And whose fault is it..? Central banks, Labour and Tory. Both have ignored the real issue since 1971 that the currency is being debased at a ridiculous pace. Covid lockdown money printing has only exacerbated the decline. If you look back, I mentioned that covid lockdowns would probably have more negative impact on society than keeping things open. This is what I meant. The amount of suicides, depression, mental health & societal problems that come as a result of decreased living standards due to inflation will probably be worse than covid itself. Every time you hear the term “quantitative easing” or “government creates £x billion” they are directly stealing from everyone. The value of your time & work is being stolen by the currency being devalued. Not only that, but every created £ is being spent on what the government want, on a whim. The real market incentives are completely broken when the government can throw billions at whatever it was. If you asked everyone in the country what to spend billions of taxpayer money on, I can guarantee that the vast majority would rather give rises to teachers, nurses and emergency services than spending it on weapons and sending it to Ukraine. Things will get worse and worse until we take the ability to print money from thin air out of the hands of those in power.
I'm not interested where you live but your continual obsession with posting American crap is strange from someone who doesn't live there? I sleep fine, and thanks for the sarcasm. You are the one missunderstanding what I wrote. I see plenty of politics outside of the UK borders, as in Russia, Ukraine, Europe, China, India, Australia, and many other countries. I was referring to your obsession with America, but you turn it into a 'Little Englander' post? Stick to the facts Schad because you just look stupid doing the usual 'I don't have a counter to that so I will resort to sarcasm and avoid the issue'. Well done.
I've posted plenty of stuff on UK politics. A fair number of things from Canadian politics, too, and a lot concerning Ukraine and continental Europe. Only the American stuff seems to get you worked up. You are free to get worked up about it. I am free to be completely baffled by why you are worked up about it.
I'm not worked up by it. You have an obsession with posting American articles, tweets and references in response to the posts by Os the troll. Others have also mentioned the Politics Thread is now swamped by American posts, and that is mainly down to you and Os.
Don't want to enter into this spat but oddly enough I enjoy all posts on this political thread including O's, Shads and yours Kaitlyn but I normally only "like" the leftish posts as that is my persuasion. That said I'm dismayed by the fascination that our mainstream media have for all things American (USA), probably because of easy access to news outlets. For example a potential tornado hitting the US, sometimes in our news for a couple of days before it's due to hit, then numerous reports afterwards that it wasn't as bad as feared. I've occasionally watched Al Jazeera and other news and it's amazing what dramatic happenings there are around the globe which are rarely reported on BBC or ITV.
I agree with the thoughts that we do have a lot of US news on here. Maybe I don’t notice it as much as I work 5 days a week on US hours dealing 99% of the time with US team members in Atlanta, Tampa, Dallas and New York and it invariably comes up during the day. In my downtime I also spend ages talking to my daughter who is in the US, so sometimes I feel like I am more in the US than here. I also like to look that no matter what mess we are in here in the UK, IMO we are no where near as bad as there. I used to want to live over there, but no way now.
Nurses, doctors, paramedics, other healthcare professionals, teachers, firefighters, police, armed forces etc are made up of people who have largely grown up with the ambition to follow their “calling”. The government takes advantage of this and exploits them ruthlessly and for years they have got away with it, safe in the knowledge that the workers wouldn’t walk away from the job they always dreamed of doing, despite the deliberate worsening of their pay and working conditions. Sadly, as with so many other decisions made by successive Tory governments, this one has got it totally wrong and they have now broken the spirit of many of the finest people in the country. People who for years who have been undervalued, overworked and disrespected by the government have, quite rightly, had enough and are leaving their specialist dream jobs to become shelf stackers or to work in warehouses. Not knocking those jobs as they are worthy professions, but it must be heartbreaking for those who have put so much time, money and effort into qaulifying for their dream job to have to turn away from it, just to keep a roof over their heads, to protect their mental health and to give themselves a better work/life balance.
Agreed, but I hate the idea of a calling. All those people are professionals and deserve to be treated as such.
To answer what a few have said I will quote Vin as he had the lovely graph. I agree that successive governments have eroded public sector pay, but this shows that they are all as bad as each other. There is a sharp decline since around 1998, and the tories wouldn’t get in for another 9 years or so. Not saying they have done any good, but it is not solely a Tory thing, it is cross party. I take my hat off (if I wore one) to doctors, nurses & teachers etc, because as others have said without them we would have no education for the next generation and we’d all be a lot sicker. Personally, I would pay them the most in society, but that isn’t how the free market works. Every government in charge for the last 20-25 years has failed to give them their true value. I look back at my wonderful teachers I have had and wouldn’t be doing what I am now without their patience, teaching and belief in me. Good teachers are invaluable and it is criminal that ALL parties fail to notice (only when they are in opposition it seems), and criminal that we lose them to other professions due to pay.
That’s bollocks and you know it. This is a Tory failure, and nothing less. Nothing to do with any other party. Oh and Boris sleeps with children and Rishi allows the perpetrators to not go to jail. Or something.
That is complete nonsense. There is no sharp decline from 1997. The graph clearly shows that the percentage increased during labours 13 year spell in power. The sharp decline comes from 2010 onwards. This is a Tory issue and your inability to read the graph is either alarming or wilfully negligent. This all the same as each other nonsense has become the most alarming trope in modern politics. Labour left education spending better than they found it, and that graph clearly shows this.
Or a slightly different take. I suspect 1998 might be a misreading of the graph... Teacher's relative pay from the 1970s up until about ten years ago fluctuated within a rough band. Since then, the bottom end of that band has been clearly breached. One of the main functions of government is to invest for the future. Education of youth in the face of global competition is crucial. It doesn't appear that teacher's pay reflects this. Vin
Do politicians really want an educated society? They need a few but in general the more the masses are uneducated the easier to manipulate them.
I'm not cynical enough to believe it's a conspiracy rather than just short-termism. Add in that we have a government that appears keen to punish those who appear to be on a different side of their culture wars and 'lefty liberal teachers' would seem to be prime targets. Vin
I do blame the Tories for the state of public service in this country. Under Labour it felt like education mattered, and spending was as high as it has been since the early 1970s. Look properly at any chart of public service spending and you will see that as soon as Tory governments get in, spending drops. This is their ideological position. It is a huge ideological difference between the Conservative party and Labour. It is entirely misleading and misguided to assume they are in any way the same. I came into teaching under Labour. It felt positive and like I was valued. I had my loans paid off and was given a golden hello. Then the Conservatives got in and told us they couldn’t afford us any more. They established a narrative of the greedy public service worker and set us up in opposition to everyone else. Look at the greedy doctor. Look at the greedy teacher. Look at the greedy nurse. Their jobs are safe while everyone else is uncertain. It was a clear narrative and it was an expert piece of propaganda that people still regurgitate to me now. I also fundamentally disagree about the idea of market forces. Other nations manage it because they know paying teachers well pays for itself. There is no better indicator of social mobility than the quality of free education. Our social mobility is worse than at time in a hundred years. Can you see the link? I was speaking recently to trainee teachers from Germany who were shocked to find their starting salaries were pretty much the same as my final, top of the ladder salary. “How can you grow your economy if you do not get the best teachers?” They said. Well, look at our economy and ask me which nation is getting it right? Anyone who forgives the Tories for this mess and equates them to Labour has not been paying attention.
