Squeezed Middle Watch

[tbtommyb]

It was banging on as taking private education, ski-ing holidays etc. as a given that really irked me. Spoilt stuck up bitch who has no idea how real people live.

for me it's the 'after we spent all our money on extravagances we had nothing left!' line that irks. I think the family profiled in the telegraph a few pages back did the same, saying 'after private school fees, the mortgage for the massive house and a new car every couple of years we don't have much left!'. well duh.

 

[_angel_]

If they were on benefits, or indeed working on a low enough wage to still need Housing Benefit they'd only be allowed 3 bedrooms as all three under 10s would be expected to share one room.

Might have missed something, but I think they only expect two kids to share a room.... most rooms wouldn't have space for three kids????

 

[campanula]

I was a tad astonished reading about Emily Thornberry's 'humble' upbringing, complete with food parcels...despite mum being a teacher and dad an 'international lawyer'.....and she also managed to mention the 'social housing' they were forced to live in.

Is this going to be a new trend - Labour politicos outdoing themselves to have the most Dickensian childhoods?

 

[oryx]

I was a tad astonished reading about Emily Thornberry's 'humble' upbringing, complete with food parcels...despite mum being a teacher and dad an 'international lawyer'.....and she also managed to mention the 'social housing' they were forced to live in.

Is this going to be a new trend - Labour politicos outdoing themselves to have the most Dickensian childhoods?

According to her Wikipedia entry her parents divorced and her mum was a teacher who got custody of the kids, so not all that implausible.

Would be interesting to have a link to the story.

 

[DotCommunist]

they all try the prolier than thou card. Reducting it to a spoke on the wheel of oppression

 

[ViolentPanda]

they all try the prolier than thou card. Reducting it to a spoke on the wheel of oppression

Just another entry on their oppression bingo card to be drawn a line through.

 

[UrbaneFox]

Is Mi-Lord Prezza not a member of the Labour party anymore then?

No. he's opened a chain of rip-off pizzerias and is coining it in.

 

[newbie]

No. he's opened a chain of rip-off pizzerias and is coining it in.

you sure? Labour parachuted him into Scotland with Broon for the referendum and a few days ago he wrote "we need Labour to save our bacon." Doesn't really sound like he's left.

 

[UrbaneFox]

http://www.prezzorestaurants.co.uk/main-menu/#main-menu

Ah, I see my error. Prezzo not Prezza

 

[J Ed]

MEANWHILE....

Insecure, low-paid jobs are leaving record numbers of working families in poverty, with two-thirds of people who found work in the past year taking jobs for less than the living wage, according to the latest annual report from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

The research shows that over the last decade, increasing numbers of pensioners have become comfortable, but at the same time incomes among the worst-off have dropped almost 10% in real terms.

Painting a picture of huge numbers trapped on low wages, the foundation said during the decade only a fifth of low-paid workers managed to move to better paid jobs.

 

[stavros]

http://www.prezzorestaurants.co.uk/main-menu/#main-menu

Ah, I see my error. Prezzo not Prezza

The very idea that our noble Lords might not devote their entire working lives to bettering the lives of the general public who elected.... oh.

 

[Belushi]

Some top work from the Scottish Daily Mail today, shamelessly stolen from weepiper :thumbs :

 

[oryx]

Some top work from the Scottish Daily Mail today :thumbs :

that's an absolute classic - Scottish DM headline writers really need some education about the real meaning of 'apartheid'.......

 

[weepiper]

Some top work from the Scottish Daily Mail today :thumbs :

I was just coming to post that here too and you got there first! With my own photo too!

 

[Belushi]

You've had all day weeps

 

[weepiper]

You've had all day weeps

I was at work being a Hardworking Family

 

[Belushi]

Sorry weeps but I just felt that people needed to learn how middle class scots are suffering under the SNP

 

[weepiper]

Sorry weeps but I just felt that people needed to learn how middle class scots are suffering under the SNP

The Nats heartlessly persecuting some innocent petit bourgoisie, earlier

 

[coley]

Why aren't the British middle-classes staging a revolution?
Why aren't the middle-classes more angry about stories such as the Phones4U collapse, and what will it take to tip us over the edge, asks Alex Proud



http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/thin...tish-middle-classes-staging-a-revolution.html

Too late, twat, that's AP, not you Fozzie Bear

 

[yield]

Clinging On: The Decline of the Middle Classes. BBC Radio 4. 20:00

Is the middle-class in terminal decline? Writer David Boyle, author of Broke: Who Killed the Middle Classes?, explores the split between a small rich elite and those who are argued to be clinging on to a deteriorating lifestyle and falling expectations.

David Boyle? It's on tonight.

 

[Louis MacNeice]

Clinging On: The Decline of the Middle Classes. BBC Radio 4. 20:00

David Boyle? It's on tonight.

It's worth a listen because it does capture (albeit largely accidentally) the dilemma facing the middle class; which way to jump. Unsurprisingly, given its provenance, it reaches no useful conclusions.

Cheers - Louis MacNeice

 

[yield]

It's worth a listen because it does capture (albeit largely accidentally) the dilemma facing the middle class; which way to jump. Unsurprisingly, given its provenance, it reaches no useful conclusions.

Cheers - Louis MacNeice

I agree for the reason you said.

"As the American political sociologist Barrington Moore bluntly put it, 'no bourgeoisie, no democracy'" What did Francis Fukuyama mean with that? It's nonsense.

See also
Nick Curtis: There are worse places than the ‘squeezed middle’
The Standard. 30 January 2015

 

[Belushi]

How 'middle class' inflation is threatening your standard of living..

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/...n-is-threatening-your-standard-of-living.html

 

[Celyn]

How 'middle class' inflation is threatening your standard of living..

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/...n-is-threatening-your-standard-of-living.html

The average Telegraph subscriber today earns £48,550 a year before tax (nearly double the average wage). But this is 0.8pc (£350) less than the £48,900 a year they were taking home in 2009. If you have found that your spending power and lifestyle have been hampered, this could be why.

I find that my "spending power" (hah!) and my lifestyle are both pretty rubbishy, but I bet they'd both be better if I had £48.500 p.a.

 

[weepiper]

They could massively increase their standard of living by using state education and healthcare like the rest of us. Then they could afford that holiday (which they would take anyway) without fucking whinging about it.

 

[Celyn]

... and the right wine, and the new cars. Mustn't forget those.

 

[FiFi]

How 'middle class' inflation is threatening your standard of living..

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/...n-is-threatening-your-standard-of-living.html

Pretty much all the goods and services mentioned in the article are luxuries, I don't think it will take much effort to see how to cut their spending without suffering unduly.

 

[CNT36]

I find that my "spending power" (hah!) and my lifestyle are both pretty rubbishy, but I bet they'd both be better if I had £48.500 p.a.

When I worked for the council we lost more than 0.8% when they started fucking with our fuel expenses and stopped paying travelling time. Probably worked out a lot more in real money as well over a year as well. To a couple of people that was enough to push them into debt.

 

[Artaxerxes]

How 'middle class' inflation is threatening your standard of living..

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/...n-is-threatening-your-standard-of-living.html

So we should pirate films and music to save money? Cos I've been doing that since I was 16...

[/oldtimer]it took me 3 weeks to get a film on a 56k connection, but you tell that to young folk today and they just laugh at you

 

[tbtommyb]

How 'middle class' inflation is threatening your standard of living..

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/...n-is-threatening-your-standard-of-living.html

guardian retort:http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/may/24/middle-class-living-standards