Who’s going to pay our pensions in 20-30years if the UK keeps its birth rate low and also restricts immigration?

I do think Gordon Brown knew the scale of the problems that were heading into the next government in 2010. Austerity was going to happen regardless of the party badge. The Tory Lib Dem coalition just stepped up for it. I think they did a fair job honestly. Cameron had a split party and went nuclear, to my mind, daft, but I also voted out so not excusing my share of the blame. I think it will be better to be on the fringes in the future

The election was due. Labour won in 2005. So the next election if they were going to a fixed term was 2010.

So he didn’t ‘throw’ an election.

Go and read the Michaela/KBalsinbargh thread in education today to understand the issues. Until schools actually enforce discipline and uniforms and compliance, there's only mayhem. I taught, quite briefly, as a career change and decided to fuck off out, although I loved the class room.

That’s an interesting interpretation.

A period of austerity was unavoidable, and Gordon Brown acknowledged it. And threw the election to avoid enforcing it.

Encouraging them how exactly? Free or affordable childcare? Cheaper food to feed kids? Good schools so we know they’ll get decent education with more £££ needed?
And what are we doing to lower the house prices? thatcher sold off social housing - the affordable, rental housing? Are you telling me people are going to be happy to have their homes devalued? So the house you paid £400k for last year with drop to £250k in a few years, leaving people with negative equity???

Really? You save for a private pension like everyone else. If you are half right then the state pension is toast. Even if it wasn’t, it’s a ticket to poverty in old age. So do something about it while you are earning.

Life expectancy is decreasing. Try again.

The volume of people dependent upon it, and longer life expectancy.

Yes if only

Yes its about political choices and leadership, nhs and welfare state opposed tooth and nail by the Cons and if they could they'd get rid of both now.

How about having more people born here by lowering house prices and encouraging people to have families rather than just importing a solution that makes life more difficult for everyone ?

We had high levels of low skilled workers and a welfare state in the past. In fact the welfare state was founded in an era of low pay. What’s so special about the 21st century?

But most people have
Childcare
Saving for expensive house deposit.
paying uni costs for dc
shopping bills through roof
Energy bills through the roof
Transport anywhere is expensive

How do people have any spare money to save anything?

Wages didn't stagnate until Austerity, public sector pay levels gave business what they wanted - low prices rises/higher profits.

Proof? now public sector rises are higher, so are private sector ones, each has to compete.

11000 claims? yes 37% of which are people who came in on visa's and who let in over 2m on such visas?

imho the country was a lot nicer place in 2010, i had an nhs dentist, an ambulance didn't take 12 hours to arrive, AE didn't take 24hrs & certainly didn't have to worry about smashing up my car on a pot hole on A or B roads.

Between Blair and Brown, who held office for 13 years, and the Tories' 14 years there's only one year in it. Arguably, both parties had courses of action forced upon them by events (2008 GFC, 2020 Covid, 2022 Ukraine) and both made unforced errors. Blair could have imposed restrictions on the influx of the 2004 accession countries' migration, but didn't, and this undoubtedly suppressed wages, which affected the referendum result.

Honours approximately even, but the current Government are not covering themselves in glory yet; 110,000 new asylum claims in their first 13 months as I read this morning.

Of course Austerity collapsed wages, public sector pay rises were 0 or 1% private sector followed suit.

Blair had productivity levels & GDP growth that were excellent.... they dropped like a stone post GFC & Austerity, only now v slowly coming back up.

You keep harking back to Labour but the Tories were in for 14 years... longer than Blair, 10 of which they had no global issues to deal with - they allowed in three times as many migrants than Blair did, exc Ukrainians.

One reason Europe has higher levels of unemployment than UK is they did invest in automation.

Business will use any excuse to hold down wages.

The pension system as we know it now won’t exist. You can have high levels of low-skilled immigration or a welfare state. Not both. Seems obvious which one we’ve chosen.

There will be no pensions. People too old/ill to work will have to sell their homes and move to small flats to have money to live on or start multi generational living.

Governments know this needs tackling which is what we keep having pensions reviews. No one votes for the extra tax that is needed so politicians have to lie and do tax by stealth. And the worst blame asylum seekers as if solving that would solve the problem.

we need to pay more tax if we don’t want to retire at 75. Most people can afford it but argue they can’t cos they want more “stuff”

The government is well aware of this problem but they won’t personally be responsible for it so will just ignore the problem and kick the can down the road.

Pensioners today won’t give a toss because they are already pensioners.

And most working age people aren’t thinking that far ahead as they are just trying to live day by day.

Buy yes I worry about it !

The government is well aware of this problem but they won’t personally be responsible for it so will just ignore the problem and kick the can down the road.

Pensioners today won’t give a toss because they are already pensioners.

And most working age people aren’t thinking that far ahead as they are just trying to live day by day.

Buy yes I worry about it !

“All” wasn’t implied and net contributors definitely wasn’t. It’s an erroneous concept anyway because the level of contribution versus the amount of receipts varies according to life stage and circumstances. People without school age children will be net contributors at a lower income level than those with. Some people will be net contributors their entire working life and then this changes when they start claiming their pension. There are so many variables it’s meaningless.

I think it was definitely implied in your statement that “the children of migrants do incredibly well because they place such a high value on education…..doctors, lawyers, accountants”