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 !

Xenia is the one being stupid over this.

There will be no financial gain from getting an education, as demonstrated on previous page. Therefore it would actually be stupid to go to university if you are bright.

Perhaps the Tories think we dont really need teachers, engineers, scientists, lawyers, doctors, software designers, etc, etc.

We will all become peasant farmers and the rest of Europe (who have already returned to strong growth) can visit to see what life was like in the dark ages.

Er, yes it is affected by childcare. I have a first degree (1st class hons btw) and a masters. I had to pay my way through university so I had to do a part-time masters even with British Academy funding. Therefore, I was in my mid-20s by the time I qualified and started pursuing a career. Then I met my X and after a few years we decided to have children. At this point, I am still on the lower rungs, don't forget, so not earning a huge amount. After he tried to strangle me (my fault and stupidity obviously ) I understandably left. So now i am a single parent, with no family to support me and my DC have to come first.

I have changed careers because as a single parent I have to take regular time off work - there is no one else who can look after my DC when sick. I have changed to a career that allows me to work from home when this happens so I can keep my job.

BTW, my childcare averages £1100 a month and that's not even full-time hours. How many women exactly do you think earn enough to absorb that? But hey, that must be because we are all stupid...

Now I am in a position where I cannot afford to do anything to change my situation until the DC are in their teens. This does not mean I have given up, but I haven't found a solution yet. But of course, this is just because I am stupid. Nothing at all to do with some bad luck and having to keep enough money coming in to pay the childminder to allow me to keep the roof over my head and food in my children's stomachs.

Honestly!

Xenia I find your post extremely insulting to a large number of groups.

My mother has severe bipolar, and brought me up single-handedly. Why was she single? Because my father decided 'hell no I'm not taking responsibility for a child' and ran off. She worked her fucking ass off full-time until after her degree, her mind broke down and she's now unable to work, on medication for the rest of her life. She hates the idea of relying on the state and yet she has no choice. My point is, the poor do work hard, but fact is it's an understatement to say working your way out of poverty is difficult.

Also, it is the majority of teenagers nowadays who have no clue as to what they want to do in the future. Why? Well, I suppose they are never taught about careers they could proceed to in the future, about the costs of living and such. They need more of a chance to think on their choice of degree - even more so considering the fees are going to rise.

However, on the fence somewhat here - I believe going to university will be beneficial to those who wish to learn about the subjects they are interested in. This is usually the case for students - they choose a subject because they enjoy it, and if they have to think more on what they will enjoy long-term and career-wise, it could enable a bright future. The debts will be hard and depressing, but when they are free of them they'll have nothing to hold them back. :)

We are creating a society that knows the cost of everything and the value of nothing.

Clearly, unless something is worth a lot of hard currency, it is worth nothing in the eyes of Xenia and the Tories.

The big paradox with this, of course, is that things that are worth a lot of money are often built on the back of things that are considered worthless - such as women raising children (and allowing men the freedom to pursue high-flying careers), such as teachers passing on knowledge to those who can then use that knowledge to generate money.

I could go on but I suspect it will fall on deaf ears.

"debts will be hard and depressing, but when they are free of them they'll have nothing to hold them back. "

Thats true, because at that point they will be retiring if there is still a retirement age, hahaha. (Its a laugh or cry situation)

'I think the problem is that for some reason the poor seem to be a bit stupid over this and cannot use the internet or use calculators and whereas the middle classes have an idea about debt and repayment and what is a big debt and what isn't the working classes seem to be put off by the fact they migh have to work jolly hard and things won't be handed to them on a plate by the state and we seem to think we need their off spring in universities so need to ensure they understand how in the grand scheme of things these aren't big debts.'

That has to be one of the most disgusting things I've read on here in a long, long time.

sunshineandbooks, yy - can we go and poke tenners in their Tory eyes? That would have a lot of value to me personally damn them.

I can't believe someone actually posted that expat

Christ on a fucking bike ,this place does my head in sometimes

Xenia - are you Katie Hopkins?

'I can't believe someone actually posted that expat '

I know, especially in the form of such a run-on sentence with a distinct lack of proper punctuation.

Even some of the poor have a better grasp of grammar.

I was having Hemingway flashbacks there with all that use of 'and'.

If before the internet I could go to a public library in my teens to borrow a book - what people earn I don't see why today's teenagers if they are bright with the whole resources of the internet available to them cannot work out teacher + X ayu, nurse equals Y, rugeons earn Z, bankers A, lawyer C, management consultants D.

Anyway something for your children to think about perhaps to ensure they dont' get into the same position as most people in terms of earnings.

It will be interesting to see whether the introduction of higher fees actually does impact upon numbers.

If we all remember, when Thatcher brought in the push back on grants, we all said, me included, 'no one will go.'

Then when Blair (yes let's not forget it was Labour) introduced tution fees we all said, me included, 'no one will go.'

And what happened? Record numbers applied.

So do we have anyhting on which to base our fears than only the rich will now be able to go to university?

although I'm not a parent
I can Imagine how hard it must be for parents to keep their families going during these difficult times.
There Is no worser feeling than when you have kids that need this and that plus food etc and there is not enough money between yourself and your husband to satisfy the basic needs.
and then you switch on the TV and see politicians either trying to convince us they are bending over backwards to get Britain back on track, or they are backstabbing each other in other to win our trust.
I'm sorry to say this but they really make me sick.

"Then when Blair (yes let's not forget it was Labour) introduced tution fees we all said, me included, 'no one will go.'"

Speak for yourself, I didn't say "No one will go", it was clear to anyone that fees were required and £3000 a year seemed just about manageable.

"So do we have anyhting on which to base our fears than only the rich will now be able to go to university?"

I don't fear that only the rich will now be able to go to university, but certainly it will only be those who won't be put off by starting their working life with £30,000 or more of debt. That's an awful lot of money (unless of course you're rich) If you think record amounts of people will still apply and that the intake will be as mixed as it once was then we definitely disagree.

btw Xenia, I take back what I said about your not wanting to sounds quite as cretinous as you did, you later posts make it clear that's just how you want to appear.

to OP, not really

labour would have cut £9 for every £10 this govt are cutting anyway, so would have happened regardless.

Cuts have to be made, that's the realism of it

I think the average person would be worse off regardless of which party had got power. Thank God the tories did get power. The idiot Labour government chucked money left right and centre, the tories are reigning that back in.

"The idiot Labour government chucked money left right and centre, the tories are reigning that back in."

The Tories pledged to spend just as much as Labour right up until the credit crunch and they're only reigning it in now because they have to. The only difference would have been the pace of the cuts and exactly where they were targeted.

It's the nature of governments to overspend sadly and it takes a real crisis to get them to do otherwise. Even Margaret Thatcher only managed to cut spending for one year of her entire time as PM.

wordfactory good Ihope is dose impact on numbers I don't really want people to go to uni only to drop out which half of students do .

Nor do I want people at uni studying surfing you don't need to go uni to study surfing at uni for cristsake uni is for proper subjects such as law, medicine my oh is a nurse and even they rue the day they turned the nursing diploma into degree next your be having a shopping degree.

Sorry to sound harsh but you clearly have a sutuation. Were people who have no academic apatuide at uni and theirs no need, do we relly need to teach people salon management at uni.

Or you have a situation were people have done endless regales at a level then merged to scrape their way into uni gurr.

Uni should be for the best and the bright not for the 3 time a level retake kid or the Lad who's got a promising golf management career ahead of him

I am astounded that there are so many that think the Tories are doing a good job!!!!

This bunch have gone from one elite institution to another, without any conception of what it is really like to live in the so called 'big society'.

oh, and by the way Zenia, you sound like an awful person.

"wordfactory good Ihope is dose impact on numbers I don't really want people to go to uni only to drop out which half of students do ."

One in seven students currently drop out; you don't require a uni education to realise that's not quite half.

It's also a figure that has been dropping sharply and I hope will continue to do so

We are definitely worse off, but I don't blame the Tories, i blame Gordon Brown for driving this country to the brink of bankruptcy. If it wasn't for the Tories, we would be Greece.

"We are definitely worse off, but I don't blame the Tories, i blame Gordon Brown for driving this country to the brink of bankruptcy. If it wasn't for the Tories, we would be Greece."

On the one hand we have the Tories saying that Labour are hypocrites because they would be cutting pretty much as hard they currently, and on the other they say we would Greece because they wouldn't be cutting at all.

They can't have it both ways.

As for Gordon Brown driving us to the brink of bankruptcy, you're exactly right, NuLabour did exactly that and George Osborne was there pledging to do exactly the same.

Chen 23 - I totally agree with you. I'd love to see university places slashed to a quarter or so, but completely funded so that it didn't cost anyone anything to go. Eligibility would be based solely on ability to achieve, not to ability to pay. That would make it a truly equal institution and would do far more to encourage bright kids from poor backgrounds.

Vocational training for in-demand skills would be far more appropriate for most people, and training on the job to my mind is the way society needs to go in future. My kids could not afford to go to uni under the present system, but even if they could, unless they need a specific degree for a specific career I would advise them against it.