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UK politics general discussion

I suppose the wages everywhere else aren't that great either, unless you have a particular sought after skillset. Teaching is not that hard a profession to get into if you can get a 2-1 at uni and have the confidence and drive to do the teacher training etc. You just really have to want to do it I suppose. I came out of Uni with a 1st class honours in history but had no intention of standing in front of a class of children all day every day. Whereas, there were some people/friends in my classes who were just about scraping a 2-1 and weren't overly clever who were looking to go into teaching, and did. They knew as soon as they started the course that they wanted to go into teaching though. Takes a certain kind of person to want to work in the profession I suppose. Fair play to them though, because it's a much needed role and one that I wouldn't like to do.
 
The thing is you can’t just look at the salary when judging a career, you have to look at the whole package in the round, Teachers enjoy extended holidays and a very good pension amongst other benefits like school hours generally fit around family life.
Yes I know some work long hours but there aren’t many still in the actual school at 17:00.
 
BigT said:
The thing is you can’t just look at the salary when judging a career, you have to look at the whole package in the round, Teachers enjoy extended holidays and a very good pension amongst other benefits like school hours generally fit around family life.
Yes I know some work long hours but there aren’t many still in the actual school at 17:00.
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Those benefits haven't improved since 2010, so why are they an excuse for salaries falling in real terms?

It'd be like a boss telling a worker they're not getting a pay rise because they get a good travel allowance. Straw man argument.
 
BigT said:
The thing is you can’t just look at the salary when judging a career, you have to look at the whole package in the round, Teachers enjoy extended holidays and a very good pension amongst other benefits like school hours generally fit around family life.
Yes I know some work long hours but there aren’t many still in the actual school at 17:00.
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Find out the facts about teacher workload and you'll soon realise the truth about the number of hours teachers in this country work. A simple Google search will enlighten you.

Are you saying because of the (unpaid) holidays and the fact the job theoretically fits around a family life, that this is in any way, shape or form some kind of justification for salary falling behind 20% since 2010?

Otherwise I'm unsure what point you're trying to make.

The pension isn't even as good as it used to be!

What other justifications would you like to bring up for police officers, prison wardens, council officers or health workers?

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WillPS said:
Those benefits haven't improved since 2010, so why are they an excuse for salaries falling in real terms?

It'd be like a boss telling a worker they're not getting a pay rise because they get a good travel allowance. Straw man argument.
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That’s true, I’m not arguing one way or another for whether the public sector should get a double digit increase as that would be pointless, I’m just pointing out when looking at a career don’t just look at the basic salary look at the whole package.
 
It is certainly true to say that policing and teaching are vocational. You do it because you want to make a difference, because it can be hugely rewarding outside of the financial. You certainly don't do it to get rich. It's simply not an option.

But, you also don't do it for fun. Should a police officer or teacher be £10000 a year worse off than they were a15 years ago? How can that possibly be justified?

The result is a lot of very good people reach their tipping point and despite wanting to do the job feel they can't and leave. And does the prospect of being so underpaid attract the best candidates? No, it doesn't. The experience and ability of those on the street has decreased hugely in my time, and from my teacher friends I know they'd say the same. This is not good for society.
 
Out of interest, would those of you working in the public sector say that your jobs have also gotten harder/more stressful under the Conservative government? I know the debate here is about pay, but I was intrigued to know because I also keep hearing about how the morale of public sector workers is at an all time low, and how people are leaving these professions in record numbers. Is this primarily caused by lowered pay, or are there other factors too?

On a different note, Truss has said that we need to “brace for more disruption” as the price of economic growth: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/brace-for-more-change-says-liz-truss-the-disruptor-3nh6p5jd6

I wonder what that means?
 
Matt N said:
Out of interest, would those of you working in the public sector say that your jobs have also gotten harder/more stressful under the Conservative government? I know the debate here is about pay, but I was intrigued to know because I also keep hearing about how the morale of public sector workers is at an all time low, and how people are leaving these professions in record numbers. Is this primarily caused by lowered pay, or are there other factors too?

On a different note, Truss has said that we need to “brace for more disruption” as the price of economic growth: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/brace-for-more-change-says-liz-truss-the-disruptor-3nh6p5jd6
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Yes, because budgets are to the wall. We're in deficit because of the lack of funding. We can't afford to recruit enough support staff who in turn help with workload.

The academisation programme hasn't made any difference.

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Come to think of it, I do remember my secondary school having a huge cull of teaching assistants back in about 2016… when I first started there in 2014, there were absolutely loads of TAs/learning support mentors, but by the time I left lower school in 2019, they were down to a core group of about 5 plus the SENCO, with each taking on more students.

I didn’t think much of it at the time, but in hindsight, I wonder if that might be related to the budget cuts imposed by the Conservative government?
 
Matt N said:
On a different note, Truss has said that we need to “brace for more disruption” as the price of economic growth: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/brace-for-more-change-says-liz-truss-the-disruptor-3nh6p5jd6

I wonder what that means?
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Sounds like she's getting her excuses in early to me.

It means that when her plan for growth actually causes things to slow down and get worse, she can just proclaim that brighter days are just around the corner and we need to bear with it and stick with the plan for just a bit longer.
 
Matt N said:
Out of interest, would those of you working in the public sector say that your jobs have also gotten harder/more stressful under the Conservative government? I know the debate here is about pay, but I was intrigued to know because I also keep hearing about how the morale of public sector workers is at an all time low, and how people are leaving these professions in record numbers. Is this primarily caused by lowered pay, or are there other factors too?

On a different note, Truss has said that we need to “brace for more disruption” as the price of economic growth: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/brace-for-more-change-says-liz-truss-the-disruptor-3nh6p5jd6

I wonder what that means?
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Speaking from my own personal experience. I have worked in the private sector and the public sector, and in recent years worked at the same place for both local government and a private company (as we were outsourced between 2011 and 2019)

I can honestly say that under the private company the job on the whole was more difficult and stressful even though we were toupee'd across on our local government T & C's.

New starters during that time were taken on under a different contract, which meant they were doing 3 more hours a week than the rest of us, had less holidays, no flexitime and an inferior pension. They were not usually paid any more either. The only benefit the new starters had was a Christmas bonus which existing toupee'd employees didn't get. Anyone on toupee'd terms that were offered a promotion had to sign the new contract.

We did all get a good free Christmas party though which is no longer the case now we are fully back under local government !!

The good news is that most of the employees who started during the outsourcing have now been given local government contracts with all the benefits they provide.

We do currently have some staff churn but mainly down to people moving to other public sector jobs or retiring.

On the whole I think public sector contracts and the overall working conditions are far better than the private sector. Wages are probably lower but there is a lot to be said for 33 days holiday (plus bank holidays), up to 2 flexi days off every month, 37 hours flexible working and a good pension (even if my evil ex-wife is probably going to get half of that !!)
 
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Liz Truss has just made her speech to the Conservative party conference.

I watched the whole thing. I thought it was quite a good speech and she spoke well, in fairness. She seemed very confident.

The main subject was “growth”. She talked a lot about growth, and a lot about not wanting to “meddle” in people’s lives. She said she’s “not interested in virtue signalling and not interested in telling people how to spend their money or free time”.

She also made many (what appeared to be) references to de-regulation. She said that all “EU red tape” will be gone by the end of the year, she’s said that supply side reforms will be announced to make economic growth easier, she’s announced that “investment zones” will be created in all four nations of the UK, and she’s announced that taxes will be cut.

She has coined the nickname of “the anti-growth coalition” and “the voices of decline” for the opposition left-wing parties (Labour, the Lib Dems and the SNP), and she spoke a lot about how they would consign the country to decline and were “more interested in protesting and moaning on Twitter than getting things done”.

She also reiterated that “disruption is the price for growth”, talking about how “not everyone will be in favour of disruption or change, but everyone will benefit from the end result”.

Interestingly, Greenpeace protesters came in halfway through with a big sign saying “Who Voted for This?” on it. They were swiftly ejected, and Truss made a joke about how they’d “entered the room too early” as she hadn’t started talking about the “anti-growth coalition” yet…

In general, though, the main themes were growth, de-regulation and reform (she said numerous times that “the status quo isn’t an option”).
 
Matt N said:
she said that all “EU red tape” will be gone by the end of the year
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Does anyone actually know of any "EU red tape" that is disadvantagous?
It seems most of the red tape now is taxes on imports/export issues from having left the EU.
Or it is sensible legislation that generally provides benefits, protects workers rights and everyones safety.
 
I mean on the basis of her previous speeches it was one of her best, but in all honesty that's a damn low bar. If it weren't for Greenpeace I'd probably say the reaction would be pretty muted. Content wise though, it was absolutely terrible and devoid of any actual substance. That's an opinion probably backed up by the lack of movement in the markets too.

Talking about de-regulation without any reference as to what actually needs to be de-regulated. Referring to various projects like investment zones, which have nothing but a name and a very very vague idea as to what they actually are and what they'll achieve at the moment. Her reference to her fighting for higher pay in the past was laughable, whilst in the very same speech referring to people campaigning for the very same as "militant".

Interesting to see growth being talked about too - from a party that's had 12 years of opportunity to do just that already. Trying to start a new culture war with the "anti-growth coalition" is a weird take when things are going so badly for a very broad spectrum of the country at present. There's a huge difference between the remainers vs leavers argument from before. This time people are tangibly feeling the effects of what's going on right now, it's not just a possibility down the line. To paint anyone who disagrees with the government's actions as "anti-growth", when people quite literally have the potential of paying hundreds more a month on energy and hundreds more on their mortgage won't go down as well as they think.

We didn't really see anything new in this speech, just a mere compilation of soundbites from interviews and briefings over the last few weeks. There's no substance or detail to any of it, and that's what people are really crying out for right now.
 
I found this speech to represent such a low bar for British government that it was honestly slightly disturbing. Completely devoid of ideas or policy, simply a series of gaslighting statements and sound bites designed to invoke some sort of new, greater culture war to deflect any responsibility. The idea, sincerely presented, that critics of a party pursuing a 'growth plan' dismissed by every credible international financial body are simply "moaning on Twitter" is absolutely insane.
 
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