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

He also studied English at Cambridge & got a 2.1 so definitely not thick.

Brainwashed though, according to a certain poster

Because that's what wealthy, elite, historic institutions do to their upper class students, brainwash them into being left wing and pro taxation 😂

Brainwashed by The Bard.

Op Can you get some financial advice from a financial advisor?
Can you get an estate agent to take over selling one of your properties?
Can you sell the property you live in so you can get something smaller but nearer to work to cut down on commuting?
Can you speak with social services, your GP about your son and how you are feeling?
Keep nagging the authorities about getting a EHCP so your son can go to a state school that can deal with his SEN.
Please go to a doctor to see if they can help you feel better.

Yes, op does work. Don’t know the salary, though. Having to pay for a school because the state school system can not/ will not adequately cater for the level of SEN. Even though I presume op pays taxes like everyone else, she’s having to pay again for child’s special schooling. Reliant on help from parents, too. This is not privilege, but hopefully it will address the disadvantage the child has, as they would be neglected/ left behind at a state school. It most certainly should be provided by the state system, and op should not have to fork out just to get an education for her SEN child.

The buy to let may end up not wiping its face. Op wants to sell (without success so far), but I presume not at a loss as that may leave a debt to clear. It may have been bought as an investment with hope of good returns, but maybe now more a burden. Hope op offloads it soon.

A house sure, but high mortgage is not something desirable if rates go up. Also it may be tough enough, with the cost of living rising, with water, electricity, transport etc having high costs. The op is not alone in that being a worry.

Let's have some facts!
Ha, the FACTS....that are totally distorted facts ... Firstly because it isn't given as a proportion of claimants/total tax paid, but most importantly because it refers to PROVEN fraud, and proven benefit fraud is a very small ratio of total fraud, because proving it is not worth the cost of doing so.

So the majority of fraudsters can continue to do so by knowing exactly how to do to avoid being taken to court.

If only the cast majority of benefit fraudsters and those who twist the system were taken off the books and the money was redistributed to the genuine, wouldn't this be a perfect world!

Sorry, I have gone back and see that the op did not buy the house to get a return on investment. Op was living there and had to move out.

I think there is stress from quite a few sources, and really hope the op can eliminate some of them. Off loading the house, and getting the state to provide an adequate education for the child would probably help to start with.

I think just over 2 years of Labour rule has overturned the amazing 14 years of Tory idyl.

The Tories underfunded the country causing austerity, misery and a productivity crisis compounded by shocks such as Brexit, Covid that the NHS was unprepared for due to austerity, the banking crisis caused by deregulation, the many oil crisis events, the water crisis caused by underinvestment, the fraud and mismanagement of the economy causing the pound to fall allowing US corporate raiders to buy companies on the cheap, the hiving off of easy parts of the NHS to make cash, the lack of investment in our food security and energy infrastructure. The lack of industrial and educational investment which has caused a productivity gap. The defunding of welfare that caused untold thousands of deaths. The mismanagement if COVID causing thousands of dead’s, the eat out to kill more scheme. The Truss mini budget, the funding Johnson’s mistresses. the lying under oath to prorogue parliament. I could go on.

yes, anyone who has to deal with the reality of what this country is. Clement Atlee also had to impose harsh medicine on the country after the war and we go the NHS, pensions,social housing, paid holidays, NATO and a plethora of things based on vision at a stage when we lost empire and we were virtually bankrupt. People seem to forget that the heroes that went out to war came back to a more cushioned and better country. People need to realise that we need to make sacrifices to resolve the issues we have as a country caused by our leaders and bad decisions made over the course of the last 45 years starting with Thatcher.

But then I thought Starmer was doing ok too - was nice to have a grown up government for a change. Pity Labour MPs didn't agree and took a leaf out of the Tory "lets replace our PM every 2 years playbook".

Don't forget the media denigration of Starmer. To me he looked like a competent technocrat lacking in presentational skills. He was poor at the "Vision Thing" but the visceral hatred for him that was whipped up by the media was quite undeserved.

Her parents pay for the school.

Did you know that the UK is more than halfway to meeting its 2050 Net Zero goals, years ahead of expected, and that emissions here have fallen faster than any other major economy? It came as a pleasant surprise to stumble across that fact recently - and it certainly wasn't widely reported. A success story we should be proud of - and working towards completing the 2050 goals (accelerating the switch from gas/oil to renewables for households and businesses) will mean lower consumer prices and a far more robust basis on which to develop future-facing industries. But this, apparently, is far too complex a discussion for MSM journalists to conduct.

You have a job.
You own two properties.
You have a child in a private school

Take Gemma. She left her husband with 2 kids. She got a nice new council home after 6 months. She doesn't work because both her children have been assessed as autistic. She claims PIP for both and CA. She gets £500 children maintenance. Her children are in main stream school and she is lucky to be living next to a school with good SEN.

Gemma met her partner 3 years ago. He has his own house and a decent job. She calls him a boyfriend though. They don't officially live together but are at each others house every day. They could get married and she could move to his house but they would be financially worse off, she would lose her home for life and her kids their place in a good school.

They have together over £2,000 disposable income every month after bills. They have good cars, a nice lifestyle, great holidays etc...

Gemma meets the criteria of being in poverty. She is deemed in needs and gets other benefits to help with every day life, school meals, free holiday clubs for the kids, free entrance to many activities etc...

Gemma is not committing benefit fraud. She knows the boxes to tick that be considered she a single parent.

Gemma is getting a lot of sympathy. Poor her, life is hard as a non working singly mum of two disabled children.

In the meantime, OP is a horrible person for daring moaning here when age owns two properties.

Is OP going to bring up her kids to become a Gemma? Because let's face it, her life is much less stressful than OP.

That's is exactly what our society is signing up to. Mini Gemmas in the making, fewer OPs to contribute to our economy.

From minimum wage jobs...

Andy Burnham is just a conceived character, who is who he thinks his people want in to be ! Hence, if he thinks wearing a black scruffy T shirt makes him look like the average man and able to connect he will a black scruffy T shirt in reality he is nothing more than a man mocking his own supporters.

In appreciating that Andy Burnham is a contrived character we notice he has no vision ideas or direction other the following the text book of the 'progressive' left whether appropriate or beneficial to those he says he represents. These being s the people of Makerfield who if he had got his way in incorporating the 'Left's' text book pollution charge, he would have pulled a fast one over the many people unfortunate to not possess great political knowledge.

However, Andy Burnham likes to be 'liked' and feted on regional radio like Radio Manchester with his disciples ringing in praising in to the other poor sods listening. I think his 'EGO' of being the King Of The North has meant the stupid idiot has acted on impulse, like a child in a sweet shop with the chance to be Prime- Minister, eventually or Ego Driven fools get 'Big Eyes' and end up humiliated. The man is not even Prime- Minister and he is avoiding any scrutiny.

It's insane that people who own their homes outright and have a private pension income in the higher-rate tax band on its own are still eligible for a 12.5K benefit, isn't it?

Not at all. It's easier & cheaper to give the benefit to everyone then claw it back in tax from those with high incomes.

Cancel Conceived, I mean contrived sorry mistake

This schroedinger’s Gemma who is on benefits and also in poverty as well as richer than Midas.

Any concrete examples of this "massive, ideological bias" affecting higher education - which turns out every category I mentioned?

I mean, if there is indeed a "massive ideological bias" within HE, it will affect all students within HE. Not just the specific ones whose ideas you don't like.

So, concrete examples please. Shouldn't be difficult to provide, if there is a "massive, ideological bias."

If they have savings, private pension, state pension etc are all counted as taxable income ie they will be paying tax on all of it over the usual threshold. In comparison universal credit, PIP, housing benefit etc are not taxed in the UK.

What would be the point of taxing benefits? The government would be paying out with one hand & clawing back with the other. To maintain current benefit levels they would have to increase benefits to cover the tax due to be paid so on paper government spending on benefits would be much higher.

Errr, well we all accept even best case Burnham is going to be very short lived, I suspect the lure of the post PM profits were too much to resist, and let’s face it he couldn’t even manage to become leader - despite trying twice, so this happy ‘accident’ was too good to pass.

This not an ‘accident’ at all.

The far left were itching to remove Starmer to install one of their own, so they can deploy a far left agenda that does not, and will never have the consent of the people. You have been warned.

We absolutely have been hijacked as a country, and it might take some time for it to dawn on many, but make no mistake this country is in real trouble.

Feeling sorry for all the posters here who think that Labour, Burnham and even Corbyn are die-hard communists - it must be very sad indeed to live in such fear of the tiniest bit of redistribution in such a wildly unequal country, where the Conservative party and its cronyism have tanked the economy and eroded the social fabric like that. This is pure Stockholm syndrome.

I'm not suggesting benefits should be taxed.

I'm pointing out that state pension is not a benefit like universal credit, PIP, housing benefit etc because it is taxed at the usual rate where as they aren't.

Anyone who steps up now to lead the country is between a rock and a hard place.

The multiple issues we face have been years in the making and some are due to external factors we have no control over. The issues are not going to be fixed in 2 years. People’s expectations are way off, and they are mostly whipped up by a broadly negative , fear mongering right wing press.

People want change right NOW! And they think it’s all pretty easy to fix if only we had the right leader/ the tories back in power/ Reform in power/ all the immigrants shipped off back to wherever they came from…

It’s a long game but no one is willing to allow anyone (especially someone they consider boring / uncharismatic / unpopular ) to lead the country and attempt to bring stability which would need a hell of a lot longer than 18 months to 2 years.

I really feel for you about the housing situation, OP.

I feel like my peers were all told by our parents to just get on the property ladder as soon as we could and that just hasn’t worked out for most of us. Mostly in new build leasehold flats - a horrible combination of Osbourne changing tax rules for BTLs (which made average newish build flats suddenly less sellable, even ones that were not BTLs), Grenfell, cottage industry about fire safety regs starting up, disgusting management companies, banks suddenly not lending on flats they were happy to lend on a few years before.

I know plenty of families who on paper have plenty of money - private schools etc - who are families of 4-5 cramped in an unsellable 70 sq m flat. I know one family where the whole family of 4 (children are pre teens, one boy and one girl) all share one bedroom. Because overcrowding isn’t a thing when you are “rich”.

And no - none of this was wholly the Conservatives fault or Labour’s fault, it’s just crap. But then, you look at the next generation with higher student loans they will never pay off and a worsening rental market, and maybe they have it worse.

I’m not a Burnham fan but if he does something to help the gap between older generations and younger he will have my respect. The Treasury want to push back the pension age earlier and this hopefully kills the Waspi women campaign dead for example.

It isn’t any longer a flex to have gone to Cambridge. Until they drop their standard lowering to include enough box tickers to satisfy politically correct number crunching, it’s meaningless.