****in students man. we just got 2 shiny new student accommodation buildings in the area, which is a traditionally working class area with some horrible examples of poverty kicking about, plenty of homeless and charity/social work required in the area, and many users of food banks. Of course, it's filled with rugby haired toffs.

What did the local supermarket do? They decided the students need a 10% discount. The priorities are all wrong. Now I'm angry when I use this shop. If they'd given this 10% to the poorest, however, I'd be in there buying champagne (cos am a champagne socialist obv)

65/wk over forty weeks, 2600 for the year during uni terms. Books were sub £50 in total because I bought most of what I had to second hand and borrowed from the library anything else I needed (one I had to get new, otherwise it'd be less than 20).

There is uni accommodation here for over 123/wk and if you wanted you could maybe spend a grand buying every single recommended reading book on the list but this is what I'm talking about with bad choices. The campus library has all the books you could want, for most courses a single edition older will get you an almost identical book for literally less than 10%, you don't need to rent a room with an en suite bathroom etc etc. Also not getting sloshed four times a week is a good way to save money for a decent weekly shop inc fresh fruit and vegetables. NUS figures giving you the average doesn't tell you anything about how cheaply someone can choose to live (and I wasn't at all overall, bought several luxury gadgets and as I said holidayed abroad, I just chose different luxuries - but if I had decided to I could have come close to maxing an ISA of savings on about nine grand income).

You can't have it both ways. If it's logical to close the mines then it's illogical to create some kind of nationalised replacement industry.

Communities connected to single industries have risen and fallen throughout history.

FWIW I paid 154/week for accommodation and didn't have much choice about it (that included bills though). Spent about £100 throughout my course on books because everything's on the internet and most things you can just buy the second most recent edition for £3 rather than the most recent edition for £40-100. I lived pretty well and spent about £150/week past that, but I would've struggled to live on less than 75 IMO.

It was logical to close the mines because the UK could no longer support any large-scale mining industry, public or private. It wasn't anything about it being a nationalised industry per se; nationalised industries run for the profit of the state are a great idea IMO.

Remember that the students aren't necessarily well off. They only have a big chunk of disposal income because they've been lent it and for many it will be hanging round their necks for decades.

I'll admit that students aren't my primary concern though it is a concern of mine that working class kids get access to university education but yeah I'd also prefer that discount be given according to need rather than a NUS card. The point was really to question Phil's ability to live well on 9k a year but he's elaborated and I don't think the question was that important. Certainly not as important as the question he didn't answer.

Those figures covered the average costs to students in private rented accommodation so you did very well. You also did well doing the rest on £6,400 a year.

My other question still stands are all the people currently using food banks guilty of bad choices for which they are responsible. If they did not have access to free food what do you think they have available to them to cut in it's place.

To reiterate, it was an anecdote to illustrate that in my area the middle classes are not struggling at all, far from it.

I could have used the number of new cars on people's drives in my street, or that there is nearly always someone spending money on non-essential home improvements like block-paving driveways.

Instead, I used the story of the woman who spunked a grand on Apple goods for her kids at Christmas, as i felt it best illustrated the point i was trying to make. Sorry if you didn't get it first time around.

Its almost like there wont be any empirical objective evidence about the relative wealth of citizens in the UK that might give us a more informed idea of the economic reality.





http://www.kmc-consulting.co.uk/page...ear-high-in-uk

No this is not what the left ever wanted, it's an unfortunate, unintended and unforeseen by product of the securities the left won for working people via a viz rainy day insurance, that they'd never had before from the state. Little did they know that in the future every day would be a rainy day for large sections of the population.

You may deride British Rail, but do you really remember it so well? The strongest criticism of it in the 1970s was usually reserved for the quality of the notorious British Rail sandwich.

So now we know what you really meant.

Typical Tories - don't give a **** about anyone but themselves.

This breed are. No matter how hard they try, they will never live like common people. Edinburgh uni is a snorting elitist toff fest.

Congratulations - it's taken 300 years but finally someone has solved economics.

more informed idea than Elrazors anacdote =! solved.

So if someone who works in education or healthcare decides the Tories are a better bet to run the country, they are selfish?

But someone who wishes to live on benefits and contribute nothing to society, and votes labour as they will provide the most juicy handouts are not selfish?

These questions are stupid.

However, a vote for the Tories is ideologically selfish.

As if by magic, this appeared, although I know you're not a fan of empiricism.

Someone once said this to me:

"The rich right are selfish and the poor are stupid, so the only sound political opinions you can get are from the rich left".

Of course, I kind of object to the poor being classed as stupid, but I get a giggle nevertheless.

What's the tipping point in terms of annual income?

dont know. what is it?

Some right wing chap frustrated at intellectuals once said 'why are all the intelligent people left wing'

That always makes me smile.

Tory scumbag on QT telling us he believes in free market economics and that 'humanitarian instincts' are 'uppermost in this country'.

As we all know, this is a party whose policies, at the extreme, have pushed people to commit suicide, consequently prompting a UN investigation (who cares what the UN say though eh) into "systematic and grave violations" of human rights.

As for 'free market', well if by 'free market' he means 'fascist' then that's, well, believable - it's anything but a 'free market' across all liberal democracies - but he doesn't though, and so what, cos people blindly go along with it as these pricks are allowed, mostly by the media, to use whatever terms they want without any real meaning behind what is being said.

To be fair Diego, every side has those particular phrases that they've adopted as their own. It means as much as the left talking about 'social justice' - whatever the hell that means.

Can we skip over the five years of you posting how pissed off you are at a tory saying something completely standard and non controversial?

If you want we can just agree that unless otherwise proven you think everything a tory says is double speak and also thy are fascist. It'll just save time.

This goes double for things you don't even understand like what a free market economy is.