Finally ! Therese Coffey tells it like it is. If you need more money, work longer.

[SerendipityJane]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-64745258

Hurrah for the voice of reason. Now this is the sort of person we need as Prime Minister.

Stop moaning snowflakes! I’m planting turnips tonight- they’ll be fetching quite a pretty penny* soon!

*Or at least I won’t need to barter sex to be able to keep my home warm which is pretty sweet 😙

We are going to need a lot of people to pick turnips. 11 and 14 year olds should be able to manage that.

Mind you if Therese Coffey can get a cabinet job there’s hope for us all getting a better paid job without having to upskill.

Where do you get your info?

77% of UK workers are FT, most PT have young kids and simply can't afford childcare.

Instead of having a go at the working poor (usually women with children) why don't you take your indignation and direct it at the UK s 177 billionaires with a combined fortune of over 600 billion?

Their number has increased 20% since Covid... whilst the rest of us have got quite a bit poorer.... its just not on!

That’s a fair point.

I hope you’re never unfortunate enough to find out.

DH and I very nearly bought a 2-bed flat in London circa 1989. I can't remember why we decided not to but thank God we didn't. My employer had a mortgage adviser who seemed to be able to get unbelievable 'deals' and the mortgage we would have had would have tied us up way more than our salaries could support. Plus then interest rates soared to 15%. It would probably still be a millstone round our necks if we'd gone ahead.

I don't need to upskill. I've an honours degree, an MSc with distinction, several postgrads including a diploma in personnel management and ILM Level 5 Leadership and Management. I'm a long-term employee in my organisation but I can't catch a break. Why? I'm coming up to 60 and I'm 'past it'. I've been overlooked more than once for someone half my age (my quiet satisfaction when they then move on after a couple of years does nothing to enhance my income).

I did the DipPM I started in London when when we moved away and bought a house regionally for a fraction of the price of that flat. I had to get 2 buses and a taxi to get to my lectures and depend on getting a lift home. I was unemployed for months at the time and we didn't have a car. I also had to pay for my course. I did my MSc years later while also working f/t with 3 small children, youngest 10 months and just returned from mat leave. DH was also engaging on further studies and our night in uni clashed, so I had to get family to mind the baby and take my older two to their evening activity. I sacrificed a lot to get those qualifications yet I don't get any credit.

I've been managed by people who've actually laughed at the time I spent gaining my professional qualifications, a manager with one A level, senior manager with no degree or professional qualification (neither of them with the first clue how to manage staff!!) and another affiliated senior manager who said she never got around to doing the professional qualification because she was pregnant with her first!!!

So, fuck right off Teresa Coffey!!! Before your shitty government try to force retirees back to the workplace, maybe you should address the current bias against older employees!!

My organisation went through a change programme. Managers 50+ were sidelined or given voluntary severance. Now we don't have enough staff. All the new recruits were much younger - oldest was 45.

This government is a total disgrace!

I'm seeing a gap in the market to sell 'vegan subscription cooking boxes' here

(if you were watching bbc1 at 8pm you might get this joke).

You really don't get it, do you?

What would you say to someone who, for instance, is a full-time carer to their severely disabled child? Or unable to turn their back on their relative with dementia for more than 5 minutes? Or are disabled themselves, and are physically unable to work for more than a few hours? Or someone who is able to live independently and has a full-time job, but has learning difficulties so wouldn't be able to do anything other than something minimum wage and unskilled? Or to someone whose partner beat the living shit out of them, so they had to take the children and run for their lives? Or to someone with mental health problems who is unable to leave the house? Or to retired people whose pensions and savings are so diminished by the cost of living increases that they can't afford to heat their home?

Or to, let's face it, the huge numbers of low-paid key workers who kept this country running not all that long ago. Without them, who would care for the frail, the elderly and the dying, stack shelves in supermarkets, harvest bloody turnips, drive delivery vans, clean toilets in hospitals or look after other people's kids while they work? Those jobs have to be done by somebody, and they don't pay well.

That's what she said when she saw the Tories' Turnip-like Thingy.

People who are lucky in life to get good job , marry a similar fortunate person, whose parents pay for their own care don't want to accept that "work harder" isn't the answer because thinking that their hard work made them what they are is such a warm smug comforting thought - they can't accept how much good luck affects things

@blacksax nice post!

Kids today should be picking turnips. Excellent exercise, counters the squandering of NHS funds due to obesity.
Only the lazy and in numerate believe that a day lasts for 24 hours. Workshy idea spread by those who are guaranteed minimum wage, and often as much as 50p per hour above it!
More than enough for luxuries after a nutritious 30p family meal unless too idle, or simple minded to budget or cook.
These unskilled shop assistants, carers, cleaners, factory workers, turnip pickers are a drain on our society. They claim benefits in spite of being able to work extra hours to support their children.
They even are offered very flexible arrangements in case their child is ill!
What more can we do?

COVID illustrated much about this country, when there was a whole bunch of people sitting at home sunbathing in their gardens on furlough complaining that they couldn't get a delivery of garden furniture and having to spent time with their own kids. And then performance clapped for Facebook.

There's a lot of people who are blind to stuff like who cares for the elderly, who packs your supermarket delivery, who serves you at Costa, who educates your kids or who cleans the hospital.

It's quite stunning to see how people don't see things like food supply chains or labour supply because they take them for granted to that degree.

In this bubble they cant conceive of the problems of energy supply, service provision and supply chains. Cos their minds closed beyond the limits of their boundary wall.

Was Ms Coffey the genius who encouraged any HCPs who didn't think the NHS paid enough to leave as the UK could easily fill their jobs with overseas workers? While not thinking why there are currently c140,000 vacancies if that were a solution? Wonder when they'll stop focusing on reinforcing the prejudices of the party members/base and start governing? Still appointing 30p Lee as a deputy party chair perhaps indicates their priorities?

And drank all the tea.
And some of mummy's champagne she wasted the rest pouring it down herself.
And smoked all daddy's cigars.
But she did leave us a Turnip Tip.

She's the Tory Who Came To Tea.🐯

If nursery nurses decide to get better paid jobs the country will be truly fucked. Just watch the AIBU threads roll in as people’s childcare completely disappears. And given this is MN those are likely to be people who may have had a small buffer for childcare costs going up further a few years ago.

Unless the government suddenly decides to govern at some point this might just happen anyway as nurseries can’t afford to pay what they already are without increasing costs to parent or refusing to accept funded children. Perhaps some of that extra money from January we brushed under the carpet so people wouldn’t realise there is money on the money tree could be used to sort out childcare.

You are all that's wrong with this country @MysteriesOfTheOrganism. Ham and turnip? You're epi-tome of the metropolitan elite, snowflake generation destroying Great Britain.

You make me sick!😤

Yeah she told NHS staff to go and work elsewhere if they didn't like their terms and conditions.

So they did and now we don't have a health system.

The government was very keen to keep key workers children in school during Covid.
And claims to be be keen to get people back into work now to grow the economy.
So something has to be done re childcare. It does encourage women into part time, low paid jobs the way it is, with benefits to supplement.

General strike looms ever closer

I’m going to write a musical and call it ‘Aspects of Lettuce’.

Never mind a strike. At some point they are going to go too far and end up providing the spark that starts riots.

What's wrong with you people! Am I the only one to realise all these wonderful new Brexit opportunities in turnip farming?

Oh yes, let's all work 20 hours per day while living on a diet of turnips.
Still, at least while you're out working your fingers to the bone, you won't have to worry about the CoL, simply because you'll never see your home long enough to put the heating or lights on!
Job done.