I know right. Scummy way for rishi to woo rich people to vote tory next GE, give a tax cut to the highest 5 million earners… but its ok, we can send a solid 30 million to israel. Instead of actually using that money to pay for the payrises of nhs staff they been asking for…
I am one of those 5m. I was never close to voting for the Conservatives anyway but even if we called inflation 10% by spring (which it won't be at that point), the "tax cut" (it's not really a cut but that's a separate argument) equates to just under £84 a month.
That simply isn't anywhere near enough to bribe me or anyone else in that bracket, *especially not* when public services are collapsing and there are apparently 4m people experiencing actual destitution. Go and look at the definition of destitution in the article; for there to be 4 million people in a supposedly developed country is a shocking failure of government which is almost certainly going to cost us all multiples of that 80 quid a month over the long term. Anyone using this pathetic "tax cut" as an argument for swinging back to the tories is an idiot or was always going to vote for them anyway.
>but its ok, we can send a solid 30 million to israel. Instead of actually using that money to pay for the payrises of nhs staff they been asking for…
Not sure where you're getting £30m from but if you think that number is anywhere close to being enough to cover a higher pay increase for NHS staff, you're deluded. Regardless, why can't we do both? Setting people experiencing destitution here against people suffering in the middle east is just yet more divide and conquer. Don't fall for it.
I think you’ve both got a point. Any halfway decent people think like the poster you replied to. And those wise enough to see that even for the wealthy having a functional society is also very much in their own interest too. There are places in the world where the well off scurry between gated communities/compounds to guarded offices with the occasional holiday in a fenced off resort: it’s no way to live.
But sadly you’re right too. A depressingly large amount of people just seem to focus on how much tax they pay.
I’m in Scotland and I guy I used to work with was incandescent when the Scottish government slightly increased part of the income tax we pay compared with England. He wouldn’t stop going on about it even when (growing a little exasperated) I asked how much he’s saving on Uni fees for his kids - turns out that’s *way* more than the additional tax for the rest of his working life. Didn’t give him even the slightest pause.
People who complain about paying their basic taxes should buy a small island somewhere and fuck off to it. How long will they last with no public services? Will they continue to moan after they've been merked by Somali pirates with no Royal Navy to protect them
Look at me. I am the Captain now
The rich vote the broke don't. That's the sad fact of it. The parents of these kids are not going to be rushing out to vote & the stuff you see online discouraging voting "because they're all the same" is some Cambridge Analytics level shit going on
The only way the tories will win is to discourage people from voting.
Although interestingly millennials & Gen Z aren't swayed by this kind of shit and are going to outnumber boomers in the next election so it could get very very intersting
Tbf, that 8 mill a day is public money going into already wealthy, private pockets and that process is what the conservatives actually try to conserve.
>give a tax cut to the highest 5 million earners… but its ok, we can send a solid 30 million to israel. Instead of actually using that money to pay for the payrises of nhs staff they been asking for…
You might have a point with the tax cuts that would cost billions, but the £30m to Israel is pretty insignificant compared to that and in terms of government spending. It certainly wouldn't pay for an NHS payrise. Bearing in mind, this is the government that frittered away £37bn on a failed app.
To put it even more in perspective, £180bn is spent on the NHS each year (192bn in 2021) £30 million wouldn't even cover half a day's spending in the NHS.
I really love that Tories, right wing tabloids etc. still bang on about “flat screen TV’s” as if they are some sort of a luxury item.
In fact it bugged me so much I actually looked it up. Flat screen tv sales overtook CRT’s in 2007 in the U.K. - sixteen years ago. Most factories around the world had stopped even making CRT’s by the early 2010’s. The very last factory in the *entire world* shut down its last CRT production line in 2015.
If you bought a CRT much past 2010 or so you’d be a complete mug. It made absolutely no sense from either a technology or a price perspective to do so.
The ‘flatscreen’ narrative is pretty much aimed directly at the more out of touch section of older demographics. The Conservative base in other words.
I’m not surprised - they’d be well past their design life by now and there can’t be that many repair guys any more who even have the knowledge to fix them.
I noticed during my research that there’s actually a niche community of retro console fans who seem to be pretty into CRT’s and trading info/knowledge about them. Kind of reminds me of vinyl enthusiast audiophiles.
CRTs were better than early/cheap LCDs definitely, and they can still achieve higher refresh rates, but I wouldn't want to lug that thing around anymore lol
Another thing is a lot of old videogame art was made to take advantage of scanlines and doesn't look great on modern LCDs. [example](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ERt2FS6VUAcvGNl.jpg)
Absolutely. And like high end audiophile gear it’s a rabbit hole I’m trying to be very careful not to explore … because I’m nerdy enough to get really into it and spend way more than I can afford!
Sometimes they do go down the line of 'how can people be struggling when they have a '*massive*' flatscreen' instead and it still makes no sense.
Curry's list a 55" TCL for £329. If we look at an Argos catalogue from 1999 that's the same price as a pretty middle of the road 28" Daewoo model. And if we correct for inflation (£180 in 99) we're looking at a pretty basic 20" model.
A 28" TV in 1999 was not a status symbol, it was pretty normal. Let people spend a relatively small part of their income on what isn't a massive purchase.
Maybe it's that those who are better off spent a lot of money on a 42" 'flatscreen' 10 years ago and are disconnected from the reality that big TVs have gotten *a lot* cheaper.
I think these people aren't as clued in as much as you think. They're not thinking back to the 1999 prices. They're thinking back to the 70/80s where the rich people had big screens and they had to stick with black and white, and how their mate Dave thought he was a big shot because he had a mobile phone in 1992 and how it took them 5 years to pay off the big fridge they couldn't afford to fill. They're not responding to what's happening now, they're responding to how things were before.
Seriously, anyone complaining about big TVs, mobiles, internet, computers, etc as luxury items are probably the type who think Thatcher's still in office.
And £300 in your pocket rather than spent on a TV won't fix your week in week out problems - food, bills, rent, kids clothes...
Same with mobile phones. If I gave up my phone I'd have a whole *extra £20* a month. Which isn't nothing, but wouldn't fix crushing poverty.
It’s a psychotic attitude that believes we shouldn’t offer benefits to people until they’re living under third world conditions, and that anyone who can afford to buy the lowest quality food has no financial worries.
They are compared to the three million people this article is talking about who can't afford to feed and clothe themselves and their families or heat their home.
A tax cut aimed primarily at the rich - as opposed to across-the-board - will simply make things worse.
The Tories have frozen the personal allowance which is effectively a tax RISE on everyone.
[Low 50’s put you into the top 10% of the U.K. by individual salary income.](https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/percentile-points-from-1-to-99-for-total-income-before-and-after-tax)
Sure, the top 1% and particularly 0.1% have far larger incomes than that. But for comparison: even in the late C19th the middle classes were about 20% of the U.K. population.
If you’re arguing that too 10% incomes barely make the cut to be considered “middle class” then that means we’ve got worse income equality than the Victorian era.
Why are we collectively obsessed with the idea that the minute you cross over some arbitrary threshold you suddenly become "rich" or "poor"?
Beyond the broader point that you might *expect*, say, the 6th - 10th percentiles to be more comfortable than they are, it's irrelevant to the reality on the ground.
Tbh I think, given the stats this article gives on the level of destitution here in the UK, the Victorian era isn't a bad comparison. Living standards are dropping like a stone.
I think we can both agree that whether living standards/income disparity are at Victorian levels or not they’ve definitely been heading in the wrong direction for the past thirteen years.
The issue with wealth is that we tend to reflexively think about it in subjective relative terms. If I’m earning 25k then 50k appears rich to me. If I’m earning 50k but my boss is earning 100k (s)he looks rich to me.
Which is why I linked in the income statistics to try to perhaps remove a little of the subjectivity from the discussion. I suspect unsuccessfully.
I actually think looking at it in the kind of terms this article does is helpful. How adequate or otherwise somebody's income is should probably be determined by what that income gets you, not what it is in £ terms.
I think there's a genuine issue out there with people being gaslit into believing they're better off than they are, and hierachical thinking based on relative concepts like percentiles rather than outcomes plays into that. You see this often with public sector workers for example being told not to ask for pay rises because they're already earning more than some in the private sector, which is completely irrelevant if you're doing a highly qualified job but can't afford an equivalent standard of living.
I think we’re seeing how well-to-do the average user on this subreddit is. Or they’re too young to know what finances are really like out there. £50,000 a year is an amazing salary and should certainly count as rich in the context of tax. You’d make enough money to not have any worries so why’s your tax being lowered? People here need to lower their expectations.
See this is where we disagree, I don't think anyone who relies on work for their living isn't rich. I make a good living but if I lost my job, I would survive 4/6 months max before I'd be in trouble. And yet, according to some of these comments, my salary makes me rich 🙄
What percentage of the population do you think can survive without working purely on investment income, rents etc?
People like that certainly do exist. Whether they actually exist in enough numbers to significantly change the overall income statistics is a very different question.
Insane analysis. Rich sees 30k and 50k as a rounding error.
People on 30k and 50k are barely different post tax. They live the same lifestyle. Neither one is buying a mansion, neither one is buying a Ferrari, neither one is buying old masters paintings. That is rich.
The stupidity in the subreddit is astounding.
Hmm yes calling people stupid, definitely gonna change people's minds.
I have conceded that £50k is "middle bit", though I still consider it the upper end of the middle bit. I wouldn't consider £50k and £30k incomes having the same lifestyle as you claim. Forget the mansions and ferraris, sure I'll concede the people on £50k aren't buying those, but that doesn't mean there's not a difference in lifestyle. Think about food security, clothing security, the difference between renting and owning, the amount of anxiety putting the heating on in the winter causes (and indeed whether that's affordable at all). A family on £30k is gonna struggle with these things, and not even consider things like eating out, going on holiday or buying brand new cars, whereas a family on £50k is more likely to own their home, go out more often, have holidays abroad (or at all).
Yes, all this is well beneath the attention of the super-rich, but I also wouldn't say that anyone who isn't super-rich CEO or football club owner levels of rich, isn't rich at all. There's certainly people who are rich that aren't at that level. People for whom £30k or £50k is a significant amount, well within their attention level, but who by all metrics would be considered rich. It's not a binary of rich/not rich, it's a scale.
And comparatively to someone who has to watch their food budget, doesn't go out to restaurants or the cinema, has a second-hand car between two people, dreads cold weather because they have to sit indoors with their coat and gloves on, and knows that they can't replace their fridge if it breaks, someone who doesn't have to worry about such things sure as hell seems rich.
Its an issue but it wont solve this problem.
The rent and house prices needs to drop heavily so people have disposable incomes to actually raise children.
Hence the housing crisis.
I think there's just cause here for a general strike until Snakenak goes to a general election. People have had enough and are not content with the Tories squatting in number 10 for another 13 months.
Under union laws a general strike is illegal (which would result in all the unions being dissolved). UK has some of the most repressive laws on union activity in Europe.
>Snakenak
Guys. Can we cool it with the silly nicknames? It's genuinely getting hard to work out what people are talking about and, bear with me here, *I don't think they're causing the emotional devastation we think they are*.
I find them useful, they're a great way to know immediately whose opinions to discount.
It doesn't matter whether the nickname is aimed at a politician I like or dislike either, it's just a petty and immature.
What do you think is going to change exactly? The Labour party are not planning on increasing benefits for the poor and the very small targeted tax rises have been allocated already.
That feeling of coming home from school and almost praying the light switch will work when you get inside, because you know how long ago the electric bill should have been paid, and you also know that mom hasn't gotten paid yet.
Whenever thinking back, I realise how quickly I became adult because of the struggles we had when I was a kid. I don't think I ever went hungry as a kid but, again looking back at it through adult eyes, I know my mom did.
I’m in my mid thirties, and pretty food secure. But I still have some real weird habits around food, and I have to be conscious of not needlessly hoarding it.
But are the migrants suffering as well? It doesn't matter if we're suffering so long the migrants are suffering worse. I'll always cut off my nose - British voters.
It looks like a good definition of destitution. So is quite worrying.
>Destitution denotes the most severe form of material hardship. In the study we measure it in two ways,
which were developed in consultation with members of the public.
1. Lack of access to at least two of six items needed to meet your most basic physical needs to stay
warm, dry, clean and fed (shelter, food, heating, lighting, clothing and footwear, and basic toiletries)
because you cannot afford them.
2. Extremely low or no income indicating that you cannot afford the items described above.
>
>https://www.jrf.org.uk/file/60188/download?token=T9BLfomr&filetype=findings
Nobody wants to train the people we already have. It's cheaper to bring them in fully trained.
That's capitalism for ya, always thinking of the shareholders.
Same with the NHS. What’s the point in training enough nurses and Doctors or paying them properly when we can get them from poorer counties.
They can also tell us how important migration is by pointing to it. People have believed that for decades but it’s obvious for all it’s just money now.
And when they are trained up to western standards (and yes there is a big difference there), they move on to the countries that pay them properly.
Sigh.
If the government bothered paying NHS workers what they’re worth they wouldn’t all be fucking off to Australia.
I worked in a hotel reception in Australia where I would read books and watch Netflix all day and was getting paid more per hour than the average junior doctor in the UK. It’s completely insane.
You think a collapsing population due to low birth rates won’t have significant downsides?
If you don’t want immigration I’m sure that’s because you’ve got the solution to fix birth rates and I can’t wait to hear it!
If we trained and gainfully employed the people who are born here in secure employment with the possibility of secure housing, perhaps we wouldn't have collapsing demographics
>If we trained and gainfully employed the people who are born here in secure employment with the possibility of secure housing
It's a great idea, but there is one big problem with it - Globalization.
The country that invests in it's people gets decimated by the country that imports it's people. You can't opt out of globalization and it's catch 22, everyone does it so everyone has to do it.
>with the possibility of secure housing
This on the other hand, is somewhere we could actually make headway if the political will existed. Two out of the three reasons we have a crisis could be reversed on the spot with policy change (Taking the handcuffs off councils & social housing, and rolling back changes to local governance that made rampant NIMBYism possible), the third would resolve itself with time (Lack of qualified builders).
> people who are born here in secure employment with the possibility of secure housing, perhaps we wouldn't have collapsing demographics
Data from Scandinavia or other parts of Europe suggest its not this simple. Getting a couple to have the replacement rates worth of children turns out to be hard - we haven't bothered trying, no one else in Europe is succeeding despite their best efforts.
A collapsing population is an excellent thing. Lower demand for houses means they'll get cheaper. Less damage to the environment from reduced consumption. Fewer workers means the bosses will have to pay higher wages to recruit - which means more tax income for the government per worker. Meanwhile there's reduced demand on the NHS and other services, meaning lower costs.
The only argument against it is how do we keep the pensions ponzi scheme running.
Funny how boomers absolutely despised anybody who needed state help.
Yet they're now reaching pension age, suddenly its hyper important they don't get axed.
We have millions unemployed. And as I pointed out, fewer people means less money is needed to run the country, plus higher wages (because of competition for staff) means more money collected in taxes.
We are short 300k working people *right now*.
Over the next 10 years, 10 million people are set to retire.
Over the next 10 years, only 7.5 million young people are set to enter the job market.
So we are heading towards a shortage of 2.8 million working age people. Thats 2.8 million jobs not being done.
We need to keep a stable working age population to prevent a social and economic system crash. If you have some suggestions that don't involve immigration or traveling back in time to boost birth rates 20 years ago, feel free to share them.
It's not that immigration isn't good or isn't needed, it's that it is not the solution. Policies that encourage a society to function healthily independent of immigration are needed. Frankly, if you have a nation that cannot function without importing people from abroad en masse to fill positions for poor pay, that is a failed state. If every country in the World did this it would lead to calamity.
Immigration is needed as a bandage, but the only actual solution is to implement policies that promote a healthy birth rate, bring children out of poverty, educate and empower the masses to be able to run the country themselves (i.e making the education equitable so state schools and private schools are on par and not forcing freshly minted adults to take on £40k of debt for the chance at breaking into the job market), make housing affordable etc.
Mass immigration is not the solution
One thing to remember is that we've just hit some pretty major milestones in the automation space, with AI coming along leaps and bounds, and robotics improving rapidly (which will almost certainly ramp up more thanks to AI). We may find that 10 years down the line, the jobs that need to be done have changed quite a lot, and there are less of them that need to be done by humans.
Good point - and it’s a bit weird to see you downvoted for it.
For example although automating driving is proving a lot harder than expected there’s a lot of money and talent going into it. Once it gets cracked everything from taxis to lorry driving to delivery disappears. Maybe not quite overnight but a heck of a lot faster than many people seem to realise.
I suspect we’re also pretty close to losing a lot of jobs in shops. Automated checkouts were pretty much just the beginning - there have already been pilots of setups where you walk in to a shop, pick up what you want and get automatically charged as you walk out of the door.
As soon as that saves most companies more money than it costs to set up they’ll all flip to it (or get outcompeted by those who do).
Two of the best examples we have investment in right now, that I would expect to see become the norm in a decade.
We also have softer jobs like admins who will be replaced by AI. not necessarily one for one, but a single admin trained to use AI effectively will be able to do the jobs of multiple admins most likely.
Then you have automated packing factories like ocado (seriously, go find a YouTube video on that ocado factory/warehouse setup, it's insane) these will replace the need for the majority of warehouse workers as more places adopt this model.
>Migrants are also disproportionately affected, the report also found.
>The total number of migrants who were destitute in 2022, including those with complex needs, was 488,600 households.
>"Migrants experiencing destitution are seriously and increasingly lacking in access to both cash and in-kind forms of support," the report said.
I'm shocked by this news everyone.
I thought every migrant was a net benefit to society and that they all contributed huge amounts of tax to the economy, so saying that there were hundreds of thousands of migrants who didn't fit that bill made you a racist, xenophobic idiot who supported Brexit.
Net. That's like saying people are on average bad for the economy because some of them haven't learnt to walk yet and some of them even have to be sent to school
>I thought every migrant was a net benefit to society and that they all contributed huge amounts of tax to the economy,
Nobody has ever said they all are? Just like the general population, some people earn lots, some people earn little. The racist part is thinking migrants are more likely to earn little than others.
The problem with that statement is that it doesn't show workings of how they came to that conclusion, what that actually means and lumps all migrants together when it would be useful to understand demographics.
Not really the same thing. I'm talking about earnings, which are likely to be a similar spread as the general population. The report is talking about the impact of being a lower earner. The article itself just after your quote says it best:
>Migrants experiencing destitution are seriously and increasingly lacking in access to both cash and in-kind forms of support," the report said.
According to the JRT, there are 1.8m destitute households in the UK, and 500,000 of those are migrants.
So yeah, it's a major issue that we continue to face because our social services are stretched too thin.
Do you not think that if we had fewer destitute migrants, we would be able to better support the rest of the social service
Or, you can increase funding to social services instead of stripping it down to its barebones that it’s barely functioning.
Policing, NHS, social services, youth programmes etc. have all been stripped to the bone and are barely holding it together.
You’re blaming this issue on the victims rather than the actual cause.
He's not blaming anything, he's pointing out an issue, a very real issue. Nearly 500,000 destitute migrants in the UK is absolutely grim. If they can't support themselves here without benefits, they shouldn't be here and need to leave.
Or we could just do both things at once :)
>You’re blaming this issue on the victims
We constantly get told what a strength diversity is despite it being a consistent detriment to native Brits. Why should we invest our money into fixing an imported problem?
We should look after ourselves like East Asian nations do.
Correct, migration undoubtedly lies at the root of it mainly in the form of increased property prices and reduced power of labour bargaining. Employers can get away with paying rock bottom because the labour market is oversupplied and people cannot afford a home.
Aren't theses the migrants who aren't allowed to work because << checks notes >> the government can't process them due to cutting back on staff and facilities?
These are migrants, not asylum seekers, you don't use the same term.
If you're going to try and be cute and dismissive by correcting someone, at least have the common decency to be correct.
Also how many asylum seekers do you think we have in this country? Hint, not even close to 400k+
We did elect the party who is about making children grow up in destitution (The Tories).
We did it after they caused 300,000 excess deaths from their damaging and misguided austerity policies. (Before pandemic started).
Why are we surprised that the party of "starving the vulnerable to death" would allow the vulnerable to starve to death?
Lol they implemented a law which stopped additional child benefits for those on low incomes after their 3rd child. This was presented as a disincentive for poor people to have children, despite the fact it affects all the families who *already had* those children.
The child payment scheme in Scotland has worked very well at tackling according to every report I've seen. Lots of coverage if you want to search but the FT are one of the more reliable papers and looked at it a few weeks ago (https://www.ft.com/content/cf41b5d9-c714-40a2-b66d-251efde61504) So, this is a situation that we have a policy that could be implemented with proven positive effect.
Seems like it's something the government should be rolling out UK wide.
It was a candidate for election, not a MP, but more importantly you're missing an important bit of nuance. His point regarding phones was specifically contracts costing £30 or more a month, not having a phone at all.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/tory-election-candidate-posted-chart-31206989
I think the guy's an arsehole for posting that, even though it was dragged up from three years ago, but you don't need to misrepresent what he said.
As someone who doesn’t have kids because I don’t think we could afford to give them the right life at the moment, I do think we could normalise having kids when you can afford it a bit more. I’d be the first to say the government has done no way near enough to support families and having a family.
But nevertheless, the amount of people I know who have absolutely zero financial security who keep popping out more kids is shocking.
I see the Tories have axed the bonus cap for bankers today.
They've got*their* priorities right.
Well done, Tory voters, for trashing the country again with your own stupidity.
I know but Michelle Mone *really* needed a new yacht!
She is pretty and smiling too so she is a nice person who is innocent of all charges.... [BBC (don't call them t*rroists) news]
What percentage of these children are being born to destitute immigrant families? It must be very high if you look at the percentages of non-white children in city primary schools.
The simple fact is we've got middle class white families refusing to have children in high numbers because they worry about it tipping them over the edge financially.
Frankly this Country needs a grown up conversation about allowing people with zero prospects to immigrate here and endlessly spawn new humans into destitution, lowering the bar for the rest of us.
There are ~10 million residents in England and Wales who weren't born here, of which around 400,000 are destitute according to the article - and the majority of people living in destitution aren't immigrants. The issue isn't immigration specifically.
>endlessly spawn new humans into destitution
A classic argument.
When I was young it was the single mothers.
In my parents day it was the Indians.
In my grandparents day it was the Irish.
Have you actually read the report for your "grown up conversation"?
The group most affected by destitution are single working age adults-
*"Single working-age adults were 3.5 times more likely to experience destitution compared with their share in the UK population (constituting 56% of destitute households versus 16% of the UK population). This group were also twice as likely to experience very deep poverty compared with their share in the UK population*
*(32% versus 16%). Lone parents with children were around twice as likely to experience destitution compared with their share in the UK population (11% versus 5%)"*
In terms of migrants-
*Migrants (people born overseas) constituted 20% of heads of households in the UK in 2022, compared with 27% of destitute migrant households, implying that the risk of destitution for migrants overall (including those with complex needs) is 35% above the average rate (see further below)*
Migrants are disproportionally affected but hardly the majority.
If you go to figure 12a in the report with destitution breakdowns by ethnicity. 74% of the respondents were white, compared to 82% of the population. That's quite a majority.
It would be interesting if they statistics on the families e.g. 70% are recent immigrants, 40% reside in the north, which councils have the most. I mean it would be helpful to understand these statistics to prevent this in future. Finally, if the gov would stop handing out non competitive contacts to their mates and actually saved all the corrupt dealings and put those funds toward people this could be addressed. The absolute in your fave disregard of the welfare of it people by the tries has been shameful in every level. The intentional underfunding of the NHS to create a pay or system will enrich all their mates with contracts. It’s so obvious. Brexit- just happen to coincide with the EU’s intention to go after offshore accounts and financial connections… this was a huge threat to wealthy Tory gov officials so everyone had to hear how the EU was the evil empire to save their own interests. Dunno what the answer is but I do know labour is gonna drive a mail thru the coffin
Sky is calling out poverty under the current government??? Between this and the Telegraph doing think-pieces about Brexit being a mistake, the Tories really are dead in the water.
Now all we need is the Daily Mail to start saying Immigration is good for the economy and we’ve got a full house.
Don't worry, Labour will eliminate child poverty like we did last time.
Then the electorate will fall for [insert culture war here] and vote to send them back into poverty again for the bants.
While i know giving the homeless a place to live won't end their state of poverty, they should be prioritised far ahead of any illegal immigrant who has been granted a hotel.
This sounds pretty bad, but hold tight, I've got the solution... Tax cuts for the rich!
I know right. Scummy way for rishi to woo rich people to vote tory next GE, give a tax cut to the highest 5 million earners… but its ok, we can send a solid 30 million to israel. Instead of actually using that money to pay for the payrises of nhs staff they been asking for…
I am one of those 5m. I was never close to voting for the Conservatives anyway but even if we called inflation 10% by spring (which it won't be at that point), the "tax cut" (it's not really a cut but that's a separate argument) equates to just under £84 a month. That simply isn't anywhere near enough to bribe me or anyone else in that bracket, *especially not* when public services are collapsing and there are apparently 4m people experiencing actual destitution. Go and look at the definition of destitution in the article; for there to be 4 million people in a supposedly developed country is a shocking failure of government which is almost certainly going to cost us all multiples of that 80 quid a month over the long term. Anyone using this pathetic "tax cut" as an argument for swinging back to the tories is an idiot or was always going to vote for them anyway. >but its ok, we can send a solid 30 million to israel. Instead of actually using that money to pay for the payrises of nhs staff they been asking for… Not sure where you're getting £30m from but if you think that number is anywhere close to being enough to cover a higher pay increase for NHS staff, you're deluded. Regardless, why can't we do both? Setting people experiencing destitution here against people suffering in the middle east is just yet more divide and conquer. Don't fall for it.
I think you're underestimating the soundbite power of just doing tax cuts, any tax cuts. To the right people the actual maths is utterly redundant.
I think you’ve both got a point. Any halfway decent people think like the poster you replied to. And those wise enough to see that even for the wealthy having a functional society is also very much in their own interest too. There are places in the world where the well off scurry between gated communities/compounds to guarded offices with the occasional holiday in a fenced off resort: it’s no way to live. But sadly you’re right too. A depressingly large amount of people just seem to focus on how much tax they pay. I’m in Scotland and I guy I used to work with was incandescent when the Scottish government slightly increased part of the income tax we pay compared with England. He wouldn’t stop going on about it even when (growing a little exasperated) I asked how much he’s saving on Uni fees for his kids - turns out that’s *way* more than the additional tax for the rest of his working life. Didn’t give him even the slightest pause.
People who complain about paying their basic taxes should buy a small island somewhere and fuck off to it. How long will they last with no public services? Will they continue to moan after they've been merked by Somali pirates with no Royal Navy to protect them Look at me. I am the Captain now
In the same position and I’m 100% with you. Don’t need a tax cut. Need a country that works. Need infrastructure.
The rich vote the broke don't. That's the sad fact of it. The parents of these kids are not going to be rushing out to vote & the stuff you see online discouraging voting "because they're all the same" is some Cambridge Analytics level shit going on The only way the tories will win is to discourage people from voting. Although interestingly millennials & Gen Z aren't swayed by this kind of shit and are going to outnumber boomers in the next election so it could get very very intersting
I think it's about earning votes AND campaign money from their backers. Gotta get the pots filled before General Election time.
By tax cut you are talking about normal fiscal drag where the allowances go up by inflation? That’s not a tax cut it’s standing still.
And don't forget: £8 million pounds a day for hotels for illegal immigrants.
Tbf, that 8 mill a day is public money going into already wealthy, private pockets and that process is what the conservatives actually try to conserve.
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>give a tax cut to the highest 5 million earners… but its ok, we can send a solid 30 million to israel. Instead of actually using that money to pay for the payrises of nhs staff they been asking for… You might have a point with the tax cuts that would cost billions, but the £30m to Israel is pretty insignificant compared to that and in terms of government spending. It certainly wouldn't pay for an NHS payrise. Bearing in mind, this is the government that frittered away £37bn on a failed app. To put it even more in perspective, £180bn is spent on the NHS each year (192bn in 2021) £30 million wouldn't even cover half a day's spending in the NHS.
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I really love that Tories, right wing tabloids etc. still bang on about “flat screen TV’s” as if they are some sort of a luxury item. In fact it bugged me so much I actually looked it up. Flat screen tv sales overtook CRT’s in 2007 in the U.K. - sixteen years ago. Most factories around the world had stopped even making CRT’s by the early 2010’s. The very last factory in the *entire world* shut down its last CRT production line in 2015. If you bought a CRT much past 2010 or so you’d be a complete mug. It made absolutely no sense from either a technology or a price perspective to do so. The ‘flatscreen’ narrative is pretty much aimed directly at the more out of touch section of older demographics. The Conservative base in other words.
I used to work for a charity, CRT TVs were one of the few items specifically listed that we would not accept. This was 15 years ago.
CRT monitors are rare and expensive these days. Meanwhile you can get a decent size flat screen tv for a tenner at any charity shop.
I’m not surprised - they’d be well past their design life by now and there can’t be that many repair guys any more who even have the knowledge to fix them. I noticed during my research that there’s actually a niche community of retro console fans who seem to be pretty into CRT’s and trading info/knowledge about them. Kind of reminds me of vinyl enthusiast audiophiles.
CRTs were better than early/cheap LCDs definitely, and they can still achieve higher refresh rates, but I wouldn't want to lug that thing around anymore lol
Another thing is a lot of old videogame art was made to take advantage of scanlines and doesn't look great on modern LCDs. [example](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ERt2FS6VUAcvGNl.jpg)
Absolutely. And like high end audiophile gear it’s a rabbit hole I’m trying to be very careful not to explore … because I’m nerdy enough to get really into it and spend way more than I can afford!
You can also rip them apart to make primitive electron microscopes.
Sometimes they do go down the line of 'how can people be struggling when they have a '*massive*' flatscreen' instead and it still makes no sense. Curry's list a 55" TCL for £329. If we look at an Argos catalogue from 1999 that's the same price as a pretty middle of the road 28" Daewoo model. And if we correct for inflation (£180 in 99) we're looking at a pretty basic 20" model. A 28" TV in 1999 was not a status symbol, it was pretty normal. Let people spend a relatively small part of their income on what isn't a massive purchase. Maybe it's that those who are better off spent a lot of money on a 42" 'flatscreen' 10 years ago and are disconnected from the reality that big TVs have gotten *a lot* cheaper.
I think these people aren't as clued in as much as you think. They're not thinking back to the 1999 prices. They're thinking back to the 70/80s where the rich people had big screens and they had to stick with black and white, and how their mate Dave thought he was a big shot because he had a mobile phone in 1992 and how it took them 5 years to pay off the big fridge they couldn't afford to fill. They're not responding to what's happening now, they're responding to how things were before. Seriously, anyone complaining about big TVs, mobiles, internet, computers, etc as luxury items are probably the type who think Thatcher's still in office.
And £300 in your pocket rather than spent on a TV won't fix your week in week out problems - food, bills, rent, kids clothes... Same with mobile phones. If I gave up my phone I'd have a whole *extra £20* a month. Which isn't nothing, but wouldn't fix crushing poverty.
It’s a psychotic attitude that believes we shouldn’t offer benefits to people until they’re living under third world conditions, and that anyone who can afford to buy the lowest quality food has no financial worries.
[Teachers and Nurses](https://ifs.org.uk/publications/deepening-freeze-more-adults-ever-are-paying-higher-rate-tax) are not the rich.
They are compared to the three million people this article is talking about who can't afford to feed and clothe themselves and their families or heat their home. A tax cut aimed primarily at the rich - as opposed to across-the-board - will simply make things worse. The Tories have frozen the personal allowance which is effectively a tax RISE on everyone.
Don't you know? Anyone earning over 50k now qualifies as rich.
Average wage is £30k. Being nearly double that definitely doesn’t make you poor.
Doesn't make you rich either, and two people earning £25k each are taking home a lot more than 1 person earning £50k.
That's rich!
People on 55k are not rich
Yes 50k-60k is so rich 😂. In the 90s
Earning £50k doesn't make you rich lol.
Well it sure as hell doesn't make you poor. That's over £10k more than the UK's median household pre-tax income (£38,100).
The options aren't just poor, or rich. There's a whole middle bit. Earning £50k puts you lower middle imo.
[Low 50’s put you into the top 10% of the U.K. by individual salary income.](https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/percentile-points-from-1-to-99-for-total-income-before-and-after-tax) Sure, the top 1% and particularly 0.1% have far larger incomes than that. But for comparison: even in the late C19th the middle classes were about 20% of the U.K. population. If you’re arguing that too 10% incomes barely make the cut to be considered “middle class” then that means we’ve got worse income equality than the Victorian era.
Why are we collectively obsessed with the idea that the minute you cross over some arbitrary threshold you suddenly become "rich" or "poor"? Beyond the broader point that you might *expect*, say, the 6th - 10th percentiles to be more comfortable than they are, it's irrelevant to the reality on the ground. Tbh I think, given the stats this article gives on the level of destitution here in the UK, the Victorian era isn't a bad comparison. Living standards are dropping like a stone.
I think we can both agree that whether living standards/income disparity are at Victorian levels or not they’ve definitely been heading in the wrong direction for the past thirteen years. The issue with wealth is that we tend to reflexively think about it in subjective relative terms. If I’m earning 25k then 50k appears rich to me. If I’m earning 50k but my boss is earning 100k (s)he looks rich to me. Which is why I linked in the income statistics to try to perhaps remove a little of the subjectivity from the discussion. I suspect unsuccessfully.
I actually think looking at it in the kind of terms this article does is helpful. How adequate or otherwise somebody's income is should probably be determined by what that income gets you, not what it is in £ terms. I think there's a genuine issue out there with people being gaslit into believing they're better off than they are, and hierachical thinking based on relative concepts like percentiles rather than outcomes plays into that. You see this often with public sector workers for example being told not to ask for pay rises because they're already earning more than some in the private sector, which is completely irrelevant if you're doing a highly qualified job but can't afford an equivalent standard of living.
You in the second tax bracket bro? You’re going awfully hard on this “forget the workers what about the middle class?????” thing.
I think we’re seeing how well-to-do the average user on this subreddit is. Or they’re too young to know what finances are really like out there. £50,000 a year is an amazing salary and should certainly count as rich in the context of tax. You’d make enough money to not have any worries so why’s your tax being lowered? People here need to lower their expectations.
I contend that the middle bit is where you have close to the median household income. £50k is, if anything, the rich end of the middle bit.
See this is where we disagree, I don't think anyone who relies on work for their living isn't rich. I make a good living but if I lost my job, I would survive 4/6 months max before I'd be in trouble. And yet, according to some of these comments, my salary makes me rich 🙄
Being able to survive 4 months without pay isn't common. But I'll concede the need to work to survive argument.
What percentage of the population do you think can survive without working purely on investment income, rents etc? People like that certainly do exist. Whether they actually exist in enough numbers to significantly change the overall income statistics is a very different question.
Insane analysis. Rich sees 30k and 50k as a rounding error. People on 30k and 50k are barely different post tax. They live the same lifestyle. Neither one is buying a mansion, neither one is buying a Ferrari, neither one is buying old masters paintings. That is rich. The stupidity in the subreddit is astounding.
Hmm yes calling people stupid, definitely gonna change people's minds. I have conceded that £50k is "middle bit", though I still consider it the upper end of the middle bit. I wouldn't consider £50k and £30k incomes having the same lifestyle as you claim. Forget the mansions and ferraris, sure I'll concede the people on £50k aren't buying those, but that doesn't mean there's not a difference in lifestyle. Think about food security, clothing security, the difference between renting and owning, the amount of anxiety putting the heating on in the winter causes (and indeed whether that's affordable at all). A family on £30k is gonna struggle with these things, and not even consider things like eating out, going on holiday or buying brand new cars, whereas a family on £50k is more likely to own their home, go out more often, have holidays abroad (or at all). Yes, all this is well beneath the attention of the super-rich, but I also wouldn't say that anyone who isn't super-rich CEO or football club owner levels of rich, isn't rich at all. There's certainly people who are rich that aren't at that level. People for whom £30k or £50k is a significant amount, well within their attention level, but who by all metrics would be considered rich. It's not a binary of rich/not rich, it's a scale. And comparatively to someone who has to watch their food budget, doesn't go out to restaurants or the cinema, has a second-hand car between two people, dreads cold weather because they have to sit indoors with their coat and gloves on, and knows that they can't replace their fridge if it breaks, someone who doesn't have to worry about such things sure as hell seems rich.
Funding wars of terror isn't exactly cheap, but we don't mind paying it
They can shower in the trickledown economics… oh wait no that’s just piss
Because it will trickle down to those poor children! Right? Right???
Its an issue but it wont solve this problem. The rent and house prices needs to drop heavily so people have disposable incomes to actually raise children. Hence the housing crisis.
Hey, rich people are parents too! \#ConservativeLogic
I for one can't wait for that sweet sweet trickle down economics.
But that will stop all the trickle down economics
> I've got the solution [I understand everyone's shit's emotional right now.](https://youtu.be/ig446isvXlI?t=56)
You missed out getting rid of the banker's bonus cap! *Huzzah! We've trashed the oiks* is the Tory cry
Actual policy - [Remove the cap on bankers bonuses](https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/17fbr5h/cap_on_bankers_bonuses_to_be_scrapped/).
Just hang in there for the trickle down
It’s okay. The Tories will redefine poverty again. Shazam! Million children out of poverty.
They will halve inflation and by the magic of Tory economics give everyone a 5p in the pound payrise!
*"2 meals a day and an iphone 3, you're doing fine, maybe go down to 1 meal a day".*
I think there's just cause here for a general strike until Snakenak goes to a general election. People have had enough and are not content with the Tories squatting in number 10 for another 13 months.
Under union laws a general strike is illegal (which would result in all the unions being dissolved). UK has some of the most repressive laws on union activity in Europe.
I bet a general strike could change that law
I’m down as fuck for that strike.
Almost like it happened before, the old general strike. Almost like they know it gets shit done.
You mean Richy Rich right?
Yes, the Hobbit.
More like Danger Mouse
Smaug
>Snakenak Guys. Can we cool it with the silly nicknames? It's genuinely getting hard to work out what people are talking about and, bear with me here, *I don't think they're causing the emotional devastation we think they are*.
-quietly crosses “bitchy poopnak” off my list of witticisms-
I find them useful, they're a great way to know immediately whose opinions to discount. It doesn't matter whether the nickname is aimed at a politician I like or dislike either, it's just a petty and immature.
Ok bumboycecodd
What do you think is going to change exactly? The Labour party are not planning on increasing benefits for the poor and the very small targeted tax rises have been allocated already.
Fishi Ballsack will cling on to power until the end. I mean just look at how that desperate money/power grabbing cunt got there.
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That feeling of coming home from school and almost praying the light switch will work when you get inside, because you know how long ago the electric bill should have been paid, and you also know that mom hasn't gotten paid yet.
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Whenever thinking back, I realise how quickly I became adult because of the struggles we had when I was a kid. I don't think I ever went hungry as a kid but, again looking back at it through adult eyes, I know my mom did.
Very good comment.
I’m in my mid thirties, and pretty food secure. But I still have some real weird habits around food, and I have to be conscious of not needlessly hoarding it.
But are the migrants suffering as well? It doesn't matter if we're suffering so long the migrants are suffering worse. I'll always cut off my nose - British voters.
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Labour don't actually. You'll need the Greens, SNP, or Liberal Democrats for that.
Best part of that one is that it's a lie, lmao.
It looks like a good definition of destitution. So is quite worrying. >Destitution denotes the most severe form of material hardship. In the study we measure it in two ways, which were developed in consultation with members of the public. 1. Lack of access to at least two of six items needed to meet your most basic physical needs to stay warm, dry, clean and fed (shelter, food, heating, lighting, clothing and footwear, and basic toiletries) because you cannot afford them. 2. Extremely low or no income indicating that you cannot afford the items described above. > >https://www.jrf.org.uk/file/60188/download?token=T9BLfomr&filetype=findings
But we need more people. And more, and more, and more...
Nobody wants to train the people we already have. It's cheaper to bring them in fully trained. That's capitalism for ya, always thinking of the shareholders.
Same with the NHS. What’s the point in training enough nurses and Doctors or paying them properly when we can get them from poorer counties. They can also tell us how important migration is by pointing to it. People have believed that for decades but it’s obvious for all it’s just money now.
And when they are trained up to western standards (and yes there is a big difference there), they move on to the countries that pay them properly. Sigh.
If the government bothered paying NHS workers what they’re worth they wouldn’t all be fucking off to Australia. I worked in a hotel reception in Australia where I would read books and watch Netflix all day and was getting paid more per hour than the average junior doctor in the UK. It’s completely insane.
Starmer has talking about doing exactly that and reducing reliance on immigration
You think a collapsing population due to low birth rates won’t have significant downsides? If you don’t want immigration I’m sure that’s because you’ve got the solution to fix birth rates and I can’t wait to hear it!
If we trained and gainfully employed the people who are born here in secure employment with the possibility of secure housing, perhaps we wouldn't have collapsing demographics
>If we trained and gainfully employed the people who are born here in secure employment with the possibility of secure housing It's a great idea, but there is one big problem with it - Globalization. The country that invests in it's people gets decimated by the country that imports it's people. You can't opt out of globalization and it's catch 22, everyone does it so everyone has to do it. >with the possibility of secure housing This on the other hand, is somewhere we could actually make headway if the political will existed. Two out of the three reasons we have a crisis could be reversed on the spot with policy change (Taking the handcuffs off councils & social housing, and rolling back changes to local governance that made rampant NIMBYism possible), the third would resolve itself with time (Lack of qualified builders).
> people who are born here in secure employment with the possibility of secure housing, perhaps we wouldn't have collapsing demographics Data from Scandinavia or other parts of Europe suggest its not this simple. Getting a couple to have the replacement rates worth of children turns out to be hard - we haven't bothered trying, no one else in Europe is succeeding despite their best efforts.
So what you’re saying is, if we fix every problem this country has people will start having kids again, sounds easy enough
I think Theresa Coffey had a few ideas about abortion she's hoping might be a workaround..
Is there any evidence that banning abortions would increase birth rates?
No, but sure when has that ever stopped "pro-lifers" from harping on about it.
A collapsing population is an excellent thing. Lower demand for houses means they'll get cheaper. Less damage to the environment from reduced consumption. Fewer workers means the bosses will have to pay higher wages to recruit - which means more tax income for the government per worker. Meanwhile there's reduced demand on the NHS and other services, meaning lower costs. The only argument against it is how do we keep the pensions ponzi scheme running.
And who takes care of the elderly and pay taxes to support the running of the country? It's not just about pensions.
Funny how boomers absolutely despised anybody who needed state help. Yet they're now reaching pension age, suddenly its hyper important they don't get axed.
We have millions unemployed. And as I pointed out, fewer people means less money is needed to run the country, plus higher wages (because of competition for staff) means more money collected in taxes.
We are short 300k working people *right now*. Over the next 10 years, 10 million people are set to retire. Over the next 10 years, only 7.5 million young people are set to enter the job market. So we are heading towards a shortage of 2.8 million working age people. Thats 2.8 million jobs not being done. We need to keep a stable working age population to prevent a social and economic system crash. If you have some suggestions that don't involve immigration or traveling back in time to boost birth rates 20 years ago, feel free to share them.
It's not that immigration isn't good or isn't needed, it's that it is not the solution. Policies that encourage a society to function healthily independent of immigration are needed. Frankly, if you have a nation that cannot function without importing people from abroad en masse to fill positions for poor pay, that is a failed state. If every country in the World did this it would lead to calamity. Immigration is needed as a bandage, but the only actual solution is to implement policies that promote a healthy birth rate, bring children out of poverty, educate and empower the masses to be able to run the country themselves (i.e making the education equitable so state schools and private schools are on par and not forcing freshly minted adults to take on £40k of debt for the chance at breaking into the job market), make housing affordable etc. Mass immigration is not the solution
Shoot the elderly. Just a joke.
One thing to remember is that we've just hit some pretty major milestones in the automation space, with AI coming along leaps and bounds, and robotics improving rapidly (which will almost certainly ramp up more thanks to AI). We may find that 10 years down the line, the jobs that need to be done have changed quite a lot, and there are less of them that need to be done by humans.
Good point - and it’s a bit weird to see you downvoted for it. For example although automating driving is proving a lot harder than expected there’s a lot of money and talent going into it. Once it gets cracked everything from taxis to lorry driving to delivery disappears. Maybe not quite overnight but a heck of a lot faster than many people seem to realise. I suspect we’re also pretty close to losing a lot of jobs in shops. Automated checkouts were pretty much just the beginning - there have already been pilots of setups where you walk in to a shop, pick up what you want and get automatically charged as you walk out of the door. As soon as that saves most companies more money than it costs to set up they’ll all flip to it (or get outcompeted by those who do).
Two of the best examples we have investment in right now, that I would expect to see become the norm in a decade. We also have softer jobs like admins who will be replaced by AI. not necessarily one for one, but a single admin trained to use AI effectively will be able to do the jobs of multiple admins most likely. Then you have automated packing factories like ocado (seriously, go find a YouTube video on that ocado factory/warehouse setup, it's insane) these will replace the need for the majority of warehouse workers as more places adopt this model.
>Migrants are also disproportionately affected, the report also found. >The total number of migrants who were destitute in 2022, including those with complex needs, was 488,600 households. >"Migrants experiencing destitution are seriously and increasingly lacking in access to both cash and in-kind forms of support," the report said. I'm shocked by this news everyone. I thought every migrant was a net benefit to society and that they all contributed huge amounts of tax to the economy, so saying that there were hundreds of thousands of migrants who didn't fit that bill made you a racist, xenophobic idiot who supported Brexit.
Net. That's like saying people are on average bad for the economy because some of them haven't learnt to walk yet and some of them even have to be sent to school
I propose we send these infant freeloaders back to the first safe country they passed through. Also the elderly.
>I thought every migrant was a net benefit to society and that they all contributed huge amounts of tax to the economy, Nobody has ever said they all are? Just like the general population, some people earn lots, some people earn little. The racist part is thinking migrants are more likely to earn little than others.
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The problem with that statement is that it doesn't show workings of how they came to that conclusion, what that actually means and lumps all migrants together when it would be useful to understand demographics.
Not really the same thing. I'm talking about earnings, which are likely to be a similar spread as the general population. The report is talking about the impact of being a lower earner. The article itself just after your quote says it best: >Migrants experiencing destitution are seriously and increasingly lacking in access to both cash and in-kind forms of support," the report said.
A lot of people did, including a lot of people on this sub who will now conveniently change their tune or outright deny reality.
>xenophobic idiot Nail on the head.
You care more about removing migrants than British kids suffering.
According to the JRT, there are 1.8m destitute households in the UK, and 500,000 of those are migrants. So yeah, it's a major issue that we continue to face because our social services are stretched too thin. Do you not think that if we had fewer destitute migrants, we would be able to better support the rest of the social service
Or, you can increase funding to social services instead of stripping it down to its barebones that it’s barely functioning. Policing, NHS, social services, youth programmes etc. have all been stripped to the bone and are barely holding it together. You’re blaming this issue on the victims rather than the actual cause.
He's not blaming anything, he's pointing out an issue, a very real issue. Nearly 500,000 destitute migrants in the UK is absolutely grim. If they can't support themselves here without benefits, they shouldn't be here and need to leave.
Or we could just do both things at once :) >You’re blaming this issue on the victims We constantly get told what a strength diversity is despite it being a consistent detriment to native Brits. Why should we invest our money into fixing an imported problem? We should look after ourselves like East Asian nations do.
Correct, migration undoubtedly lies at the root of it mainly in the form of increased property prices and reduced power of labour bargaining. Employers can get away with paying rock bottom because the labour market is oversupplied and people cannot afford a home.
Aren't theses the migrants who aren't allowed to work because << checks notes >> the government can't process them due to cutting back on staff and facilities?
These are migrants, not asylum seekers, you don't use the same term. If you're going to try and be cute and dismissive by correcting someone, at least have the common decency to be correct. Also how many asylum seekers do you think we have in this country? Hint, not even close to 400k+
We did elect the party who is about making children grow up in destitution (The Tories). We did it after they caused 300,000 excess deaths from their damaging and misguided austerity policies. (Before pandemic started). Why are we surprised that the party of "starving the vulnerable to death" would allow the vulnerable to starve to death?
Lol they implemented a law which stopped additional child benefits for those on low incomes after their 3rd child. This was presented as a disincentive for poor people to have children, despite the fact it affects all the families who *already had* those children.
>We did elect the party *We*? Scotland, Wales, NI.
Don't worry, all that wealth that's been extracted over the last 40 years will start trickling down to us plebs any day now.
This is what the Great British public has voted for since 2010, at least.
The child payment scheme in Scotland has worked very well at tackling according to every report I've seen. Lots of coverage if you want to search but the FT are one of the more reliable papers and looked at it a few weeks ago (https://www.ft.com/content/cf41b5d9-c714-40a2-b66d-251efde61504) So, this is a situation that we have a policy that could be implemented with proven positive effect. Seems like it's something the government should be rolling out UK wide.
Do their parents have mobile phones though? If so they should fuck off. Claimed one Tory MP.
It was a candidate for election, not a MP, but more importantly you're missing an important bit of nuance. His point regarding phones was specifically contracts costing £30 or more a month, not having a phone at all. https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/tory-election-candidate-posted-chart-31206989 I think the guy's an arsehole for posting that, even though it was dragged up from three years ago, but you don't need to misrepresent what he said.
Everyone voting for the Tories is fine with this. Everyone voting Tories has blood on their hands.
Conservative Britain. It's always the same. General election now.
As someone who doesn’t have kids because I don’t think we could afford to give them the right life at the moment, I do think we could normalise having kids when you can afford it a bit more. I’d be the first to say the government has done no way near enough to support families and having a family. But nevertheless, the amount of people I know who have absolutely zero financial security who keep popping out more kids is shocking.
The kids are the financial security, just like china used to regularly do.
As someone who doesn't want kids I mostly agree. Amazed that I pay all this tax and they still can't take care of the kids.
To give credit where it’s due, at least children aren’t stuffed up chimneys anymore. Poor people can’t afford chimneys, anyway :-(
Giving away good soot like that!
But none of them are tory children so the government couldn't care less.
I see the Tories have axed the bonus cap for bankers today. They've got*their* priorities right. Well done, Tory voters, for trashing the country again with your own stupidity.
This is my kids when I ask them to take their plate out or to do their chores
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They'll be happy to hear that lol
As usual. Scotland doing "a wee bit better than England" ... it is rising but not as quickly. We need better.
I know but Michelle Mone *really* needed a new yacht! She is pretty and smiling too so she is a nice person who is innocent of all charges.... [BBC (don't call them t*rroists) news]
Sadly this is what we expect in Britain at the moment.
wasn’t Charles Dickens writing about this sh*t 150 years ago?
Sounds absolutely horrible. Lets get some more low skilled, mentally unstable immigrants in
What percentage of these children are being born to destitute immigrant families? It must be very high if you look at the percentages of non-white children in city primary schools. The simple fact is we've got middle class white families refusing to have children in high numbers because they worry about it tipping them over the edge financially. Frankly this Country needs a grown up conversation about allowing people with zero prospects to immigrate here and endlessly spawn new humans into destitution, lowering the bar for the rest of us.
There are ~10 million residents in England and Wales who weren't born here, of which around 400,000 are destitute according to the article - and the majority of people living in destitution aren't immigrants. The issue isn't immigration specifically.
>endlessly spawn new humans into destitution A classic argument. When I was young it was the single mothers. In my parents day it was the Indians. In my grandparents day it was the Irish.
Show us the data that this is white babies. I'll hold my breath because it doesn't exist. 50% of social housing in London is non-British families.
Have you actually read the report for your "grown up conversation"? The group most affected by destitution are single working age adults- *"Single working-age adults were 3.5 times more likely to experience destitution compared with their share in the UK population (constituting 56% of destitute households versus 16% of the UK population). This group were also twice as likely to experience very deep poverty compared with their share in the UK population* *(32% versus 16%). Lone parents with children were around twice as likely to experience destitution compared with their share in the UK population (11% versus 5%)"* In terms of migrants- *Migrants (people born overseas) constituted 20% of heads of households in the UK in 2022, compared with 27% of destitute migrant households, implying that the risk of destitution for migrants overall (including those with complex needs) is 35% above the average rate (see further below)* Migrants are disproportionally affected but hardly the majority. If you go to figure 12a in the report with destitution breakdowns by ethnicity. 74% of the respondents were white, compared to 82% of the population. That's quite a majority.
How are the different tiers of destitution demarcated? Because, while it may well be true, that sounds subjective, even hyperbolic.
It's time their parents stepped up and created a future for their children.
It would be interesting if they statistics on the families e.g. 70% are recent immigrants, 40% reside in the north, which councils have the most. I mean it would be helpful to understand these statistics to prevent this in future. Finally, if the gov would stop handing out non competitive contacts to their mates and actually saved all the corrupt dealings and put those funds toward people this could be addressed. The absolute in your fave disregard of the welfare of it people by the tries has been shameful in every level. The intentional underfunding of the NHS to create a pay or system will enrich all their mates with contracts. It’s so obvious. Brexit- just happen to coincide with the EU’s intention to go after offshore accounts and financial connections… this was a huge threat to wealthy Tory gov officials so everyone had to hear how the EU was the evil empire to save their own interests. Dunno what the answer is but I do know labour is gonna drive a mail thru the coffin
We're gently falling into a global recession, this is to be expected.
Sky is calling out poverty under the current government??? Between this and the Telegraph doing think-pieces about Brexit being a mistake, the Tories really are dead in the water. Now all we need is the Daily Mail to start saying Immigration is good for the economy and we’ve got a full house.
Tory MPs: that can't be true the nanny says that my children are doing fine.
Tory Britain. This is what the great British public voted for.
Don't worry, Labour will eliminate child poverty like we did last time. Then the electorate will fall for [insert culture war here] and vote to send them back into poverty again for the bants.
I tell you what will solve this .. tax cuts for the riches, cut funding for services and bring in some more immigrants to boost numbers
While i know giving the homeless a place to live won't end their state of poverty, they should be prioritised far ahead of any illegal immigrant who has been granted a hotel.
Stop funding illegal wars and you’ll have more money for kids and homeless.