la_marquise (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
la_marquise) wrote2010-10-21 04:40 pm
la_marquise) wrote2010-10-21 04:40 pm
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The Tory budget: they're all wrong, Jack
My parents were both born into poor families before the second world war. That's before the welfare state, before the NHS, before a mandate for decent education for everyone. The war -- and rationing -- provided families like theirs with access to better nutrition than many of them had previously been able to afford, and the Attlee government after it gave them access to health care and better (if flawed) schooling. Both my parents climbed out of poverty by taking advantage of the educational opportunities provided: they trained as teachers. My mother's family in particular had an existing tradition of a love of learning and of trade union activism. My mother's family are amazing.
My father was the first person in his family to go to university -- as a mature student, after he'd been teaching for about a decade. I was, I think, the second in the family to do that. I went to Cambridge.
That's the girl from the ordinary housing estate, from the families of agricultural workers and miners, the girl who is 100% state educated, in schools with classes over 40, quite often, from the huge comprehensive school in rural Leicestershire. I am certainly the first person on any side of my family to gain a PhD, though there are others, notably on my mother's side, who could easily have done that, had they had the opportunity and the money. I was lucky enough to get a grant, though only a partial one. My family were able to make up the difference through a deed of covenant. Remember those? Back in the early 80s, they helped ordinary families -- and my family was pretty ordinary lower middle class -- to pay their share of their children's university education. The covenant paid a certain amount net of tax monthly and in April, tax paid by the parents was refunded to the student to make up the total amount of the covenant. The Thatcher government put a stop to that in the mid 80s, because students don't deserve help.
Not all students are rich. Most students aren't rich. I had a friend whose mother worked two very low-paid jobs (her father was retired on a low pension) to fund her grant: the family were poor, but Thatcher's metrics still judged them able to pay. I got summer jobs when I could, as my friends did.
And I was lucky. I emerged after 6 years of study with two degrees and no debts. I was one of the last. The Tories introduced loans, fees, all in the name of saving the poor taxpayer. And the taxpayer paid out more and more in indirect taxation and in supporting their children. New Labour did nothing to ameliorate this and much to exacerbate it. Both claimed to widen access to higher education while making it costlier and costlier, and less and less satisfactory.
I was raised socialist. Old-fashioned, pro-Union, anti-Big Money socialist. I was out leafleting for (old) Labour with my mother from the age of 7. I believe in social fairness and the welfare state. I believe in 'From each according to his ability, to each according to his need'. I don't believe that the rich deserve to hang on to every penny, that it's 'not fair' to tax them on what they've acquired. We are all too acquisitive, too selfish, too inward looking.
I don't have a huge income by British standards. But I will pay more income tax if it will help those who are worse off than me and I won't feel robbed. To me, that's part of the contract I have with my society. I am an adult, I know that to have universal health care and decent education, we all have to contribute. I'm happy to do so.
Thatcher preached that greed is good and that 'I'm all right, Jack' is a moral and valid life strategy. I hated it then and I hate it now. I hated that nu-Labour were so in thrall to the idol of the free market that they let it all ride on and on, and that so much of what happens now seems to be set to the agenda of the right wing press and its hysterical mob.
But despair and 'all politicians are the same' is no answer either. Heaving a sigh of relief if one's own little corner is safe is okay, but settling back and doing nothing to help anyone else is no answer. We need a better future than the one we're being offered. And to get it, we're going to have to stand up and be counted.
My father was the first person in his family to go to university -- as a mature student, after he'd been teaching for about a decade. I was, I think, the second in the family to do that. I went to Cambridge.
That's the girl from the ordinary housing estate, from the families of agricultural workers and miners, the girl who is 100% state educated, in schools with classes over 40, quite often, from the huge comprehensive school in rural Leicestershire. I am certainly the first person on any side of my family to gain a PhD, though there are others, notably on my mother's side, who could easily have done that, had they had the opportunity and the money. I was lucky enough to get a grant, though only a partial one. My family were able to make up the difference through a deed of covenant. Remember those? Back in the early 80s, they helped ordinary families -- and my family was pretty ordinary lower middle class -- to pay their share of their children's university education. The covenant paid a certain amount net of tax monthly and in April, tax paid by the parents was refunded to the student to make up the total amount of the covenant. The Thatcher government put a stop to that in the mid 80s, because students don't deserve help.
Not all students are rich. Most students aren't rich. I had a friend whose mother worked two very low-paid jobs (her father was retired on a low pension) to fund her grant: the family were poor, but Thatcher's metrics still judged them able to pay. I got summer jobs when I could, as my friends did.
And I was lucky. I emerged after 6 years of study with two degrees and no debts. I was one of the last. The Tories introduced loans, fees, all in the name of saving the poor taxpayer. And the taxpayer paid out more and more in indirect taxation and in supporting their children. New Labour did nothing to ameliorate this and much to exacerbate it. Both claimed to widen access to higher education while making it costlier and costlier, and less and less satisfactory.
I was raised socialist. Old-fashioned, pro-Union, anti-Big Money socialist. I was out leafleting for (old) Labour with my mother from the age of 7. I believe in social fairness and the welfare state. I believe in 'From each according to his ability, to each according to his need'. I don't believe that the rich deserve to hang on to every penny, that it's 'not fair' to tax them on what they've acquired. We are all too acquisitive, too selfish, too inward looking.
I don't have a huge income by British standards. But I will pay more income tax if it will help those who are worse off than me and I won't feel robbed. To me, that's part of the contract I have with my society. I am an adult, I know that to have universal health care and decent education, we all have to contribute. I'm happy to do so.
Thatcher preached that greed is good and that 'I'm all right, Jack' is a moral and valid life strategy. I hated it then and I hate it now. I hated that nu-Labour were so in thrall to the idol of the free market that they let it all ride on and on, and that so much of what happens now seems to be set to the agenda of the right wing press and its hysterical mob.
But despair and 'all politicians are the same' is no answer either. Heaving a sigh of relief if one's own little corner is safe is okay, but settling back and doing nothing to help anyone else is no answer. We need a better future than the one we're being offered. And to get it, we're going to have to stand up and be counted.
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the new budget scares me. i live on housing benefit. (parents pay rent) if they cugt that, i have less money. if they cut then and when my parents die, i can't afford to pay the rent alone. i could be homeless. that scares me
can't work, depression kinda stops that.and not that there are any jobs, and a friend of mine who does work, has no money anyway and is now with debt management people.
i went to uni with a grant. i think i was the last year in fact when grants were offered. i was lucky. i still had to get a loan tho!
its all messed up.
and cutting like this means less money, less momey means less spending, meaning more people will lose their jobs.
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But show me a way to get this evil mob out right now and put someone in who will do what is needed and I'm there. Absolutely.
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I'm full of inarticulate rage of late. I'm in Ireland, where the government hasn't yet come out with quite so targeted an anti-social-safety-net programme. But it's coming.
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They were so determined we would go to university if we could, whatever the financial arrangements of the time, that they put our child benefit money aside to fund it. We didn't have a TV until I was 10, any kind of record player until I was well into my teens. No foreign holidays until we were old enough to benefit from them, in countries where we were learning the language.
We never realised we were growin up in a golden age.
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And yes, I agree that this malaise began in the 80s and now we're seeing its true rotting effect upon the notion of social welfare, in the truest sense of the term.
Everyone should be contacting their MPs and getting out on the streets, and doing anything else they can to protest this change.
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These aren't cuts, they're an assault by the rich on eveyone else. Slowly but surely those bastards are enslaving us - thats the agenda here.
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The youth service (for which my wife works) is facing 70% cuts. That's about enough left to keep a couple of overpaid managers who will occasionally subcontract something. I work in FE and we are facing a comparatively mild 25% cut. FE, of course, is the safety net sector that is mainly used by the less well off. The youth service is not statutory, you see. I don't usually agree with George Monbiot but I am beginning to suspect that he is correct and this is deliberate shock doctrine disaster capitalism.
I am unable to comment further due to incoherent rage.
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No university degrees in my family. Grandfathers were estate agent and mechanic (although he eventually owned his own garage, and was offered a scholarship to Cal Tech -- in 1929, so he couldn't take it). Grandmothers came from farming background (although one did have a year at uni, largely so she could meet someone to marry), and one worked as a charwoman for several wealthy families (including Dame Judith Anderson, apparently!).
My parents could easily have done well at uni, but neither were interested. My father has a qualification in fire science, and was a firefighter; my mother was a lunch lady and then a postal worker. In the US, that's solidly working class, or lower middle class. But... we all lived in California which, after WWII, benefited as all of the US did from the GI Bill, and then, in the 1960s, from an enormous tax base and a serious commitment to public education from Kindergarten through university. They went to uni, but one ended up building boats for many years, and the other is a Landscape Architect.
Coming at the tail end of the boom, I was able to also go to uni at minimal cost. The federal government and the state of California gave me need-based grants to pay the minimal fees at the University of California -- back then the community colleges were free and there was no uni tuition, but about $1200 a year in "fees". Had this system not been in place, I would not have gone to a university, full stop, because people with my background generally didn't know that there were scholarships/bursaries available at many universities based on need and merit. Had I not gone to UC, no one would have told me about how to get funding for my postgraduate work. I'd probably be a secretary or civil servant like my middle sister.
My youngest sister, born the year Thatcher came to power, has not had the same advantages. She did get grants, but by then, they were far less than in my day. Subsequently, she is still paying off student loans. My students barely know what a grant is, except for those with veterans' benefits. Their loans are no longer subsidised (the government used to pay the interest on student loans). My nephews, one in the UK, and one in the US, both starting uni educations this year, are living at home, because they can't afford to live elsewhere. One is taking classes at a community college to save money (tuition is only about $1k a semester, rather than the $6k at UC), the other is feeling a bit better about being at LSE, because he can live at home, but is incredibly worried about coming up with the £7k or more he will likely need to finish after these cuts, because his family certainly doesn't have that money. In a bizarre twist that I think shows just how far we have regressed, some pretty wealthy people who employ his parents fairly regularly have offered to cover his uni costs. Um ...
The golden age seems to be over.
In other news, did you know that Warren Buffet claimed that there a class war going on, that the rich were waging it, and the rich were winning?
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An excellent point, and one I get into vehement discussions about oh, every two or four years. Thanks for posting this.
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G's first baby is due on Wednesday. How will he fare in the education lottery? I feel heartsick for G & J with their massive debt and for Baby. We're going to have to save for his educatuon starting right now. Now let's see... where did I put all that spare money... Oh yes, that's right, I haven't got any.
My feeling is that the Blairites all got their education on the state then promptly pulled up the drawbridge behind themselves.
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I know my own professional body is very concerned about student financial hardship and equality of access .
Those of us who are in the professions can encourage our employers to open up graduate vacancies to graduate calibre applicants who choose not to take on student debt and avoid the professions becoming no go zones for poor applicants again.
Some accountants have had pilot non graduate programmes for over 10 years but these need to be expanded and publicised.
We can resolve not to take unpaid interns -another abuse that restricts entry level positions to children from better off families.
We need to stop excluding parents from employment opportunities because it's "too difficult" to be flexible.
We also need to revisit student sponsorship and paid vacation work if we want to go on having graduates to recruit.
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