Another example that ‘caring and compassionate’ means nothing.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-42212270

Soundbites, nothing more.

Possibly – but…..

No such thing……

So the board quit because the government doesn’t show enough commitment…

Social mobility is dead in the water and will remain so indefinitely, a low growth/productivity economy shackled to an over priced housing market removes any chance of progression.

This will not improve with Brexit.

Social mobility does not change class barriers and inequalities. Just say your boss comes from a minority background, poor, crap school etc etc, would that make your experience of work any different? Social mobility is used to create the illusion that people in high places have deserved their position through talent and hard work and that ‘anyone can make it’ (‘American Dream’, America where there’s less social mobility than anywhere). Now the absence of mobility makes that argument a bit more of a challenge so May is reduced to arguing that capitalism is dynamic and works for everyone. What she does not say is that it works for everyone, but in very very different ways.

No such thing……

Less now definitely, at fifteen I was homeless and parentless in northern town.

Whilst working full time I used council sponsored training and subsidised OU courses to dig myself out a hole. As a result the nation has had 35 yrs of paye tax, no criminal activity, a positive contribution to a community and some kids set to do better.

Neither of those training options are available now and were I to be in the same situation in 2017 I would probably make a living stealing TV’s

The right wing social mobility myth:

Debase education and charge for it, destroy communities, sell off industry, reward the richest and blame the poor.

Then scapegoat the most vulnerable and lie, lie, lie.

Is it any wonder people hate them?

The current Tories have no interest in helping anyone else but themselves.
They are scared and distainful of ordinary people.
Like spoilt children they have no wish to share and believe themselves entitled.

They appeal to the basest of instincts, because it’s the easiest option and serves their purposes.

They are the very worst of humanity.

Explain please

Tempted to say your comment is the soundbite rather than their detailed explanation of why they have resigned

Agree with what everyone else says its part of the myth that because the odd few escape the boundaries and class ceilings its a meritocracy
Also agree that what we have now [ esp support] is less than we did have in the past

Neither of those training options are available now and were I to be in the same situation in 2017 I would probably make a living stealing TV’s

Trouble is now TVs are cheaper than they’ve ever been and they’re getting so big you’d need two people to carry them so you’d end up having to split your ill-gotten gains. Double whammy.

The current Tories have no interest in helping anyone else but themselves.
They are scared and distainful of ordinary people.
Like spoilt children they have no wish to share and believe themselves entitled.

In terms of their actions yes – but I don’t really understand who the words are for – when she gave her first speech as priminster …. who was that for? There doesn’t seem to be anything there for the people who voted for the Tories and nothing there that anyone else would imagine that a conservative government would deliver on. I’m not sure who she was talking to.

maccruiskeen – Member

Trouble is now TVs are cheaper than they’ve ever been and they’re getting so big you’d need two people to carry them so you’d end up having to split your ill-gotten gains. Double whammy.

You obviously too young to remember how heavy an old 25″ tv was then

I think she does actually GAS about this* but Brexit is everything so nothing else is getting done

* one of the rare breed of christian tories who can remember what Christ said about helping the poor/needy and I suspect she got into public service to make the world a better place.

Maybe she had a spark of genuine decency once.

The ability of humans to deceive themselves is seemingly infinite.

when she gave her first speech as priminster …. who was that for?

Herself and others like her.
Self justification of greed, selfishness and ignorance is easy if you dress it in the trappings of altruism.

You obviously too young to remember how heavy an old 25″ tv was then

I wish I was. I used to make kinetic artworks using the high voltage circuit from knackered CRT TVs I found in the street. So have dragged more home than I’d like to remember (I only managed to get the circuit to run for a few minutes before it burnt out). As a result of all this scavenging I used to watch telly on two big old TVs, one with no picture and one with no sound. 🙂

Managed to get a 29″ CRT wedged in the passenger seat of my van the other day too – yep they’re still as heavy as i (try not to) remember.

Can’t remember the documentary that went into it but do remember a guy saying that when social and financial divisions get this large, and larger still, one of two things are likely to happen to a country.

Revolution or a police state.

This being Britain I am damned certain it’s already heading the police state route.

We’re very good at revolutions, which is why we don’t tend to have them anymore.

From Wikipedia, although other sources are broadly in agreement over the casualties suffered in the civil war:

“These estimates indicate that England suffered a 3.7% loss of population, Scotland a loss of 6%, while Ireland suffered a loss of 41% of its population.”

May’s christian approach seems more like:
The Parable of the Talents
29 For everyone who has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. But the one who does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him.
30 And throw that worthless servant into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

The Tories are the party of privilege, social mobility is something they always actively discourage as it goes against everything they believe in.

footflaps – Member

The Tories are the party of privilege, social mobility is something they always actively discourage as it goes against everything they believe in.

How does this social mobility work, is it like a ponzi scheme where we just keep shipping people in to fill the gaps left in society by those moving upwards, or are some of you willing to take a hit? ❓

As with all politicians, ignore what they say, and look at what they do.

May is very good at talking about social mobility, but the most cursory glance at her policies just show how actively hostile she is to the very notion of it.

Like all Tories she’s about entrenching privilege, widening social divisions and inequality, and keeping the common peasantry in their place

How does this social mobility work, is it like a ponzi scheme where we just keep shipping people in to fill the gaps left in society by those moving upwards, or are some of you willing to take a hit?

It should be based solely on ability. Everybody should have the same opportunities no matter who your parents are or where you Iive in the UK. Obviously, it can never be perfectly equal, but the current system is designed to maintain privilege as much as possible i.e. oppress the poor and lavish opportunity on the rich regardless of ability.

The last budget was a prime example, the more your earned the more you benefited.

May’s christian approach seems more like:
The Parable of the Talents

You clearly have no idea what that parable is about. Try reading around it a bit more.

Binners and footflaps are both right, the last thing the right of the Tory Party want is a level playing field, the talk of a UK that works for everyone is bollocks.

They need Brexit to support their position of authority and control. Most of all they need cheap, unregulated labour to make this thing continue to work.

You clearly have no idea what that parable is about. Try reading around it a bit more.

Remember its in the Bible so dont read it literally true [ just the literal truth of god] as it as written and interpret the master as Jesus, his journey as his resurrection, the talents as your faith, the profits as spiritual and loads of other stuff that is clearly not actually written down

How could you not see all that its so obvious 😉
I am not piss taking that is the “traditional” interpretation of that

Explain please
Tempted to say your comment is the soundbite rather than their detailed explanation of why they have resigned

Junkyard – will hold my hand up and admit it was a lazy response. For me it really hit home when the PM failed to lend an ear and failed to offer comfort to distressed survivors/grieving relatives in the aftermath of the Grenfell Tower disaster. She simply did not want anything to do with them and yet one would assume that as a daughter of a clergyman she’d watched, many times, her father comfort parishioners in their hour of need.

Rusty Spanner – Member

The right wing social mobility myth:

Debase education and charge for it,

Have I got false memory syndrome? I thought tuition fees were brought in by a Labour govt?

Given them recommendations made in the very recent fifth social mobility report the loss of its board is unlikely to make much difference

tuition fees were brought in by a Labour govt?

A Blair one so still a right wing one

Chewrs C-G I get your point and its odd. I think she does care but when face to face with actual suffering humans she seems to be robotic,unsympathetic and cold.

Junkyard

A Blair one so still a right wing one

I see. Around 3/4 of the electorate voted Tory or Labour in 1997. So by right wing you mean the vast majority of the population.

Yup, Blair, the little shit.

I’d like to retrain as a nurse, possibly a physio or OT, having been a rehab coach for a few years now.

However, as someone who hasn’t been in debt for years or ever claimed a penny in benefit the thought of being £55,000 in the red absolutely terrifies me.

Social mobility?
Yeah, right.

Having poor people funding middle class kids to go to university hardly helped social mobility in the past

So by right wing you mean the vast majority of the population.

Are you wanting to argue Blair was left wing?

Chewrs C-G I get your point and its odd. I think she does care but when face to face with actual suffering humans she seems to be robotic,unsympathetic and cold.

Junkyard – it’s the fear of the great unwashed I presume. After all, she doesn’t seem to have any problem with talking to politicians whom she’s never met before. Definitely cold and unsympathetic as you say.

How does this social mobility work, is it like a ponzi scheme where we just keep shipping people in to fill the gaps left in society by those moving upwards, or are some of you willing to take a hit?

Tory views encapsulated. Wheres Stewart Lee and the monies mine?

Having poor people funding middle class kids to go to university hardly helped social mobility in the past

Has this changed with loans and debt. The poor take the loans and pay the interest the rich get it paid up front.

Grenfell is still illustrating perfectly the attitude of May and co to the poor

Just be quiet you bloody peasants while we go through this sorry ridiculous charade which will exonerate everyone responsible

They don’t want any of the local residents, victims families, or any of the frightful lower orders within 100 miles of proceedings.

That speaks volumes about Mays actual attitude, rather than the platitudes she’s fond of parroting

Social mobility, my arse!

The problem with actually improving social mobility is that it’s largely a zero-sum game and the losers would be the children of the professional classes, the relatively privileged and the influential. If any initiative looked in any real danger of improving social mobility it’d soon be nipped in the bud.

People are malleable.
They can be altruistic or selfish, depending on how they are governed.

Human nature is not entirely a fixed concept.

We’ve had 40 years of the legitimisation of greed, the promotion of the self above the good of society.

Time for a change.

However, as someone who hasn’t been in debt for years or ever claimed a penny in benefit the thought of being £55,000 in the red absolutely terrifies me.

+1. I’d love to go back to education but the costs are completely off putting. The way I see it is that a skilled work force bringing in more tax revenues for the government will be of greater benefit for the country in the long run than having a lot of unfulfilled potential on low wages.

Johnners, sorry sir, but the whole “social mobility is zero sum” is rubbish. An educated population lifts the WHOLE countries success. I think you are assuming that little Jimmy from the council estate gets an education funded by rich Tamara’s parents. Jimmy then gets the job that Tamara was “destined” for. But actually what happens is that both Jimmy and Tamara are well educated and succeed in a global economy and both pay more taxes and have more income to spend (perhaps even in each others companies). Social mobility is certainly not zero sum. As education levels rise we ALL become richer (on average and subject to the normal bell curve of wealth distribution).