Look at the real damage austerity is doing

[Boydy]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/pensions/12000288/We-earn-190k-a-year.-Do-we-need-to-sell-our-flat-to-afford-private-school-fees.html

[Kikó]

What a bunch of cunts.

[Lee]

Fuck me.

[Kikó]

The Telegraph is such a joke of a newspaper these days. Not serious journalism which is a shame.

[Giggles]

I'd love to see how they handled a cardboard box.

[Byron]

Fucking hell.

[John]

I'll put up a hundred quid a month if they'll both submit to being punched in the head once per payment.

[Henry]

I'm not seeing this as having as much to do with austerity as being about people who can't manage their (abundant) money very well.

[Kikó]

Alright Buzz Killington.

[Alan Shearer The 2nd]

The Telegraph is such a joke of a newspaper these days. Not serious journalism which is a shame.

Their articles on Corbyn are something else.

[Sam]

Oh the tragedy.

[Boydy]

I'm not seeing this as having as much to do with austerity as being about people who can't manage their (abundant) money very well.

Fuck's sake. To the top of the autism list you go.

[niko_cee]

:D

I bet the flat they own is an absolute hovel. South East London. :sick:

Couldn't they have just bought a house near a good school? "The experience" of private school education? Dear lord.

[Boydy]

Some bits of South East London are nice.

[Jimmy Floyd]

The key is not living in London. I'm currently facepalming my friends as each in turn begins chasing the dream of 'the lifestyle' and 'it's where everything's happening' before trudging back at the end of the three year cycle when they realise it is the place with the biggest cunt to square metre ratio in the world (although I've not been to Dubai) and have no money left because they've poured it down some shark landlord's throat. And for what?

What I will say is having been privately educated I can definitely understand wanting your kids to have the same.

[Kikó]

Name them.

[Boydy]

The feeling of superiority.
Not having to mix with the oiks.
Connections for the future.
The dinner parties with other parents.

[Kikó]

I never learned Haikus in my school.

[Boydy]

In all seriousness though, this does show how staggeringly unaffordable London is becoming.

[Jimmy Floyd]

The feeling of superiority.
Not having to mix with the oiks.
Connections for the future.
The dinner parties with other parents.

And the smooth shoulders.

At private schools the teaching is in general better, the classes are in general smaller and more disciplined, and the range of other activities like sport, music etc available is considerably more. Why wouldn't you want that for your kids?

[Yevrah]

In all seriousness though, this does show how staggeringly unaffordable London is becoming.

It is, but this doesn't show that. To earn that much and not be able to service a two and a half grand monthly mortgage is fucking ridiculous.

[Kikó]

London is ridiculously expensive and I can't imagine how people who work low level can even think about living here. Case in point, Santa.

[Boydy]

It is, but this doesn't show that. To earn that much and not be able to service a two and a half grand monthly mortgage is fucking ridiculous.

It is a bit mad. I stuck 190k into one of those take-home pay calculators and it says it'd be about £9k a month. And that's just as one salary. They must have even more take-home pay since it's split over two salaries and therefore even more of it is under the personal allowance and higher band thresholds.

[Boydy]

And the smooth shoulders.

At private schools the teaching is in general better, the classes are in general smaller and more disciplined, and the range of other activities like sport, music etc available is considerably more. Why wouldn't you want that for your kids?

What size were your classes?

[Lewis]

I was in Chiswick with the old man recently, and, whilst it's a pretty swish area, lol at their shitey little terrace houses going for well over a million quid.

[DC]

Victoria Coren-Mitchell on question time recently told people aspiring to London that there only chance of affording to live in London is if everybody fucks off and leaves the oligarchs to it.

The property prices in London are so skewed by the millions of square feet traded back and forth for £ millions above the real market value as part of offshore money laundering / tax "avoidance" schemes through LLC's. When a house with a market value of £2m is sold to someone else for £15m no questions asked you know that there's something not right, and that trickle down pressure on house prices is incessant.

Fortunately I live in a town where you can still buy a home for less than £100k (and often less than £70k if you're willing to wait) but I find it bizarre that people barely a few miles away are actually thinking that buying a house for £230k+ (same 3 bedroom semi detached by the way) is a step up. Really? You're playing a postcode lottery based on independent valuations, so that you can go into work the next week and brag about how badly off you are due to the expense of your new home. I'll pass on that kind of office-misery-wank material.

My mortgage is £230 a month, two young friends recently moved to be closer to work from a flat that cost them £600 a month, so a house costing them £650 a month. I'm like :cab: "How's that saving up for a mortgage working for ya?". Another friend just had a baby, moved out of their apartment to rent a house from her brother, now paying £550 a month and only getting £350 on their 1 bed. I'm like :cab: "So you're losing money to your own brother? and how's that saving for a mortgage working out for you? Oh, he only paid £50k for the house and now wants £150k?".

Every time we sell for a "profit" we're just striking our kids with an increased burden. It's such a false economy that honestly needs the bubble to go bang on it once and for all until people realise that investing in bricks and mortar you do for the 50 years to build a home, not for 5 years so that you can ride the hot housing market bubble and then panic sell.

To quote the immortal, but dead, Rodney Dangerfield "...as you go out in the world, my advice to you is; don't go! It's rough out there. Move back with your parents, let them worry about it."

[Pavel]

Fuck's sake. To the top of the autism list you go.

Fuck sake, I've only been away five minutes.

[Samadini]

London is ridiculously expensive and I can't imagine how people who work low level can even think about living here. Case in point, Santa.

Even if I had wanted to stay I'd have been forced out as rent for our 1 bedroom flat in zone 5 is being increased by £155 a month. :sick:

[Sam]

Friend of mine is just using the London wage to buy up properties back up north.

Can't say much mind, trying to find anything around Cheltenham and the Cotswolds is a rather laughable process as to how high the price some of the houses/flats are.

If only the girlfriend wasn't so mardy about this place, would get house so cheap back in Wolverhampton.

[Davgooner]

I'd love to see a breakdown of their outgoings. I'd fucking rip them to shreds the yuppie cunts.

[phonics]

Have to say, as someone who went to Private School after 10 years of State School, it absolutely destroyed me and I definitely came out of it damaged. I went in as a straight-A student and left 4 years later struggling to get a passing grade.

[Pavel]

Have to say, as someone who went to Private School after 10 years of State School, it absolutely destroyed me and I definitely came out of it damaged. I went in as a straight-A student and left 4 years later struggling to get a passing grade.

Why did you feel that was the case phonics?

[phonics]

A mix of State Schools being behind, an example being when I moved I arrived into a Math Class where not only were we expected to know how to do long division but also be able to solve for x using it when long division was only a concept I'd heard of on American Highschool TV shows on Nickelodeon, and the sheer amount of freedom you get at a young age at Private School due to a lot of parents not being around their kids but giving them the money to keep themselves busy (to put not to fine a point on it, I'd say the average 'lunch money' for most students was around 30 pound a day). Too much drink + drugs from 15 onwards.

I also had a really good group of friends back home and fell into the wrong crowd trying to fit in at the new place.

[simon]

I was in Chiswick with the old man recently, and, whilst it's a pretty swish area, lol at their shitey little terrace houses going for well over a million quid.

My Nan lives in one of said houses in Chiswick. She's lived there all of her life and therefore is essentially worth somewhere in the region of £800k. The house my rents live in is twice as big and worth about a quarter of that. It's mental.

Though it's a nice inheritance for my Mum and her two sisters at least.

[Toby]

my rents

:sick:

[Jimmy Floyd]

Have to say, as someone who went to Private School after 10 years of State School, it absolutely destroyed me and I definitely came out of it damaged. I went in as a straight-A student and left 4 years later struggling to get a passing grade.

Respectfully suggest moving country had more to do with that. Teens are an absolutely terrible time to move and everyone I've met who was dragged from country to country has had issues.

Also I reckon those International Schools or whatever are dubious.

[Boydy]

What size were your classes?

Jim, this was a serious question, not an attempt to mock you in some way.

[niko_cee]

Mine were around 25 at secondary school, maybe a few less at primary/prep.

[Disco]

Actual lessons were about 20-25 if that helps.

[Boydy]

You two went to private schools?

[niko_cee]

I went to one of the worst ones in the country by testing methods, I think. Still, t'was alright and didn't do me any harm.

This one (http://elizabethcollege.gg/)

School fees must be one of the few things that have outperformed (London) property in terms of price inflation. They seem to have gone absolutely through the roof.

[phonics]

Mine were 20-24 compared to 30-32.

[Jimmy Floyd]

Jim, this was a serious question, not an attempt to mock you in some way.

25 up to GCSE, and in the sixth form never more than about 12.

[Boydy]

Is 25 much under what they normally are in state schools? From what I recall of school, mine were normally about 25-30 with classes in secondary school that had special rooms (science, technology etc) being restricted to 20.

Those sixth form class sizes would be good though.

[Jimmy Floyd]

My state school friends always quoted 35 at me.

The bigger difference is probably that there aren't the troublemakers about, with the odd exception.

[Toby]

There were 18 pupils in my entire year up to Standard Grade (GSCE) level. Unsurprisingly that school no longer has a secondary department.

[Sam]

I passed all entry exams to go to the local private schools and local academies back in the midlands, even had two offer me funded scholarships so I could afford to go them. Poured misery on my parents when I turned them all down and went to the run down engineering school I lived next door to and all my friends were going too. Quite a big school mind, had a Channel 4 documentary on how shit it was.

Could have probably been something more then I am now (career wise) if I hadn't but wouldn't be half the person. My cousin got into an academy (money talks) and came out with a right 'I am superior' attitude, took a few years to get her back down to normality where she is actually a pretty nice person these days. Probably that which has tainted my view of the private schools. That and it could also be good ole working class 'fuck the poshuns'.

[phonics]

Respectfully suggest moving country had more to do with that. Teens are an absolutely terrible time to move and everyone I've met who was dragged from country to country has had issues.

Also I reckon those International Schools or whatever are dubious.

Oh I'm sure moving to Charterhouse would have done me less damage than Ecolint but I think I still would have taken a turn. It's like whenever a girl you know gets sent to Catholic School, she comes back the biggest slut in the village.

[Jimmy Floyd]

The thing about private schools is that they are all different. I went to a bloody brilliant boys' day school that was something like 25% Asian and right next door to one of the worst comps in London, so it wasn't like we were in some stratified world.

I remember going to play cricket against Harrow and they called us oiks. One of them put a pound coin on our table at tea and walked off, saying 'You need it more than me'. I'd never want to go to a boarding school. They're awful.

[niko_cee]

Yeah, boarding schools aren't right at all. I don't really get why parents send their kids to them, other than hating/resenting them.

[Sam]

The thing about private schools is that they are all different. I went to a bloody brilliant boys' day school that was something like 25% Asian and right next door to one of the worst comps in London, so it wasn't like we were in some stratified world.

I remember going to play cricket against Harrow and they called us oiks. One of them put a pound coin on our table at tea and walked off, saying 'You need it more than me'. I'd never want to go to a boarding school. They're awful.

Jeez, I'd have lamped them one if they did such a thing to me.

It does vary, my highlights of school were generally that we did nothing, there was no actually school uniform (I'd go in a shirt/hoodie/trousers/adidas classics and a nike hat :drool:), and half of the teachers could barely string together a sentence of English. Still some of the best years of my life that being said.

[randomlegend]

25 up to GCSE, and in the sixth form never more than about 12.

That's exactly what mine were at a (shit) state school.

[Disco]

We had to wear blazers/suits in sixth form and caps were technically uniform but only the Preps wore them.

Opportunities abound though: music, sport, travel (I went to three different countries on school trips without even trying and got watched by rugged scouts who wouldn't be seen dead at a club colts game).

[Boydy]

There was quite a lot of sport, music and trips (and drama) at my school too. I suppose it was a grammar though. But I didn't get involved in much of it as I didn't have the middle class parents pushing me into it. And we couldn't afford the trips. I remember there being a Russian history one I really wanted to go on but the cost was something ridiclous. Are these sorts of extra-curricular activities really that uncommon at state schools/comps in England?

[Lewis]

They were at mine. We did nothing.

My cousin goes to private school, and, since he isn't particularly intelligent, the difference seems to be the school trips (he's skiing in America at the minute) and the amount of Asians. My brother cites him as the reason he won't privately educate his own children, but it's not like the school made him a spoiled soft-lad.

[niko_cee]

I've no idea why anyone would go skiing in America. It must cost a fortune and sounds fairly shit by comparison to what is on our doorstep in the Alps. I guess if you have to ski at this time of year.

[Reg]

I didn't go to a private school and don't have any friends that did so I'm speaking without any real insight here... but is there much truth to the idea that people who've been to private schools struggle to integrate into 'normal' life, jobs, society etc?

[Pepe]

Jimmy seems to be well integrated in his workplace.

[Spammer]

I know a couple of tarts that went to private school who have a stick up their arse about having a job with the normals. Most people I met at uni were pretty sound though.

I'm a bit proud of going to a comprehensive really. That I'm doing alright without having been given a leg-up is nice. I always knew people to get chipped games and knock off DVDs from too.

[Sam]

Only school trip we had was a visit to Drayton Manor because it was close, beyond that it was a look around the factories that most of us were expected to end up working in.

Was a lad in my year who's old man used to make him bring in copied dvds/games to sell, Hammer :D.

Most people were fine in my year, I've admittedly been one of the successful ones in terms of actually having GCSE/degree and so forth. Three are currently serving 10+ year prison sentences and another lad from year got done a couple months back for a double stabbing. That being said, it means that I have no fears of walking into any pub/place/area because someone remembers me from when we were younger. Has it's perks.

[Lee]

There were fuck all good trips at my school but I think that's changing in state schools now. One of the run of the mill Nuneaton schools has organised a geography trip to Iceland and a skiing trip to the U.S. in the past year. We got a week in Wales and a lucky few managed to get as far as northern France.

[phonics]

At State School, we went to Stevenage for our Geography trip, where we weren't allowed to watch England v Argentina in 98 but were woken up by the teacher who was listening to it on the radio that we'd lost. This was the late 90s and there wasn't a TV with signal and now I could be posting this to a bunch of people hundreds of miles apart on a mobile telephone. I'm not sure what's more shocking, that or the fact that the bloke who ran the hostel we stayed at was outed by the local news as a paedophile a couple of years later.

[Jimmy Floyd]

There may be trips at state schools but there are absolute fuckloads of them at private schools and they go everywhere. I wasn't all that into trips but I went to Paris, Seville, Munich and for some reason Armentieres just in my two sixth form years. If I'd been particularly good at any sport I'd have comfortably doubled that tally.

I don't see it as relevant once you get past the age of about 21 and start fending for yourself. People won't employ you unless you're good at whatever the job is, where you went to school has no bearing. I'm lucky to have had the education I did but to see it as a 'leg up' is a massive overstatement I think. People just assume everyone in the 7% (actually 12%, little known fact) is an Etonian with a top hat and tails.

[Disco]

You get funny looks when you ask who your fag is but other than that it's fine.

[Lee]

I agree on the "it doesn't really matter where you went" statement. That's overstating things a little but if you have a brain and work hard to be good at what you do, as well as catching some breaks, you'll do just fine. I went to a council estate state school and a university with a shit reputation but I'll do better than those peers of mine who went to private school and/or Oxbridge.

[Spammer]

There may be trips at state schools but there are absolute fuckloads of them at private schools and they go everywhere. I wasn't all that into trips but I went to Paris, Seville, Munich and for some reason Armentieres just in my two sixth form years. If I'd been particularly good at any sport I'd have comfortably doubled that tally.

I don't see it as relevant once you get past the age of about 21 and start fending for yourself. People won't employ you unless you're good at whatever the job is, where you went to school has no bearing. I'm lucky to have had the education I did but to see it as a 'leg up' is a massive overstatement I think. People just assume everyone in the 7% (actually 12%, little known fact) is an Etonian with a top hat and tails.

You're probably right, 'leg up' isn't the best way to describe it. I meant that in private schools you're more likely to have a culture which is supportive of learning and doing well, rather than at some comps where you risk getting your head kicked in if you're too clever. You're swimming against the stream to a much greater extent if you want to get your head down and learn.

[John Arne]

My niece is 15 and goes to the high school I went to... A very shit comprehensive. She has just brought a letter home asking her mum weather she could go to Kenya for 3 weeks for just £3,500... :D

My sister couldn't afford £350, let alone £3,500.

[ItalAussie]

I found out after the fact that the least able mathematician I tutored at Oxford was an Etonion. I have no idea how he got in.

[Jimmy Floyd]

People get into Oxbridge via connections in the colleges, usually. I knew of someone who was quite literally thick, and yet because his (rich) father went to a certain college he magically got in too.

[Mellberg]

Public schools build character at a relatively young age, whilst private schools are filled with raging ponces who prance about playing soggy sandwich and fucking dead pigs, ergo we win.

[Pavel]

Is this entire line of subjective experience and thinking not going completely against the real world data of who hires who from private schooling?

[Lee]

Public schools build character at a relatively young age, whilst private schools are filled with raging ponces who prance about playing soggy sandwich and fucking dead pigs, ergo we win.

No bumming in state school though so swings and roundabouts.

[ItalAussie]

People get into Oxbridge via connections in the colleges, usually. I knew of someone who was quite literally thick, and yet because his (rich) father went to a certain college he magically got in too.

So I'm very inclined to believe that in some cases, but it never came up when I was interviewing.

I'm not sure how it would happen, though. Nobody was breathing down our necks when we were interviewing candidates, but I suppose it could vary from discipline to discipline.

[Mellberg]

Still, private schools are better than 'faith schools'. Was once suspended for taking a piss on a jumper from our nearest rivals, which preached this shit. Was forced to go there and apologise - nearly got lynched. Can't buy those kind of experiences whilst playing croquet.

[Jimmy Floyd]

So I'm very inclined to believe that in some cases, but it never came up when I was interviewing.

I'm not sure how it would happen, though. Nobody was breathing down our necks when we were interviewing candidates, but I suppose it could vary from discipline to discipline.

I would guess that those people are not going for maths or science. They're going for sit about and ponce degrees like English.

[niko_cee]

Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic, or, failing that, history of art.

[Boydy]

Is it time to close the door to foreign buyers of British property? (http://www.theguardian.com/money/blog/2015/nov/21/foreign-buyers-british-property)

Guardian article but this actually being proposed by the Bow Group, a Tory thinktank. I think it's a good idea.

[phonics]

What about the stuff they already own?

[Boydy]

There's probably not much you can do about that but you could at least stop the situation becoming worse.

[Disco]

Funny how they went quiet on the register of foreign/offshore landowners that was supposed to be happening.

[Lewis]

Soft-lad cousin was telling me that his school rugby team (which they have to play in or they get detentions on training/match days) is the second best in the area, so to become the best the school have hired a full time strength and conditioning coach. The teams do go up to A-level ages (he's fifteen), but that still seems a bit serious.

I suggested he call the bloke a nonce and take the detentions, but he won't.

[Boydy]

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