and Americans, albeit that they are not yet, could follow suit if they continue on the same path. I don’t know America well, having been there only a few times, but I didn’t get the impression that the American psyche was one of when things go badly either for the nation or the individual, to immediately reflexly blame someone else. As with everywhere, America has its faults but there still seemed to be a belief or spirit that individuals, and the country as whole, are still the ultimate arbiters of their own destiny and not “everything is someone else’s fault”. Would you agree?
@@derin111I swear I just keep finding ignoramuses like you on this comment section. You've not paid any attention to american politics have you? You've got the most common talking points against Americans swapped round with us lot. You're out of your element.
Well lots of these small communities don't make it very fun to stick around. Other than food prices for small shops are typically higher. There is no investment by the towns into infrastructure. Takes forever to get anywhere cause the driving distances are long and there isn't much to do. I do kinda romanticize small towns but then I visit one and think what terrible places to live. Just how think large cities suck.
Mate you're so right. That whole attidue shift following Thatcher. I'm from Sunderland. People always go "Ah, I've heard it's a shit-hole". I'm always like "Aye. And why do you think that is?". People are willingly blind to the long-term systemic deprivation of areas of the UK that have been totally left out to dry. It's why when people like Rishi Sunak nonchalantly boast of taking money from deprived areas and giving it to "more deserving" places, it's not just him being out of touch. It's an active policy of class war in the UK. Those responsible for the past decades of austerity should be made to tour these places and explain themselves to the public, but they never will.
It is less class war, more the desperate need to radically decentralise the UK so that local tax revenue stays local, and local administration can learn from each other. Class war ideas inevitably devolve into identity politics and the associated stupidities.
You've got a nice riverside and beach in Sunderland, and a day ticket gets you up to Newcastle and all the coast around there. There's worse places to live than there. Shame there's no more airshow though 😢
My dad moved to oz 30yrs ago..he came over to blighty for the first time last summer for a few weeks..we took him to Blackpool..he actually cried and wanted to leave after an hour....
Highly informative 👍🏼Modern history lessons👍🏼I'm a Brit living in Germany for 27 yrs. Didn't visit the UK for 10 yrs from 2012 - 2022 after my Mum died.. I visited home territory nr Weston-super-Mare & was totally shocked to see if he adverse decline into a sad memory of its former happy days. I watch many documentaries now on Britain's decline & realised the situation in the nick of time, I had planned to return to Britain. Fortunately I didn't make that mistake & remained in a very organised society. What the heck actually has happened to the actual British people themselves ❓I the 50 's people had aspirations to improve their lives.... But this looks like people have just given up on themselves. 😢 A very Sad affair caused by capitalism greed & disdain for the normal working class British. What the heck is gonna happen?? How can it all he turned around? Now there's talk of the British 'exit'.... Then Britain will be NO more as the majority of citizens are foriegners😳
Watching from Canada, this is so sad. You have such a legacy of architecture & culture & character (real British culture, not just the cosmopolitan surface-level London glitz) in these smaller cities and towns. And they’re not doomed by car culture/built around highways like smaller cities in North America. Really hoping you get them back before it’s all forgotten…
Those towns were doomed by 14 years of Tory mismanagement, Brexit and the stupidity of supporting an entirely unavoidable war in Ukraine.... turns out that cutting your country off from cheap, available energy sources just to please the Americans wasn't clever... 😂
As someone who did a masters thesis on the decline on the highstreet the effect of online shopping has happened, but it is well overstated. Rich areas use online shopping more than poorer areas, yet you go to a rich area ajd their town centre will be full and vibrant. Go to the poorest areas and it's empty. It's poverty and inequality that is the largest cause, not the internet. The vacany rate on the highstreet tripled after the 2008 recession.
I have been out delivering leaflets in middle class streets and I am sometimes there at the same time as an Amazon delivery driver who leaves a parcel at almost every other house.
@@lemsip207Amazon is a virus,it’s contagious in that people sit on there phone getting fat getting the best deal. So all the companies on there market place are actually in down fall as the cheapest gets your order.. It’s ruined so many mom and pop Businesses yet pays next to nothing in corporate tax’s.
@@danielduggan7126 retail parks have have cause a decline however that is mutiple factors and a lot on the business side as well. Parking is a factor but much smaller than you have said, bus routes and bus times have been halved since 2010, which has had a larger impact.
@@danielduggan7126 Traffic isn’t the problem. Paying £10 for a days carparking on what literally is a 4 billion year old field with some gravel thrown on it, is the problem. I’ve also experienced no stock in high street shops yet can buy what I’m looking for online.
I'm noticing a trend with these types of towns where there's a large homelessness issue and yet somehow also a ton of empty, borderline abandoned houses & apartments. Or large drug issue but also high unemployment rate. If only we had a way to help homeless people get back on their feet and rehabilitate & retrain unemployed folk so they don't fall into drug use.
Maybe some people should help the druggies in these towns to get off them. Even if we can't afford to pay them maybe they can do it on a voluntary basis. It would lift the town. I expect that there are a lot of things that people should do for free in these towns that would help to lift them. Maybe do up the properties on low wages and learn how to do building and then get skilled and start earning a reasonable income. One thing leads to another. Run a business hub where people buy and sell things on ebay in an internet cafe and get good at making a profit on it. Maybe get the local council to hire an entrepreneur to come to the town to set things up so that people can start up small businesses and make a profit to lift the whole area.
@@bobgriffin316you mean someone should go down and fence for them so they make better money for pinching shit? Lol. As a recovering heroin addict, I can tell you from personal experience that substance abuse is incredibly complicated, and personal to every addict. There isn't a magic button, or the one right thing to do. We have to completely change the way we approach drugs, drug abuse, and poverty.
It's very hard for many reasons, much of the time many of these people don't even want to get off of drugs, they don't see a problem with their addiction and will shoot themselves up until they're no longer breathing. California, although not a 1 to 1, is a good example of this with San Francisco where people will just shoot up in public and trip out.
I’m 18 and have been in blackpool all my life, almost every young person i chat to are planning or wanting to leave, it’s only going to get worse because so many locals are parting ways with the town
You nailed exactly what happened to this country. The rich aristocrats want to go back to the Victorian Era where they had everything and everyone else is left with nothing
The weekend wasn't handed to us on a platter - it was fought for tooth and nail by the working-class. In the Battle of George Square on 31 January 1919, thousands of striking workers clashed with police in a bloody confrontation over demands for a 40-hour week.
Sunday is a holiday since way back. Everyone knew God would punish those and those companies who worked on sunday. Some other holy days were also holidays. Thank you Jesus.
@@dragonmartijn What the hell is 'way back'? Everyone knew ?! You seem to have a 'Common Sense' view of history. Here are some facts - 1817: After the Industrial Revolution, activists, and labor union groups advocated for better working conditions. People were working 80 to 100-hour weeks during this time. 1866: The National Labor Union, comprised of skilled and unskilled workers, farmers, and reformers, asked Congress to pass a law mandating the eight-hour workday. While the law wasn’t passed, it increased public support for the change. 1869: President Ulysses S. Grant issued a proclamation to guarantee eight-hour workdays for government employees. Grant's decision encouraged private-sector workers to push for the same rights. 1886: The Illinois Legislature passed a law mandating eight-hour workdays. Many employers refused to cooperate, which led to a massive worker strike in Chicago, where there was a bomb that killed at least 12 people. The aftermath is known as the Haymarket Riot and is now commemorated on May 1 as a public holiday in many countries. 1926: Henry Ford popularized the 40-hour work week after he discovered through his research that working more yielded only a small increase in productivity that lasted a short period of time. Ford announced he would pay each worker $5 per eight-hour day, which was nearly double what the average auto worker was making that time. Manufacturers and companies soon followed Henry Ford’s lead after seeing how this new policy boosted productivity and fostered loyalty and pride among Ford’s employees. 1938: Congress passed the Fair Labor Standards Act, which required employers to pay overtime to all employees who worked more than 44 hours a week. They amended the act two years later to reduce the work week to 40 hours.
@@dragonmartijnpeople used to work on a Sunday and through the festivals. That’s why Scrooge doesn’t give his staff Christmas Day off, it wasn’t expected for the poor (Dickens was highlighting this in the Christmas Carol). If you were a Christian and couldn’t make services you paid tithings. In 1930 only 30% of the UK population attended church. They were the middle and upper classes. The working poor were preparing dinner for them, or driving their carriages, or cleaning their houses, or working their land, or just trying to survive
I grew up and currently live in a seaside town, when i was 17-19 i had my own flat, its now years later and im in a house share with a room that is more expensive then that flat. Shops have closed down and our high street is a shadow of its former self, our shopping centre on the high street is half used and nearly empty, because of all this its become a place where divvies and druggies hang about causing people grief.. everybody are miserable, Its definitely not same town from when i was a teenager. Its brutal. Cheers Jimmie, this one hit close to home.
Which town is it? Coould rents be unnafordable due to the seasonally high rents in summer? Why did you decide to stay, especially given the fact if you live in a house share you could do that in much nicer places for the same cost? I'm renting in Cambridge for 500 a month with bills and the house costs 600k. Previously lived in Hull, so the move was a no-brainer for an educated, professional lad. If you'll be sharing you might as well go where you'll have better jobs/transport links.
@@bangdobrich500 a month in Cambridge? Bills included? How? I'm currently looking are the cheapest possible accommodation in York. I'm at a hostel which costs £9 a night, but I'm not allowed to live here, only 2 weeks max. So how do you go about finding something like that, I don't even mind if I have to share a room with like 20 indians or whatever, or if it's even legal, just as long as its cheap. Rightmove doesn't seem to be much help
@@louiserocks1 I was in a HMO last year so i feel you on that one, they are normally shit places to live and the system just saps everything from you and claim they are helping. Try everything all the time, keep trying landlord and sites everyday, apply for places you cant afford, go to the viewing and talk to them about cheaper properties, thats how i got mine, i went to a viewing for a room that was 500 and i spoke to them about my budget and they offered me this room which was 50 quid less, not the best street but its a roof thats "cheap" lol.
@@mettie1982 Hell No 😂 I got stranded their once and as i was waiting for a train, i saw 6 12 year olds on bikes rob a taxi driver in his car across the street from me.... Nah im good 👍
Also train prices I havn't seen anyone mention this. It's cheaper to fly to Spain than it is to travel by train to these seaside towns so I'm not surprised that there has been a major decline
Trains were built for Britain's industry. They moved 6 times more tonnage in 1920 than they do now with half the population level. as such, rail passenger services were subsidised and comparatively more affordable. Britain makes FA, the rails are mainly used for distributing Gravels and Cement and Steel for construction, and a bit of box car freight.
Air travel is contingent upon limited liability, which was considered a sin and caused a moral outrage in the church upon inception in Europe 400 years ago (Piketty, 2014). Also destroys the planet.
I went to Morecambe (a seaside town) a couple years back for about 15 minutes, and in that short space encountered skeletons in deck chairs, a seven year old girl manning an army surplus store with Bowie knifes and a store selling a statue of a black man labelled ‘jolly n-word’. Never again
Really interesting. I am a welsh man living in south Wales and I proudly work for the NHS on the front line. I see on a daily basis the good, the bad, and the plain forgotten of society. This video resonated strongly with me. Excellent work.
Britain is basically a poor Balkan nation with Singapore attached to it Edit: I have started a war, whoops Edit 2: Okay to clarify what I mean, Britain is like a Balkan country like Romania or smt, and we have Singapore (which is London), even though they are differant, economical they are similar with being London and Singapore major trading hubs and cities of wealth while the rest of the the country being significantly poorer similar to a moderately wealthy Balkan country (I say that as some countries like Kosovo and Bosnia are significantly poorer), as lots of the population live on a budget and in council estate shit like that, this is only a comparison I am not saying England is a exactly like a Balkan country or Singapore is ex a fly like London but there is heavy similarities hat can be compared
I'm sorry but the Balkans have nicer nature, food and actually - culture. Britain feels like the balkans though as all ethnicities don't get along and the same gypsy tricks and mentality has developed here...
The death of the high street is an interesting one. A year ago I left the UK for Canada and there are very few empty shops here. It really surprised me since I moved, people moan here but they have no idea how much better they have it than the uk
Poverty is a lot more present in the UK. Not saying that Australia and Canada don’t have these things, but we have cost of living like the yanks and wages of Eastern Europe. Canada has half of our population and isn’t collapsing on itself but I wonder why the UK is
This video is truly BRILLIANT, an intelligent, insightful and really thought out description of the issue, you really are a credit to this country very refreshing, these points really need to be addressed by all of us.
Brits on holiday in Spain are famous for the exciting practice of "balconing"= jumping from hotel balconies trying to dive directly into swimming pools, missing the pool, and dying.
Also pretending to be able to drink and get out drunken by a local teenager and yet still act more like a child than the teenager😂. Like one famous foreign police officer said… Brits get drunk on beer, we use beer to sober up 😂
In Brighton town did Mad King George A stately pleasure dome decree. Where once the Wellesbourne river ran. (Now in pipes hidden from man) Taking sewage out to sea. Where once the town was safe and clean. Where once they fished the fertile sea. Where once guests stayed in hotels white, Where now the town has turned to shite.
Ah, the Brighton Pavillion I presume. Visited it 55 years ago, at 18 years of age. Greetings from Norway. Edit: Wasn't there a giant disco in Brighton named Rank something? I would go there a lot during my three and a half week summer language school stay 😊😊 More like my kind of hangout.
Lifelong raver here. I've never met anyone who has been to ibiza and not regretted it. Anyone into the underground free party scene in the uk almost gags at the mere mention of the name. Why would you pay money to go somewhere where the drugs of choice are mostly uppers (good luck finding decent LSD or DMT), the clubs are run by violent gangs, the partygoers are crybabies who would either start a fight over the slightest indiscretion or just pass out in a pool of their own vomit before sunrise. And last I checked the psytrance and breakcore is like a ceebeebies interpretation of a human skull being cleft in half with a bit of hyperpop to keep the MDMA addled crowd from killing themselves. And the other music is just... hOuSe? I once joked that you could not pay me to go there. My mates took me up on the offer. I ended up paying them 50 quid to never mention ibiza or glastonbury to me ever again. Money well spent, point made. Can't stand this new generation of "ravers" who only "dance" if they're being filmed for tick tok, and only attend festivals that are sponsored by red bull or some similar bullshit. The underground scene in the UK is filthy AF. What more could you possibly want?
Stood outside my work a couple days ago when a seagull dive bombs a baby it’s pram to take its sausage roll. So savage i was laughing for the next hour 😭
So true. Britain's decline was vastly accelerated during the Thatcher years. Covid was experienced by the entire world but, living in Europe, I don't see the same consequences here of boarded up high streets, dirt and the collapse of local economies. As well as austerity, Brexit has had an effect on Britain that has yet to be fully analysed.
We took our holidays abroad for years. Then came Covid. So still wanting a holiday we booked a couple of night's in a B&B in Tenby. We then moved on & had a couple of day's in Somerset. From there we moved onto Ilfracombe in Devon. Then took a few days driving back up country visiting various places. Finally after a few days in the Cotswolds drove back up to North Derbyshire & home. Best holiday weve had in years. This year we're currently doing the South coast. Portsmouth, Bognor Regis & Brighton. Although I'll be honest here, 3 weeks in Southern Turkey does work out cheaper than one and a half weeks in the UK.
My friend is South African-English. Her great-grandparents moved from Blackpool to South Africa in the 1880s. She went to the UK for the first time last year and visited Blackpool to see where her ancestors came from. She was shocked at what it had become similar to how bad some cities are like in South Africa.
The lie in the idea that you only do what you're good at, especially as an industrial strategy, is that it completely ignores the purpose of investment. Adequate investment in an area can make you good at it, can make you competitive with others who have invested in that area. As a social strategy, investment in one type of social benefit can pay dividends in an ostensibly unconnected area of life, and a nation should be looking at its industries, its expenses and dividends in a more holistic way. The idea that you see a single industry, like British steel for example, as unprofitable, and therefore it should be allowed to die, is ignoring how it supports connected industries, and all the communities that survive around those industries. Neoliberalism sometimes feels like someone is selling off a house of cards, each single card at a time, starting with those in the middle of the bottom layer.
This thinking is why the ENTIRE UK economy is confined to a square mile of land in London. We were good at finance, so we made that the only thing we're good at.
look how britain lead the way with fibre optic technology then jujst pulled the plug and sold it to hitachi. japan implement full fibre decades before the rest of the world and reaped the benefits.
Just after the second world war, Britain was a world leader in manufacturing. We made top quality products and exported worldwide. Our steel industry was massive producing the highest quality steel and exoorting it worldwide. Our engineering was second to none. A cômpany in germany produced a wire less than the thickness of a human hair we sent it back with a hole drilled through it. The tories basically shut it all down and forced us into decline and have continued to do so ever since. Not only that but successive governments have made inroads into removing our civil rights. Their answer to homelessness was to make it illegal to be homeless they effectively brought back the vagrancy laws of the Victorian era. They've removed our rught to freedom to speak, stopped our riggt to protest against them. Is this what our solduers fought and died in two world wars for? A land fit for Heroes?
The tories shut it down because it was running at a massive loss and the country was in massive decline and in the grip of the unions - we didn't even have enought power inthe 70s to put the lights on and were on a 3 day week - we will see very shortly labours answer to all this, it will be the end of this country
Just after the second world war, Britain was bankrupt, and in huge debt to the USA, after having just spent colossal amounts defeating Hitler and his National Socialists (aka Nazis). And, yes, we once had a proud manufacturing industry. But to say, as you do, ‘the Tories basically shut it all down and forced us into decline’ is so ridiculously one-sided it must be straight out of the TUC black-arts playbook. Not many are so consumed with hatred that they put an immensely complex problem of decline down to just one single cause, mentioning nothing else at all as being contributory to this. A more rounded view would be: • The country was in one hell of a state of destruction & neglect when the war ended • And also virtually bankrupt, with no money for modernisation • The industries nationalised by the 1945 Labour Govt. (coal, railways, road transport, civil aviation, electricity, gas and steel) became bywords for waste & inefficiency, as all nationalised industries are. • Trade Union power greatly increased, and by the 1960s literally millions of working days were being lost annually to strikes that could be called at the drop of a hat. • Foreign competition was getting stiffer. They could turn out the same or better product, cheaper than we could. • Our once-mighty shipbuilding industry was a prime example, followed by coal, steel, motorbikes & cars, etc. (British Leyland became notorious for wildcat strikes, poor workmanship & shoddy products, out-dated designs etc) • All this plunged industrial areas into a steady decline. • And those industries went from making profits to huge losses. Basically, by the late 1970s the country was in a spiral of economic decline, and was quite rightly mocked & derided by our European competitors as ‘the poor man of Europe.’
Sorry. Your rose coloured glasses are too simplistic. I'm in Blackpool, born in Milltown Blackburn. Cheap Indian imports killed East Lancs and the Milltowns, long before tories privatisation ffs. Keep your hate boner under control.
Shift work is killing the high street as well. If you work Saturdays and Sundays its not like you can have a stroll down the high street with your family on the weekend
Yes true and this had a big impact on Victoria's moral compass. Victoria revolted against his loose morals and augured in the Victorian Era's obsession with manners, stoicism, christianity, family values, etc.
To be honest, British tourists passed out laying on the floor in random places frying in the sun till 10 in the morning is the standard in any touristic city in the south of Europe.
A joke from my country about British tourists : How to flirt with a foreign woman? Learn to speak English How to with a British? Certainly you don't have to know how to speak English
The seaside towns didn’t die, the councils failed them, the businesses over priced themselves, as people realised it is cheaper to got places like Spain for two weeks than it costs to spend at a uk seaside town holiday camp. So as people started going overseas, the seaside towns started getting less people and businesses, started closing, so unemployment in these areas goes up. This all started from the late 1970’s to early 1980’s. The councils have also failed to invest in the local seaside areas, they could have developed over time, they could have given grants to startup businesses, they could have compulsory purchased the properties and developed them, or offered them to people as long as the developed them and given a low rent in return. The councils could have forced a rent freeze, on these holiday parks, to help bring people back to the area for a holiday. It is not just government that is to blame, but the local councils who have failed the local people. Some councils have realised that investment is needed and have done it just in time, and the areas have picked up over the years. But the holiday parks are still very expensive for what you get, and the cost around the seaside town are in some cases higher than London prices. So these places are relying on those that own caravans and chalets renting them out etc… But when an area becomes over priced, an more expensive than the area they normally live in, people will look to other places.
Great video. Really interesting walk through lots of stuff I knew nothing about as an Aussie. You make me grateful for my comparatively thriving little coastal town.
Last year I and 8 of my family members wanted to book a holiday in Scotland. However it was going to cost us £2900 for 5 days. So we looked around other areas of the UK. Everything was set above £1000. So we opted for a Spanish holiday and it set us back just £660 for 5 days, inc the cheap flights. Simple. People will go to places that are cheaper. People will buy things that is cheaper.
We had better summers at one time. There was less rain, but average temperatures were a little lower in the 60s and 70s. Sunshine was almost guaranteed in July and August rather than getting unexpected heatwaves at anytime from.March to October and then a wash out summer. It was actually warmer in the 1930s than in the post-war period.
The decline into abject poverty started in early 90's Blackpool where the council would pay for homeless families to live in accommodation, many local hotels would convert their rooms to studio flats. Once you fill the once great town with people only on benefits (employment/disability etc) and not aimed at holiday makers, you lose tourism income and a working tax paying population and it goes downhill from there. You also add more drug, alcohol, gambling and many other social issues coming in from around the country to live in Blackpool on benefits. More poverty means less tourist opportunities, less employment for local workers and its a swirling toilet bowl.
Yall can't help but just blame people that neeed social benefits or support fucking christ. It's that kind of made up mind set that allows horrible selfish ass holes to get in power and strip you of your own social care and safety nets. You are being played.
My late mother lived in Torqusy (she wasn't from there) and I used to spend my summers there every year up to her death 😢 Torquay was fun but you could see the economic decline, shop after shop closed, replaced by charity shops and coffee shops. Most of the seaside towns have been given another kick in the balls, Brexit. Now foreign students learning English are not bothering to go to the UK effectively killing the local, summer economy, killing the summer 16 week trade to businesses. This was a political decision, as most of them are, killing their economies slowly and deliberately.
And after the election on 4 July you have populist gobshite Farage back in the spotlight promising a solution to all your ills...surprise surprise he will blame immigrants and foreign workers again, as grifters like him always do. Let's hope the country doesn't fall for it again in 2029 like some did in 2016 (and a hefty amount did in the election on Thursday for Reform!).
I went to Torquay in 2016 and was appalled by the state of businesses and infrastructure. Such a beautiful town, populated by kind, hardworking people. I can only imagine how bad things are now.
@@scrella8043 Why don't you read my comment again and give your head a wobble, I cited Brexit as a massive hit on towns like Torquay, don't ask me, seek out the statistics at the national business index, once a thriving Town (the whole Torbay area) now a hollowed out husk and foreign students (for at least 5 months) contributed to that, go and ask the thousands of families who put them up, down by about 48% and it will only get worse. Don't chime in on things you haven't a Scooby Doo about.
Your content and especially your Humor is amazing. So happy that I’ve found your channel! Looking forward to watching all of your old videos as well as the upcoming ones!
I live in Southport too. It's become such a weird town. Besides the homeless people, there's an angry French guy who always shouts obscenities in French, and an anti-social bald foreigner who walks in a confrontational manner.
As someone who lives in a dying town in Scotland I appreciate the many videos on youtube documenting just how bad things are getting in the UK, there are those who just document what is happening and I've even seen a few that have tried to come up with solutions. My town with a population of around 70,000 doesn't even have its own universal credit building, you need to travel to another town just to claim UC, and its not even as easy as just getting a train or a bus you would need to get 2 buses or a train and a bus. The government doesn't care and the council would rather deprive people of help to save money over lives.
@@MrMmnngghh Close :D I have a relative there and their experience growing up wasn't much better, living in dilapidated moldy houses that should have been condemned decades ago. They have breathing issues now from of living like that.
@@ikthranithul6000 there's three things I know about East Kilbride. 1. Scotland's first "new town", before Livi. 2. Cracking youth football system. Don't know why East Kilbride Juniors have been that good for five decades, just know that they are. 3. The bit you said about mouldy old houses.
@@MrMmnngghh Yeah the reputation they have is pretty grim, but growing up in those conditions tends to make child prodigies such as in brazil. My town was a mining town so you can probably guess what went wrong here.
I find the decline of English High Streets to be a great tragedy, so many great childhood memories are made from weekends spent walking around smaller town high streets
I know this is an issue less of the north and more of south west and south coast, but airbnbs and holiday homes have been seriously detrimental to seaside towns down here. Where I live in Cornwall we have some of the highest house prices and lowest wages not just in the UK but in Europe. Your video briefly showed this with the interview of that women in Newquay. Some of my friends work multiple jobs and house share and can still barely afford rent, let alone buying a property. Holiday homes and second homes have seriously squeezed the market, in St Mawes for example 35% of homes are holiday and second homes.
Wrong George. George III was pretty tight and puritanical. George III son - Prince of Wales / Prince Regent / George IV was the profligate hedonist who built Brighton Pavilion.
It's almost like the 6 minutes on Wikipedia, and a quick go on ChatGPT didn't pay off! Not to mention that the Prince Regent had a whole TV show about himself in the 80s called Blackadder hahaha. RU-vid will eventually drown in this copy paste AI content.
@@Timeticker81 Sorry, I got that figure from a little speedbump thing they installed at the shops near me. Couldn't believe it at the time. I think MOST of that money is getting trousered tbh, it's so large anything will be happening.
I’ve lived 7 years in the UK (originally from Italy) and spent 1.5 years of that time in Great Yarmouth. I remember how puzzled I was at the beginning when I moved there how everyone (literally everyone that talked to me and heard an accent) getting to know how I was Italian asked me what the hell I was doing there. I remember I was like “well my job is much better paid in the uk than it is in Italy so that’s no brainer for me” but it took me very little time to understand what they really meant. I lasted there in GY only 18 months and developed serious enough depression to go back home in Italy. It took me 3 years to give England another try (then moved to other areas like Cambridgeshire, then London etc) which I mostly loved. The one thing I’ll always remember about Great Yarmouth is when during the first months in autumn when I had my best friend visiting me with his partner for the first time and I asked my landlady a typical spot in the area for the weekend to spend some nice time with them and give them a bit of tasting of the area, how she pointed us at Great Yarmouth’s market at Saturday morning to have chippy in the main square. Me and my friends were completely shocked that the funnest thing to do in the area on a Saturday (although it was November) was to visit a rundown place with severely overweight people,most of them on mobility scooters, eating chips non-stop in this little sad grimy square in this horrible foggy windy cold weather with seagulls flying over and squeaking and throwing themselves at fallen chips on the ground. That was like the most cultural experience the landlady suggested us to do in the area (and she wasn’t even being sarcastic). Needles to say no friends have ever visited me again over there
As much as Yarmouth depresses me too, there are some parts that bring me joy. The Hippodrome Circus always puts on good seasonal shows and the Out There Festival brings in a lot of talent from across the globe. The Golden Mile is still good for rides and amusements and the chips do taste great - despite not being the healthiest. The beach is lovely in the summer and is quite good compared to the other ones in Norfolk. It has a weird and fascinating history. Again, like you found out, I definitely wouldn’t advise living there as you get acquainted with the uglier sides of it. It’s better for a short visit, where you stay to the main areas and only venture away from them when you know there’s good things nearby, like theatres and parks and museums. The Arts Council has identified it as an area that needs more funding, so hopefully that brings something to the town soon.
@@dovee1 i was definitely too young to appreciate these things you mention I must admit. I was also working very long hours and my knowledge of the language wasn’t as fluent to grant me many social connections. It’s been over 10 years ago, my experience there these days I imagine would be much positive. I was looking back then at reality through my depressed mood and didn’t have the inner resources to make it there in a mature and self content way
Thanks for the well researched and on topic vids. It feels like people have been left to rot too. I am an Adult Education Silvesmith tutor and it really hurts not be passing on my skills. My teachers were trained in the industry, went through proper apprentiships, it felt a real honour to learn from them. Can you make a vid about the traditional skills we are losing with each passing year of austerity?
I visited Blackpool twice when I was a kid in the 90s and it was great with all the lights and glam not to mention the amusement arcades. Its a detestable sin the government has left it and other towns to decay and rot like this instead of investing. If things where different blackpool could have been the UKs version of Vegas with enough investment, regeneration and care over the decades.
Yes absolutely. Are these sort of people so completely unaware of the nonsense they say? Amazing though, that there is always money available for booze and cigarettes.
@@jamesb312 I think its a bit mean to say its nonsense. The people who tell you not to smoke most are smokers (or doctors). The people who will say not to do drugs are drug addicts. people can know when they are doing things that are unhealthy and can also say that its all going the shite because of something they themselves do.
@@jamesb312 George Orwell wrote in the 1930s how people living in slums will often buy drink and entertainment over necessities when they are destitute. People would rather suffer more and atleast enjoy some parts of life than have the bare necessities and live like a farm animal with nothing to ever look forward to
I live in a seaside town. To me, what is completely obvious is GEOGRAPHY. Literally half your opportunities in life DON'T EXIST because the sea is there. This begins the spiral of decline. Emergent problems that come with deprivation continue it.
Went to Brighton once. They don't even have sand. Just a crappy shingle beach. How that became a tourist hotspot boggles my mind. Britain has great beaches, Brighton isn't one of them.
I grew up in Torquay, was a teenager in the 80's before package holidays became popular with the masses. It was a great place to be aged 16-20, going out with my friends as young people from all over the country went there on holiday and were out to party too. I remember Maggie T saying anyone who was unemployed could move around for work. Guess where they all went? The fun seaside towns. As most people went to Spain, the UK hotels struggled, then decided to rent their rooms to the mobile unemployed, many of whom had no intention of finding a job when they were on one long holiday. Why would they?. Returning to Torquay on and off over the next 30 years, the town has changed from a smart town in the 80's to some areas being awful. We wanted to move back and some of the housing estates were awful, pot holes in the road, cars parked up n the verges making it a mess, rubbish in the gardens, no sense of pride, houses rotting away. Sad to see the town I grew up in decline like that. I also blame the rise of BTL for the decline as some landlords neglect their properties and some tenants have less pride in their homes as they don't own them. BTL and 2nd homes has robbed many people of the chance to buy their own homes.
Being from Torquay I have seen the decline of the town in the last 25 years and it’s heart breaking. Londoners buying second homes, air bnb’s are making affordable accommodation difficult and many of my retired friends have moved out. To remedy this, the council is getting rid of green spaces and countryside land to build “affordable homes” of poor quality , designed by idiots no doubt inspired by Easter European communist architecture from the 60s. New hotels that look like hospitals. Old Victorian building demolished. The loss of character of the town will no doubt put tourists off even more. Shop rents are so high that the high street is now a wasteland. Homeless folk everywhere, fentanyl deaths. I m not sure how this can be reversed.
It’s the same nonsense we get in Scotland as well. Affordable private homes means nothing if you don’t qualify for a mortgage. There is too much greed in power, same rhetoric coming from Labour as well.
Torquay probably being the poster child of seaside town decline. Go to Dawlish or Teignmouth though and they're thriving, independent food shops and cafés and busy with tourists for 6 months of the year. Torquay just got too built up I think, had some great nights out there in the 90's. Still, it's not that bad yet, just needs investment in the town centre which is happening now right?
I mean high streets aren't dying inevitably. High streets in Belgium are thriving and Belgian cities are far more pleasant as such. I lived around the corner from the high street in my city and it's plenty busy. It does come down to solvable factors and isn't straight down to online retail.
Absolutely. "But online retail!" is no different than old people whining they need to use technology more. The complaint isn't the problem, the complainer failing to adapt is. Debenhams didn't fail because online retail killed it. It failed because a fucking _book store_ realized offering try-before-you-buy home delivery for clothing was a good idea before they did. Netflix didn't kill Blockbuster. Blockbuster refused to let people rent and return dvds without jumping through hoops. High streets are dying because the high streets refuse to adapt, innovate or even follow the competition; it's easier to just bitch and then declare bankruptcy
Our electricity has gone up x3 in the last 2 years. That’s going from £200 a month, to 600. Supermarket prices are up 200%. The NHS is full of uninspired poorly paid people. Factories can’t get enough workers to fill there shifts. The poor are now homeless, and the working class are now poor. There are 5000 contributing factors that your statement doesn’t consider. Fuck Sunak, fuck the King and fuck anyone who supports UK government. The people aren’t United anymore.
Was going to say the same, except I'm in the Netherlands. We do love our convenient online shopping, but our high streets and markets are also still bustling in towns and cities. And with summer here the sidewalks are choked with people sitting in front of cafes, watching cyclists barely avoid getting hit by busses and/or trams and it's just a relaxed vibe. There's got to be something more to what's going on in the UK. So many places are in the decline :(
It's the same in the USA, the elites are thriving and everyone else is like a rat on a sinking ship. The holiday was fun packed, The grabbing hands grab all they can All for themselves, after all- Depeche Mode
Thatcher destroyed British industry, basically our only real source of income, and outsourced it to China, then perverted Britain into a service economy, or in other words a nation of shopkeepers selling almost entirely Chinese goods. How anyone on either side of the political spectrum could possibly view Thatcher as some kind of saviour, beggars belief. Seriously, she should have stuck to chemistry, because she was an utterly moronic politician. The only thing we had left, at that point, was tourism, which is a hard sell for a nation of xenophobes, especially when you can get a much cheaper (not to mention sunnier) holiday literally anywhere but Britain. Meanwhile, what little money we have left gets wasted on mindless bureaucracy ... the only thing Britain is still good at. Somebody sprays graffiti on a public toilet, and somehow it costs £300 grand to repair - more than the cost of building an entire 3 bedroom home. This is the real reason that Britain is finished.
If the workers unions system had not been as bad as it was Thatcher would never have come into power. The big strikes in the 70ies were absolutely bad for the economy. Combine this with bad management and arrogance towards the EWG (EU) People really appreciated how she destroyed the unions, but she did not stop there. Privatizations were awful, big big mistake. And then came brexit, the nail in the coffin.
@mecx7322 not really, nations like germany are still massive manufacturing hubs but theyre smart enough to invest in their own industries. Mean while were stupid enough to sell our trains to germany so they can use them to fun their trains.
Brilliant, Thanks Jimmy. Bit of a Mad Max UK style here. This may be depressing but we need to know these things. Also I recently finished a book called Tourists by Lucy Lethbridge, about the origins of British beach towns, among other things and working class travel. I interviewed her on my Anadromist channe l. Have you dealt in depth with the related subject of Stag Parties in Prague? I remember when the cheap air flights started and all of a sudden the yobs were let loose upon Central Europe. It changed the mood of the place completely, especially on the weekends. When I visit Prague now I stay in after midnight on Friday and Saturday, A friend of mine who worked for a while as an 'exotic' dancer told me that she couldn't stand these Brit stag-dos, and also could hardly understand what they were even saying. When Europeans learn English they don't learn Lad. I'd love to get the Jimmy The Giant treatment.
I live in London, currently having a brilliant holiday in st. Leonard’s. I love the place, a bit edgy, rough around the edges, and creative. Creativity only really exists in places where certain conditions exist, and the most important element is affordable housing. The UK needs to value artists and creativity more.
American here and massive Anglophile. Call me a simp but this video makes me tear up. My 2 trips to England among absolute best moments in my life. Your culture gave the world so much. 🇬🇧
It feels like America is having same problems. I did a stretch of ruet 66 and the decay is unbelievable. New Mexico literally looks like fallout. Its breaks my heart to see that 1950s art deco Americana in ruins . That's your guys cultural icons. That's your peak That's your victorian era . It dousnt look like there's much interest in saving any of it.😢
If you're an anglophile, you should look into the history of Cumbria. Back before it was cumbria, it was Lancashire-over-sands. In the 60s it was changed to an adaptation of one of the ancient names of the area (cymru, which is also what the Welsh sometimes call themselves) but cumbria has an extensive history thats older than most of english history, and its very rarely talked about.We have our own "language" called assa marra. Aam reet, just about to head down howe t'shops, marra. Gonna have to lowp ower at least yan yat, but should be able to get around it if I have a deekaboot for shortcuts. I am alright, mate. I am just about to head to the shops, but will have to jump over at least one fence gate to get there. I should be able to find short cuts if I have a look around, though. I'll need new keks tho, lad, since mine 'ave been knackered. Means I'll be ganyam for a change, though. I'll need new pants/trousers since mine are broken, but it means I will have to go home to do so. Might as well get a bit-a-bait while aam at it, eh? Aam starved. I may as well eat since I am hungry. Head down t'pub to get kayeled on some waarm bevvies later on, tho? Just gizzus sec to get ready Let's go get hammered at the local pub. Also, look up the local legend of King dunmail. Fascinating.
It is not only the UK diving into Victorian times again; the whole "West" is. Politically you can choose between neo-liberal centrists, who don't want to change anything (because this system served them good), maybe make it a bit greener (but still neo-capitalist of course), or right-wings who are blaming immigrants and the poor, while eroding the rights of the working class etc. (actually just like the centrists are doing). And people are seemingly to busy looking into their smartphones to recognize what is happening around them. All what was fought for by our ancestors the last 150 years seems to be brushed away in order to make more and faster money ... our world has never been so rich, but our cities never looked so bleak and shit, so lifeless. This system has become so elaborate, that many people accepted it as "natur given". Capitalism has been so deeply incorporated into our societies, that it already affects our social behavior.
The Right wing on immigration is a valid concern. If we as a nation have failing cities like Blackpool, why are we inviting in a city's worth of people in in a year (700,000)? New immigrants are a net financial cost rather than boon if it is open to any and all in the world (it is). GDP per capita has been stagnant for 20 years £40k in 2004 -> £44k in 2024 while inflation means youd need £70k to afford the same goods and services as 20 years ago £40k. the population has increased by 8 million in that time period, and national birth rate has been at 1.7 since 1975. We are a nation facing poverty, we should not be bringing more people in to suffer, more people to house, more strain on our waterways and waste infrastructure. the nation will have mass suffering and a reduction in hand outs, we will likely fall foul of human rights acts for the standards of living in our cities and then have civil unrest.
Seaside towns had lots of empty accommodation, and London boroughs had lots of people with substance abuse and mental health problems. Instead of dealing with the issue, they just saddled towns like Hastings and Clacton with their problem tenants. East Sussex council had to bribe social workers to go to Hastings to address the social problems dumped there. A town with a disproportionate group of heroin users, street drinkers and the chronically ill doesn't exactly function like a magnate for inward investment and wealthy visitors.
Same happened to Blackpool with lots of “problem” families & individuals being moved by Councils across from MCR & East Lancs into the plentiful cheap n empty B&Bs
I had two retail shops in the 1980s/90s. It was then that US style shopping malls began to appear with all the service roads and infrastructure needed for them eating up land. Large retailers like M&S and c&A and others moved straight into them and shoppers followed. The footfall in the high street diminished and small, independent traders couldn’t survive with the lower consumer footfall. This was the start of the downfall, now on-line shopping has meant that even these US style malls are failing. Shopping malls are yet another US import which have destroyed another aspect of our culture, we must stop mimicking everything they do.
"There's a famous seaside place called Blackpool, that's noted for fresh air and fun, and Mr. and Mrs. Ramsbottom, went there with young Albert, their son. A grand little lad was young Albert, all dressed in his best--quite a swell! With a stick with a 'orses head handle, the finest that Wulworths could sell..."
Good video man, been thinking about this recently after watching a few channels on seaside towns in the UK and the decline of the Britain. You sum it up nicely. I still have hope, we can make these places nice again but a lot of big changes need to be made. Much of it does stem from the economy, we're simply not thriving like we used to and our leaders don't care.
Its not just Britain dude. You should see what LA and San Francisco looks like these days. Downtown Seattle is all but dead. Homeless everywhere. Its looks like zombie apocalypse.
a brilliant summation. In my town (Doncaster) there is no longer any educated middle-class, they went when the industries closed, they were engineers and their families - gone. But you need a mix, real diversity isn't about skin colour; its about different skills, outlooks and interests. Now builders think they have won, they build houses, house prices rise and they think they are business geniuses, landlords think they've won for the same reasons .... but if you are thick and unthinking you are a crap builder, you get rid of asbestos garages down a farmer's track instead of paying to remove it safely - you rent out a shit-hole that smells of the cheap paint that you paint the wood-chip in (it covers the cracks) and these are sound business moves, its easy for them. If life's so easy, why bother with the pain in the brain that is known as education? - they don't. Every clever kid leaves to go to university and doesn't come back, can you imagine how debased and stupid the local council becomes when the thickos are the only ones left in town?
Donny is the worst I've ever seen it. I'm not one for blaming everything on the Council but the interchange (and closing of the southern bus station) really had a knock on effect on the Waterdale area. Knocking down the old College to make way for the Cultural Quater in a town not really known for its deep love of arts & culture might have been a slight miscalculation. They got a lovely building though, lol. Now Mike Ashley has bought the Frenchgate I'm worried (more worried about his future son in law having even more control in Doncaster).
@@grumpyoutdoors I didn't know Ashley had got into Frenchgate. Obviously Lazarus are a plague ... we really miss a middle-class, Lazarus have Pillar House and Denison House(I think) on South Parade both listed buildings falling apart, they need renovation into apartments, (not HMOs or flats for kids) ... and Doncaster misses out completely on 'regentrification' when the middle-classes move back into city centres ... but its hard to move back into such a brutalised town centre or the centre of a brutalised town.
I’m not even British but this video hit me emotionally. Hang in there Barry. You’ll be eating an affordable chippy in the sun on your own shores again, someday.
It is pure heartbreak to see what has happened to the Rulers of the Ocean. The fishing industry seems to get no support from the London aristocrats. Back in the '70s, when I spent hours hitting the British coasts, there were beautiful scows and trawlers, with fresh, clean fish that sold like fresh clotted cream! Pubs that served the communities, and the best chips, fish ever. Has Britain run out of malt vinegar? Sorry about utilities - we're hit bad here in the States, too. Stay strong, because we love the British people -- not their government
Well, the stock of fish in the oceans has gone down DRASTICALLY since the 70s, too. There simply isn't enough fish to fish, unless you want to fish like you used to right now, and then stare at an empty ocean in 15 years because you've completely depleted the fishing population. You cannot keep fishing like you did and expect that the fish will simply f-ck more to produce more offspring for you to overfish.
@@Killjoy_Mel Actually, it never was Britain that overfished. Change in the water quality, sewage, and northern countries depleting feeder fish are also guilty. Fishing is a sustainable and important industry.
The solution is something Britain doesn't have: Economic Left-wing policy. Not the new Social Left, that will only add more division and strife to the mix, the UK really doesn't need that right now. All these decades, all of these policies and the actions of the government have lead to the Rich winning hard over the ordinary folk: that is where money for rebuilding has to be taken from. We've stuck it out for them, we bailed them out several times over, now it's time for them to give back. I know what you're thinking: "brain drain, commies, whatever", *but there's literally no alternative* . Where else are you going to take the money from? There's no money left anywhere elsewhere other than the top. Look at "the working class" barely subsisting in these seaside towns, how much more do you think you can squeeze them for? You can either rein the rich in and get them to stop sucking your blood, or you can let Britain go the same way Spain has: A former colonizer who has lost all of its glory and is a 2nd tier western nation. Leaving the EU was a bad mistake, because the EU has the same problem: forcing big corporations and "the 1%" to cough up their fair share that they are hiding in all sorts of tax havens, off-shore accounts etc. and DELETING zoning laws and construction regulations is the only way you guys are getting out of this mess. The UK+EU have VASTLY more negotiating power than Amazon, Apple or any corporation. If the ultra rich and big companies refuse to cough up then let them go. If they don't give back, they cannot do business here. Let them go. Other people will pick up the slack, new companies will start and a new 1% will rise again, only this time, they won't be robbing the rest of us blind. It's the only way folks.
Agreed cultural left is a great tool for the economic right to dismiss all leftwing perspectives on economy. I think aiming at reducing inequality will actually heal lots of the cultural aims of the modern left through osmosis
@@JimmyTheGiant Exactly, fantastic insight! In the midst of everyone freaking out about the Right and the Far Right, we've all kinda forgotten to ask: "Why is the Far Right on the rise NOW?" Where was the Far Right in 2004? (the answer is: mostly playing World of Warcraft in their mum's house) Did we have less immigrants back then? No, we just had way more money, so nobody cared. When there's plenty to go around, it's easy to get along, it's tough times that put our social cohesion to the test. The social left is proof that if you try and shove tolerance down people's throats they will resent you for it. You can't "tell" or "make" people to like or even tolerate each other. What's even worse about this ignorance is that it not only destroys everything that the Old Left in the 20th century has fought for, not only does this discredit the Economic Left as you said, but it's also the only way the moustache man could ever return from the dead.
I’m from Blackpool, as a whole the town isn’t as bad is people make it out to be but the town centre, the front and the backstreets round that area are shocking. Most of it hasn’t been updated since the 70s and the amount of boarded up shops and businesses is just sad
I grew up in Hastings about 30 odd years ago and it was very deprived back then. The town had a big problem with unemployment, street drinking and drug overdoses (a number of people died in the public toilets there). The town only had a few big employees and the general standard of education was really low. It has since had a lot of people move down from London which resulted in gentrification in the town and as such priced the locals out of the housing market. I feel like I escaped a cult as most of the girls there were pregnant by the time they were 20. The town only really had a bit of income during the summer months when the arcades and pier were open. During the winter months, the place was bleak and deserted. I moved out by the time I was 21 and never returned. I don't miss it and when I went back the other year in November, it was still just as grotty and depressing as I remembered. Seaside towns don't just need investment, it needs to be done properly as slinging a load of money at something and hoping it sticks doesn't help solve anything. Most seaside towns have poor infrastructure, poor education and poor standard of living - there needs to be a complete overhaul before anything improves. I had to move away because I couldn't get a decent paying job where I was previously, and again this also points to the level of deprivation in seaside towns. There aren't the big STEM employers or major industries to drive income in seaside towns and with there is a brain drain too. Until the whole problem of bad housing, bad health, poor level of education, low wages and poor transport links is addressed, they'll just continue to sink further.
I'm from Margate on the south east coast of England, similar story here. We're the top 10% of communities for deprivation, in some areas child poverty is as high as 33%, top 3 for violent crimes in the country and especially after covid our high street is dead and there are so many people reliant on food banks because wages are lower compared to the average. The systematic decline of Britain is happening *everywhere*, its just seen first in the already hard hit places like Margate, Blackpool, Clacton, Southend, Worthing, etc. We need systematic change to help our most vulnerable communities, and to prevent any more communities falling into deprivation. Because at the current rate the UK is going, everyone will be in deprivation soon enough.
@@anthonylulham3473 seriously dude it's not foreigners that's the issue. It's the massive wealth inequality going on in this country. The wealthy want you to be distracted by foreigner scapegoats so they can carry siphoning off the country's wealth into their back pockets. Wake up, stop been a useful idiot and focus your attention on the real culprits.
It still baffles me that we imagined future cities as dystopias with 100 story apartments, and when it actually seems like our predictments will turn out accurate, we refuse to build them, and let property get hilariously expensive
we are refusing to build them, the population explosion is way ahead of how many houses we build a year if our population goes up by nearly a million in a year and we only build 250,000 houses a year, we will constantly have a housing deficit, i mean i've heard that the uk would need to built a house every 2 mins to keep up with the numbers
Many of these former seaside resorts aren’t that far from London. London is extremely unaffordable. Perhaps this can be housing for people who work in London? Sure it involves a commute, but going from Brighton to London is shorter than my commute was when I lived in the Seattle area, and it’s less than other Americans who work in LA and New York. It would enable a lot of British people to be able to buy houses and enjoy a higher standard of living. It would be an all-around win-win for all.
Head to France, there is an abundance of wonderful towns, including places such as Troyes, Dijon and Annecy, which have bustling town centres and places where people meet, have drinks, a meal etc... far busier than anywhere near were we live (in Kent).
Hey Jimmy, just wanted to say that your analysis of the root causes and cycles of poverty in these types of places is spot on. It always comes back to the neoliberal Tory vision that effectively boils down to ‘pull the ladder up Jack and sod the rest’. It’s incredibly frustrating to see those most affected by these issues turn to people like Nigel Farage because he seems to be the only person people feel is on their side - the same man who refuses to truly call out the failure of neoliberal economic policy and would arguably cause these towns to decline even further. Btw, if you want a video idea, the decline of British-owned business and proliferation of US-owned private equity/corporations siphoning off money from the British high street back to the US would be good to see, since it’s a critical issue not really discussed in the mainstream. Angus Hanton has a great book on this called Vassal State. Keep up the excellent content🙌🏼
You would’ve thought that after the brexit debacle, Nigel farage wouldn’t show his face but here we are. Those same people, now admitting that brexit was a mistake are about to vote for the person responsible. The man is odious and will only make this country poorer. And for those that shot themselves in the foot,voting for brexit who are about to shoot themselves in the other foot voting for “reform,” there are no words. Well there are but unrepeatable here.
Another great piece of social commentary, well done. I'm 58 and have watched these once great resorts slide. You do a great of linking up the many causes, the overarching reason is Conservative policies and ideology. We all have an opportunity to try and reverse the decline on July 4th, that of course is actually very soon!
Interesting and a somewhat cathartic watch for me. I grew up and live in a former seaside resort town, Worthing. It was actually the major seaside resort on the south coast until eventually being overtaken by Brighton. It was able to grow alongside Brighton thanks to its proximity and getting an early rail link. It even saw a boost as many of the upper class who felt Brighton was becoming too "common" would go to Worthing instead. Worthing saw many famous faces stay, such as Oscar Wilde who stayed at Beach House, and named a character "Jack Worthing" in honour of the town as he wrote part of the play whilst staying there. Jane Austen also stayed in Worthing for a short time, and now the building with a blue plaque commemorating it is a Pizza Express. Worthing nowadays is interesting as it does feel like a template for what a new Britain could look like, but not in a good way. There is no real middle class in Worthing nowadays, the area has become so unaffordable to the average person that it is one of the most expensive places to live in Britain, yet does not see the same benefits to living here like London or Brighton would. If you live in Worthing you are either well off in an expensive property, or you are living in council housing or a bedsit/shared accommodation for a cost that could rent you a two bedroom home in another part of the country. The area is seeing an almost complete generational replacement, the people who grew up here can't afford to live here and must move to other parts of the country, whilst the older generations have seen the benefit of rising house prices, some of whom sell up to people who have made money elsewhere, leaving Worthing with a diminished sense of community. Worthing like Brighton and many of the coastal seaside towns escaped the fate of the northern resort towns, whilst we still have problems with crime, alcoholism, and drug addiction, they are far, far less than the likes of Blackpool. Also Worthing uniquely has seen a rebirth of its high street, although we have lost some big names like Beales and Debenhams, we've retained others like M&S and Boots, and gained new ones like Starbucks, and have also facilitated local businesses getting on to the high street. Even the Guildborne shopping centre doesn't feel completely lifeless as space was given over to a gym and function areas, rather than remaining solely retail. Worthing could very well be a model for other towns and even cities to follow to restore the failing high streets. I have mixed feelings on Worthing, on the one hand I have my home town pride and feel it has done well for itself, but on the other hand I do acknowledge its location leads to it getting a slightly higher rate of investment, although lets be honest, nothing compares to the investment and focus London has received at the detriment to the rest of the UK, northerners really need to lay off the south east and focus on our mutual enemy. Worthing definitely has its issues which do directly tie back to the 2008 crash and the fact that we have a housing crisis yet all that gets built around here are luxury estates, and anything that could improve our quality of life or create new jobs like getting a local branch of IKEA is vehemently opposed by NIMBYs. Living in Worthing and acknowledging that it's one of the better off places outside of London really makes me feel like the UK isn't truly a first world country anymore.
29 could be fixed with laws and government programs. nothing can fix this one. when SHTF 95% of us will die. its gonna be a shitshow of epic proportions.
I'd argue it began following the global financial crash in 2008 rather than in 2024. GDP per capita is still lower in the UK than it was pre financial crash.
The Selling Off Of the Council Houses, started by Thatcher but continued by both sides, made some people quite well off at the time, and the rise of Rich Property Landlords, (and awful "Housing Associations",) but has been a disaster for the following generations. They need to Bring Back Proper Council Housing on a Huge Scale...but they won't.
It made home owners. Made getting a mortgage (generally far cheaper than renting) the go to. Blair making interest rates negligible and allowing in cheap labour to break the working vlass hurt just as much. This Thatcher sh** is tedious, ESPECIALLY when you examine New Labour
@@hamonryechinaski180 New Labour was simply re-badged Thatcherism. Blair the War Criminal's first stop after election was to have a chat with his mentor, Margaret Thatcher. Welcome to the British Uni-Party (same as in the USA)
Месяц назад
I went to Eastbourne recently. A good High Street, interesting alternative cafes and the streets were clean. I sensed a pride among the people who live there.
Eastbourne has the advantage of a relatively decent train link to Brighton and London. Places like Blackpool or Southport have relatively decent train links to post-industrial Lancashire.
grew up going to Bridlington and I still go to this day. It’s not been very great for a few years. Lots of shops have closed, and there aren’t many big attractions. The sea front used to have loads of rides, but most of the big ones are gone (granted a log flume they once had caused an injury, but they could’ve just increased safety measures). I often go to Scarborough as well, and lots of shops have shut there too. I last went to Blackpool in 2019 and even back then I thought it was too dirty and filthy in some places. If only British seaside towns were as good as they used to be.
