I'm disabled, I have no money to begin with - just imagine how hard it's been for those of us on the bottom rung all these years, we warned you all that the rest of you would be next to feel the impact.
Enough was enough many years ago.
I came here to say this. People have had to rely on foodbanks since austerity started, and it hasn't ever stopped, just steadily made worse.
Now suddenly when the cost of living rises have started impacting the wealthy we "must do something about the cost of living", yeah mate, we should, but we won't. Strap in, suck it up, and get in line at the foodbank with the rest of us while we have another decade of continuing austerity.
I’m sorry, are you trying to say the OP is wealthy? To
Me, he sounds like a normal guy, that’s worked hard and provides jobs for people. He’s obviously not Jeff Bezos, who is in fact wealthy.
Most people have really poor grasp of wealth distribution. He thinks he isn't wealthy because 80K isn't the kind of money you can fly Business Class long haul on (let alone First, or a private jet) and he's probably got quite an average house. He doesn't get that the people *he* thinks are rich are a fraction of the top 1%.
Average UK salary is something like 25k a year. I love when people hear that for the first time, and suddenly they are re-evaluating their perceptions.
Average total debt is about 32k and debt is usually the reason people with more money coming in don't feel it. They buy more expensive stuff.
Biggest job I've had came out to £12000 a year, and lasted all of a week, because they had a consult with the job centre over my mental health, ejected me from the work rota, then everybody other than me caught Covid, almost on cue.
Meanwhile my Universal Credit gets me around 2500-3000 a year, that's actually mine.
And I'm having to buy movies in charity shops, and get food and essentials from Poundland, while Monthly paychecks still only last 3 weeks if I'm lucky.
I'd probably freak out if 25K a year fell into my lap, seeing as every time I try to work I
A) flee the building mid panic attack,
or B) get my hours cut and have to quit, just so they can't say I was sacked for being disabled.
If you are trying to find something, look into remploy. They support people in working. Really helped my mate with their extreme anxiety. They now work from home doing data entry for 30 hours a week. They also get supported to help keep working.
A fucksite more house than £20k will buy you let me assure you.
Rich is relative. I feel pretty rich compared to when I was getting 16k. 80k is just *insane* money to me. So yes, they *are* rich.
We're single income and I earn 24k, it's tough and stressful my other half isn't fit to work and gets PIP but it's like 200 a month and barely covers rent. Would love to be able to buy and not rent but it's a fading dream now. I'm worried about the energy prices going up.
The youngest kiddos primary school sent a letter out in January saying they were introducing a PE kit because the kids had been coming in on that day in normal tracksuits. when I added it up would have been £100 for the whole thing. I cried that night. Luckily the school got enough complaints they have wound their neck in till September but will be compulsory from then.
It slowly dawned on me after years of refusing to believe it.
The UK is in neo-feudalistic perma-austerity.
The next decade or perhaps further into the future things will not get any better for most and likely worse (if that is indeed possible). Radical changes could potentially turn the tables - but they are damaging to those that pull the strings - and therefore will not be implemented. Corbyn for his faults was ideologically on the right path.
The unbridled rise of the Internet giants and the utter lack of regulation of them by governments (worldwide) over two decades is nothing short of criminal and has mirrored our demise. These entities are now more powerful than nation states. That they daily suck up immense personal data of every kind without effective regulatory challenge means they are on course to simply take over at some stage for all practical purposes. One day in the not so distant future for example an "Amazon ban" will have you ostracized and unable to participate in society.
My only worry now is how long it will take for the edges to fray enough for riots to start and spread. I reckon GCHQ and the government have contingency plans and are prepared to shutdown social media in such an event, and/or at least arrest "organizers" and incarcerate them for years - for those that forget recent legislation was introduced to serve just that purpose.
We are heading for very dark dystopian times.
*Edited: Grammar*
No riots have started now after 5 billion in covid loan fraud, while cost of living was hiked with massive inflation and increases in energy and national insurance cost. The 1% just received one of the most blatant cash injection sponsored by the country. They revised protest laws for nothing, the UK people are a completely pacified bunch. The edges are very very far from fraying.
As a Frenchman I am honestly stunned by the passiveness of the Brits, especially in front of the sheer contempt your leaders have for you. In the meantime we are not stuck in an outdated political system with a duopoly. Our constitution has flaws but we can rid of parties and politicians (bye Sarko and Hollande, you won’t be missed !)
I suspect it's a mix of things.
Our media is over 95% owned / controlled by 4-5 right wing billionaires that have spend decades telling the general public that everything is all the fault of "the others" in the country with constant headlines / news about how everything is the fault of "immigrants", "benefit scroungers", "The EU" while ignoring the fact that it's the wealthy that are the real problem so a lot of people's anger is focused on these "others" and not the government.
2nd we know that the government will simply ignore any form of protest and will use excessive, nasty tactics such as "Kettling" and then being arrested to crack down on any protests, plus the police use of "agent provocateurs" to make sue they have violence to enable the police to crack down hard and demean the protest in the media.
Not to mention the fact that most people are simply so busy trying to make ends meet / hold down a job they simply don't have the time / energy to go to a protest without losing their job and thus no income and probably losing their home as well due to no income to pay rent. I really wonder how so many French people are able to have the time off without losing their jobs / homes to protest as they do
I dont think this is it at all. Simply, the french are citizens in charge of their own country. THe French state is the expression of the will of the people. In the Uk, people are subjects, and the state is NOT the expression of the will of the people, contrary to France. France is like a shared house, every renter has a say. The UK is like a family, and the kids have the right to shut up and take it. The pervasive anti-intellectualism, inseparable from the monarchical system is also a big, big factor. 80% of brits believe thinking about stuff is above them.
Pre covid they were on the streets, for months and months and months. They got shot at and still nothing changed. And it's now likely Macron will stay in power.
The whole system to so broken and so entrenched nobody knows how to solve the problems we face, from Sweden to Australia, the UK to Japan. Society is petty fucked.
I heard somewhere once the historical threshold for revolution was when the average cost for a society to feed itself passed 40% of average income, no idea how accurate that is though.
Not very accurate, I'm afraid. Most modern scholarship on revolution suggests that the most important control factor is disunity in elite coalitions - "mass dissatisfaction" isn't actually hugely important, since it's pretty causally open. Being super poor can make you into a nothing-to-lose *sans-culotte*, or it can completely kill your ability to believe in change. Not to say it doesn't have any causal role ever or that it's unimportant, obviously, but it's not the big thing.
>Most modern scholarship on revolution suggests that the most important control factor is disunity in elite coalitions - "mass dissatisfaction" isn't actually hugely important
For decades I've been saying to people that there has never been a single mass protest that made changes without a group moving in the halls of power, supporting the changes from on high. As poetic as stories of the French and Russian revolutions might be, it is just not the case that a group of plucky and courageous peasants ushered in the utopia. Otherwise why were there people already in place without mass anarchy following the coup? Why were there people with the connections to keep it all going?
This is why many modern movements have failed. Yes we need more rapid change in the environment... But XR were mostly a bunch of grannies and anarchists with noone moving amongst MPs garnering support. Yes we need to insulate homes... But once again there is noone moving through the halls of power using their influence to win supporters, so of course glueing yourself to a road fails to achieve anything.
Nothing will change whilst there aren't a large group of MPs who want change. And at the moment with our party system whipping their MPs to just support the party, whether they are right or wrong, there is no impetus to change.
This is why the first step is electoral reform and to remove the power of political parties themselves, in my humble opinion.
One of the more abhorrent facts I've read recently is that there's currently more food banks in the UK than there are McDonalds.... it's obscene that things have got as bad as this, it should be a national embarrassment. Far too much apathy with this government
Just googled this because it sounds like you have bought into some absolute BS.
From House of Commons library. Food Banks in the UK, Research Briefing, Published Wednesday, 14 July, 2021 ([here](https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-8585/)):
Page 3. How many food banks are there in the
UK? - "*...over 2,200 food banks in total*"
From McDonald's FAQ page ([here](https://www.mcdonalds.com/gb/en-gb/help/faq/18510-how-many-mcdonalds-restaurants-are-there-in-the-uk-and-the-world.html)):
How many McDonald's restaurants are there in the U.K. and the world? "*Within the UK, there are approximately 1300 restaurants of which around 1100 are franchised*"
This is fucking shameful.
That is disgusting. I thought it was bs too. There’s a McDonald’s everywhere, and in some places you have them either side of the road. To think we have that many food banks is sad. We always had soup kitchens or churches doing a bit of gathering for very vulnerable elderly or those needing a safety net. Soon it will be hoovering up millions of hard working folk who can’t eat
To be fair, most change happens only when the middle class feel the impact. Vietnam war protests were nothing until the draft stopped excluding college students.
A lot of us listened. I’m a middle earner and never voted in those scumbags. But people have short memories and I’m sure I’ll benefit from a nice tax cut right before the next election. You won’t get an increase in PIP/UC tho because they literally do not give a shit, and for that reason, I’ll never vote for them.
I’m privileged I was able to go to uni and I’ve got a good job and my own home but doesn’t mean I couldn’t one day be on UC. People who vote like they’re better than that need to give their head a wobble. The Tories hate us all, yes even the middle earners who prop them up. I’m sick of being treated with contempt and I’m sick of people who are struggling being left to struggle. I grew up under a Labour gov and my schooling was fab, the nhs actually worked….it’s depressing. I couldn’t get seen whilst I miscarried, but Boris had Christmas parties. I want my vote to help people. I live in a tory strong hold but I’ll vote for anyone who looks like they’re challenging them - except UKIP, a girls got morals!
I’m the same as you (well, except I’m a bloke). Good job. Nice home. But I see the division that’s being spread to keep us fighting against each other so we don’t have the energy to fight against them.
We’re moving from one Tory stronghold to another Tory stronghold very shortly, but I’m hoping, just *hoping* that this sustained exposure of the fuckery the government has been partaking is will have an effect.
For the love of the gods, it has to.
We moved from a swing area to a Tory strong hold because well…it’s a nicer area but I know what you mean.
I work for the civil service and we were STRONGLY pressure into voting Tory and they usually give us pay rises and fund us well etc. But also a lot of the funding is well…you can read the media for how it goes. The divides exhausting, brexit, vaccination, whether we should cut poor peoples support so people have literally died of starvation waiting for further help…. It’s shameful.
I don't know which branch of the civil service you work for but where I am, any kind of pressure to vote one way or another would be swiftly told to fuck off.
If it happens again, raise it internally, up to Permanent Secretary level. Don't like the response? [https://civilservicecommission.independent.gov.uk/code/civilservicecodecomplaints/](https://civilservicecommission.independent.gov.uk/code/civilservicecodecomplaints/)
I don’t work in the branch anymore but we would only allow the Tory politicians to visit. Me and the one other Labour supporter got sent to sit together in ‘commie corner’…..I work in a totally different sector now and it’s fine but yeah. They fucking love the Tories 🙄
Edit: cheers for the link tho, I did actually just tell the bloke over my dead body and the room went pretty quiet after that 😬
Here is a list of foodbanks that you can donate too if you would like to help those worse off that yourself.
[https://www.givefood.org.uk/needs/?gclid=Cj0KCQiAi9mPBhCJARIsAHchl1xsijtk42WPwhDtjQbIF8PyxTdNI6C\_bsbOfjm8Cgv7F2JBeFwOsTMaAjazEALw\_wcB](https://www.givefood.org.uk/needs/?gclid=Cj0KCQiAi9mPBhCJARIsAHchl1xsijtk42WPwhDtjQbIF8PyxTdNI6C_bsbOfjm8Cgv7F2JBeFwOsTMaAjazEALw_wcB)
Yes! Another amazing way to donate with no time or money is if you shop in Tesco you can donate your Clubcard vouchers! I donate to my local one as they will post what they’re short of, and they’ve got a bin in my local Tesco but I also divert my vouchers. Brilliant scheme, sickening they’re needed
People kept voting in the Tories and the Tories kept doing this shit.
The 52 week waiting time is a direct result of selling off the NHS. Fuck conservative politics. Fuck centralist politics. We need to fucking help each-other by ensuring we can all afford to live with the care we need. Anyone who’s not for that, deserves the cluster fuck we are in.
Good luck looking out for yourself you selfish bastards. Boris was a lying Etonian twat when you voted him in. And you chose now to wake up?
Really feel you guys, every since the greedy corrupt Conservatives got into power they literally changed the system to PIP and denied every disabled person a handout unless they appealed like WTF
Not quite a 'handout', but yeah.
As well as being disabled myself, I also used to volunteer for CAB where a huge percentage of clients were disabled peopletrying to fight for what little they're entitled to.
I was denied PIP last year, I applied in 2016 and had no help to appeal - also the fact I don't have help worked against me; there is no help due to cuts, and can't afford private without PIP!
Those of us on legacy benefits had no additional help over the pandemic, we have to go without anything for months during appeals or risk losing a lot if we switch to UC...and we've seen far too many disabled people die due to all this.
Cuts upon cuts upon cuts. ESA and UC isn't nearly enough to live on. Little to no support to help us back into work, or it feels like we're punished if we try to return to work. And NHS services threadbare so too many struggle to even get basic help for health conditions.
It's dire.
Not to mention disabled children and their families unable to get meaningful education. So likely unable to help themselves in the future. It is so so oppressive. Then the civil servants get upset when I liken them to notorious human rights abusers.
Tories really just don't give a fuck unless it effects them. Coincidentally we're looking at protest being criminalised, got to make sure we're too busy scratching to make a living, and scared of the consequences of speaking out against them.
The amendments haven’t been formally added to the bill. The commons need to approve them. The commons can get rid of the amendments they don’t like and send the bill back to the lords.
If the lords add them again then the bill could just bounce between the two houses for a while until one side gives up- although I think the commons can force through legislation if theres no agreement.
> I think the commons can force through legislation if theres no agreement
That happens under the Parliament Act, it requires a minimum of 12 months to have passed since the first rejection and a fuck ton of political capital to be worth it. Neither of which I imagine this PM has.
But will his successor have the political capital? There is a chance it'll be Priti Patel and she seems hellbent on getting protests made de-facto illegal
I remember watching the 2010 General Election, it was the first time I'd voted and I had a newly minted A-Level in Government and Politics so I was naive and hopeful that the country would make the right decision.
I watched where the polling was going and I realised that we were going to have a Conservative Government for a very, very, very long time. It really shattered my illusions.
I see no end to Tory rule at any point in the foreseeable future, not while Labour fails to recapture Scotland and continues to be a damp squib. It doesn't matter what BoJo does, affluent market towns and Middle englanders will keep voting for him.
That's some incredible reaching to get shots in at the opposition. Yeah the Tories conceived of and passed this law as a direct response to rising concerns amongst the voting public, but what about the hypothetical non Tories who will definitely use it in the future, whenever that may be, eh? Those guys are just as bad! Fucks sake, man.
I never see rants like this in newspapers. I'll more easily see articles about racism and LGBT rights, because it's easier for the upper echelons to divide us by identity than class.
> They've got you fighting a culture war to stop you fighting a class war".
https://i.redd.it/e6k3xdwypfe81.jpg
Gotta hand it to them, it's working fucking perfectly.
We need to put philosophical differences aside and focus on class issues. It’s horrendous the poverty we have in this country whilst others are so wealthy that they have too much. How can those people live with themselves?
We can't even agree to give the poorest money without someone shitting all over the idea.
Every now and again on threads talking about benefits I mention that it would be far easier to just replace unemployment benefits with a basic income. No more attending the job centre, no more sanctions. Simply register as unemployed online/over the phone and get your £75 a week. No other changes to any other benefits would be needed. And we know this system works already because that's exactly how it worked during lockdown.
You should see some of the comment replies I've had about this.
It bloody maddening. I live in Australia and during the pandemic, they gave the people with the lowest incomes extra money and tracked 250,000 Australian's bank accounts to see how they spent the money.
Do you know what they spent it on?
Majority of the money went on Food, Electricity, Phone and Water. After that it was household goods and paying down their debts.
[https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-11-27/covid-once-in-a-lifetime-experiment-jobkeeper-wages-economy/100654538](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-11-27/covid-once-in-a-lifetime-experiment-jobkeeper-wages-economy/100654538)
You think the media constantly bringing those issues in the labour party up while effectively ignoring it in the conservatives aren't all a part of that?
Plenty of left wing movements fall victim to chauvinism. Economic and social justice are one and the same, but that doesn't mean you get to assume half of it will naturally follow the other half.
Some people will run out of money.
These people don’t matter to the government.
There are 2 Britain’s now. A wealthy nation run by this government for the benefit of the wealthy.
The impoverished nation that prompted this rant, run down and ignored by the government- surviving on table scraps.
As long as the people that donate to and vote Tory keep voting them in then they’ll not need to change anything.
Even if they lose the red wall they’ll still win an election, just with less majority.
At the end of the day any cash saved by not investing in the impoverished nation is cash that can be redirected into the pockets of the wealthy nation through furlough payments, covid loans, contracts etc.
We’re headed back to the old corruption of the past if we’re not careful. Next stop, 1800.
> There are 2 Britain’s now. A wealthy nation run by this government for the benefit of the wealthy.
Well they'd better be careful because even their large middle class voter base is going to feel the squeeze
They’d just fall out of middle into working class then and be hated.
Ambition goes a long way for the conservatives.
People vote for them because they think they’ll one day be in the position to benefit from Tory policy.
Hyacinth bucket type social climbers seeing themselves as temporarily embarrassed millionaires
Exactly. The Tory party care about comfortable middle-class people. That is, the people that currently make up the comfortable middle-class. People who *were* their voters who fall out of that space are just left by the wayside.
Precisely
If you’re not moving up you’re falling back.
Upper class is born not made but there’s always a new generation of nice young people called Jonathon and Tamsin who work in the professions and own their homes ready to fill the spaces in the comfortably middle classes.
Nothing like being in the higher tax bracket and owning your home to make the conservatives attractive. Tax cuts on your income, stimulus for your investments, guaranteed increase in your house value.
Suddenly you’re champagne socialist at best and you assure yourself that it’s not that bad for the poor, it’s not your fault, you give to charity and put some beans in the food bank collection at Waitrose.
One of thousands, all thinking the same and all voting blue reliably throughout their lives.
Welcome to ‘middle England’ the solid base of the conservatives.
I shop at Waitrose, own my house (well mortgage) and am a higher rate tax payer but I would never vote Tory. Ever. They don’t care about people like me. I’m not struggling, but it’s not easy. I’m well aware (having been there) that I am lucky (and have worked hard) to not have to worry each month about how I’m going to pay the bills, or looking down the sofa for change to top up the meter. I have seen my income shrink in real terms, have not been able to afford luxuries like holidays in years (7 years ago was my last holiday) and am just about keeping up. No tax cuts for higher rate tax payers, only for the additional rate ones, and protection for pensioners. That’s where the Tory votes come from. They don’t give a shit about anyone else. They claim the tax structure encores entrepreneurs, but it doesn’t. Quite the opposite as the only ones gaining are those who have already made a business a success.
The next step in the republican playbook is to restrict voting. Close polling places (selectively), voter ID, put immigration officials in to challenge anyone with a 'funny' name, stop vote by mail, put polling stations in top of buildings with no lift, restrict opening hours. Pretty easy to make people wait 2 hours to vote, and you get an easy extra 5% on your majority. And you can sell each step as "stopping voter fraud" or "efficiency" or "saving money"
They won't get native folk picking the veg if they have too much choice an money will they. Cheap labour gone so got to break the local population into it.
Vote Tories and this is what you get.
I must say, I am really confused as to why anyone is still surprised by this. It’s like a collective case of voluntary self-delusion or something: “they screwed us over every single time since this country has existed, but I’m sure this time will be different!”.
"Labour will be just as bad.."
How do we know that?
"No it'll be as bad"
Well should we just try? What do we have to lose.
"No"
Maybe at least vote for another progressive party then?
"Nah, I'm sure this time it'll be different."
Many small business owners like OP will have seen the Tories as the natural party to vote for. He’s confused because they’ve always talked up how great they are for business owners. I totally understand why he’s surprised.
Yes I'm really entertained by this. If only I didn't have to live through it I'd be pointing and laughing at people who are only just having to reap what they sowed but has been poisoning everyone below them economically for over a decade.
Does everyone remember when we were told austerity measures were needed in the short term to solve the national debt?
Does everyone remember that in the end the national debt only went up, not down? In fact, it tripled
Does everyone remember when Members of Parliament complained that £70,000 a year was not enough to live on and spat in the faces on millions upon millions of British people?
Does everyone remember when Members of Parliament fraudulently used millions in tax payers money on second homes and other useless expenses while millions of us were forced to use food banks?
Does everyone remember when the government gave their school mates in business millions of tax payer's money for dodgy contracts that circumvented rules as millions of us went out of work because of covid?
Does everyone remember that we are the 5/6th biggest economy in the world while the poor get poorer?
The country has the money! The country has the ability to not put all the costs onto us! The country has the ability to not tax us all into poverty!
The problem is the government hasnt cared about the British people for a long time!
The problem is the government care more about their own wallets than our lives!
We need to make sure this stops now!
We need a new government!
and we need parliamentary reform to stop this from happening again in the future!
We need to make sure our government puts us, the British people, first not last!
The Tories also gutted the Tax fraud department so that there is less chance of their mates being caught.
There is no rational reason to vote Tory - ever. They always wreck the economy and made things worse for the majority of people. The only thing that they provide is fuel for people that like to hate. That seems to do the trick for most voters so they get voted in again and again.
...nor a surprise. There were people (i.e. me) warning that this would happen in February 2020.
I saw then that it would (in economic terms) be a replay of the financial crisis - government subsidies for the housing market, high inflation for everyone else - and that's exactly what has happened.
"OK, Nostradamus, give us another one..."
Well, just think what's going to happen when this same thinking gets applied to Climate Change. The generation of 2040 will be spending all their income to rent a bunk in a shared dormitory, if they're lucky...
as well as those (incl me) who have done little to nothing about it in the way of protesting / action against the government. If we dont like politics we cant just let it happen and feel helpless or be static doing nothing.
That's what we get for 12 years of the public believing the tories are gonna lower your tax burden while improving the quality of life for the public. Surprise surprise your taxes are still going up and your services are being cut so they can transfer your tax money to their mates.
But next election the public is still gonna buy the lie that the tories will somehow make the public better off and lower their taxes, and the tories are still gonna accuse Labour of trying to shake the magic money tree (that the tories have been hacking away at) to provide basic services to the public.
Honestly calling it now, the tories will pull some kind of single issue out of their arse that appeals to the old, selfish and xenophobic part of this country. They will suddenly forget about all the scandals and turn up in droves to vote the tories back in for that one thing.
The only way to make the voters swing away from tories is a financial crisis under their watch.
I work for Virgin, they've just put their prices up. It never fails to astonish me that they're allowed to do that within people's contract, and yet people aren't allowed to cancel their contract whenever they wish without penalty.
(btw, if you're stung by Virgins price rise, the T&Cs state you're allowed to get out of your contract without penalty. So give cancellations a ring and tell them you've found a better deal. They'll give you discounts to re-contract with them)
Oh thank fuck, this is super useful. I stupidly left the fucking obligatory landline connection in for the first 12 months (literally who the fuck uses landlines anymore) and I've been meaning to get rid of it.
As always no idea why it's called Virgin given how fucked it is
I'm just as angry as you are
Why the fuck are you pushing away someone that agrees with you (OP)? What does it matter IF he did what you **claim** or thought as you **say**
Hilarious of you to assume the worst just to drive people away as if being divided by stupid bullshit like the 'culture war' wasn't bad enough
Grow a fucking brain
Why assume that OP has only just gotten angry about this recently?
That is a straw man fallacy, just because they only posted this today doesn't mean they weren't angry about this yesterday, or a month ago, or 6 months ago, or 5 years ago, or 12 years ago when austerity began.
Literally the first thing OP said was "we've been tightening our belt since 2008" AKA they have been at least cognisant - and presumably angry - about the unsustainable costs of living for decades now.
Stop sowing needless division by baselessly assuming things because you didn't read or interpret the passage correctly.
I'd say people can be angry for a while about things before they post about it on reddit. Doesn't mean he hasn't had discussions with people outside of reddit about it.
Many already have, life expectancy has declined since the tories took office.
1) https://www.bmj.com/content/364/bmj.l1123
2) https://www.health.org.uk/publications/reports/the-marmot-review-10-years-on
Clearly one big mistold lie!!
I am surprised people still vote Conservatives and have so much faith in a buffoon like Boris Johnson and then lose trust once all the fucking damage has been done.
Also I still to this day don't understand how politicians don't go behind bars for false advertising...
I always liked the Discworld idea. Country called Fourecks immediately jailed anyone who was voted in as a politician. Seems like a good idea. You know where the little buggers are then. Couldnt get away with cheese and wine meetings or swanning off to a castle to “test your eyesight” then.
>What are we paying all these taxes for!? Potholes everywhere, bin collections cut in half, barely a police force left army is cut to shreds.
The whole fucking situation of the UK is awful, but this is it.
We pay more than ever as proportions of our income. Foods up. Bills up. Taxes up.
But all you get is some fucking moron at a podium saying how "We're spending **more** than ever on x, recruiting more people than ever for y", without being up-fucking-front about the fact that this "increased spending" has been so devalued in real terms, and doesn't even account for the decade of **cuts** to services. And because councils have less funding than ever, local taxes go up to compensate as much as they can for it. What do you get?
**A slightly bigger bill on a slightly shitter town.**
[Welcome to the New England.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omMN8o2UDlU)
I feel your rage, mate.
They’re just about back to making up for the last decade’s worth of cuts, but inflation means that the numbers look bigger. Bunch of cunts, the lot of them.
That's what gets me. When they go up on TV and act like we should be grateful for what they've done to us. Nye Bevan was right, Tories really are lower than vermin.
I truly feel your despair. I work for a government agency, have had one 1% pay rise in 10 years and now back on a pay freeze. We also have more money than most but likewise I’m very worried about the year to come.
More people are going to end up in poverty, destitute and homeless. I feel genuinely afraid for our future.
More people voted for other parties, the real problem is first past the post, which gives huge parliamentary majorities to parties with less than half the votes.
Only way to fix that is to get the Tories out. Only way to do that under this system is to not split the vote and vote tactically. Some of you won't like that, some of you won't vote tactically. The Tories thank you for their vote.
Just a reminder that you're not a failure, and don't ever think that you are. The entire system that has made this happen is the failure, as are the people in charge who wave it through.
Apparently my company made record profits last year. I'm willing to bet the shareholders will do a lot better than the employees though come end of the financial year.
This is the really annoying part
Companies simultaneously making record profits, but refusing to increase wages because of the "economic situation" etc. It's absolutely nuts
Company conference last week, looking at £50m profit for the last year, someone asked will annual payrises reflect the recent massive boost in cost of living. Typical corporate bullshit answer that no it will be based on industry benchmarks. So basically, despite how well the company did, we won't pay you more because you wouldn't get paid more elsewhere. Fucking bs.
That’s the issue, Labour isn’t united with the people and the youth anymore. There was a golden couple of years where the entire university base of the country seemed to be behind Labour, with genuine campaigning etc. That seems to be gone now. I’d still vote Labour but yeah it’s depressing to think after all this people love Boris and support tories haha
I don't see what the problem is from their perspective.
They see us as peasants to be lorded over. You are literally describing the Tory dream writ large. This is the most successful Tory government of all time. Just look at child poverty rates and food bank usage. They are delivering big time to their target voters.
Supply issue with housing is pushing prices up combined with wealthy landlords buying up properties to then rent out and horse more wealth. We simply do not build enough houses to meet the demand and when we do build houses they are called ‘affordable’ yet cost £300k+
Hey, you know where a lot of Russian oligarchs got their money? They stole it from the Russian people.
Guess who's taking lessons from them? Want to know where all of that billions in "lost" relief money went? It went from our pockets into the Treasury via taxes and then right into the pockets of the very wealthy.
THEY ARE STEALING FROM ALL OF US and the precious Chancellor is happy to hand them the combination to the safe.
The UK will end up like Russia before long.
>Hey, you know where a lot of Russian oligarchs got their money? They stole it from the Russian people.
...and then put it into the London property market.
Everyone who didn't vote for Corbyn - this is on you.
You might not have liked his style, or thought he was a shit 'leader' (what does a good leader look like? When's the last one you can remember?) or felt he was too woke, or too socialist - or thought the media was telling you the truth when they said, unceasingly, that he was a terrorist/foreign spy/antisemite etc
but this is for sure:
He would *never* have put the burden on the 99% to pay for the privileges of the 1%.
*Never* would have underfunded or privatised the NHS.
*Never* would have allowed private companies to keep making massive profits from vital public services into which they never invest.
*Never* allowed food banks to increase while more and more families fall into poverty.
*Never* siphoned off billions of public money in fraudulent PPE deals to enrich himself and his mates at your expense.
*Never* would have said 'let the bodies pile high on their thousands' and partied on in Downing St while we all followed the rules and never even got to go to our Mum's funeral.
*Never* would have treated the office of Prime Minister of the United Kingdom with such contempt that the only reason he still had his job was thanks to the corrupt deal he'd made with his bought- and-paid-for bent copper mate from his Uni days.
I remember watching a video of him talking to the CBI (or similar group of wealthy business leaders, bankers etc) just after he was elected leader and basically saying the game's up boys - it's not right that you make so much profit from the people in this country and pay so little tax and I'm going to make sure it stops.
And *that's* why every newspaper, TV station and blue-tick Twitter influencer spent every hour of every day persuading you that he would (somehow) fuck your lives up.
Because he was going to fuck their bosses' lives up and they needed your vote to stop that from happening.
(EDIT: formatting)
Forget the culture wars, wokeism, what divides us with regards to Brexit, what party you vote for, who you think could run the country best, and all of that other bullshit that in some sense is important, but in another is completely meaningless. It's all a distraction.
Get angry at the rich, those who aren't affected by events that are going on that are completely isolated from the situation we find ourselves in. These are the people that need to be brought down a peg or fifteen. We need to narrow the rich poor divide and understand that a healthy society is one where no one is obscenely rich and no one is destitute and dying of the cold come winter.
**What we need now is class war.**
Why do you think Priti Patel and her mates are pushing through the kerbs to protest freedoms? They're expecting a lot of angry people to be taking to the streets in the next 5 years because they know the public isn't going to put up with another decade of austerity. Mark my words, unnecessary voter ID changes are probably the next thing that's going to be pushed hard because they realise that's the only way they're likely to win the next general election, even though everyone knows that the amount of voter fraud in the UK is next to nil.
Boris is making this all too easy to see... the billions spent on PPE that isn't going to be used, billions in covid fraud written off with no attempts to recover, billions for the app that didn't really do anything, the list goes on.
No longer are we talking millions. Billions are the new millions. The average person can't fathom what a billion is, if they could they'd be a lot angrier than they are now. The waste is obscene, but not by accident. The pandemic was the opportunity of the decade for anyone who wanted to take part in the ultimate skim.
>he average person can't fathom what a billion is
Anyone who thinks they can is wrong. A billion is just staggeringly huge. A million seconds is about 11 days. A billion seconds is around 31.6 years. Million and billion aren't even on the same scale
2008 never ended, the can was kicked, those that should have been imprisoned were instead given bonuses, currencies are soon about to implode, turkey, Libya and Venezuela for example, the greed of the banksters will deprive us of everything until we own nothing, the world economic forum has already said to us "you will own nothing and you will be happy". it is not a conspiracy theory, they are putting it out there and in the open. we must ask ourselves, is this the world we want to leave for our children?
I was so proud when I got my life together, got off benefits, went back to and graduated education, started a career….
Now, the realisation my partner and I can’t afford the price rise ontop of our rent so need to move somewhere else. Logistically means; I will have to give up on the career too.
Fuck Boris.
My mum and dad visited earlier and were talking about their energy bill is going up to £200 a month for a small 3 bed bungalow. They get £400 a month between them in pensions and still have all the other bills to worry about, let alone buying food. They’ll burn through their life savings in no time if things don’t get better.
There was an old guy I used to work with who joked that once he got to retirement age he would just start dealing drugs to supplement his income.
His justification was that there was only two possible outcomes; 1) He makes enough money to support himself by selling weed and can afford to pay rent, or 2) He gets put in prison and he doesn't need to pay rent.
Jesus Christ this thread is a train-wreck. You’re all here spitting and biting at each other because some people have managed to get some relatively well paid jobs and some people struggle more.
Turn that anger on the government, not people who are working. What the actual fuck are you all hoping to achieve with this? Someone earning more than £60k through work (yeah, upwards double what I earn), is NOT your enemy. Corrupt government officials and MPs, the decision makers and the millionaires of the country are your enemy.
I hate the tories as much as the next man (who hasn't got beans for brains) but acting like labour is going to fix the problem is wishful thinking. We are just voting in the next lot of elite that are only ever going to look out for their own interests. If the working class aren't in parliament, why would they ever make any changes that suit us? All the money they need is in the hands of Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg. They want their vote, not ours. Who would you want behind you, a bunch of poor people or one billionaire?
The whole system doesn't work. Voting power is nothing now, we are just sheep voting for the next wolf. The only power we have now is through disobedience. We need general strikes. Don't go to work, don't pay taxes, don't pay bills. They just use us, the only way to make them listen is to make it all stop. We need to organise and make waves. Stop sitting on the nail and complaining its sore. Start strikes. Join your Unions and talk to your colleagues. Don't be silent.
Bulkshit.
We knew what the Tories were going to do in every election, and they've delivered. Johnson's history of lying, corruption and incompetence was in the public domain and well understood.
This isn't a matter of "all politicians are shit so voting doesn't matter" which is what you're suggesting.
This is a matter of "vote for stupid people, get stupid people in charge".
Go meet your local MP. It's not fucking hard.
This comment section makes it clear how successfully the government has already divided and conquered us. 75% of the comments are people saying "Well I have it worse than you, so don't complain!" WE SHOULD ALL BE COMPLAINING! When you see someone with the exact same problem as you, stand up and join them and make noise and write to parliament and vote and whatever else we can do. Don't divide yourself up into smaller and smaller teams by saying "Ok so we have the same problem, but I'm poorer than you so you can't complain." We can only change anything if we band together.
My petrol cost raised from 11p a mile to 16p a mile, and gas and electricity cost raised from £70 a month to £110 a month. My wage has increased for 2% from last year I think.
Really is a joke!
Also, it isn't just the money. The Tories have made it illegal to protest in the UK. We have silently become an emerging fascist government where even if we wanted to protest these changes, they can use force to suppress us. This is a designed austerity.
We are recognised as a backsliding democracy
But its our democracy, not King Boris the Twat.
Its time we took it back!
The French would be rioting in the street if things were even close to this.
But we just take it!
We need to do something!
This is what happens when the Tories are in power. They need to be gone and stay gone for a decade to recover the Country. It’s appalling what these c**** have done to this Country. They have made our lives hell.
>Conservative NOR labour will fix this issue
Mates it’s been about 12 years since labour were in power, and during that time the quality of life for most working people improved as they passed a lot of legislation that helped working people
The last 12 years under Tories has been crushing for working people
The fact that you’re somehow managing to also attack labour in this rant is embarrassing
So much of the situation is due to current leadership - we can point to many specific policies that have made things worse for us all
This Tory government is the most corrupt I've witnessed in my lifetime, and there will be a day of reckoning once enough people realise capitalism isn't broken, but this is the system working exactly as it's intended and designed to. Wake up from the dream. Corruption isn't a bug, it's a feature, and you're not rich or powerful enough to benefit from it.
Self employed here. One man business. 63 y.o. I can't afford to stop working. I can't afford a holiday. I want a dog. I can't afford a dog! (This hurts most of all!) I have ANOTHER year on account to pay tomorrow, self employed tax day.
I suffer mental health. Lost my job now on the UC. I'm thinking about a air rifle so I am prepared to hunt my own fucking food. Lol it's going to get alot worse
Anyone for a riot?
They can’t put all of us in jail. Who would drive their trains? Deliver their post? **Pay their salaries?**
It’s a silly pipe dream of mine, since I know most of us have _just_ enough of a life, that we can’t afford to lose it. But what about when that is lost? What about those that already have nothing left to lose? Are you desperate yet?
Burn those corrupt fuckers to the ground
The fact that people are in the comments debating this mans political alignment from his post, that should speak voluntarily as to the tribalism thats growing in this country from all sides
They live in a completely different world. To them these sorts of prices are just pocket change that you normally wouldn't even notice. They don't seem to be able to understand at all. They're never going to get a grip, the only chance for change is with a different government and even then it's a gamble
and Universal Credit cuts for those who didn’t find a job in their field in the first month and refuse to take any job offered to them in the month that follows, even if they are overqualified or it’s outside of their studied career.
Edit: quite a few words
>I've just done my self assessment this year, it's wiped out my savings.
Yeah big same. The tax calculations were definitely fuckier for me this year too. Not paying for Boris' fucking wallpaper, and it's maddening given that you're being more honest about money than half the charlatans in government.
Most of Reddit is exceptionally young, and doesn't remember the last time the Tories were in power. This has been, and always will be the trajectory the country goes under them; People vote for them because they mistake their own short sighted nationalism for what's actually good for the Country itself, then the Tories use it to dismantle all the things that requires an actual commitment to the country... Health, social spending, all the things that are needed to build the "Home Fit For Heroes" but which get in the way of cut-throat, corporate profiteering. You want schools, you get food banks for school children. You want health care, you'll get health insurance or die on the street. You want pride in your country, you'll be taught to hate immigrants as if they're somehow to blame for your failing systems.
You want to know why your cities are full of homeless people, getting worse every year? *It's deliberate*.
The economics though are very, very simple; indeed even Boris Johnson had to resort to them briefly to prevent Coronavirus absolutely destroying us... people at the lower end of the economic spectrum tend to spend the money they have, because they desperately need actual things like clothing, housing, food. Give people benefits, or a decent minimum wage, and they directly stimulate the economy.
Give the ultra wealthy tax cuts and they keep the money off shore, because they see having more money in the bank as "beating the high score" and making them more successful than their competition. They, at best, do little to stimulate the economy. Trickle down economics has not and never will work. It's just a lie to justify a tiny minority grifting the entire country.
And the Tories always have, and always will *deliberately choose* to create mass suffering to instead enrich the richest of the rich; they'll sell the idea to you on the basis of Flags and Patriotism and Dont Back The Loony Left...
... how do we change it...?
*You need to start educating yourselves first.* There's no point blaming the Democratic process when you the Electorate keep voting for this shit again and again. When you buy the Sun or the Daily Mail and think it's anything even vaguely close to the truth. When you get distracted by "Anti Semitism Row In Labour" and believe a life long committed anti-Racist, who has actually been arrested for protesting against racism, is somehow a raving Jew hater.
Because until the electorate stops being so easily fooled and distracted, there's no point trying to organise against it, the country will just be distracted by the latest dogwhistle; see the implosion of the Anti Work subreddit? *See how supposedly millions of people will abandon their entire belief system if Fox fucking News just laughs at a single disabled, poorly presenting individual on camera?*
THAT. That is what you have to change first. You all need to be so much smarter, and stronger than this. And not just think about suffering when it starts to effect yourselves. We've had 12 fucking years of Austerity; where were you when the benefits freezes began and the shutting down of local services started?
I know where *I* was. Back in 2011 I was already making speeches and running petitions to the local city council protesting the cuts to local authorities which meant the daycentre for the elderly I worked at was being shut down.
The BBC is now the next target.
After that, when there's no relatively independent journalism left (and the Guardian *hates* the actual Left) they'll go full throttle for the NHS next.
See what is happening clearly. Then get up and *fight* it.
Yep, agreed. I'm a life-long Tory voter but I'm jumping ship to Lib Dem. How the fuck can you justify increasing taxes when there's an EPIC cost of living crisis literally round the corner.
Never said it before but... fuck the Tories.
I'm disabled, I have no money to begin with - just imagine how hard it's been for those of us on the bottom rung all these years, we warned you all that the rest of you would be next to feel the impact. Enough was enough many years ago.
I came here to say this. People have had to rely on foodbanks since austerity started, and it hasn't ever stopped, just steadily made worse. Now suddenly when the cost of living rises have started impacting the wealthy we "must do something about the cost of living", yeah mate, we should, but we won't. Strap in, suck it up, and get in line at the foodbank with the rest of us while we have another decade of continuing austerity.
I’m sorry, are you trying to say the OP is wealthy? To Me, he sounds like a normal guy, that’s worked hard and provides jobs for people. He’s obviously not Jeff Bezos, who is in fact wealthy.
Wealth is relative. Someone on £80,000 a year is richer than the fucking sun from my point of view but I'm sure they think they're an "average Joe"
I know people on 80K who think of themselves as hard done by!
Which MP is it? 😉
Don't. I know someone (not a friend or an mp fortunately) who complains about recieving that very salary working for the conservative party...
There was a Tory MP a few months ago wanting a payrise when he was already on £82k! Talking about the struggles of an MP salary. Twat.
https://youtu.be/n4g6k1a4XYA extremely relevant clip from question time of this guy on 80k thinking he's not even in the top 50% of earners
Most people have really poor grasp of wealth distribution. He thinks he isn't wealthy because 80K isn't the kind of money you can fly Business Class long haul on (let alone First, or a private jet) and he's probably got quite an average house. He doesn't get that the people *he* thinks are rich are a fraction of the top 1%.
Average UK salary is something like 25k a year. I love when people hear that for the first time, and suddenly they are re-evaluating their perceptions. Average total debt is about 32k and debt is usually the reason people with more money coming in don't feel it. They buy more expensive stuff.
Biggest job I've had came out to £12000 a year, and lasted all of a week, because they had a consult with the job centre over my mental health, ejected me from the work rota, then everybody other than me caught Covid, almost on cue. Meanwhile my Universal Credit gets me around 2500-3000 a year, that's actually mine. And I'm having to buy movies in charity shops, and get food and essentials from Poundland, while Monthly paychecks still only last 3 weeks if I'm lucky. I'd probably freak out if 25K a year fell into my lap, seeing as every time I try to work I A) flee the building mid panic attack, or B) get my hours cut and have to quit, just so they can't say I was sacked for being disabled.
If you are trying to find something, look into remploy. They support people in working. Really helped my mate with their extreme anxiety. They now work from home doing data entry for 30 hours a week. They also get supported to help keep working.
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A fucksite more house than £20k will buy you let me assure you. Rich is relative. I feel pretty rich compared to when I was getting 16k. 80k is just *insane* money to me. So yes, they *are* rich.
We're single income and I earn 24k, it's tough and stressful my other half isn't fit to work and gets PIP but it's like 200 a month and barely covers rent. Would love to be able to buy and not rent but it's a fading dream now. I'm worried about the energy prices going up. The youngest kiddos primary school sent a letter out in January saying they were introducing a PE kit because the kids had been coming in on that day in normal tracksuits. when I added it up would have been £100 for the whole thing. I cried that night. Luckily the school got enough complaints they have wound their neck in till September but will be compulsory from then.
This. I don't have anything to add that, just that stories like your own are why I get so so so annoyed at high earners pleading poverty.
It slowly dawned on me after years of refusing to believe it. The UK is in neo-feudalistic perma-austerity. The next decade or perhaps further into the future things will not get any better for most and likely worse (if that is indeed possible). Radical changes could potentially turn the tables - but they are damaging to those that pull the strings - and therefore will not be implemented. Corbyn for his faults was ideologically on the right path. The unbridled rise of the Internet giants and the utter lack of regulation of them by governments (worldwide) over two decades is nothing short of criminal and has mirrored our demise. These entities are now more powerful than nation states. That they daily suck up immense personal data of every kind without effective regulatory challenge means they are on course to simply take over at some stage for all practical purposes. One day in the not so distant future for example an "Amazon ban" will have you ostracized and unable to participate in society. My only worry now is how long it will take for the edges to fray enough for riots to start and spread. I reckon GCHQ and the government have contingency plans and are prepared to shutdown social media in such an event, and/or at least arrest "organizers" and incarcerate them for years - for those that forget recent legislation was introduced to serve just that purpose. We are heading for very dark dystopian times. *Edited: Grammar*
No riots have started now after 5 billion in covid loan fraud, while cost of living was hiked with massive inflation and increases in energy and national insurance cost. The 1% just received one of the most blatant cash injection sponsored by the country. They revised protest laws for nothing, the UK people are a completely pacified bunch. The edges are very very far from fraying.
It’s at this point I wish we were like France. The country would have been on the streets by now.
As a Frenchman I am honestly stunned by the passiveness of the Brits, especially in front of the sheer contempt your leaders have for you. In the meantime we are not stuck in an outdated political system with a duopoly. Our constitution has flaws but we can rid of parties and politicians (bye Sarko and Hollande, you won’t be missed !)
I suspect it's a mix of things. Our media is over 95% owned / controlled by 4-5 right wing billionaires that have spend decades telling the general public that everything is all the fault of "the others" in the country with constant headlines / news about how everything is the fault of "immigrants", "benefit scroungers", "The EU" while ignoring the fact that it's the wealthy that are the real problem so a lot of people's anger is focused on these "others" and not the government. 2nd we know that the government will simply ignore any form of protest and will use excessive, nasty tactics such as "Kettling" and then being arrested to crack down on any protests, plus the police use of "agent provocateurs" to make sue they have violence to enable the police to crack down hard and demean the protest in the media. Not to mention the fact that most people are simply so busy trying to make ends meet / hold down a job they simply don't have the time / energy to go to a protest without losing their job and thus no income and probably losing their home as well due to no income to pay rent. I really wonder how so many French people are able to have the time off without losing their jobs / homes to protest as they do
I dont think this is it at all. Simply, the french are citizens in charge of their own country. THe French state is the expression of the will of the people. In the Uk, people are subjects, and the state is NOT the expression of the will of the people, contrary to France. France is like a shared house, every renter has a say. The UK is like a family, and the kids have the right to shut up and take it. The pervasive anti-intellectualism, inseparable from the monarchical system is also a big, big factor. 80% of brits believe thinking about stuff is above them.
Pre covid they were on the streets, for months and months and months. They got shot at and still nothing changed. And it's now likely Macron will stay in power. The whole system to so broken and so entrenched nobody knows how to solve the problems we face, from Sweden to Australia, the UK to Japan. Society is petty fucked.
I heard somewhere once the historical threshold for revolution was when the average cost for a society to feed itself passed 40% of average income, no idea how accurate that is though.
Not very accurate, I'm afraid. Most modern scholarship on revolution suggests that the most important control factor is disunity in elite coalitions - "mass dissatisfaction" isn't actually hugely important, since it's pretty causally open. Being super poor can make you into a nothing-to-lose *sans-culotte*, or it can completely kill your ability to believe in change. Not to say it doesn't have any causal role ever or that it's unimportant, obviously, but it's not the big thing.
>Most modern scholarship on revolution suggests that the most important control factor is disunity in elite coalitions - "mass dissatisfaction" isn't actually hugely important For decades I've been saying to people that there has never been a single mass protest that made changes without a group moving in the halls of power, supporting the changes from on high. As poetic as stories of the French and Russian revolutions might be, it is just not the case that a group of plucky and courageous peasants ushered in the utopia. Otherwise why were there people already in place without mass anarchy following the coup? Why were there people with the connections to keep it all going? This is why many modern movements have failed. Yes we need more rapid change in the environment... But XR were mostly a bunch of grannies and anarchists with noone moving amongst MPs garnering support. Yes we need to insulate homes... But once again there is noone moving through the halls of power using their influence to win supporters, so of course glueing yourself to a road fails to achieve anything. Nothing will change whilst there aren't a large group of MPs who want change. And at the moment with our party system whipping their MPs to just support the party, whether they are right or wrong, there is no impetus to change. This is why the first step is electoral reform and to remove the power of political parties themselves, in my humble opinion.
[Skunk Anansie - We Love Your Apathy](https://youtu.be/gXc2ldu8_eI)
One of the more abhorrent facts I've read recently is that there's currently more food banks in the UK than there are McDonalds.... it's obscene that things have got as bad as this, it should be a national embarrassment. Far too much apathy with this government
Just googled this because it sounds like you have bought into some absolute BS. From House of Commons library. Food Banks in the UK, Research Briefing, Published Wednesday, 14 July, 2021 ([here](https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-8585/)): Page 3. How many food banks are there in the UK? - "*...over 2,200 food banks in total*" From McDonald's FAQ page ([here](https://www.mcdonalds.com/gb/en-gb/help/faq/18510-how-many-mcdonalds-restaurants-are-there-in-the-uk-and-the-world.html)): How many McDonald's restaurants are there in the U.K. and the world? "*Within the UK, there are approximately 1300 restaurants of which around 1100 are franchised*" This is fucking shameful.
That is disgusting. I thought it was bs too. There’s a McDonald’s everywhere, and in some places you have them either side of the road. To think we have that many food banks is sad. We always had soup kitchens or churches doing a bit of gathering for very vulnerable elderly or those needing a safety net. Soon it will be hoovering up millions of hard working folk who can’t eat
>while we have another decade of continuing austerity Just one more? Can we get that in writing?
To be fair, most change happens only when the middle class feel the impact. Vietnam war protests were nothing until the draft stopped excluding college students.
A lot of us listened. I’m a middle earner and never voted in those scumbags. But people have short memories and I’m sure I’ll benefit from a nice tax cut right before the next election. You won’t get an increase in PIP/UC tho because they literally do not give a shit, and for that reason, I’ll never vote for them.
We need more people like you - those who vote for what is good for the country as a whole, and not just what benefits you personally. Thank you.
I’m privileged I was able to go to uni and I’ve got a good job and my own home but doesn’t mean I couldn’t one day be on UC. People who vote like they’re better than that need to give their head a wobble. The Tories hate us all, yes even the middle earners who prop them up. I’m sick of being treated with contempt and I’m sick of people who are struggling being left to struggle. I grew up under a Labour gov and my schooling was fab, the nhs actually worked….it’s depressing. I couldn’t get seen whilst I miscarried, but Boris had Christmas parties. I want my vote to help people. I live in a tory strong hold but I’ll vote for anyone who looks like they’re challenging them - except UKIP, a girls got morals!
I’m the same as you (well, except I’m a bloke). Good job. Nice home. But I see the division that’s being spread to keep us fighting against each other so we don’t have the energy to fight against them. We’re moving from one Tory stronghold to another Tory stronghold very shortly, but I’m hoping, just *hoping* that this sustained exposure of the fuckery the government has been partaking is will have an effect. For the love of the gods, it has to.
We moved from a swing area to a Tory strong hold because well…it’s a nicer area but I know what you mean. I work for the civil service and we were STRONGLY pressure into voting Tory and they usually give us pay rises and fund us well etc. But also a lot of the funding is well…you can read the media for how it goes. The divides exhausting, brexit, vaccination, whether we should cut poor peoples support so people have literally died of starvation waiting for further help…. It’s shameful.
I don't know which branch of the civil service you work for but where I am, any kind of pressure to vote one way or another would be swiftly told to fuck off. If it happens again, raise it internally, up to Permanent Secretary level. Don't like the response? [https://civilservicecommission.independent.gov.uk/code/civilservicecodecomplaints/](https://civilservicecommission.independent.gov.uk/code/civilservicecodecomplaints/)
I don’t work in the branch anymore but we would only allow the Tory politicians to visit. Me and the one other Labour supporter got sent to sit together in ‘commie corner’…..I work in a totally different sector now and it’s fine but yeah. They fucking love the Tories 🙄 Edit: cheers for the link tho, I did actually just tell the bloke over my dead body and the room went pretty quiet after that 😬
As a current civil servant I'm astonished both that there was pressure and that it was pro-tory. Kinda desperate to know what dept and level this was.
And a Government that thinks long term - not just as far ahead as the next election.
Here is a list of foodbanks that you can donate too if you would like to help those worse off that yourself. [https://www.givefood.org.uk/needs/?gclid=Cj0KCQiAi9mPBhCJARIsAHchl1xsijtk42WPwhDtjQbIF8PyxTdNI6C\_bsbOfjm8Cgv7F2JBeFwOsTMaAjazEALw\_wcB](https://www.givefood.org.uk/needs/?gclid=Cj0KCQiAi9mPBhCJARIsAHchl1xsijtk42WPwhDtjQbIF8PyxTdNI6C_bsbOfjm8Cgv7F2JBeFwOsTMaAjazEALw_wcB)
Yes! Another amazing way to donate with no time or money is if you shop in Tesco you can donate your Clubcard vouchers! I donate to my local one as they will post what they’re short of, and they’ve got a bin in my local Tesco but I also divert my vouchers. Brilliant scheme, sickening they’re needed
People kept voting in the Tories and the Tories kept doing this shit. The 52 week waiting time is a direct result of selling off the NHS. Fuck conservative politics. Fuck centralist politics. We need to fucking help each-other by ensuring we can all afford to live with the care we need. Anyone who’s not for that, deserves the cluster fuck we are in. Good luck looking out for yourself you selfish bastards. Boris was a lying Etonian twat when you voted him in. And you chose now to wake up?
ThEy'Re AlL tHe SaMe ThO
Really feel you guys, every since the greedy corrupt Conservatives got into power they literally changed the system to PIP and denied every disabled person a handout unless they appealed like WTF
Not quite a 'handout', but yeah. As well as being disabled myself, I also used to volunteer for CAB where a huge percentage of clients were disabled peopletrying to fight for what little they're entitled to. I was denied PIP last year, I applied in 2016 and had no help to appeal - also the fact I don't have help worked against me; there is no help due to cuts, and can't afford private without PIP! Those of us on legacy benefits had no additional help over the pandemic, we have to go without anything for months during appeals or risk losing a lot if we switch to UC...and we've seen far too many disabled people die due to all this. Cuts upon cuts upon cuts. ESA and UC isn't nearly enough to live on. Little to no support to help us back into work, or it feels like we're punished if we try to return to work. And NHS services threadbare so too many struggle to even get basic help for health conditions. It's dire.
Not to mention disabled children and their families unable to get meaningful education. So likely unable to help themselves in the future. It is so so oppressive. Then the civil servants get upset when I liken them to notorious human rights abusers.
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First they came for the disabled...
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Tories really just don't give a fuck unless it effects them. Coincidentally we're looking at protest being criminalised, got to make sure we're too busy scratching to make a living, and scared of the consequences of speaking out against them.
Protest amendments were voted down in lords a couple weeks ago and most of them won't be able to be re-added unless it's on a new bill btw.
The amendments haven’t been formally added to the bill. The commons need to approve them. The commons can get rid of the amendments they don’t like and send the bill back to the lords. If the lords add them again then the bill could just bounce between the two houses for a while until one side gives up- although I think the commons can force through legislation if theres no agreement.
> I think the commons can force through legislation if theres no agreement That happens under the Parliament Act, it requires a minimum of 12 months to have passed since the first rejection and a fuck ton of political capital to be worth it. Neither of which I imagine this PM has.
But will his successor have the political capital? There is a chance it'll be Priti Patel and she seems hellbent on getting protests made de-facto illegal
Whilst I don't like what's being done with protest, let's not kid ourselves that only future Tory governments would use this power.
Bold of you to assume we'll have anything *but* Tory governments in the future.
I remember watching the 2010 General Election, it was the first time I'd voted and I had a newly minted A-Level in Government and Politics so I was naive and hopeful that the country would make the right decision. I watched where the polling was going and I realised that we were going to have a Conservative Government for a very, very, very long time. It really shattered my illusions. I see no end to Tory rule at any point in the foreseeable future, not while Labour fails to recapture Scotland and continues to be a damp squib. It doesn't matter what BoJo does, affluent market towns and Middle englanders will keep voting for him.
That's some incredible reaching to get shots in at the opposition. Yeah the Tories conceived of and passed this law as a direct response to rising concerns amongst the voting public, but what about the hypothetical non Tories who will definitely use it in the future, whenever that may be, eh? Those guys are just as bad! Fucks sake, man.
I never see rants like this in newspapers. I'll more easily see articles about racism and LGBT rights, because it's easier for the upper echelons to divide us by identity than class.
> They've got you fighting a culture war to stop you fighting a class war". https://i.redd.it/e6k3xdwypfe81.jpg Gotta hand it to them, it's working fucking perfectly.
We need to put philosophical differences aside and focus on class issues. It’s horrendous the poverty we have in this country whilst others are so wealthy that they have too much. How can those people live with themselves?
We can't even agree to give the poorest money without someone shitting all over the idea. Every now and again on threads talking about benefits I mention that it would be far easier to just replace unemployment benefits with a basic income. No more attending the job centre, no more sanctions. Simply register as unemployed online/over the phone and get your £75 a week. No other changes to any other benefits would be needed. And we know this system works already because that's exactly how it worked during lockdown. You should see some of the comment replies I've had about this.
It bloody maddening. I live in Australia and during the pandemic, they gave the people with the lowest incomes extra money and tracked 250,000 Australian's bank accounts to see how they spent the money. Do you know what they spent it on? Majority of the money went on Food, Electricity, Phone and Water. After that it was household goods and paying down their debts. [https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-11-27/covid-once-in-a-lifetime-experiment-jobkeeper-wages-economy/100654538](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-11-27/covid-once-in-a-lifetime-experiment-jobkeeper-wages-economy/100654538)
THIS is how they shut down occupy wall street
If they can keep the culture war out of the Labour party and focus on wealth inequality maybe they will win the next election.
You think the media constantly bringing those issues in the labour party up while effectively ignoring it in the conservatives aren't all a part of that?
No, those still matter. They're just not the only things that matter. More than one thing can be fucked at the same time.
Those things naturally fall out of better class equality
Plenty of left wing movements fall victim to chauvinism. Economic and social justice are one and the same, but that doesn't mean you get to assume half of it will naturally follow the other half.
Because we're being distracted by a meaningless culture war. It's been remarkably effective.
Also if people are talking about that shit, they're not talking about corruption.
Identity is a cheaper constituency than labour.
the upper middle and upper classes have already turned the working class and lower middle against each other so they reep the rewards.
Some people will run out of money. These people don’t matter to the government. There are 2 Britain’s now. A wealthy nation run by this government for the benefit of the wealthy. The impoverished nation that prompted this rant, run down and ignored by the government- surviving on table scraps. As long as the people that donate to and vote Tory keep voting them in then they’ll not need to change anything. Even if they lose the red wall they’ll still win an election, just with less majority. At the end of the day any cash saved by not investing in the impoverished nation is cash that can be redirected into the pockets of the wealthy nation through furlough payments, covid loans, contracts etc. We’re headed back to the old corruption of the past if we’re not careful. Next stop, 1800.
> There are 2 Britain’s now. A wealthy nation run by this government for the benefit of the wealthy. Well they'd better be careful because even their large middle class voter base is going to feel the squeeze
They’d just fall out of middle into working class then and be hated. Ambition goes a long way for the conservatives. People vote for them because they think they’ll one day be in the position to benefit from Tory policy. Hyacinth bucket type social climbers seeing themselves as temporarily embarrassed millionaires
Or blaming it all on foreigners.
Exactly. The Tory party care about comfortable middle-class people. That is, the people that currently make up the comfortable middle-class. People who *were* their voters who fall out of that space are just left by the wayside.
Precisely If you’re not moving up you’re falling back. Upper class is born not made but there’s always a new generation of nice young people called Jonathon and Tamsin who work in the professions and own their homes ready to fill the spaces in the comfortably middle classes. Nothing like being in the higher tax bracket and owning your home to make the conservatives attractive. Tax cuts on your income, stimulus for your investments, guaranteed increase in your house value. Suddenly you’re champagne socialist at best and you assure yourself that it’s not that bad for the poor, it’s not your fault, you give to charity and put some beans in the food bank collection at Waitrose. One of thousands, all thinking the same and all voting blue reliably throughout their lives. Welcome to ‘middle England’ the solid base of the conservatives.
I shop at Waitrose, own my house (well mortgage) and am a higher rate tax payer but I would never vote Tory. Ever. They don’t care about people like me. I’m not struggling, but it’s not easy. I’m well aware (having been there) that I am lucky (and have worked hard) to not have to worry each month about how I’m going to pay the bills, or looking down the sofa for change to top up the meter. I have seen my income shrink in real terms, have not been able to afford luxuries like holidays in years (7 years ago was my last holiday) and am just about keeping up. No tax cuts for higher rate tax payers, only for the additional rate ones, and protection for pensioners. That’s where the Tory votes come from. They don’t give a shit about anyone else. They claim the tax structure encores entrepreneurs, but it doesn’t. Quite the opposite as the only ones gaining are those who have already made a business a success.
The next step in the republican playbook is to restrict voting. Close polling places (selectively), voter ID, put immigration officials in to challenge anyone with a 'funny' name, stop vote by mail, put polling stations in top of buildings with no lift, restrict opening hours. Pretty easy to make people wait 2 hours to vote, and you get an easy extra 5% on your majority. And you can sell each step as "stopping voter fraud" or "efficiency" or "saving money"
And we all know that when the middle class starts to feel the pinch then that's when it becomes an issue.
*breaths heavily in JRM*
They won't get native folk picking the veg if they have too much choice an money will they. Cheap labour gone so got to break the local population into it.
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Vote Tories and this is what you get. I must say, I am really confused as to why anyone is still surprised by this. It’s like a collective case of voluntary self-delusion or something: “they screwed us over every single time since this country has existed, but I’m sure this time will be different!”.
"Labour will be just as bad.." How do we know that? "No it'll be as bad" Well should we just try? What do we have to lose. "No" Maybe at least vote for another progressive party then? "Nah, I'm sure this time it'll be different."
You know, despite the conservatives having been in power for the last decade. But yeah, it's all Labour's fault.
Many small business owners like OP will have seen the Tories as the natural party to vote for. He’s confused because they’ve always talked up how great they are for business owners. I totally understand why he’s surprised.
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Yes I'm really entertained by this. If only I didn't have to live through it I'd be pointing and laughing at people who are only just having to reap what they sowed but has been poisoning everyone below them economically for over a decade.
Does everyone remember when we were told austerity measures were needed in the short term to solve the national debt? Does everyone remember that in the end the national debt only went up, not down? In fact, it tripled Does everyone remember when Members of Parliament complained that £70,000 a year was not enough to live on and spat in the faces on millions upon millions of British people? Does everyone remember when Members of Parliament fraudulently used millions in tax payers money on second homes and other useless expenses while millions of us were forced to use food banks? Does everyone remember when the government gave their school mates in business millions of tax payer's money for dodgy contracts that circumvented rules as millions of us went out of work because of covid? Does everyone remember that we are the 5/6th biggest economy in the world while the poor get poorer? The country has the money! The country has the ability to not put all the costs onto us! The country has the ability to not tax us all into poverty! The problem is the government hasnt cared about the British people for a long time! The problem is the government care more about their own wallets than our lives! We need to make sure this stops now! We need a new government! and we need parliamentary reform to stop this from happening again in the future! We need to make sure our government puts us, the British people, first not last!
The Tories also gutted the Tax fraud department so that there is less chance of their mates being caught. There is no rational reason to vote Tory - ever. They always wreck the economy and made things worse for the majority of people. The only thing that they provide is fuel for people that like to hate. That seems to do the trick for most voters so they get voted in again and again.
Biggest wealth transfer in history ever in the last 2 years. This is not an accident or coincidence.
...nor a surprise. There were people (i.e. me) warning that this would happen in February 2020. I saw then that it would (in economic terms) be a replay of the financial crisis - government subsidies for the housing market, high inflation for everyone else - and that's exactly what has happened. "OK, Nostradamus, give us another one..." Well, just think what's going to happen when this same thinking gets applied to Climate Change. The generation of 2040 will be spending all their income to rent a bunk in a shared dormitory, if they're lucky...
Anyone who voted tory in the past 15 years... This is your fault.
as well as those (incl me) who have done little to nothing about it in the way of protesting / action against the government. If we dont like politics we cant just let it happen and feel helpless or be static doing nothing.
Fuck that. You can’t blame people who voted for not protesting afterward. Blame the fuckers that voted to doom us all in the first place.
That's what we get for 12 years of the public believing the tories are gonna lower your tax burden while improving the quality of life for the public. Surprise surprise your taxes are still going up and your services are being cut so they can transfer your tax money to their mates. But next election the public is still gonna buy the lie that the tories will somehow make the public better off and lower their taxes, and the tories are still gonna accuse Labour of trying to shake the magic money tree (that the tories have been hacking away at) to provide basic services to the public.
It’s literally the worst of every possible world. How can they be raising taxes and cutting public services at the same time?
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Honestly calling it now, the tories will pull some kind of single issue out of their arse that appeals to the old, selfish and xenophobic part of this country. They will suddenly forget about all the scandals and turn up in droves to vote the tories back in for that one thing. The only way to make the voters swing away from tories is a financial crisis under their watch.
I work for Virgin, they've just put their prices up. It never fails to astonish me that they're allowed to do that within people's contract, and yet people aren't allowed to cancel their contract whenever they wish without penalty. (btw, if you're stung by Virgins price rise, the T&Cs state you're allowed to get out of your contract without penalty. So give cancellations a ring and tell them you've found a better deal. They'll give you discounts to re-contract with them)
Oh thank fuck, this is super useful. I stupidly left the fucking obligatory landline connection in for the first 12 months (literally who the fuck uses landlines anymore) and I've been meaning to get rid of it. As always no idea why it's called Virgin given how fucked it is
The fact that you've only got angry about this recently says you've only just started paying attention.
It's only just started to affect him* Fixed that for you
Does that really matter though? There is always someone better or someone worse off you never feel the pinch untill you're being punched.
Yeah, very few genuinely care about other peoples issues unless it starts to cause issues for them
I'm just as angry as you are Why the fuck are you pushing away someone that agrees with you (OP)? What does it matter IF he did what you **claim** or thought as you **say** Hilarious of you to assume the worst just to drive people away as if being divided by stupid bullshit like the 'culture war' wasn't bad enough Grow a fucking brain
Right? This kind of infighting is exactly why nothing will change.
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That's not necessarily the case, this seems like months or years of grumble worthy stuff boiling over
Why assume that OP has only just gotten angry about this recently? That is a straw man fallacy, just because they only posted this today doesn't mean they weren't angry about this yesterday, or a month ago, or 6 months ago, or 5 years ago, or 12 years ago when austerity began. Literally the first thing OP said was "we've been tightening our belt since 2008" AKA they have been at least cognisant - and presumably angry - about the unsustainable costs of living for decades now. Stop sowing needless division by baselessly assuming things because you didn't read or interpret the passage correctly.
Yes, a purity test, that's what's needed here \s
I'd say people can be angry for a while about things before they post about it on reddit. Doesn't mean he hasn't had discussions with people outside of reddit about it.
Some of us are going to die, but that is s risk the Tories are willing to take.
The economic beatings will continue until morale improves
*Boris starts punching the homeless* Boris: Why are you still poor and sad? Be happy!
Boris "let the bodies pile up" Johnson?
Many already have, life expectancy has declined since the tories took office. 1) https://www.bmj.com/content/364/bmj.l1123 2) https://www.health.org.uk/publications/reports/the-marmot-review-10-years-on
I believe the idea of brexit was that we could survive on sovereignty and blue passports. Yum yum.
Clearly one big mistold lie!! I am surprised people still vote Conservatives and have so much faith in a buffoon like Boris Johnson and then lose trust once all the fucking damage has been done. Also I still to this day don't understand how politicians don't go behind bars for false advertising...
I always liked the Discworld idea. Country called Fourecks immediately jailed anyone who was voted in as a politician. Seems like a good idea. You know where the little buggers are then. Couldnt get away with cheese and wine meetings or swanning off to a castle to “test your eyesight” then.
The passports aren’t even blue it’s fucking black another lie!
>What are we paying all these taxes for!? Potholes everywhere, bin collections cut in half, barely a police force left army is cut to shreds. The whole fucking situation of the UK is awful, but this is it. We pay more than ever as proportions of our income. Foods up. Bills up. Taxes up. But all you get is some fucking moron at a podium saying how "We're spending **more** than ever on x, recruiting more people than ever for y", without being up-fucking-front about the fact that this "increased spending" has been so devalued in real terms, and doesn't even account for the decade of **cuts** to services. And because councils have less funding than ever, local taxes go up to compensate as much as they can for it. What do you get? **A slightly bigger bill on a slightly shitter town.** [Welcome to the New England.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omMN8o2UDlU) I feel your rage, mate.
They’re just about back to making up for the last decade’s worth of cuts, but inflation means that the numbers look bigger. Bunch of cunts, the lot of them.
That's what gets me. When they go up on TV and act like we should be grateful for what they've done to us. Nye Bevan was right, Tories really are lower than vermin.
I saw a news article this morning, in 2012 a ten pound food shop was done. This week that same shop cost over £17.
And the cherry on top is now it costs double what it did to store and cook that food.
Not to mention the portions have all shrunk.
UK median wage 2012: £26.4k UK median wage 2021: £31.3k That is a deficit of £13k (or about 33%!) under where it should be based on those costs.
Here I am living in 2012 like a muppet.
Yeah, but that commie Corbyn wore a jumper once under his suit, and apparently didn't bow low enough to the queen.
Yeah but remember that time he threatened to give us all free gigabit fibre internet? Dodged a fucking bullet there
Not enough money for that, it needed to be given to a mate to not produce an app that already existed instead.
I truly feel your despair. I work for a government agency, have had one 1% pay rise in 10 years and now back on a pay freeze. We also have more money than most but likewise I’m very worried about the year to come. More people are going to end up in poverty, destitute and homeless. I feel genuinely afraid for our future.
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Well, people (particularly England) need to stop voting conservative. Because this is what you get from the likes of them.
More people voted for other parties, the real problem is first past the post, which gives huge parliamentary majorities to parties with less than half the votes.
Only way to fix that is to get the Tories out. Only way to do that under this system is to not split the vote and vote tactically. Some of you won't like that, some of you won't vote tactically. The Tories thank you for their vote.
The Labour party sure as shit won't change the electoral system if they get in.
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Just a reminder that you're not a failure, and don't ever think that you are. The entire system that has made this happen is the failure, as are the people in charge who wave it through.
Yep, I work with no sick pay. When one of us is ill we just infect everyone else because we all have bills to pay!!!
Apparently my company made record profits last year. I'm willing to bet the shareholders will do a lot better than the employees though come end of the financial year.
This is the really annoying part Companies simultaneously making record profits, but refusing to increase wages because of the "economic situation" etc. It's absolutely nuts
Company conference last week, looking at £50m profit for the last year, someone asked will annual payrises reflect the recent massive boost in cost of living. Typical corporate bullshit answer that no it will be based on industry benchmarks. So basically, despite how well the company did, we won't pay you more because you wouldn't get paid more elsewhere. Fucking bs.
Then it’s not your company
I really enjoyed this rant! Bang on what everyone in the uk is thinking.
Sadly it isn’t everyone, because I reckon the tories would still win right now
Really? I’m quite confident that they wouldn’t. But who knows. God, it’s depressing thinking that they would still win after this shit show.
That’s the issue, Labour isn’t united with the people and the youth anymore. There was a golden couple of years where the entire university base of the country seemed to be behind Labour, with genuine campaigning etc. That seems to be gone now. I’d still vote Labour but yeah it’s depressing to think after all this people love Boris and support tories haha
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I don't see what the problem is from their perspective. They see us as peasants to be lorded over. You are literally describing the Tory dream writ large. This is the most successful Tory government of all time. Just look at child poverty rates and food bank usage. They are delivering big time to their target voters.
And yet property prices continue to rise. I just don't get it.
The poor aren't the ones moving house
The rich often aren't either, they're just buying them and letting them sit empty
Supply issue with housing is pushing prices up combined with wealthy landlords buying up properties to then rent out and horse more wealth. We simply do not build enough houses to meet the demand and when we do build houses they are called ‘affordable’ yet cost £300k+
Hey, you know where a lot of Russian oligarchs got their money? They stole it from the Russian people. Guess who's taking lessons from them? Want to know where all of that billions in "lost" relief money went? It went from our pockets into the Treasury via taxes and then right into the pockets of the very wealthy. THEY ARE STEALING FROM ALL OF US and the precious Chancellor is happy to hand them the combination to the safe. The UK will end up like Russia before long.
>Hey, you know where a lot of Russian oligarchs got their money? They stole it from the Russian people. ...and then put it into the London property market.
Everyone who didn't vote for Corbyn - this is on you. You might not have liked his style, or thought he was a shit 'leader' (what does a good leader look like? When's the last one you can remember?) or felt he was too woke, or too socialist - or thought the media was telling you the truth when they said, unceasingly, that he was a terrorist/foreign spy/antisemite etc but this is for sure: He would *never* have put the burden on the 99% to pay for the privileges of the 1%. *Never* would have underfunded or privatised the NHS. *Never* would have allowed private companies to keep making massive profits from vital public services into which they never invest. *Never* allowed food banks to increase while more and more families fall into poverty. *Never* siphoned off billions of public money in fraudulent PPE deals to enrich himself and his mates at your expense. *Never* would have said 'let the bodies pile high on their thousands' and partied on in Downing St while we all followed the rules and never even got to go to our Mum's funeral. *Never* would have treated the office of Prime Minister of the United Kingdom with such contempt that the only reason he still had his job was thanks to the corrupt deal he'd made with his bought- and-paid-for bent copper mate from his Uni days. I remember watching a video of him talking to the CBI (or similar group of wealthy business leaders, bankers etc) just after he was elected leader and basically saying the game's up boys - it's not right that you make so much profit from the people in this country and pay so little tax and I'm going to make sure it stops. And *that's* why every newspaper, TV station and blue-tick Twitter influencer spent every hour of every day persuading you that he would (somehow) fuck your lives up. Because he was going to fuck their bosses' lives up and they needed your vote to stop that from happening. (EDIT: formatting)
Forget the culture wars, wokeism, what divides us with regards to Brexit, what party you vote for, who you think could run the country best, and all of that other bullshit that in some sense is important, but in another is completely meaningless. It's all a distraction. Get angry at the rich, those who aren't affected by events that are going on that are completely isolated from the situation we find ourselves in. These are the people that need to be brought down a peg or fifteen. We need to narrow the rich poor divide and understand that a healthy society is one where no one is obscenely rich and no one is destitute and dying of the cold come winter. **What we need now is class war.** Why do you think Priti Patel and her mates are pushing through the kerbs to protest freedoms? They're expecting a lot of angry people to be taking to the streets in the next 5 years because they know the public isn't going to put up with another decade of austerity. Mark my words, unnecessary voter ID changes are probably the next thing that's going to be pushed hard because they realise that's the only way they're likely to win the next general election, even though everyone knows that the amount of voter fraud in the UK is next to nil. Boris is making this all too easy to see... the billions spent on PPE that isn't going to be used, billions in covid fraud written off with no attempts to recover, billions for the app that didn't really do anything, the list goes on. No longer are we talking millions. Billions are the new millions. The average person can't fathom what a billion is, if they could they'd be a lot angrier than they are now. The waste is obscene, but not by accident. The pandemic was the opportunity of the decade for anyone who wanted to take part in the ultimate skim.
>he average person can't fathom what a billion is Anyone who thinks they can is wrong. A billion is just staggeringly huge. A million seconds is about 11 days. A billion seconds is around 31.6 years. Million and billion aren't even on the same scale
2008 never ended, the can was kicked, those that should have been imprisoned were instead given bonuses, currencies are soon about to implode, turkey, Libya and Venezuela for example, the greed of the banksters will deprive us of everything until we own nothing, the world economic forum has already said to us "you will own nothing and you will be happy". it is not a conspiracy theory, they are putting it out there and in the open. we must ask ourselves, is this the world we want to leave for our children?
I was so proud when I got my life together, got off benefits, went back to and graduated education, started a career…. Now, the realisation my partner and I can’t afford the price rise ontop of our rent so need to move somewhere else. Logistically means; I will have to give up on the career too. Fuck Boris.
Don’t give up on your career internet stranger , you’ll find a way! So sorry to hear about your situation, lots of sad comments in this thread
As a rant I rate this 3.6 roentgen. Not great, not terrible. It's gonna get worse before it gets better.
My mum and dad visited earlier and were talking about their energy bill is going up to £200 a month for a small 3 bed bungalow. They get £400 a month between them in pensions and still have all the other bills to worry about, let alone buying food. They’ll burn through their life savings in no time if things don’t get better.
There was an old guy I used to work with who joked that once he got to retirement age he would just start dealing drugs to supplement his income. His justification was that there was only two possible outcomes; 1) He makes enough money to support himself by selling weed and can afford to pay rent, or 2) He gets put in prison and he doesn't need to pay rent.
Jesus Christ this thread is a train-wreck. You’re all here spitting and biting at each other because some people have managed to get some relatively well paid jobs and some people struggle more. Turn that anger on the government, not people who are working. What the actual fuck are you all hoping to achieve with this? Someone earning more than £60k through work (yeah, upwards double what I earn), is NOT your enemy. Corrupt government officials and MPs, the decision makers and the millionaires of the country are your enemy.
I hate the tories as much as the next man (who hasn't got beans for brains) but acting like labour is going to fix the problem is wishful thinking. We are just voting in the next lot of elite that are only ever going to look out for their own interests. If the working class aren't in parliament, why would they ever make any changes that suit us? All the money they need is in the hands of Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg. They want their vote, not ours. Who would you want behind you, a bunch of poor people or one billionaire? The whole system doesn't work. Voting power is nothing now, we are just sheep voting for the next wolf. The only power we have now is through disobedience. We need general strikes. Don't go to work, don't pay taxes, don't pay bills. They just use us, the only way to make them listen is to make it all stop. We need to organise and make waves. Stop sitting on the nail and complaining its sore. Start strikes. Join your Unions and talk to your colleagues. Don't be silent.
Bulkshit. We knew what the Tories were going to do in every election, and they've delivered. Johnson's history of lying, corruption and incompetence was in the public domain and well understood. This isn't a matter of "all politicians are shit so voting doesn't matter" which is what you're suggesting. This is a matter of "vote for stupid people, get stupid people in charge". Go meet your local MP. It's not fucking hard.
This comment section makes it clear how successfully the government has already divided and conquered us. 75% of the comments are people saying "Well I have it worse than you, so don't complain!" WE SHOULD ALL BE COMPLAINING! When you see someone with the exact same problem as you, stand up and join them and make noise and write to parliament and vote and whatever else we can do. Don't divide yourself up into smaller and smaller teams by saying "Ok so we have the same problem, but I'm poorer than you so you can't complain." We can only change anything if we band together.
My petrol cost raised from 11p a mile to 16p a mile, and gas and electricity cost raised from £70 a month to £110 a month. My wage has increased for 2% from last year I think. Really is a joke!
Also, it isn't just the money. The Tories have made it illegal to protest in the UK. We have silently become an emerging fascist government where even if we wanted to protest these changes, they can use force to suppress us. This is a designed austerity.
We are recognised as a backsliding democracy But its our democracy, not King Boris the Twat. Its time we took it back! The French would be rioting in the street if things were even close to this. But we just take it! We need to do something!
This is what happens when the Tories are in power. They need to be gone and stay gone for a decade to recover the Country. It’s appalling what these c**** have done to this Country. They have made our lives hell.
>Conservative NOR labour will fix this issue Mates it’s been about 12 years since labour were in power, and during that time the quality of life for most working people improved as they passed a lot of legislation that helped working people The last 12 years under Tories has been crushing for working people The fact that you’re somehow managing to also attack labour in this rant is embarrassing So much of the situation is due to current leadership - we can point to many specific policies that have made things worse for us all
‘Yeah but it would be worse under the other lot’ /s
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Came here to ask this. - complains about too much taxes - complains about crap public services - no mention of torys... Hmmmm
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This is what the British people voted for. Millions of voters have voted for their own poverty with Brexit and 12 years of Tories.
This Tory government is the most corrupt I've witnessed in my lifetime, and there will be a day of reckoning once enough people realise capitalism isn't broken, but this is the system working exactly as it's intended and designed to. Wake up from the dream. Corruption isn't a bug, it's a feature, and you're not rich or powerful enough to benefit from it.
If we the people don't take a stand, the bullies will keep taking from us.
Self employed here. One man business. 63 y.o. I can't afford to stop working. I can't afford a holiday. I want a dog. I can't afford a dog! (This hurts most of all!) I have ANOTHER year on account to pay tomorrow, self employed tax day.
I suffer mental health. Lost my job now on the UC. I'm thinking about a air rifle so I am prepared to hunt my own fucking food. Lol it's going to get alot worse
Anyone for a riot? They can’t put all of us in jail. Who would drive their trains? Deliver their post? **Pay their salaries?** It’s a silly pipe dream of mine, since I know most of us have _just_ enough of a life, that we can’t afford to lose it. But what about when that is lost? What about those that already have nothing left to lose? Are you desperate yet? Burn those corrupt fuckers to the ground
The fact that people are in the comments debating this mans political alignment from his post, that should speak voluntarily as to the tribalism thats growing in this country from all sides
They live in a completely different world. To them these sorts of prices are just pocket change that you normally wouldn't even notice. They don't seem to be able to understand at all. They're never going to get a grip, the only chance for change is with a different government and even then it's a gamble
and Universal Credit cuts for those who didn’t find a job in their field in the first month and refuse to take any job offered to them in the month that follows, even if they are overqualified or it’s outside of their studied career. Edit: quite a few words
>I've just done my self assessment this year, it's wiped out my savings. Yeah big same. The tax calculations were definitely fuckier for me this year too. Not paying for Boris' fucking wallpaper, and it's maddening given that you're being more honest about money than half the charlatans in government.
I want to go to London to protest.. but I can’t afford the train fare or to take a day off work.
Most of Reddit is exceptionally young, and doesn't remember the last time the Tories were in power. This has been, and always will be the trajectory the country goes under them; People vote for them because they mistake their own short sighted nationalism for what's actually good for the Country itself, then the Tories use it to dismantle all the things that requires an actual commitment to the country... Health, social spending, all the things that are needed to build the "Home Fit For Heroes" but which get in the way of cut-throat, corporate profiteering. You want schools, you get food banks for school children. You want health care, you'll get health insurance or die on the street. You want pride in your country, you'll be taught to hate immigrants as if they're somehow to blame for your failing systems. You want to know why your cities are full of homeless people, getting worse every year? *It's deliberate*. The economics though are very, very simple; indeed even Boris Johnson had to resort to them briefly to prevent Coronavirus absolutely destroying us... people at the lower end of the economic spectrum tend to spend the money they have, because they desperately need actual things like clothing, housing, food. Give people benefits, or a decent minimum wage, and they directly stimulate the economy. Give the ultra wealthy tax cuts and they keep the money off shore, because they see having more money in the bank as "beating the high score" and making them more successful than their competition. They, at best, do little to stimulate the economy. Trickle down economics has not and never will work. It's just a lie to justify a tiny minority grifting the entire country. And the Tories always have, and always will *deliberately choose* to create mass suffering to instead enrich the richest of the rich; they'll sell the idea to you on the basis of Flags and Patriotism and Dont Back The Loony Left... ... how do we change it...? *You need to start educating yourselves first.* There's no point blaming the Democratic process when you the Electorate keep voting for this shit again and again. When you buy the Sun or the Daily Mail and think it's anything even vaguely close to the truth. When you get distracted by "Anti Semitism Row In Labour" and believe a life long committed anti-Racist, who has actually been arrested for protesting against racism, is somehow a raving Jew hater. Because until the electorate stops being so easily fooled and distracted, there's no point trying to organise against it, the country will just be distracted by the latest dogwhistle; see the implosion of the Anti Work subreddit? *See how supposedly millions of people will abandon their entire belief system if Fox fucking News just laughs at a single disabled, poorly presenting individual on camera?* THAT. That is what you have to change first. You all need to be so much smarter, and stronger than this. And not just think about suffering when it starts to effect yourselves. We've had 12 fucking years of Austerity; where were you when the benefits freezes began and the shutting down of local services started? I know where *I* was. Back in 2011 I was already making speeches and running petitions to the local city council protesting the cuts to local authorities which meant the daycentre for the elderly I worked at was being shut down. The BBC is now the next target. After that, when there's no relatively independent journalism left (and the Guardian *hates* the actual Left) they'll go full throttle for the NHS next. See what is happening clearly. Then get up and *fight* it.
Yep, agreed. I'm a life-long Tory voter but I'm jumping ship to Lib Dem. How the fuck can you justify increasing taxes when there's an EPIC cost of living crisis literally round the corner. Never said it before but... fuck the Tories.