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 !

'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.'

Totally agree. It seems a given that to earn a decent standard of living a person must aim for a 'top' job but society could not function without shop workers, barmen/binmen, waitresses and 'stupid' mothers/carers etc. It's perfectly reasonable to expect to be able to support yourself /live working 40 hours a week in ANY job. If people want to go on to further study and earn more - fine - just remember others have a right to choose an alternative lifestyle without being labelled 'stupid'.

Also some people are more artistically inclined or suited for work in the caring sector and not cut out to be doctors, lawyers etc. which has to be taken into account when choosing a career. You can't put a round peg into a square hole - even if it pays better.

Society places a higher value on certain skills and it can just be a matter of luck if you have the potential to acquire them - I wonder what many highly paid footballers would be earning if football hadn't been invented or been so lucrative - I doubt they'd all be millionaires!

In my case it is not due to gender, just me and my brother have different personalities. My parents would love me to become a doctor. It was me that i didn't want to. So it is not always like 'children of SAHMs will become this and children of WOHMs will become that'. Life is more complex than this.

"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."

Spot on

It cracks me up to see people like Xenia calling stay at home mums stupid and pontificating about stupid poor people making stupid choices when last time I looked it wasn't poor people trading in mortgage backed securities, it wasn't stay at home mums mishandling the financial services industry and doing their best to destroy the world's economy.

There is a kernel of truth what you say (primarily the bit about too many people studying and all too often studying the wrong subjects), but then you dress it up in these dreary, ineloquent rants about poor people being stupid, £30,000 debt not being anything worth worrying about and other assorted garbage.

Can you share with us what essential service you provide the world with in your working life?

Xenia has the most misogynistic brand of feminism I have ever come across.

I think larry must be right - she simply likes winding up left-wingers. I find it hard to believe that someone of Xenia's self-professed intelligence and success has failed to spot the irony in saying that the Tories will make things better off and all women have to do is stop being housewives, while Coalition policy is having a direct effect on pushing women out of the workforce and back home.

For the last time their is nothing wrong with shop workers or doing media studies just uni a uni thanks.

And as for the poster talking about art design my bil has just finished a degree in art and was out of a job for 1 year managed to get employed by a artist for 6 months now is unemployed again now unless so one decides to buy his video art he will be unemployed next year too

Not sure about you but I don't feel that was 3 years and 4k well spent

Why is it if you wanted to be a primo ballerina you can study without going to uni but for some reason the lefties think you need to go to uni to study art.

A builder is not worth more than a doctor but I don't want to pay for unis to teach building

In my view its those who think that these skills cannot be taught in a technical collage or on the job who think these jobs are worth less otherwise they wouldn't be obsessing with making them all degree level

And its funny the lefties I wouldn't expect a technical collage to offer a law course so why should unis be offering media studies

I suspect, maypole, you don't understand what media studies is. It's not learning how to make videos or how to become an artist. A lot of it is about understanding how the media works, how it integrates with society and a large part is about critiquing how the media influences public discourse.

If it wasn't for all those media studies students, even more people would believe everything that is spouted by the Daily Fail

It's quite a mancession actually as banking etc jobs were lost and a good few of their wives had to go back to work and become bread winners which is what we want - more women at work and more men scrubbing the floors.

I have said above that I know a heap of men and women in the City who came from absolutely nothing to do very very well indeed. Being poor doesn't mean you h ave a low IQ or have to pick low paid work. What we need though is more of the poor telling their chidlren if you will earn £100k a year for 40 years may be £30k of debt isn't that bad.

It's obsessions like yours with city jobs paying £100K a year that got us into this mess in the first place Xenia; too many of our brightest and best got drawn into the ponzi scheme that the financial services industry became and which as a country we subsequently became insanely overly dependant on, and which then came close to totally destroying our economy.

A big part of the UK's problem imo is people like yourself describing (for instance) someone choosing teaching as 'stupid' and not being able to understand how that same person might be further disincentivised from what is a noble and essential profession by having a massive debt on their shoulders before they even start their (by and large) not that well renumerated careers.

btw can you tell me just what careers you're describing in which someone will be earning £100,000 pa for 40 years?

and are you seriously saying that they are the only professions for which it makes sense to study at a Uni for? seriously?

ONS stats here.

75% of people earn less than £31,000 in the UK.
Even if we only had 'proper' degrees, that wouldn't change much, would it. It is impossible for everyone in this country to be a top earner. If we were all bankers and doctors, those occupations would become devalued and paid less.

The number of women now out of work is at its highest level since 1996.

Xenia, you are wrong on both counts.

yes i am seriouley saying their are certian professions that should be studied at uni.

and i certianly dont think these are the ones

You can now study to honours or foundation-degree level:

Hairdressing-salon management ? University of Derby
Fashion-and-lifestyle products ? Southampton Solent University
Watersports science and development ? University of Portsmouth
Sports-surfaces management ? Glyndwr University
Contemporary circus and physical performance ? Bath Spa University
Equestrian psychology ? Glyndwr University
Cruise management ? University of Plymouth
Surf science and technology ? University of Plymouth
Pop-music performance ? University of East London
Sexual-health studies ? University of Central Lancashire

The Sunday Times University Guide

BTW I DONT THINK THESE JOBS ARE LESS BUT THAT THEY ARE NOT COURSE THAT SHOULD BE DEGREE LEVEL

AND THE fact that the labour minister for education at the time did shows excatly what was wrong with labour.

you do a bad deed to any young person by putting a degree value on these course they are spersicfic jobs which could easily be taught on the job or in tehnical collage

Maypole

I spent 5 years in art school, was employed almost immediately, and haven't been unemployed since over 12 years ago. I pay my taxes like everybody else and hopefully make peoples lives a bit brighter.

Like I said, this country's artists and designers generate a lot of money for UK PLC ( even the lefties ! ) . We're not all unemployed 'video' artists.

Just because your BIL is unemployed isn't really much of a case for closing the country's art schools down.

More than 100,000 students are dropping out of degree courses after their first year, according to the results of an investigation that are published today.

Youngsters studying for much-needed maths, science and engineering qualifications were the most likely to drop out, according to the figures. Those opting to study medicine were the most likely to complete their courses. Nearly a quarter of all students (22.4 per cent) in the UK fail to complete their courses

and the reason is because medicine is one of the most expensive course the higher the cost to get in the more committed those students will be and the more like you will be to complete the course.

also the 9k will also help shut down those tin pot unis offering a poor quailty education why pay 9k to do a degree at some tin pot uni when you can do a course an oxford for 9k it will get students to aim higher

gstar dont want to close them down but you dont need a degree to become a artist do you now,just like you dont need a degree to beome a prima ballerina.

they have fine chools for acting and dancing that rival the likes of paris and new york but its not a degree course

like i said i do value these things but they dont need to be degrees

the whole thing is mad next think you know you will need a bakeing degree to work in greggs

in the us you have a degree if you want to be a doctor or a lawyer but if you cant to be a chef or a hairdress you have techincal schools

i cant see what the issue is because they see that by handing out degrees to everyone and their mum you devalue the whole thing.

squidgy12 yes as it should be but having grants available for students who are talented but from a poor income just like the royal academy of dance.

i see non of the lefties have answered weather these couses are sutible to be studied at degree level or weather they would be better spent taring for these on the job or at a collage

You can now study to honours or foundation-degree level:

Hairdressing-salon management ? University of Derby
Fashion-and-lifestyle products ? Southampton Solent University
Watersports science and development ? University of Portsmouth
Sports-surfaces management ? Glyndwr University
Contemporary circus and physical performance ? Bath Spa University
Equestrian psychology ? Glyndwr University
Cruise management ? University of Plymouth
Surf science and technology ? University of Plymouth
Pop-music performance ? University of East London
Sexual-health studies ? University of Central Lancashire

Studied music and never claimed the dole in my life - neither did any of my mates. Fantastic employability prospects, but I bet there were people who asked what on earth the point of music degrees were.

People can spend as long as they like banging on about how useless they think 'media studies' degrees are, but when they point to that as justification for tens of thousands of pounds for anyone wanting to study then they really should pipe down imo.

btw I have a friend with a media studies degree who spent a good portion of the last year working on the latest Pirates of the Caribbean and is on location in Miami as we speak working on another film; in the meantime I spent most of last weekend commiserating with an Oxbridge law graduate friend of mine who's been out of work for the last 6 months. Go figure.

I'm no spelling or grammar nazi (I make more than my fair share of mistakes) but I can't help but notice that the least intelligible posts on this thread do seem to have come from those denigrating any arts based or 'soft' degrees.

And yes there are some ridiculous degrees being offered, how big a portion of the higher education courses on offer they represent is another question, but it is a wind up to see them being used to fudge the issue of massively increased tuition fees.

Maypole. Yes you're right, you don't need a degree in the arts. I haven't been asked once in 12 years to prove I have a degree.

But I did need to spend 5 years at a college to study the arts, use very expensive computers, cameras etc, and be given the chance to develop my creative skills and master the tools I use. And of course all that costs money. Lots of it.

So no, I don't need a degree, but I did need the same amount of time, tuition and funding that a degree requires. And I guess the college couldn't get said funding unless it was structured towards getting a degree.

I have claimed the dole, and am an ex-lawyer. I know of two lawyers who are still out of work after losing their jobs in 2008...

Ban law degrees!!! Useless scroungers....

oh and BTW I did a philosophy degree.

Where does that come on your list of completely useless degrees, maypole?