Social Mobility - you what mate

Soldato
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Does Tony have full sky subscription, fast broadband and a nice mobile phone?

If he doesn't would he be worthy of some empathy?

Bottom line is that people, in general, do not give a **** about others (despite public showings claiming that they do). They care about themselves and then the blinkers go on.
 
Soldato
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Bottom line is that people, in general, do not give a **** about others (despite public showings claiming that they do). They care about themselves and then the blinkers go on.

People are not responsible for others. I am a working father of two, my responsibility is to my wife, my children, my parents/in-laws when they become infirm and to pay my fair share of tax. This is where my responsibility ends. Anything else is charity and is a personal decision of individual people as to whether they give (money/time/resources) or not. It's not even a moral decision (despite media emotional blackmail to suggest otherwise) your only responsibility is to you and your closest family - anything else is personal choice.
 
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Which of your three categories does Tony fit into?
For the purposes of my point it's the bottom category - the reason being that he would vote in the same way as them.
The point I'm making is that these three categories are maintained by the two party system - forever swapping back and forth between tories and labour, nothing really changing.
 

SPG

SPG

Soldato
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The welfare system in terms of percentages is nothing.

It just so happens to be an easy target for the Conservative ideology, the tax avoidance of companies should be number 1 target... except they just happen to pay the conservatives backroom boys X amount for not looking.

We have the money, we need to spend it on something, Healthcare and welfare seem really good ideas to me. Trident, Nuclear Power projects, More stuff for London is not good ideas.
 
Soldato
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The welfare system in terms of percentages is nothing.

It just so happens to be an easy target for the Conservative ideology, the tax avoidance of companies should be number 1 target... except they just happen to pay the conservatives backroom boys X amount for not looking.

We have the money, we need to spend it on something, Healthcare and welfare seem really good ideas to me. Trident, Nuclear Power projects, More stuff for London is not good ideas.

As opposed to socialist ideology of getting other people to pay for "stuff"? Aggressive tax avoidance will never be addressed fully until it's done world wide, it's folly to believe St. Jeremy has the answers to this.

The welfare system could be better and has plenty of cracks for people to fall through, but we have one and it does work for a lot of people. It just needs to be flexible on dealing with examples like the above and others that fall outside of the normal needs of a welfare system. Making people that already have no fall-back having to face 6 weeks of no money is disgusting and needs to be addressed with urgency for example, that should have been sorted the moment the stories came about.

On your priorities of spending, I would disagree - but then that's beyond the scope of this thread.
 
Soldato
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Tony is completely fictional but entirely plausible.

Tony is not only fictional but extremely unlikely and unrepresentative of vast swathes of the country.....

This appears to be some appeal to the supposed 'deserving poor'.

Tony is of course rather a straw man type of a! character... His wife doesn't need a 'primary carer' in all likelyhood if Tony can work in excess of full time hours and look after two school age children as well. His job alone with travel time would mean he was out of the home for around 10 hours a day at work or travelling to and from work.

Still the current goverment has manged to get a few things right. Dropping taxes for those in work is a small silver lining to an otherwise dim proverbial cloud
 
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Soldato
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The period of reduced inequality, high growth and more egalitarian wealth distribution that followed the Great Depression and two World Wars, appears to have been very much an outlier in the grand scheme of human civilisation.

The Baby Boomer generation enjoyed an unparalleled period of growth and productivity, and they convinced us that it was the 'new normal'. We just have to face up to the fact that this isn't the case.
 
Soldato
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The period of reduced inequality, high growth and more egalitarian wealth distribution that followed the Great Depression and two World Wars, appears to have been very much an outlier in the grand scheme of human civilisation.

The Baby Boomer generation enjoyed an unparalleled period of growth and productivity, and they convinced us that it was the 'new normal'. We just have to face up to the fact that this isn't the case.
I agree with this, it's only relatively recently that this has happened. Throughout history there have been rich powerful people, and the plebs on the bottom. If you were one of the plebs, at best you might become a merchant or something, and be a bit wealthier. But you'd still be a pleb. We hear a lot about rents being horrendous, and they are, but not so many years ago most people were working 12-14 hours just for a roof over their head and some food.
 
Soldato
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Tony is not only fictional but extremely unlikely and unrepresentative of vast swathes of the country.....

This appears to be some appeal to the supposed 'deserving poor'.

Tony is of course rather a straw man type of a! character... His wife doesn't need a 'primary carer' in all likelyhood if Tony can work in excess of full time hours and look after two school age children as well. His job alone with travel time would mean he was out of the home for around 10 hours a day at work or travelling to and from work.

Still the current goverment has manged to get a few things right. Dropping taxes for those in work is a small silver lining to an otherwise dim proverbial cloud

As a man who has worked very closely with social care teams for a number of years you might be surprised by the hardships experienced by those on the fringes of society. You don't like the full time aspect? Drop the hours down, doesn't change much.

I'm not saying that the situation I pointed out is representative, of course it isn't, but it exists and I'd suggest the struggles it alludes to are more widespread than you think they are.

Also not a straw man, as my argument was simply that people don't fit into neat categories, it's not really rocket science.

In terms of it being a an appeal to the deserving poor, not at all, my preference in these situations is to find a way to support families to support themselves. Arguably the shortfall in the example is probably one of social care provision, or childcare support, improvements would allow foundations to be created. I thinks it's worth highlighting that despite what the tabloids may churn out the majority of people in receipt of state support in this country actually have a genuine need.
 
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Caporegime
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The university fees certainly are hindering social mobility, there is no student loan available for a 2nd degree so all the people that want to change careers can no longer afford to with the increase.
 
Soldato
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The university fees certainly are hindering social mobility, there is no student loan available for a 2nd degree so all the people that want to change careers can no longer afford to with the increase.
+1
When it was free only wealthy familys could afford to send their kids to university. This might not make sense but most people had to work to support themselves. Not all parents are supportive of their kids. Therefore when uni was free its was see as only the wealth off that went.

I feel they are turning back the clock on this because now they are charging again only the wealthy will be able to afford to go. Unless obviously you want to come out with debts over 60k.
Its all part of the old school boys network. Most people that are private educated are guranteed to have a good start in life. Hence the expensive fees. However the same can not applied to university. Its the foundations that matter. Primary education is where it all starts.

Most of you will argue that university is not for everyonen and I agree but the government are not promoting alternatives and also companies are exploiting cheap labour via apprenticeships and volunteering. The failing is at primary education through to secondary school.

Ask yourself why the government are keen to bring back grammar school.
There is going to be a huge skills shortage after we leave europe. Especially in the tech sector and we dont have people here unfortunately due to failing of the school system.
They have only started to introduce programming in key stage 1&2 in schools.
 
Soldato
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The university fees certainly are hindering social mobility, there is no student loan available for a 2nd degree so all the people that want to change careers can no longer afford to with the increase.

Social mobility is about people who are born into benefits Britain having the same change as those in the middle class to actually make something for themselves.

You think the state funding peoples 2nd degree's is better?

Having a degree let alone a second is not a guarantee of getting a new/better job. For that matter nor is it training baring a few specific roles (doctors etc). It is much more about proof you can apply yourself to a certain level. You do not need a degree in the subject (or even at all) to do a whole boat load of top respected careers such as accountants and lawyers.

There is a huge amount of graduate schemes that do not require you to have a degree in a relevant subject, just the grade.

+1
Fee's etc

Ask yourself why the government are keen to bring back grammar school.
There is going to be a huge skills shortage after we leave europe. Especially in the tech sector and we dont have people here unfortunately due to failing of the school system.
They have only started to introduce programming in key stage 1&2 in schools.

Not sure you really understand how the fee's work, they are not 'debt' in the way that a mortgage is debt. It is structured as a tax on graduates, you only pay when you earn enough (just like tax) and you don't have to pay it back so its not debt. You stop paying once you have paid your way. I completely disagree with the quite frankly extortionate interest rates though.

Whats wrong with grammar schools? The counter argument is that comprehensives fail the brightest students because they have to cater to the lowest common denominator.

Surely having a more flexible education system that can bring out the best from children of all abilities is better than a one size fits all box that fails those at the top and the bottom because they are too busy focused on getting the middle 50% 5C grades because that's how they are measured. These schools should select on ability not background.
 
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Soldato
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Ask yourself why the government are keen to bring back grammar school.

i suspect part of it is looking at northern Ireland, that never lost that system, and realizing that whilst it's politically loaded there are benefits to the 2 tier education system.

for example one of my a level modules was an exchange program with the local high school, and there was a noticeable difference in the level of teaching quality (by which i mean the level of actual teaching being there at all) between the 2. it was so bad i only found out there was even an exam for the course (as opposed to being all coursework) when my school published the timetable, none of the content had been taught.

as for the whole wealth thing, i suspect it's a generational cycle thing, first generation starts off poor and becomes determined their kids aren't going to go through that, their kids get a better start and go a bit further, rinse and repeat until you get the spoiled rotten generation that doesn't understand the value of working and wastes all the resources built up by the family. this in its extremes manifests as the cycle of "new money" in the top 1% progressing to "old money" until somewhere down the line it all gets lost, i suspect this happens at smaller scales as well it's just nobody notices it. the general trend is still upward though, the lowest tiers now are much better off than they were a few hundred years ago.
 
Caporegime
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Social mobility is about people who are born into benefits Britain having the same change as those in the middle class to actually make something for themselves.

You think the state funding peoples 2nd degree's is better?

Having a degree let alone a second is not a guarantee of getting a new/better job. For that matter nor is it training baring a few specific roles (doctors etc). It is much more about proof you can apply yourself to a certain level. You do not need a degree in the subject (or even at all) to do a whole boat load of top respected careers such as accountants and lawyers.

There is a huge amount of graduate schemes that do not require you to have a degree in a relevant subject, just the grade.

There are a lot of careers that require a degree, so while it's not a guarantee it is often a prerequisite.
 
Soldato
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Yes I know that but the point is just because the person got bored with their current career the state shouldn't have to pick up the tab for their 2nd degree. There are plenty of ways to change career without getting a £30k qualification that takes 3 years with no guarantee of actually getting a decent job.

That isn't being socially mobile.
 
Caporegime
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Yes I know that but the point is just because the person got bored with their current career the state shouldn't have to pick up the tab for their 2nd degree. There are plenty of ways to change career without getting a £30k qualification that takes 3 years with no guarantee of actually getting a decent job.

That isn't being socially mobile.

Well the state isn't picking up the tab, that's the idea of a student loan. And that same argument can be applied to funding a first degree.

It's not really a case of being bored with a career when with a degree you're on close to minimum wage, that's the reality for many.
 
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