To feel utterly miserable about a future with Andy Burnham as PM?

[OneWarmHazelQuail]

I feel like I'm being stung in every possible way at the moment- £15 a day on tube to work, high mortgage costs, high energy costs, private schooling for SEN child (I was told state wouldn't be unlikely to assist him as he isn't mute or violent). My parents have had to help fund schooling it felt like my only hope as son has behavioural issues.

I also have an unsold old home that I have to rent out as it wouldn't sell. Buy-to-let mortgage costs, agent fees, maintenance and tax put me in a loss position.

I can't bear what the future holds with Andy Burnham. I have no doubt that he will find new and imaginative ways to keep me in this financial nightmare. I'm literally struggling from food poverty but regarded as rich by policy.

YABU- Andy Burnham is actually going to make things better

YANBU- I'm screwed

Again, to try and explain the data away as simply there's 'brainwashing' in higher education...a lack of complex thought

It’s very well documented if you are able to read.

Patronising response in lieu of coherent response

Someone on a £50k private pension pays £10k tax on it - all their personal allowance is swallowed up by the state pension. Essentially they’re only receiving £2500 of their state pension so It’s effectively means tested already.

Cool classisim but nope, haven’t been a minimum wage worker since I was 18 and UC is still a benefit. Which I have never claimed.

Still noticed no difference. Or rather I have noticed that no party has kept up with inflation and how things such as the 60% tax trap has not been modified in the face of that.

I don’t see how Burnham will change the status quo in that regard.

How do you become an accidental Landlord?

This is it, corporations should at least be paying the same as small businesses, if not more.

How so?

I did a degree unrelated to politics and I don’t think I had a single political discussion at any point, either formally or socially.

Are you seriously trying to say English Lit or maths students are being brainwashed to be left leaning?

50k isn’t that much (especially if you having housing costs.)

It’s monumentally unfair to pull away the state pension from those who planned their retiremenr factoring it in.

Also it encourages feckleness as more and more of the state is built to reward those who make no personal provision.

There should be a basic state pension everybody gets and those who want more make private provision.

I do, however, think that if Andy can somehow change the system so we can actually get some (council) housing built, that would be fantastic. Unfortunately, despite the rhetoric, labour have added even more layers of bureaucracy and costs/taxes to the housebuilding industry, so the newest iteration of labour (with Andy at the helm) is likely to do the same.

That’s the thing. The only thing that can change is increasing taxes and increasing benefits because there are no systems preventing it and no one would protest it either.

Everything else is inhibited by the system, legislation, bureaucracy and pressure groups, and no man on his own, no matter how gregarious and good looking, can change that, not even this Andy chap.

Andy is, in my view, a massive distraction for us all while we cope just that bit more with managed decline,

Honestly..we have become very insular. When you have a distressed child, public situations are often difficult. Friends and family often don't understand.

My parents only live 5 miles away but they work long hours and are also too frail to childmind. They also struggle with my son. Mum gets nervous that he'll break things

I'm embarrassed by our life of isolation...Mumsnet is pretty much my only connection with outside world other than work

Thatcher made a lot of significant changes to the financial system.

When you do that, some are always going to be positive and some negative. Some will blow bubbles that need to be corrected, others will kill markets for good.

I am pretty sure when Thatcher implemented her policies the intention wasn't that these would last forever, but they would be tweaked according to need in the future.

In a more broad sense, 10 years of Tory government followed by 10 years of Labour you might hope that there would be some rebalancing of policy and the curbing of the worse policies that were blowing significant bubbles in things like the housing market.

We didn't actually get that though. Following Major we got a decades worth of Tory-lite from Blair, which rather than rebalancing and adjusting Thatchers policies just blew the bubbles even more, which of course led to the GFC.

Can your school not help with the EHCP? DS went to preschool at a private (SEN tbf) school and they helped with the EHCP process which got approved in 6 months. He's now at MS state school and doing mostly great as he has the correct support in place. Had I done it myself I think I would have struggled.

How much negative equity are you in? I can see why you cant sell if you dont have much equity in your main house and are in NE on the rented one.

Im sorry to hear about the traumatic incident

The Conservatives were in power for 18 years. By the time a Labour government was elected, the money from North Sea oil/gas had been squandered on Margaret Thatcher's ideological privatisation spree.

Coming back to you op. Of course you feel despair at a far left coup taking over our country, it has instilled fear that things will go from bad to even worse. That scenario may very well happen.

It might be better to take every day as it comes, rather than worrying about the future. Who knows we may have an election by Christmas and things could be looking much brighter by the new year. Or perhaps Burnham will be quietly a much more sensible and pragmatic person than his boss Corbyn.

Can the house be used for air bnb or short term stays whilst you try to sell it?

Organise respite care through social services? Just call them and say you aren’t coping. They will come out and listen to your son, and put extra support in place to help you.

You have a loving family and will come through this 💐

OP, it does sound like you are really struggling and the reality is that any PM, even a complete change of power with a general election, wouldn't give you the immediate help you need. I agree with others to reach out to GP, but I'd also look at charities. So many state services have been decimated and closed down in recent years, look into local private charities who may be able to offer support. Good luck

I live in a high rent area, so even working FT on NMW you can still be eligible for UC because rents are so high.

My (step) DIL wouldn't get any UC if she wasn't paying over £1300 a month in rent, which is well below market rent for the area.

You are hilarious and terrifying at the same time.

who knew how vindictive European countries would be in wanting to 'punish' us?

Anyone who describes a highly-successful, highly-organised trade bloc as 'vindictive", or who feels that effective negotiation is "punishing us" doesn't deserve to be taken seriously.

"We" wanted to leave the world's largest trading organisation and not be bound by its rules. That's exactly what we got. When "we" realised that cutting off a large part of our export markets wasn't such a good idea, economically, jobs-wise, "we" began asking for access again. And were treated just like any other 3rd country asking for access. Detailed negotiations over many sectors, requiring agreement to specific obligations. Not the EU's fault that their negotiators are very experienced and ours were (initially) a former whisky PR man. Not the EU's fault that UK governments were/are trying to sell the myth to their voters that being "uniquely special" means we deserve unicorns.

Possibly unlike some other 3rd-country applicants, there is still a sizeable amount of goodwill within the EU to the UK. But it's a trade bloc, negotiations are conducted on the basis of what provides most benefit to the bloc's 27 members, and does this fit with our member-agreed rules, regulations and policy aims.

And as "we" have found, in negotiations not just with the EU but with Australia, the USA, the TPP, negotiating from the starting point of being desperate to provide a "win" for the tabloids and some voters isn't a strong position to be in.

Perhaps you'd be kind enough to link to some sources that set out the case for this belief.

why should we accept benefits fraud ? Why should we or any fraud ?

Why are we even considering upping the aid budget to pakistan to encroage them to take back rapists? We already give Pakistan 50 million. Why ? They have 170 nuclear weapons

And we have poor defences now. Does this make sense

Many people need benefits. There are literally billions of pounds of missing taxes through individuals and companies avoiding and evading taxes/ systemic non compliance - £59 billion. That’s a bigger problem.

I don’t disagree re your aid point.

Having been a single parent to a disabled child for much of my life (son is now nearly 50) I've suffered under countless Conservative governments. I worked hard and even managed to buy a modest home but it was repossessed when interest rates hit 15%. Anyone who thinks the Tories ever made life any easier for anyone, except for the very comfortably off and large corporations, needs to do some research.

He spent too much overseas trying to win headlines and expending political capital on policies that were not in the manifesto. 2 years trying to push through euthanasia forcing through digital ID no leasehold reform.

bottling it on winter fuel

no political vision - what did he want for the uk what was his vision. Low tax? Better services? Better infrastructure ? Powerhouse over some eceonomic sector?

no one knows? Why is that?

reform want a low immigration country
tories low tax high privatisation
under kier what does labour want? No one knows everything he said he stood for when voted leader he revoked long ago.

if Joe bloggs can’t tell you what you stand for after 2 years in power that’s an abject failure. He controlled the levers of state and couldn’t even figure a national message that cut through.

other than giving Zelenskyy our tax money whenever he was trying to boost polling

Labour were in power for 13 years before 2010, during which time we were continuing to drill in the north sea. What happened to that revenue?

I sensed this might be the case. Perhaps take tiny steps out of this.