Sounds good

@martin. I cried when his son died, as i have a daughter with down syndrome, to watch your child suffer every day is heartbreaking, but I manage to drag myself out of bed every day to work for 12 hrs as a nurse and my husband also works long hours. People like myself are not 'cheap'i just resent this government making ordinary people pay for a global recession caused by greedy bankers, it is they who should pay.

@ang,

my point is that money doesnt buy, or solve everything.

an nhs nurse earns 21 to 27 k plus overtime and shift allowance/

someone on minimum wage would look up to you. all wealth is relative.
you are therefore, well off to some, and not so well off to others (think monty python!)

i am comparitively wealthy, but also poor. however i cherish my family, job, home, land, horses, classic motorbike, cars etc.

i lost everything through a divorce, but started again. anything is possible
no one in the uk is in genuine poverty.

yea nick you seem a decent enough bloke and i wish you good luck as well,my views to some may come across a bitter to socalists and the middle classes and i admit that, but i scour my bile not only on socalists but all politicians from nick clegg to nick griffin,because at the end of the day and i know i am repeating myself i hate the bloody lot of these self serving pigs who at the end of the day are in politics for there own selfish ends and dont give a toss about the ordinary man and women in this country,i sign off with my final comment on this issue not with hate of anybody but just as somebody whos views alot of people might identify with and alot of people who might think i am stir crazy,but there you go if all agreed with each other what a sad and boring world it would be.(.,.)

Actually, Stuart before you give me all that 'them and us tosh', let me tell you, I spend all my working week and a lot more hours besides helping people, mainly from what you term the 'working classes' (as if you should go around with some big label drawing attention to those shoes you so fondly refer) but middle classes as well. I'm not some do gooding socialist thank you; I've seen (and experienced by the way) umpteen graphic examples of how life isn't so rosy for those on the 'other side'. I've seen people with all range of problems, drugs, crime, severe debt, bereavement, severe and life changing disability. And yes I've seen the traumatising effects of a few that have gone all the way, giving impact statements to the Police on suicides is no fun my friend. I work hard in our offices because I'm committed to what I do, I've spent hours upon hours bringing cases asserting the rights of people not so able to speak for themselves. All of the people my team and I see are treated with the upper most respect, so please spare me the lectures 'mate' on humanity; I'll spare you the details of why I have a passion over what I do and what I do well because I feel they will fall on deaf ears.

It's actually attitudes such as yours which are causative of the oppression you refer, it's people like me who empower you to deal with those that put you down! Please spare me condescending lectures my friend because your levelling them at completely the wrong kind of person.

I'm dam sure that come the end of each working week I've done one hell of a lot more than you have to constructively help those you refer to in some of your earlier posts.

well nick, your self superior middle class you help(these poor working class oiks) who cant think for themselfs is beyond contempt and forgive me but anybody would think you are the new mother teresa touring the country helping out these poor unfortunate working class familys in need,but let me guess and i might be wrong you but i guess you live in the leafy middle class quiet surburbs while i and others are trapped and rotting in the grim crime ridden estates like hackney in london,maybe i am wrong and you live in hackney and if you do i apologise,but why not try out just for a week living in the inner city and then you might understand why people like me are fed up of the crap we have to put up with everyday while the leafy surburb leftys like you look down on the likes of me with your self superior attitude,i speak from life experience so unlike you i know what i a talking about when it comes to the issues that affect true working class people.be critical of me i can take it.

stuart, I've been poor, I can't say I liked it very much. But as 16 year old school leaver with 9 good GCSE's, I didn't wait for Margaret Thatcher to phone me up and offer me a good job. I got on with it. Social 'injustice' did concern me. However, as a pragmatist there was no point crying about it.

I knew someone who re-trained in an highly skilled job at 54 FFS!

being paid 56 pounds a week is NOT poverty, it is a priviledge. The analogy about the third world is important - they don't get £56 and many starve to death.

I could (and have) lived on £56, but I choose not to! What a load of claptrap from posters who say people like me are 'more fortunate' - that implies i am more lucky than them. I AM NOT MORE FORTUNATE< just more focused.

I am sure there are a number of people on here on minimum wage, working very hard, but as my Japanese boss you used to say to us, 'i don't want you to work harder, just smarter!'

Ang.

I have all the time in the world for hard working families, working all the hours god sends to pay the bill - I belong to one of those families - all i am saying is either accept your lot and don't complain, or improve yourselves - DO NOT expect governments and taxpayers to do it for you.

The labour idiots let the banks run riot, their solution - spend out of trouble!!! delay and exacerbate the problems!!!

As for the greedy fatcats, they dont own the banks, shareholders do (or did, most of whom are owned by shareholders etc ie ordinary middle class people do - people who are suffering because of bankings and Labours incompetence!

my last post on this topic.

firstly, everytime i give an example of someone who has made it, this is derided as being an exception - it is not- I know lots of eastern europeans who have come here - many had no qualifications and couldnt speak english. within 2 or three years many of these have learned english and qained qualifications/GOOD jobs. It can be done.

Stuart has no intention of working unless he gets 12.50 an hour plus. people may point to the 'benefits trap' - it is not a trap - if you hate your inner city shit hole so much, then move somewhere nicer and cheaper. I live in rural east anglia - rents and house prices are far cheaper than London.

But stuart doesn't want to - the rural shires have far less police, which would give him far less opportunity to assault them! (this is the real stuart)

Yes, stuart, you are a thug, part of the lumpenproletariat. you think the world owes you, it doesnt.

perhaps you should emigrate (but they wouldnt want a criminal, would they?). I have known ex-criminals get good jobs however (exceptions again ??!!!)

Nick, I am impressed by your story. I have previously said that not every one can make it, but everyone can improve somewhat.

Finally, stuart, Last week, i bought my wife some perfume for £75. today i am going to give her £100 to spend on her horses. I commute 20 miles each way to work and do 12.5 hour days - i have earned it.

I love spending money without having to check my bank
balance first. i am not rich, just comfortable. anyone could attain my life. You are 32? thats the age i got divorced, gave everything away, started again, and got where i am now!

stuart, get off your arse, move, retrain and enjoy life!!!!!!

A vicious class enemy like him will only be thinking about PR lies and planning for a wider mortality gap

Of course Cameron doesn't care about widening inequality and about child poverty. He is a class warrior, and enjoys creating policies that will continue to subjugate the working classes, forcing them to keep working in sub-human conditions for below subsistence wages, unprotected from the forces of global competition that has led to an inflow of cheap foreign labour that has continued to depress wage rates. All because the owners of the means of production want greater profits, and the Tories, obedient to their paymasters as always, will gladly oblige. Cameron and the Tories are the class enemy, and we musn't forget that as we try to withstand the effects of class warfare that the Tories have unleased on us.

He's unlikely to read anything that questions the existing socioeconomic system and threatens to upset the status quo. The class enemy knows that by ignoring the issue, it may well go away because the media, who are apologists for the Middle Classes, will conveniently sweep any mention of economic inequality under the carpet, and act as if we live in a free market utopia. Even Pravda and the KGB would be proud of such propanganda.

I don't think Cameron gives a shit about poor people's children.

Only through a socialist revolution will we have equal opportunities for children. Private schools are the biggest obstacle to equality, and they must be closed down or converted to workers co-operatives.

Ah Martin, you've actually agreed with me on quite a few points now, that's progress!

To pick up on some of what you say, and I do think it should be read in conjunction with some of the extremely valid points raised by writeoff as to how we are not all cut out to reach it to the top (not to mention some of the social structure blocks which stand in the way of reaching such aspirations, not least because everyone is not so inclined to go the top); my stance is this: the welfare state is, or rather should be, there to protect those genuinely in need of it, those are the ones who should be 'caught by the net. It's a minimum requirement in any decent civilised society and I happen to think we have the basis of a very good welfare state in this country. I'm glad Martin you recognise the good which WTC does (although I'd just point out it was WTC which replaced WFTC in 2002). Now, that was a labour initiative as part of the Tax Credit changes. It had its problems with over payments but it's slowly improved and on the whole it now works well. If it's not broken, don't go fixing it, that's what I'd say to this coalition, they seem determined to meddle with something they should leave alone.

Now I'm glad you've raised the point over improving the third world to levels equal to the rest of us Martin; that is where foreign aid comes in; that being an area which we all attack too readily. By aid, I don't just mean food parcels and so forth, I mean education and more constructive guidance on social structures. There's a great deal to be done and it should not be abandoned just because we are having a tough time over here. It's a parallel activity which should be pursued.

I can't agree with you on the six months to find a job scenario, that's only feasible if there is a big enough job market and at the moment there isn't; it's also set to get worse.

I'm all for voluntary opportunities (and by the way Stuart that's how I started in what I do now, I now earn a salary of £30k, I earn it and I work hard for it, it meant a lot of sacrifices like going to evening classes after work to get my law qualification, it was hard work). I got my job out of a New Deal opportunity because I pushed for something better than painting scout huts, I am therefore thankful to New Labour because it provided me with an opportunity, but I had to seek it out, it didn't find me.

I do also believe Labour did a lot or work on recognising those that can't get into the job market trough problems such as lack of motivation, lowered esteem and no incentives, no one knows how much work was done. The Welfare Reforms of 2007 were not however the answer; Labour bowed to what the Tory voter wanted and went too 'extreme'.

What I am dead against is using people on NMW and in voluntary placements to feather the nests of those at the top. Where someone works hard and shows potential, there should be recognition and progression and that's what worries me about this lot, they've yet to tell us how they are going to help people up the ladder. I'm also dead against kicking those at the bottom, it's just not civilised.

It is all to do with a more equal distribution of wealth, not at communism levels, just at levels that are fair to us all and fair to those that realise they must contribute.

Sorry about these long posts, I'm just passionate about what I'm trying to put over.

only upper class and middle class people should be be allowed to become parents and bring up children,think about it, what good are the working classes to soceity,there out of control in the big citys,they are mostly anti social and prone to commit crime and behave like animals,i would prefer to live in a middle class or upper class area because i know these people are decent and dont bring there kids up to be slobs and gutter snipes who run riot on the streets bringing misery and torment to old folk who are prisoners in there own homes.yes i know what i am on about,i am working class and live on a working class estate surrounded by the ferrel familys and there ferrel children and it aint no fun.

Surely Cheltenham Ladies must be top of the list.

Equal Opportunities

Gary get a grip on reality. If you want change you vote for it at the ballot box. What you are advocating is not Socialism, which is bad enough. What you want is out and out Communism. That dog doesn’t hunt any longer. It died a sudden death by social and economic Darwinism. Whatever happened to being responsible for you and yours? The hardworking taxpayer owes you nothing. Neither do the people in upper income brackets. If you want it, work for it. If you can’t afford it, and that includes kids, you can’t have it or them. You have no right to what others have, even if it’s been inherited. It’s not yours.

Everyone should accept individual responsibility, but the right often use that phrase to effectively put their seal of approval on a policy of laissez faire, where everyone clamours to climb the ladder, and those unable to climb, or are knocked off before they can reach the top, are given no assistance. There are many working class people who do accept individual responsibility, but there is no even playing field. So no matter how much "aspiration" they have to move up the social ladder, and their desire to get an economically secure job, they simply face barriers that prevent them from realising their ability. The middle classes monopolise the best state schools, and with the class enemies naturally promoting the interests of private education, the working classes receive inferior education to the middle/upper classes, and the cycle of inequality in terms of economic opportunity manifests itself in a new generation.

You say, "if you want it, work for it", but wage labour, coupled with the subjective theory of value, means that the capitalists have been able to push wage rates down by encouraging cheap foreign labour to increase the labour supply. In many industries, you can "work for it", because wage rates have become so depressed, that many working class people cannot afford to make ends meet. And yet you'll hear Tory MPS claim that these hard working people are benefit scroungers and are workshy.

The reality is that the working class, within the existing system, CANNOT receive adequate remuneration for their labour. They are not able to enjoy the fruits of their labour, because the fruits are rotten.

Only with socialism, and a return to the labour theory of value, can workers receive what they deserve for their efforts, and with it, able to live a life of unfettered by economic insecurity or facing abuse by capitalists blaming them for being poor.

Rejoice at a death and mourn at a birth... anyone who brings a child into this world is really stupid. ! there is no more children left to be born... LOL

stuart, many of the problems faced by people in places like Hackney are due to a lack of economic security and employment opportunities. The de-industrialisation of England, the lack of social housing provisions and a lack of attention to the specific problems faced by these areas are reasons why these places suffer from social problems. The free market has failed these places, and only through socialism can these places be rejuvenated.

martin l and nick your typical socalist snobs, and in fact my point that the right wing and the left wing are 2 cheeks of the same backside and are all closet socalists is proof by the anti working class comments you have directed at me,lets do at little poll in here today.how many of you are supporters of the labour socalists,bnp,lib dums,torys,green party and i bet 95% of everybody in here are die hard middle class well educated socalists living in middle england,now i having been to a website called class war.com and do you know what they are neither left or right in there idealogy and they come across as true working class people from inner city england, i dont agree with there violent revolution stance by taking to the streets to tear down the socalist system that oppresses the working classes but i agree with there core values that all politacal partys do not have the working classes interests at heart,notice how all the politacal partys and there leaders say we are all middle class and must reconnect with middle england voters to gain power,that says it all but no doubt the sniggering socalists will attack and mock me but its class war out there and never forget that.

But Stuart, how can you be 'working class', you don't work and haven't once expressed the slightest inclination to work. Not once have you said 'I can't get a job, despite all my efforts to find work'. If you want to 'class' yourself, at least subscribe to what you say you belong. You are a whole class of your own; but it's not working class.

ok fair point nick i am not working class,i am part of he underclass that is unemployed and rotting in the inner city,as for your insult about me finding a job, well mate as a bricklayer i cant find no work because the socalists have brought in spending there cuts that means there building no more bloody houses due to lack of funds.do you think i enjoy living on £56.50 dole money a week,dont you think i want to find work,its just shows how much some people are out of touch with reality,and insult me as much as you want nick that thats no bother to me but thank you for pointing out my mistake of calling myself working class and you are right and i was wrong to label myself as that as i am not working.

wtf do i know about poverty you dimwit, live in poverty,i have no job.i live on £56.30 a week but if you noticed dimwit i have never complained about my poverty but i am concerned about others who suffer like pensioners,so before you open your mouth engage your brain martin l,and even clem the jem agrees with what i have said on this issue and thats good enough for me !!!