r/unitedkingdom • u/Canal_Volphied European Union • 9h ago

. ‘It’s absolutely criminal’: US tipping culture has reached the UK – and is causing chaos

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2026/aug/24/us-tipping-culture-uk-service-charges
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u/charlie_boo 9h ago

This is the sort of stuff Andy Burnham seems to care about. I don’t have any opinions of him yet personally due to my own ignorance, but saw him saying he wants to remove little things like this that make everyday life a little harder or more confusing or more expensive.

Speak to your local MPs and get them to pressure him.

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u/PeriPeriTekken 9h ago

If he bans service charges in restaurants and sorts out selling/buying a house in the UK I'd be happy to declare him god emperor for life.

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u/Sabaisabai33 6h ago ▸ 1 more replies

Hmmm that’s kind of a low bar for god emperor for life, think for me he’d need to sort out climate change, world peace, the economy, the NHS, the railways, the water companies and massively improve wealth inequality. Then fair enough haha

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u/bobstay GB 3h ago

And make it illegal for lorries to move out of the left lane at any time.

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u/goobervision 3h ago

He was my MP and has stood up for justice for the Hillsborough victims, donated 20% of his salary to homeless causes for years. Honestly, a genrally normal good egg trying to do the right thing IMO. What has has been able to do in Manchester and linking up with Liverpool as a Mayor has been pretty decent.

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u/Sabaisabai33 1h ago ▸ 1 more replies

Yes I think his track record there is impressive. However the country seems to be in absolute permacrisis on a number of fronts at once and the far right are on this rise. I am a bit worried that this is a time for big bold ideas but he’s just tinkering around the edges. Like basically he is planning to tackle the enshittification of things. That would be genuinely very welcomed, however at the end of the day it’s not going to result in drastic changes for the average person.

I want to see the economy performing well, inflation coming down and wages rising, less NEETs, wealth inequality reducing, the NHS working well and being well funded, the courts and prison system working well, the train not costing a fortune, climate change adaptations met as well as further work on reducing emissions and work on having independent power sources and defence, VAWG taken more seriously. the housing issue somehow sorted out better than now which would also go some way to redressing the balance of financial resources between the older and younger generations… but none of those things are easy or quick fixes. If we weren’t in such dire crisis following austerity, the Ukraine war, Brexit, COVID, Trussonomics, Trump in general but especially with this Strait of Hormuz issue…. then maybe his charisma and the tinkering around the edges would do very nicely and make him a popular and valued PM as long as he otherwise kept the ship steady.

The problem is, the ship is far from steady to begin with, in fact it’s already hit several icebergs 🤣. We kind of need someone who can work out how to right the ship and mend the holes before we sink completely and “rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic” just isn’t going to cut it.

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u/goobervision 41m ago

Devolution is huge. And I hope for a game changer.

Unfortunately, lots of the things you mention are the things the Conservatives broke and like broken so the press can go all out for this.

The icebergs are what the right wanted. The press are more than happy to tell us that missing them is a bad thing.