British Workers Wanted - Channel 4

Bloody hell! My first non-rental house, which I bought in 1987 cost me £50K. It was a 3 bed end terrace starter home, with a driveway (luxury). It was a few years old and in the cheapest area nearby. It did have central heating though. You may say I was ripped off but this was the market price. Just before I had been gasumped on a 2 bed mid terrace (asking price £46K).

Sorry, but this statement seems to show a deal of naivety. Not everyone can copy you.

FWIW I've never worked in a city centre. My first job I needed personal transport because there really was no public transport. Imagine a bus service from one village to another miles away in the evenings in a rural area - can you?

I had to.

You seem to have an obsession about this phrase. Why?

As a youngster, I lived in several council houses built in the '50s or '60s which had bedrooms without heating. As I recall, the 'master bedroom' had a radiator heated via a radiator which was heated by the coal fire in the sitting room. The other bedroom/rooms had nothing. I think the kitchen had a similar radiator. I think the system was referred to as a 'back boiler' and also heated the hot water.

Even the most modern flat we later moved to, which had under floor heating, had no heating in the bedrooms- just the sitting room and hall. That was built in the mid 60s, we moved into it in 1968.

So, another 3 million people that NuLab allowed in, and the longest period of negative interest rates had absolutely nothing to do with fact that a £65,000 house in 1997 now costs £325,000 ??

How, precisely did Mrs T manage to achieve that ?.

Like hell they do. When Nissan was recruiting for Sunderland they made a point of not employing a single person who had ever worked in the British car industry. They took people from all sorts of engineering and non-engineering backgrounds and trained them up in the Japanese way.

Which entitles you to pension credits if that is your only income and you have less than ~£16,000 savings.

Passed me by that he died last month ...

If you request a pension forecats (BR19), it will state how many years of full rate NI and contracted-out years you have accrued.

If there are any contracted-out years then it will clearly state what the contracted-out-deduction (COD) will be. This will reduce your basic state pension on the assumption that your occupational or personal pension will make up (and exceed) the difference, as well as being paid before SPA.

This has always been the case. It is nothing to do with the new flat rate pension.

We haven't had negative interest rates in this period.

Greed.

Wrong. For each year of contracted-out NI, there will be a contracted-out deduction from that £155. Request a BR19 and it will be shown.

As are builders buckets or similar containers previously used to hold all manner of stuff that can be washed out and re-purposed.

If you had been able to wait until 1992 you could have bought the same or similar house for £35K (or less).

It could have been worse, by August 1988 your house would have been over £60K.

My wife has been working for the NHS for many many years now. She has yet to come across a single person who lost their job because they were rubbish at it (the method they use is "re-deployment" - move them elsewhere within the organisation without telling the new bosses anything about the person past).

Not to worry - they have the rest of the day/week/month to sit on their hands and warm them back.

It has been a while, but from my experience students don't wash their cloths until they go back home for mum to do it for them...

Ah. The benefits of hindsight ;-)

And in 1992 it was worth about £46K

If you have yet to hit your state retirement pension age, you are wrong and if you have a full NI record it will be £155 (plus rises).

Then you need to chase this up with the tax office because it is wrong.

If you're on the new state pension, and you never contracted out of serps, and you haven't deferred your state pension, and you have a full contribution record, and you wouldn't have got a higher amount from the old scheme and ...

the problem with this poverty line thing is that this is different for a single person and a family with children

I have already shown that it is perfectly possible for a single person to live a reasonable life on NMW (assuming that the job is a permanent full time one)

But the same amount is never going to be sufficient for a family

But you can't realistically suggest that all jobs have to pay an amount sufficient for a family

It's a nonsense

tim