All you poor people are lazy

www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/aug/21/councils-invest-food-banks-welfare-cuts

agree that MPS should have experience definitley outside politics but also outside the public sector/academia.

LP on MPs, whilst some of that may be true Cameron's chidlren go to state schools (so not true all Tories use private schools) and he had extensive use of the NHS with his disabled son before he died.

I would certanily prefer MPs to be over 40 and to have mostly had business or other working lives before then not in politics as much of what they have to handle is business and money and the economy and business law and also because you need experience of life and chidlren which you tend not to get until you turn 40. Millibands (career family od MPs only) and the working lives of some Tory MPs too which is just interns in political parties etc is not a good background for it.

Im poor and far from lazy, I have 3 children, my son has just finished college and is working 9 hour days on a farm, oh by the way I work, Daughter doing A levels and working in a pasty shop, 14 yo not yet working but come next summer will be. OK we don't earn much scraping by, please don't think that poor means uneducated.

My son did his first year of uni this past, erm, year. One of his first comments to me was how much he loved that he was finally having to think for himself after so many years of being spoonfed correct answers so tests and exams could be passed.

How things have changed since I was at school! At least nowadays they have Google. :o

yes Lapsed it is quite shocking. Not to mention the waste of public and personal money it represents, because these students usually don't pass or get poor degrees (obviously).

I have had students fail to attend my entire module then email me at the end of the course asking to see me to 'catch up'. The answer is usually that I am not a private tutor and they will need to find another one.

I agree that it's very hard on the good ones who have to have part time jobs, usually more than one, just to eat!

Most of them are lovely and work very hard. We live in a very expensive city, so most have to work part-time in order to pay rent AND eat during term-time.

What an awful attitude they have!!! Thankfully haven't encountered any undergrads with this outlook, what an odd approach!!!

As a Very Mature Undergraduate (51) I am constantly shocked by the attitudes some of my young fellow students and I don't just mean their spelling. One lass in particular has missed entire modules ("so boring!") but thinks because she is paying she is "entitled" to pass, just like at boarding school where her abysmal 'A' level results were the source of much (misdirected) parental resentment:

"We pay £26k per year so why isn't she getting A grades???? "

Lapsed, the idea of 'market forces' applying in 2012 was clearly BS because there IS no market. Universities were desperate not to be seen as 'substandard' and selling 'cheap' degrees. The situation may change in future years but that is no consolation to the current intake, whom I worry a lot for.

As a lecturer I also worry for myself as they think they are buying me as a sort of 24 hour education-bot already. They all expect spoonfeeding and to be told what is coming up on exam papers, because they've paid so much for it! And any low marks are a source of outrage against the marker rather than self-questioning. The fact is it's the same old courses and same old knackered staff as last year, only the government isn't paying for any of it, so they have to, poor sods. Sigh.

Exactly! And "higher education free at the point of delivery"... Who do they think they are kidding?!

Vaginald, DS (16) is giving serious consideration to applying to our local Uni (where I'm currently a student) because he will be able to save himself at least £20,000 in rent and living expenses over 3 years if he lives at home with us.

Tuition fees are going to to £9k from September however - and this is a University currently ranked 75th in the UK league tables . So much for market forces keeping costs under £9k for most courses eh?

breads post makes some fantastic points.

I'm in the position now where the fact that I've had to take on a job in a new role next year means we will be much worse off each year. If I were to give up work altogether my degree would be funded, my tax credits would return & we would be much better off. I live life without luxuries, clothes are second hand or Primark etc etc. it's a simple & blindingly obvious fact that the Tories are increasing the gap between classes constantly.
I have no idea how to get out of this trap. How will my dcs ever afford uni? Ah, of course- they won't be able to, thus their employment will be limited, keeping them poor, as the Tories wish.

There are some excellent MPs but far too many MPs have never worked and have no clue how the real world works.

This is what terrifies me. So many MPs their families and their entire peer group (mostly Tory, but an increasing number of Labour MPS as well) will NEVER use the public services and public sector infrastructure that the vast majority of us depend on, such as the NHS, state schools, public transport, public libraries, local post offices, Council-run leisure facilities (such as swimming pools, gyms, sports clubs for youngsters) and no-one else within their orbit does either.
They don't know anyone who is 50+ and long-term unemployed following redundancy (I know at least half-a dozen) because all their jobs are obtained through the Old Boy network.

They ALL have private health care, use private schools and gyms, and drive (or are driven) everywhere. They can buy books instead of borrowing them and have internet acess at home.

How many of them have to battle with an inefficient underfunded Inland Revenue, CSA or Benefits Agency themselves, rather than pay others (accountants, lawyers) to sort out their financial and legal affairs? Or need public transport to get to a local Post Office to cash their pensions or giros?

The problem with that is that you then create a cliff-edge at £10k, and people start saying not worth their while to work more hours because of the marginal rate of tax just above £10k being exorbitant...

MoreBEta, excellent idea re the removal of tax under £10k. With the way prices are rising this seems only humane.

British workers are not lazy. Lets get that straight.

There are many people on low income minimum wage who would be better off on benefits and many people on benefits who would like a job but can't afford to work.

There are a few people who cheat the benefits system.

One solution would be to remove all tax and national insurance on wages below £10k per year. That would make it worthwhile working for many people.

I voted Tory at the last election and am disgusted at how this Govt operates and some/many of the things it is doing and saying. The opposition is no better.

There are some excellent MPs but far too many MPs have never worked and have no clue how the real world works.

I have to say that some people's choices do amaze me. However, I believe we should suspend the moralising judgements we inflict on the poor so often until we know and have been in that position. I have been very depressed myself and behaved in ways that were damaging to my own health and wealth, but I was 'cushioned' from lasting damage due to being middle-class and well-educated. I very much dislike the attitude that we should monitor every penny the poor spend. IMHO it's a workhouse mentality: the 'undeserving poor' and presumably their children are to be left to starve, it seems.

am not commenting on the judgement of the neighbour (if it was a real anecdote being recounted, not sure if I actually believed it), just the fact of the deferred/non-deferred gratification, and yes the poor baby suffers if the parent has that mindset - the baby of a parent who can defer gratification will be immeasurably better off, however poor the family.

I accept that point MrsGuy except the poor baby the. Had nothing to eat. The fault of the parent definitely but am assuming she would have paid any loan back it was a tad judgemental.

one example form a recent thread, is a mother who ran out of nappies and baby milk and asked her neighbour for some, request was refused. The neighbour pointed out that the woman asking for a handout was a smoker. In other words, at some point she chose to buy cigs, for instant gratification, rather than budegeting for nappies, which she could have predicted would definitley be needed later.

there is not much 'gratification' to be had on £71 a week. And on the minimum wage/benefit level, which I have never lived on, I expect that just getting through life would take priority over planning to do anything much more than survive.

absolutely right regarding the immediate gratification rather than the deferred gratification - this is the real dividing line in what used to be 'class' ie the 'workng class' subsisted from week-to-week wage packets, spending immedately any surplus of what they earned over theor needs, the 'middle classes' deferred gratification to save for pensions, take out mortgages etc, and the 'upper' classes were custodians for future generations of the family wearign threadbare jumpers to keep the family pile. Only in recent years with thh welfare state has a fourth 'class' been viable - ie the waged-not-working, where the gratification expectancy is even more rapid than that of the old 'working class'

'Subcultures differ in their ability to master abstraction: to put it brutally, people at the bottom are more likely to inhabit a world of concrete events and immediate satisfactions. The result is that educated people are pulling further ahead of less educated people in their private lives as well as their careers.'

This is interesting and depressing. I see in my own teaching how hard it is for people from lower-income backgrounds who have not been encouraged to read and think in abstract terms to master these skills later in life.

The only answer is to improve education for all. Which involves public spending. Get rid of the useless ranking, obsessive measuring and 'customer-service' BS which currently dominates education at secondary and increasingly university level and actually TEACH.