Wow 60k to 100k to drive a tube train

[A Quiet Monkfish]

At the start of this decade this country was recovering from a financial hit caused by greedy bankers and Conservative and Labour governments that went deregulation crazy when it came to the financial sector. Back then the mantra from Government was "we're all in this together" - if anyone was idiotic enough to believe that rubbish at the time, then they've surely been corrected as to that mistake by now.

A lot of people on this board are old enough to remember the seventies when the pendulum had swung too much towards the workers and it certainly was possible for the strongest unions to "hold the country to ransom". That line still gets trotted out today although the last time I can honestly remember it happening was in the 78/79 "winter of discontent" - a few months later, the Thatcher Government was elected and that pendulum swung firmly back towards the bosses - in fact, it's not stopped heading in that direction in the forty years which followed.

The forelock tuggers in this thread truly baffle me when poverty levels are increasing

https://www.jrf.org.uk/data/poverty-...rthern-ireland

food bank usage is increasing

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...-a8317001.html

and yet they think we should all know our place and accept what our betters tell us. The last forty years have seen the weakest and poorest in our society (there are those who wanted such a thing to no longer exist of course) suffer far more as, far from progressing like you would expect in the fifth largest economy in the world, their living standards have declined.

Is it any wonder that political extremism on the left and right (with all of the attendant violation that usually guarantees) is on the rise? Far better surely for the country for those who are just about managing, to quote our Prime Minister, be able to improve their living standards through better wages than turn to one of the alternatives on offer out of frustration and feelings they are being ignored.

Life's tough. I remember delivering yellow pages with the wife and kids trying to afford the monthly mortgage payment at 15 % interest [ a Conservative Govt.], but you just get on with it.

It's interesting that 'poverty' and food banks started increasing as wages started going up and unemployment started falling, and also when the Govt. introduced the living wage.

And the JRF ? Not exactly politically-central, and anyway, in light of the sort of organisations they funded in the past and still do, a thoroughly unpleasant one too..

[ken smith]

Life's tough. I remember delivering yellow pages with the wife and kids trying to afford the monthly mortgage payment at 15 % interest [ a Conservative Govt.], but you just get on with it.

It's interesting that 'poverty' and food banks started increasing as wages started going up and unemployment started falling, and also when the Govt. introduced the living wage.

And the JRF ? Not exactly politically-central, and anyway, in light of the sort of organisations they funded in the past and still do, a thoroughly unpleasant one too..

Has unemployment really started falling though.