Tuesday 8 April 2014

Are we sinking or are we being dragged under? Isn't it obvious?

The Tories seem very proud of their work so far. A little growth and they want us to believe they're geniuses. They're not. They also claim to love our NHS and have pledged to protect it. They don't - and they're not.

They claim that more people than ever are in work and they snort all over suggestions that more people than ever are in part-time work and zero-hours contracts - not even considering that important enough to respond to. They also claim that we can't afford the cost of benefits, the NHS, basically anything that poor people couldn't do without is too expensive. 

So if there are more people than ever in employment, where is all that lovely income tax and National Insurance going? Well for one thing, the government cut the top rate of tax, and reduced the amount of people paying the lower rate of tax. The latter may be a popular policy because it gives the lowest earners a bit of extra money - but if they were paid a living wage, they could afford a little tax. Now the government are talking about cutting National Insurance. 

The public seem to be, for the most part, unaware of the Tories' plans to give anything and everything profitable in the public sector to their rich friends and donors but it seems obvious, doesn't it? And what about the sections that wouldn't turn a profit? Charity will probably take over what's left of the public sector, and the greediest and most selfish in the country can choose to keep all their cash to themselves. 

It's baffling to me that anyone would vote conservative. The other main contenders aren't exactly great options but surely the people of Britain (or England, Wales and Northern Ireland - depending) would sooner choose a papercut or sand in the eye than being robbed and kicked to the ground?

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I would not be saying anything new to suggest that top earnings keep rising whilst the middle and lower incomes keep falling but new reminders come along all the time. My generation - and presumably the next - are being made to pay for the supposed profligacy of the one before.

Of course, the profligate ones were at the top - yet the top earners still see their wealth and prosperity rise.

I applied for a job yesterday, which would financially be one step up from my current one. My current job, I should add, has been downgraded in the last few years: colleagues with the same job title and the same responsibilities who have been here longer are on a higher pay scale than I am but I'm in the education sector, which has had to cut pay. This new job, when you look at the long list of responsibilities, sounds like quite a senior role. The successful candidate will be have sole responsibility of managing an academic centre with a hard-won multi-million pound research council budget and their salary: £25,000 rising to £28,000. This at one of the most well-established and well-respected Russell Group Universities. Incidentally, the colleagues I mentioned who have the same job title and responsibilities as I do in my current role are on that same pay scale but I feel the two roles should be two pay grades apart.

Important jobs are being massively undervalued and of course I wouldn't put my line of work in the same category as nursing, for example. Nurses are so important to us all and yet they are paid a pittance, as are other care professionals.

The downgrading of many jobs whilst the top get richer and richer and property and transport gets more and more unaffordable is a ticking time bomb. How can we expect people to be motivated to work hard when they can't afford a decent living? How can we expect nurses and other care professionals to do all the things we need them to do with care and consideration when they are so undervalued? How are people expected to be able to afford to live somewhere close enough to work or afford the transport costs of living further away? 

This government have set about trampling down anyone in the public sector and have then changed policies which demand more from them. Cuts have led to redundancies and extra pressure on those left behind. Changes to targets and box-ticking have meant further pressures still. 

Anyone would think this is an attack on the state from all sides; running people and services into the ground so they can say "Look: it's failed - but don't worry, we know some excellent private companies that will take over." And how much more attractive these contracts will be to their friends' and donors' private companies when staff are so cheap.

I've said this so many times before but on what basis do people think that outsourcing or selling off our services is done in the public interest or in the interests of improving services? PRIVATISATION MAKES THINGS WORSE.

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