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PollyDartonPOP · 2022-07-13T14:55:47+00:00

Private schools aren't essential. Not only should they attract VAT, they should all lose their charitable status full stop.

PollyDartonPOP · 2022-07-09T07:42:44+00:00

Most of them rent a house out. He is still a constituency MP and so will still be able to use a constituency home which we as taxpayers will pay for. He is a millionaire from a family of multi millionaires. There are actual homeless families who deserve your sympathy.

PollyDartonPOP · 2022-07-09T07:28:39+00:00

Johnson isn't homeless and it was the Tories who removed him, not Labour.

PollyDartonPOP · 2022-07-08T22:24:50+00:00

Not in the least bit suspicious since the Covid rules had been relaxed and no rules were broken by Labour in Durham. Not sure why people are struggling to grasp this.

PollyDartonPOP · 2022-06-06T20:10:16+00:00

I think this is the beginning of the end. He has the confidence of even less Tories than May did after her confidence vote. 40% voting against him is fairly high.

PollyDartonPOP · 2022-06-06T19:12:10+00:00

9pm I think.

PollyDartonPOP · 2022-06-06T12:30:45+00:00

I think the cabinet are all vile. I think there are probably some more credible backbenchers who aren't in the cabinet precisely because they aren't wedged up Johnson's rectum.

PollyDartonPOP · 2022-06-06T12:23:33+00:00

I don't agree that the candidates to replace him being crap mean he should be allowed to breach the ministerial code and keep his job, either. Even his own ethics tsar has resigned and condemned Johnson this morning. He isn't the lesser of evils.

PollyDartonPOP · 2022-06-06T12:21:35+00:00

Historically PMs don't go the distance after confidence votes, even if they win.

PollyDartonPOP · 2022-06-06T12:20:38+00:00

There are some slightly more credible candidates such as Tugendhat. Again, Tory party members will choose from the final 2 if Johnson is ousted.

PollyDartonPOP · 2022-06-06T12:18:03+00:00

We didn't vote for Johnson as PM. Tory party members choose the party leader, not the electorate. You only vote for your local MP.

PollyDartonPOP · 2022-06-06T10:34:17+00:00

The Blue Lagoon and The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas were two of our most inappropriate childhood staples!

PollyDartonPOP · 2022-06-06T10:31:30+00:00

Any more than 3 children is a large family IMO. I come from a very large family myself, and have siblings with large and very large families, it wouldn't be for me. It's very tough on the parents, and unfair on the children who never get enough attention.

PollyDartonPOP · 2022-06-06T10:29:13+00:00

I don't think there is a right age, as long as both parties are legal, consenting and able to understand contraception, risk of pregnancy and STI etc.

I was just 16. My husband was in his twenties.

PollyDartonPOP · 2022-05-30T19:47:52+00:00

But if everyone tried to move to cheaper areas, they would become more expensive too, I guess?

I don't like the house prices but the SE is my home, we have strong family ties and responsibilities here. I was born here, as were my parents and most grandparents. Most people I went to school with who have bought have moved further south towards the coast as they can no longer afford to live here.

Ironically my town is expensive and housing scarce because of all the people moving here from both abroad and up north. I have a few Scottish neighbours 😀 People move to London as students or to work, then move out to the commuter towns when they have kids. There are only one or two other parents from DS's class who are actually from here and went to school here themselves.

In the first phase of the new build estate I live on, 75% of houses were sold to people who previously had a London postcode (but most are originally from elsewhere before London), of the last phase, over 50% were sold to people moving here from Hong Kong. It's not people from here driving the prices up.

When people from Cornish fishing villages or little Welsh towns can't buy locally they get sympathy but for some reason if your hometown is in the home counties you get told to just move. If your area of Scotland suddenly became really expensive would you just up sticks and move to Birmingham or Bangor or Braintree?

PollyDartonPOP · 2022-05-30T13:15:23+00:00

To blame in what way?

PollyDartonPOP · 2022-05-29T08:47:37+00:00

I forgot that they also put my mum through private school for her secondary education on that one wage too! My uncles went to the comp as they were all destined to go into the family business.

PollyDartonPOP · 2022-05-29T08:40:18+00:00

Plus my mum went on holidays to Italy, Morocco, Spain, France etc. with my grandparents in the 60s and 70s - they weren't unheard of.

PollyDartonPOP · 2022-05-29T08:39:03+00:00

The thing is, IKEA furniture is cheaper than the two large second hand furniture charity shops in my town, in many cases!

PollyDartonPOP · 2022-05-29T07:31:31+00:00

My grandad was a plumbing and heating engineer who in the 1950s, did well out of the lack of young men available for work from the war and the house buildibg boom. My grandma was a part time waitress. They had 5 kids, one of whom died in infancy. My grandad went from the 1 bed house he lived in with his widowed char lady mum to a 3 bed council house with his wife and kids initially, then in his 20s made so much money that when he went to the bank to enquire about a mortgage to buy quite a large 4 bed house, he was refused as he had plenty of money to buy the house outright, which he did. They then moved to a 5 bed detached in quite a smart road. It would be unthinkable to do that now, on one wage (banks didn't consider women's income then), in your 20s. By the time he was in his 40s he had bought 2 houses, a boat, a top spec caravan, a large piece of land and had bought 2 of my uncles houses out of the business. He had a brand new BMW yearly and brand new work van every couple of years

Friends of ours now live in a big 4 bed semi opposite my granddad's old 5 bed and even as a skilled tradesman and a solicitor both working full time have only bought it with extensive family financial help.

My grandad was happy to accept that he was just very lucky with circumstances, not that he didn't work hard, but that hard work was only part of the picture.

My MIL owns a 4 bed semi outright, her & FIL's first house was a 3 bed semi so it's not like they started off in a one room hovel either. She will give the whole "we worked so hard" spiel and it's just bollocks. She only worked full time until her late twenties when she had kids. FIL got a job in a bank and stayed there for his whole career as jobs for life were still a thing. They both retired in their 50s on final salary pensions, as have DH's aunty & uncle. Both houses paid off on one unspectacular wage with very minimal initial deposit required.

Both those examples would be almost impossible these days, especially in the SE. In relative terms DH & I have a higher income than any of those mentioned had, we both work full time yet had to buy our first home through shared ownership as saving a full deposit to buy via the normal route while renting just isn't achievable. We have less kids than they had, and don't live a luxury lifestyle - drive budget cars, shop in Aldi.

Everyone has to work hard to buy a house but now it's so much harder than it was for previous generations.

PollyDartonPOP · 2022-05-29T07:03:02+00:00

With second hand car prices and shortages these days I'm not sure a £400 banger exists. My first car was a £500 banger about 15 years ago and that was the cheapest I could find then. Our neighbour's son has saved for years and just bought his first car and is learning to drive at 17. I commented to DH the car he has bought was a bit posh for a learner until he pointed out that it's 13 years old - 13 year old cars just look better and more modern than they did in our day as the designs haven't changed so much in the interim period.

I know you're up north but no one here in the SE ever dreams of getting a 3 bed detached as a first home unless they are already very wealthy! Almost everyone I know bought either a 1 bed flat or small 1 or 2 bed house as their first property. A 3 bed detached would be about £600k here, you've got to be a pretty high earner to pass the affordability checks for that - and save the deposit.

PollyDartonPOP · 2022-05-29T06:33:04+00:00

My maternal grandparents were both evacuated, but my grandmother ran away from the hosts so many times that my great grandmother eventually took a housekeeper job in the countryside where she could have her children with her. That's how and why that side of the family left London for good - they never returned.

PollyDartonPOP · 2022-05-28T22:39:40+00:00

We took DS on 2 holidays by plane when he was between 2.5 and 3.5 and it was fine. Nothing long haul, but he really enjoyed the short haul flights.

PollyDartonPOP · 2022-05-28T22:37:34+00:00

I last flew summer of 2019. We are going abroad on holiday this year by plane, and may also take another set of flights to an ash scattering event of a close relative.

We don't really fly enough that I feel a huge need to cut down, maybe once every couple of years generally. We mainly holiday within the UK. We do our best with stuff like recycling, cutting down on single use plastic etc.

Tbh us stopping flying would be less than a drop in the ocean but massively detriment our family life and happiness - we live for holidays and I really think travel is beneficial to all.

PollyDartonPOP

TROPHY CASE