To be so cross at the government

[Hillary17]

I honestly have no idea what we’re going to do next year and it’s now keeping me up at night worrying about our financial situation. We’ve been sensible and cut back as much as possible, got rid of all the luxuries people on here suggest to cut back on but there’s still a massive hole forming in our finances. Ours savings have been wiped by buying our first home and general cost of living over the last six months. We saved for ten years to buy our first home together, worked incredibly hard and sacrificed. It’s hardly a mansion either, your bog standard first house! Currently paying around £750 a month on the mortgage. We fixed for two years due to our jobs being a bit in flux and not sure if we’d need to move - this runs out next year and have just been quoted £1150 for our new price. How can this even be possible?! Where do the banks and government think people are going to find this extra money? We can’t even sell up and rent because there’s a huge crisis in the rental market near us and sales are bombing; we’re absolutely trapped here for god knows how long. We’re not extravagant, just comfortable middle earners who wants a normal life. I know there’s people worse off than us (I’m terrified for them because I can’t even explain the rise in our food shop or household bills) but I’m genuinely starting to think nobody cares about the middle income families. We work really hard, earn a decent amount but still won’t be able to afford to put the heating on this winter. I know I’m going to get bashed for this but I’d expect to at least be able to afford a bloody takeaway on a weekend without being in a state of panic. How is that even a situation in 2022?! I’m just so furious with the government honestly. No point to this post other than to say god help everyone who is a low income earner because if things in the middle are this bleak I dread to think.

So you think it's good that we're so short of workers that fruit and veg was left rotting in fields? That the ideology of the vote meant that no strategy was implemented, no one knew what they voted for in any real sense (if they voted Leave)? That a desperation to do a deal meant the GFA is at risk? That no asylum seekers can be returned to their countries if it's deemed necessary because that agreement was never reached? That the whole Union is at risk? And you have the brass neck to call us mad. I've only scratched the surface.

That's the funniest thing you've said.

The people who voted for those still can't see their mistake. People like my dad, already retired early on a MASSIVE non-contributory pension, voted for both Brexit and Tory (and to my absolute disbelief also voted UKIP at one point), just insists that Brexit is not to blame and that the Tories had a difficult job, trying to cope with situations that theyd didn't choose, like COVID, and Ukraine etc.

"we're so short of workers that fruit and veg was left rotting in fields?"

Ooh I can't resist. If you won't pay someone a wage that allows dignified work conditions and a quality of life then yes.

If a 40p cabbage requires workers to live in shared caravans and work all day with no toilet or handwashing facilities they yes we shouldn't have a 40p cabbage.

If we need to pay £1 to have a cabbage that allows the people that picked it to have a decent life then we need to pay that £1 or go without.

It is made very much worse because of Brexit, and we are all going to know how much we will all pay after the budget.

A slightly improved picture of employment cannot offset inflation, broken public services and political instability. The UK is in real trouble for the next couple of years. Even with slightly improved wages, those benefits have been removed by inflation and economic policy put forward by a Brexit supporting government.

I expect that the real hurt will be in the very areas that voted for it most keenly, in the Red Wall. Small increases in wages are going to be wiped out by the mistakes and ideological madness of Brexit.

It's not even Conservative - if you were a conservative in 1986 you would have been pro Europe! You would have been keen on the British idea of the single market. You would not have increased tax or kept the country locked inside and you would have had a plan, not a party. The so called Conservatives are nothing like their forebears

Fucking hell.

Did you read any of the posts trying to explain to you in very simple terms why your argument does not work?

Does your brain function?

Absolutely.

"What adjective would you use to describe such irrational behaviour? Spite? Jealousy?"

Would that be the same spite and jealousy we see meted out to social housing tenants on here all the time. Not nice is it?

Huh?

All I ever see here is people advocating building far more social housing.

But you're never going to fund that with Brexit and a devalued pound.

So what is your point?

Right. A Conservative government builds social housing. With their right to buy policy and collection of landlord voters who enjoy housing benefit and special exemptions made from new developments for social requirements.

Anyone expecting more affordable social housing right now is deluded. Instead, you can pay more for your rent when interest rates hit your labdlords mortgage.

So your increased wage is gone. Excellent for Conservatives

I am surprised that you can have people who really have limited means, voting for Brexit - because the people who campaigned for it were, nearly entirely, those who were already well off, who had never cared at all for those with limited incomes and indeed had been making excellent money from depressed wages and high property prices.

Why would they change that? Did they suddenly have a change of heart?

No. They saw a chance to deregulate and change employment and property markets in their favour. That is why they liked it. They just managed to get a lot of desperate people along with them.

I'm not 100% disagreeing. But the truth is all the workers have gone. British people won't do it so we're left with massive shortages of labour with no plan. That's on Brexit. No strategy.

This

YY @Winter2020 You also have people making comments about why the Brits cant pick fruit. So here is the timely reminder that these jobs require workers to live on site for a length. of time. Social housing tenants would be in breach of their tenancy agreement to live away for the length of time required. So not only is the wage low SH tenants would risk losing their home.

None of those jobs were in short supply pre brexit and post brexit wages still haven't risen or not by much.

Now what we have are even more shortages and the Govt wanting to take in workers from India etc if you think a Pole was under cutting you, some one from Asia will decimate your sector.

People might have got a 1% pay rise when inflation was 2%, now they get 4% when inflation is 10% plus.

No where has anyone's T&C's improved, ZHC are alive and kickin.

Oh and you are the one name calling, haven't you a better argument?

I think the final nail in the coffin is going to be immigration which is already higher than it was during the EU years. It will come from India, China and other economies which are much more competitive than our own.

There is nothing about picking a cabbage that requires you to sleep near it. Advertise that (backbreaking) work at £25 an hour and see if you still struggle to get workers.

Solicitors, GPs, Headteachers and IT consultants describing themselves as left wing and labour while believing that someone needs to live in a caravan in order to pick a cabbage.

Reward backbreaking work for the difficult work that it is and you won't have a problem filling the jobs. But the middle classes want cheap veg and actually don't care how they get it - whatever they try to tell themselves xbout their political leanings while charging ££££ an hour for their own labour.

Even if you are right, the wage difference has been absorbed by inflation and visas are still given to overseas workers to do the picking. That is farmers and business not raising wages, is it? They wish to carry on supplying multinationals and making a profit themselves.

A wage rise that is absorbed by inflation is a hell of a lot better than no wage rise and inflation.

No it isn't if it doesn't match the rate of inflation. Then the effect is nugatory. If wages do not keep up with inflation, then people are poorer with their every day expenses as prices increase beyond wages.

Sorry, this conversation is nuts. Prior to Brexit we had manageable inflation and wages. Now the country has neither.

Yes and after brexit we had manageable inflation - it is only recently after a global energy crisis it has become an issue.

I think it's nuts too. Inflation has just took off after attempts to return to a global normal following several years of lockdowns and remainers still dig back and say - no it can't be several years of covid lock downs and Russia strangling gas supply - it must be Brexit. Despite it happening in many economies. Absolutely nuts.

And by manageable wages you mean able to exploit people willing to work for peanuts. Well don't worry according to a previous poster we will be envouraging people from India equally happy to be exploited. Although how they will be housed and feed themselves and run a car to get to their calls on care wages is less clear.

Inflation is one issue.

Ukraine is another issue.

Brexit is another issue.