inflation forecasts are consistently wrong. Public sector rise of 1% is the first pay increase in years. Not only have I personally had a wage cut of £1500 (it was due to be 5000 but the union managed to reduce my loss having collaborated with the council to achieve pay cuts for those on middling grades circa 20 to 28,000k in order to pay for modest increases on those on lower or higher wages. It was fixed to work out that way so that "job reviews" resulted in no change in wages cost for those that needed upgrading for increased responsibility or sex equality reasons) but thats 5 years of actual wage cuts via inflation and my savings (I dont own property) have been hacked at to pay for the idiocy of those taking out foolish mortgages (banks and customers).

 

Good thing I'm not bitter about it (sarcastic that one just to be clear) and what a great message of responsibility to society that sends out......

 

 

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/john...didnt-work.html

 

Refute this Craig. It's a pretty damming look at Osbourne and Camoron's pet project from the New Yorker.

Craig, stop trotting out that 30 million figure like it has any significance whatsoever. We're in a country with a growing population. It was always going to break that figure unless we hit a ridiculously massive depression.

 

And as I've mentioned time and time again, it's a bit rich of you to try and claim that Labour are being partisan and talking down the economy when you were doing the same yourself in the lead-up to the 2010 election, when we were having growth far bigger than any we've had since!

I prefer the real world tbh

 

And in the real world things are getting a lot better, growth outstripping much of the civilised world, more people in jobs than ever before, the Chinese and Russians are queueing up to buy property in this country and invest in businesses, interest rates are nearly the lowest in the world, many companies cant keep up with demand, stores are packed to the rafters of people buying things

 

Whereas labour like to talk down Britain, whenever unemployment falls instead of praising the government they try blame it on zero hours contracts and benefit sanctions as opposed to the fact that over 30m people have a job for the first time in our history

 

When there is growth instead of congratulating it like patriots labour again find some way of talking it down

 

They are anti Britain

Also, it's really hilarious that you claim Ed only has soundbites when you literally talk in soundbites. Labour aren't anti-Britain - we're opposed to the Conservative plan because it's building growth on sand.

Tirren, Sand is far more stable that the base the tories are currently using to grow the economy!

I should've really gone for Angel Delight. APT.

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/john...didnt-work.html

 

Refute this Craig. It's a pretty damming look at Osbourne and Camoron's pet project from the New Yorker.

 

A good article. Basically says what I've been saying the last few months. It's all caused by pumping up the housing market, the thing that got us in the mess in the first place. A bit like chucking more fuel into a smouldering damaged building and saying things look brighter. They will for a short while till all you're left with is a shell and ash.

 

We need more houses built, no more Right To Buy, especially new council houses, that will boost industry and jobs, create assets for councils and incoming rent returning to taxpayers, ease the waiting lists and stop paying out ludicrous amounts of tax payers cash to private landlords. The downside is banks will suffer (ahhh poor dears) as house prices drop, along with those who mortgaged themselves too much when house prices were too high. Which, at the end of the day, is their own fault and they will struggle eventually anyway when interest rates return to normal levels. Better to default, cut losses, hurt the banks, and apply for one of the new council houses hypothetically built.

 

Oh, yes, I'd also tax second homes highly if they aren't being lived in or rented out, that should free up housing from those people sitting on houses as a better return than banks or stocks.

 

At this point, I'd vote for any party likely to look as though it was heading in that direction....

" Telegraph article"

By James Kirkup, Political Editor

 

10:00PM GMT 13 Jan 2014

 

 

 

The middle class faces a “crisis of confidence” over living standards and their children’s prospects that must be urgently addressed, Ed Miliband says.

 

 

The foundations of middle-class life – well-paid jobs, strong pensions, the housing ladder and university education – have all been “undermined”, according to the Labour leader.

 

 

Professional parents can no longer be sure that their children will enjoy the same lifestyle they have, he claims. Restoring the quality of life for middle-class families is “the greatest challenge for our generation”, he writes in The Telegraph. Mr Miliband promises a string of policies to “rebuild our middle class”.

 

 

 

Among those policies will be a toughening of the Labour position on welfare to link benefits payments to employment history. He will ensure that people with a history of work qualify for higher benefits than those who have never worked.

 

 

Mr Miliband, who last year spoke of “bringing back socialism”, is often depicted by Tories as an old-school Labour leader who opposes wealth and success. Those attacks have helped cut the Labour poll lead.

 

He has previously criticised the Coalition for favouring middle-class households and opposed policies to help richer middle-class professionals, including a cut in the 50p rate of income tax.

 

In his article, the Labour leader tries to dismiss his “Red Ed” image, insisting that his priority is for the middle class to grow and prosper.

 

“Our country cannot succeed and become collectively better off unless Britain has a strong and vibrant middle class,” he says. “Indeed, the greatest challenge for our generation is how to tackle a crisis in living standards that has now become a crisis of confidence for middle-class families.”

 

The article, which comes before a speech on the economy later this week, is Mr Miliband’s first major political intervention of the year, and will help define his general election campaign next year.

 

Labour aides said Mr Miliband’s article and speech were not a shift in strategy, insisting that he has always sought to appeal to middle-class voters.

 

However, the article acknowledges that Labour’s recent focus on issues such as welfare and low pay have given the impression that the party cares mainly about the poorest and is less interested in those of moderate means.

 

In fact, Mr Miliband says, Labour wants to help middle-class families too.

 

“The cost-of-living crisis is not just about people on tax credits, zero hours contracts and the minimum wage. It is about millions of middle-class families who never dreamt that life would be such a struggle,” Mr Miliband writes.

 

As well as falling real wages and rising costs for items including food, childcare, energy and transport, the middle class is facing a more fundamental threat, he says.

 

“The motors that once drove and sustained it are no longer firing as they used to. Access to further education and training, good quality jobs with reliable incomes, affordable housing, stable savings, secure pensions: they have all been undermined.”

 

That means that the historic trend towards an ever-larger middle class is now in danger of ending, Mr Miliband says. Not only is it becoming harder for those who “graft” to join the ranks of the middle class, the children of professional households are also finding it harder to match their parents’ standard of living.

 

Many graduates are being forced to take jobs that do not require a degree, he says. When they find jobs, they are not the secure careers their parents enjoyed.

 

“Parents now have new worries as children leave college to take up insecure and unrewarding work,” he says.

 

Those children are also finding it increasingly difficult to get on the property ladder because of rising house prices, Mr Miliband says.

 

The Labour leader’s analysis of middle-class problems is likely to draw Conservative attacks on the record of the last Labour government, which implemented policies including a major tax raid on occupational pensions.

 

Ministers also argue that several of the changes they have made that affect middle-class families were necessary to address the large fiscal deficit that Labour ran up.

 

In his article, Mr Miliband makes the tacit admission that the last government bears some responsibility for today’s problems.

 

“Our programme is rooted in an understanding that this crisis began before the Tory-led government came to power,” he writes.

 

Mr Miliband’s appeal to middle-class voters comes as one of his senior campaign advisers casts doubt on his key political message and prospects.

 

Alistair Campbell, a former aide to Tony Blair who is advising Labour again, said Mr Miliband’s “One Nation” concept was “not established” in voters’ minds.

 

“It means to the public whatever the public wants it to mean and has not been followed through with hard-hitting policy,” Mr Campbell told the Fabian Review.

 

Mr Campbell also suggested that Mr Miliband would fail to secure a full Commons majority, predicting a coalition between Labour and the Liberal Democrats next year. "

 

 

******************************************************

 

my tuppenth-worth and a helpful summary:

 

"Pleeeeease vote for me Middle Class people. I am listing your problems, and I realise New Labour had a hand in them, for the most part.

 

I promise (as yet undetailed, but due any day) policies to help. You really can vote for us, the party of everyone except the filthy rich and the scroungers."

 

I realise my tuppenth-worth might be my interpretation and not necessarily that of Labour Party loyalists, who likely have a different spin on it. But then Alistair Campbell is mentioned and I can't help thinking of spin when I hear the name, this time getting the knife in on Ed. Friends like that who needs....etc , eh?

Edited January 14, 201411 yr by popchartfreak

No, I actually kind of agree with you this time. Rather unimpressive article, lots of woolly words but no actual policies. Unless a politician has got concrete ideas which you guarantee to enforce (not "aims" or "targets", and certainly not just empty words), then it's probably better for them to say nothing at all. What's needed from Labour are more concrete policies like the energy price freeze, and they're needed now - not saving them til nearer the election like I always hear they're planning to do, for a politician to convince people they're sincere you need to be banging on about your policies for months or really even years, just announcing a huge glut of policies a couple of months before an election will make people think you've just dreamed things up to win votes and have no intention of actually fulfilling them.

 

As for this targeting of the "middle class", it's OK if it's going for people who are genuinely in the middle (Obama managing last year to do something very rare for a US or UK politician, by actually separating the middle class from the super-rich rather than letting the conservatives get away with conflating them into one). But if by this Miliband means the Daily Mail/Telegraph definition of "middle class", and this signals a move towards a New Labour-esque fear of coming down hard on the fat cats, big businesses and super-rich, then a terrible move.

Edited January 14, 201411 yr by Danny