Be warned: this is going to be a rant.
It looks to me as if that eejit Hunt still has a job at Westminster. You know the one: Jeremy. He's on my list of waddocks, along with the other Jeremys: Vine, Paxman, Clarkson, Kyle, Corbyn.
I'd forgotten about Hunt for a wee while, He obviously had his head down while Teresa was taking over but, heaven help us, he's back. Before, he was picking fights with NHS doctors over their working hours, unveiling a plan to fine doctors who moved abroad after being trained in the UK, and - laughably - proposing a ban on sexting for the under-18s (yeah, like that'll work with teenagers, Jezza). There was more and all in the same vein.
Now, he's telling us we'll have to save up not just for our pensions but for our 'personal care' in later life.
Just remind me: if you're earning between 14 and 18 thousand quid a year - as a lot of people are - even if you work from the age of say 18 to 68, how exactly do you put money aside for your old age? You have first to pay either a lifetime of rent or (if you're lucky) a mortgage, council tax, home insurance, car loan, car insurance, gas and electric, phone rental, TV licence (pretty important that one, since not paying can land you with a criminal record - and then you can kiss your credit rating goodbye). And, heaven help you if you decide to marry and have children - dear little things. You could be shelling out for them for 25 years. And let's not talk about the cost of childcare. You can, of course, go to the bank of mum and dad but you may find they're busy squirreling away money to pay for their own personal care when they reach their dotage and can't help you.
This edict on personal care came in the same week that people who want to be police officers were told they would have to get a degree first. I didn't really understand this. (It doesn't apply to Scotland, thank gawd). But it seems if you want to be a copper in England and Wales, you'll have to have a degree first. So that'll be £27,000+, thank you very much. I'm not sure if the degree has to be in policing or forensics or law or whatever, but it's been made clear that having a degree will be no guarantee that you'll get a job. Well done, Westminster: you don't have to waste money training your police officers - they'll pay for themselves. Personally, if something bad happens and I need any of the emergency services, I don't care if they have a degree or not. I just want them there and doing something to help. And I really hate the idea that people who would be good in the emergency services are going to be shut out of the job in future because they can't saddle themselves with massive debts before they even start the job.
Is it just me or does anyone else think every bit of news that comes out of Westminster seems to be about separating me from my hard-earned money? Not just me. All of us. We are already very highly taxed in the UK through income tax, vat, council tax (a totally unfair way of taxing people), inheritance tax, road tax and so on. Where does our tax money go? Maybe instead of telling us how important the UK is, how it sits alongside the USA as a world power, how we need big projects (Brinkley, Trident, etc) for our national prestige, maybe we could get someone to caw our collective neck in and start asking what we can afford. And if we can't afford to look after our own people, maybe our view of ourselves is wrong and needs to be - as they say- 'revisited.'
No comments:
Post a Comment