Have you been worse off since the tories came into power?

[samram]

Just wondered if anybody else is worse off since they came into power?
i work 16 hours a week as single parent
Child care is £88 a week term time and £120 half term.
In april i had my tax credits cut by £65 a week!
I am really really struggling at the moment.
Just wondered if anyone else is the same ?
I dont just mean single parents and mean families too !

I speak only the truth. (a) the poor have a lot more help and will pay less than the squeeze middled. (b) the debt is the 2 drinks and pack of crisps and only the stupid poor would be put off by it if they could graduate and earn salaries £100k in some jobs which non graduates find harder. There is no reason why smeone from a poor family should find it harder to work out what they might earn and what it wil cost to service a loan. It's patronising to suggest otherwise. If you're from a low income family often you are even more ambitious because you want to get out of poverty and you set your sights on £500k+ income. I know loads of women who have managed that in London and many came from very humble origins.

No one is cutting as hard as we need and both parties are pretty similar. There is little choice between the parties sadly.

Sunshine, if your children went to uni they would only be paying it back once they had finished if they were going to uni to be come a doctor say why wouldn't they be able to pay it back gps can earn up to 100k

I can see if they were going to uni to study some tin pot degree such as media they would struggle to pay it back but you don't Strike me as the sort of mum who would encourage their children top pay 9k to study golf management

The types of courses you should be going to uni for come with high wages in the end so i couldn't see why they wouldn't be able to re pay the money

Never met a poor doctor,barrister or scientist

Well, reardless of whose 'fault' it is that we are in this mess, we are worse off now.

Partly I blame the changes brought in to NHS funding - the PCTs here had slashed budgets and last month had to choose between the service I work for and the other ('rival') service - they chose the other service but they are still gunning for us. If another wave of budget cuts are needed, I wouldn't fancy our chances.

My partner has been under threat of redundancy and looks like he may retain his job but with a third salary cut. He works in education, and although the problems started prior to the Tories gaining power, their plans for the way education is funded is having a direct impact. Colleges and Unis are and will continue to close left, right and centre.

Both of these problems I lay at the door of the Tories.

On top of the cost of living we are much worse off and struggling atm.

Totally agree the poorest families will get it all paid for any way.

All this will do is stop the time wasters who are their for the Crack the uneducated who barley made it in.

The dedicated and the bright will still get to go also

I would imagine it might make parents and students think twice about studying media if all courses and more or less 9k you might as well study law.

Labour allowed these kids top pay the 3k for useless courses for them to only find out they still can't get a job and would of been better working in a cafe at the weekend and then for free in the BBC which would of yielded more fruit

And personally they should charge 9k for the whole course even if you drop out the only exceptions if your ill or the Dean excuses you.

That would stop people going if they were just in it for student life

University is not what it used to be, the students whoo chose to go would be very clever and know the career path they wanted in the main.

Now its full of fun easy courses that people will never use and its seen as a fun couple of years.

The fact we allow people not to pay back loans it sheer madness in itself. Make all the loans repayable regardless of x level of income and take into account partners earnings where the person with the debt chooses not to work. Perhaps then the courses will go back to be doctors, lawyers etc - the important ones rather than arts/design etc that could simply be done at A level or similar.

But there are loads of important jobs out there that require a degree but do not provide incomes in the HRT bracket, let alone 100k. Do none of you realise that?

And this is again what I mean about the cost of everything and the value of nothing. So research is unimportant is it? Do any of you know what a typical researcher actually earns?

Arts and design are worthless are they? Let's all live in money-obsessed society with no culture then. But then of course the poor will be so poor that they're too busy worrying about food to think about art. Hierarchy of needs anyone? But then, the poor shouldn't be concerned about 'culture' anyway as they're obviously too stupid.

And what funding for the poor to go to uni? It's all been scrapped!

"I speak only the truth"

Xenia, you speak nothing of the kind, more like the kind of knee jerk, reactionary, moronic platitudes that would seem out of place even in the Daily Mail.

Firstly you label anyone who leaves work to bring up kids as stupid, and anyone who chooses a badly paid career (seemingly anything under the 100K mark, people like teachers, most research scientists, engineers etc etc) as stupid, and then write off all 'poor people' as stupid also.

You then try and write off the current (at least) £30,000 worth of debt that students now face as if it was nothing because it's only 2 pints of beer and a packet of crisps a week. Lets call that £6 a week, at that rate it would take around 96 years to pay off the £30,000 and that's if you managed to do your entire degree without taking a maintenance grant. The fact you unquestioningly swallowed that figure from what ever 'news' source you got it from, and the calibre of your other posts really makes me question whether you're in a position to be questioning anyone's intelligence.

I'd actually prefer a US-style of HE over here. Yes, it costs an obscene amount to go but there is a much wider, better-funded system of bursaries and grants available for poor kids than there is over here.

Also, there are much better local community colleges, where people with other commitments (like having to hold down a job to feed their kids) can study useful qualifications to retrain. Get enough points in them and you can actually move to a higher rated university. Over here, however, adult evening courses tend to be very restricted - you largely get things like woodwork, aromatherapy, beginners or advanced french, etc (unless you live in a big city, when you might get evening GCSE courses etc).

There's an awful lot of people in this country, me included, who either didn't make the right choices as a teenager (cos of course they're so renowned for making clever choices at this age), or whose lives have gone down a course where their original qualifications/career are no longer viable. Currently, unless they've got money or access to it, their lives are written off. It's not their fault and if they're willing to work hard, retrain and forge a new career (and pay taxes!!!!) it's surely to everyone's benefit.

Sunshine art is not worthless but dose not need to taught is uni rada is one of the best acting schools but not a uni the royal academy of dance is not a uni but turns out worlds best ballet and dance.

We are not saying course like media or art is useless but dose not need to be taught in uni

Well no sunshine because even at 19 years old its still your parents job to guide you and I know actually what I will be saying to my child if they want to study art or media at 9k a pop

I would be saying go be a doctor and if they rant able to get into uni on a academic course we would have to rethink weather uni for them

And I would enough my child to work unpaid at a radio sation or something then do paid work in the evenings to get his foot in the door rather than waste 9k on a course which may or may not get you a job.

re : arts and design

Where I work every single person studied some form of arts and design. Everybody in the room earns over 50k, around a third are on 100k.

Our 'creative industry' in the UK is a world leader and generates huge amounts of income for the country. The film industry, advertising industry, fashion etc etc etc.

The idea that art and design is an easy options is just silly.

< rant over >

maypole - you've just illustrated a point beautifully for me.

I was on my own at 19. Despite what you seem to think, so are many other youngsters. Even if there parents are alive, there's no guarantee they will be able to financially supportive. Many kids are just not in a position where they have the option of relying on parents to help out so they could work for a reduced rate/for free and get their foot in the door of a great career. It's much easier to take your opportunities if you have money.

Another thing to remember is that if you're from a poor background and you go off to study at uni, how are you going to live? You may get loans etc that you don't have to pay back just yet, but without parental support you will still have to work just to get enough to pay housing and food. That's a career in medicine out the window then, even if you got A* at all your A-levels. That's not fair.

HMRC are winding people up left right and centre. They wouldn't even listen to one business last week which is quite viable and wanted to make stage payments. They would rather lose the money apparently and that's us losing the money. Weird but may be you get that in the public sector.

Labour spent and spent until the coffers were totally bare. None of us who run families do that so that hasn't helped nor has the recession too.

However if you aren't happier the more money you have and fi happiness is more about state of mind and brain chemicals then perhaps it doesn't matter (as long as your'e fed and housed) what income people actually have. Plenty of nations on the planet are happier than we are a living on much much less income.

"Labour spent and spent until the coffers were totally bare. None of us who run families do that so that hasn't helped nor has the recession too."

If you'd read a newspaper over the last few years you'd have seen that all too many families did, which is one of the things that precipitated the recession in the first place. Both the UK government and it's populace went on a debt binge, the ramifications of which are now obvious.

The world went on a debt binge. I always find it fascinating when people blame Gordon Brown and Labour. It was a Global financial meltdown, so unless you think Brown was also in charge of the economies of virtually every other western nation, you'd have to look elsewhere.

Even Mervin King said it was was all the banks fault.

Gordon Brown did not cause the "meltdown" but he did fail to prepare us for it. Gold for sale, anyone?

He spent spent spent and promised the end of boom and bust. He was fool and we are worse off for it.

This thread's title should read "Are you worse off post Labour?"

Yes, I am.

And in 10 years time, I will be better off post-Tory.

I am not a die-hard Labour supporter. I like to consider each party's manifesto at the time of each election. There is a lot (university structure and funding being one of them) that I disagreed about under Labour and quite a lot of Thatcher's early policies (before she went all megalomaniac like) that I agreed with. However, it is the unfairness of the cuts and the poisonous ideology of the current Coalition incumbents that really worries me and has personally made my social position much worse off.

Just wonder what would happen if everyone from the next generation took your advice Xenia...A whole society composed of bankers, lawyers and "rugeons", whatever they are. With no one to teach your children, empty your bins, or, indeed, wipe your arse in your care home.

Those who have lowly, essential, traditionally working class jobs deserve MORE respect and higher pay, not to be slagged off for making foolish career choices.

True that some families were silly and overspent. The austerity will do them good. Anyone on musmnet can drink only tapwater as I do and they'd feel a lot better too without alcohol coffee juice etc.

Many people do not have the skills to earn a lot of money so let's not con them into taking pointless degrees but on an individual basis it is wise to advise your chidlren of the consequences of taking particular career choices.

As for paying it back if they do a degree which leads to a low paid job because they want to become a contemplative nun, a squatter or starving "artist" they don't pay a penny back so they have nothing to feaer. If they are from families where mother's done work live off male earnigs and cook and clean and care for children as housewives then also they will not be paying much of it back either so if you're bringing up your daughters to be happy little housewives like mother then they may well go to university but will never have debt to pay back.

So there's nothing between squatter and Lloyds CEO then Xenia?

What about all those thousands of people like me who earn more than the threshold but less than HRT? Like teachers for example.

The idea that you won't have to pay it back until you can afford it is just total rubbish. Most ordinary people (i.e. those whose parents cannot fully sub them) will leave uni with more debts than the student loans that they will also have to pay back. Uni graduates doing important roles will spend years paying back debts. Meanwhile they will probably acquire more debts (because their income isn't covering the increasing cost of living while also paying back debts). Some will sacrifice having children (that's good for future pensions isn't it!). Some will sacrifice buying a house (which is fair enough really). A lot will cease to contribute to spending, which isn't good for the economy either.

As it is for me, childcare is now a little easier as I get some free hours and they will soon start school. It will still cost me £6000 a year then, though (it will cost me more than £105,000 before they are old enough to no longer need it). I cannot afford to pay a pension. I have 'overspent' to actually put fuel in my car to get to work. I have been 'silly' to put food on the credit card instead of letting them starve. Silly old me. At one point I have eaten nothing but weetabix for a week because I couldn't afford to buy any more food and needed to give what I had to the DC. But thanks for assuming it's because I spent it all on wine, CDs and flatscreens or something.

I do this because I will never allow myself to hit the bottom and be out of work as I know it will only be 100x harder to achieve anything from there. I do it to set a good example to my DC and because I hope that longer term it will get easier and pay off. I do it because I spent my 20s thinking that intelligence, hard work and determination were all I needed to go far in life. In my 30s I am disillusioned and I realise success requires a huge amount of luck, which to some extent you can actually buy. I do it so I can buy those chances for my own children. Shame a lot of the country's children will never have that opportunity.

Xenia,

There is a difference in doing something through choice and being forced to do it through poverty. Your posts read in a very Marie Antoinettesque way. I do not know whether you have a complete inability to empathise or whether you just like winding up left wingers.

While I agree with a lot of your economic views, I do not think you understand people's psychology very well. For instance, re tuition fees, they do put people off. You are absolutely right saying they shouldn't but if your parents budget week to week, I can imagine the idea of a £30k debt being very scary.

When I was at Cambridge (in the days of grants) those from better off homes were far more comfortable in running up overdrafts to cover a better lifestyle because the numbers just did not seem that big in terms of what they were used to.

On the other hand, with reference to the thread itself, most people are worse off. BUT, it had to happen sooner or later and would eventually have been worse under New Labour when we ended up begging from the IMF (could still happen). You cannot keep borrowing from the future to fund spending today. I still find it remarkable that people do not associate New Labour with banking excesses. They totally encouraged phony profits to get taxes in to fund their pet projects.

Xenia it is not as simple as 'if you are a lawyer your dcs will be ambitious too, if you like pasta your dcs will like pasta too etc' . My brother is a top consultant doctor and he always knew what he wanted to be, me on the other hand i never had a big money-making career. It always surprises me that you have 5 children but you dont seem to understand that children have different personalities and also their lives will also be affected by various other factors. They are not our clones.

Well it's a pity on the whole girls (probably because they avhe housewive mothers) just happen not to be the ones who want to earn much money and the boys do - see post above.