In contrast to for instance Americans, Germans and Dutch, British people have a quite indirect communication style. They will not usually "tell you just the way it is to get things in the open." You will have to read between the lines to understand what they really mean. This can be very frustrating if you come from a culture, which has the motto "if you don't like it/me, why don't you just say so". Like the Japanese and the Chinese culture, the British culture is a high context culture. Words are not enough, you have to know the background and context to understand the message and interpret tone, expression and non-verbal behaviour.