Bartfarst

Naivety is such a wonderful thing. Crash pad. I have a room at work for that very same reason. If you’re having to attend formal functions, you need to have the right sort of clothes available. Dinner jackets, lounge suits, blazers, sports jackets and all the relevant rigs, trousers, shirts, shoes to go with them. This lot needs to be kept near to work so it can be accessed easily - these formal functions (which are work) often come up at short notice. Similarly, if working during the evening, a Travelodge won’t have a desk set up with the right IT, stationary and support material that is needed – an evening office is needed, which is why a ‘crash pad’ is needed. First class travel. I, like MPs, am entitled to first class rail travel when I go on a journey for work. I can take y own car (which costs the Crown very little in mileage expenses), or I can ask for a vehicle, and driver if need be. The advantage to using a driver is that I can work during the journey, and as the cost to the taxpayer of me remaining productive is far greater than the cost of a driver, that makes sense. Similarly, if I travel first class I can work on the train, whereas cattle class I’m not guaranteed to get a seat, let alone enough table space to work on. For that reason, it makes financial sense to cover the cost of the first class ticket because there is a significant save in productivity.

Originally Posted by Bartfarst Now try to read slowly, and you may learn a little. Do you know what an MP’s expenses include? I have to infer that you believe it all to be ‘wasted’ on expensive luncheons and first class flights to nice places they don’t need to go to. Well, let me educate you. Those ‘expenses’ do refer to monthly claimable expenses for entertaining and travel. But not much. The majority of it covers the running cost of his or her constituency office. Do you understand things like running costs? That will include rent, rates, service bills, staff wages, printing and mailing for communications by the tens of thousands. Need I go on? Yes, the ‘average’ dole cheat defrauds the government of a whole lot less than £160k, but please don’t be so naïve as to think that MPs are fiddling £160k a year – that is the cost of running their office and staff. You claim to sit in the middle but clearly only understand what a dole cheat does, and have no idea what an MP does. It would seem Blade, that you're probably now restraining your fingers from typing something which would make you sound like somebody who's prepared to admit that he was pitifully wrong and made himself look rather ill-informed and misguided numpty. I’m sure that you’re not, and wouldn’t want such an undeserved impression of numptiness to be sustained.

The top rate for a head teacher, depending on shcool, area and their professional grade, is about £85k.

Never mind the amateur statistics, do you describe a pair of senior teachers as high earners, or middle income? For me it's the latter. The same applies to a junior doctor and a nurse. Or a police chief inspector and sergeant. . . . they are middle income families. There may be lots of low earners, which affects the average wage, and therefore the percentage of earners on incomes above a certain band, but the spread of incomes is vast from a few thousand to millions, and on that basis I see a combined £100k as very middle.

Now try to read slowly, and you may learn a little. Do you know what an MP’s expenses include? I have to infer that you believe it all to be ‘wasted’ on expensive luncheons and first class flights to nice places they don’t need to go to. Well, let me educate you. Those ‘expenses’ do refer to monthly claimable expenses for entertaining and travel. But not much. The majority of it covers the running cost of his or her constituency office. Do you understand things like running costs? That will include rent, rates, service bills, staff wages, printing and mailing for communications by the tens of thousands. Need I go on? Yes, the ‘average’ dole cheat defrauds the government of a whole lot less than £160k, but please don’t be so naïve as to think that MPs are fiddling £160k a year – that is the cost of running their office and staff. You claim to sit in the middle but clearly only understand what a dole cheat does, and have no idea what an MP does.

Bugger. I have to strongly agree with Cyclone again. Damn damn damn.

Originally Posted by Longcol I know. It was Bartfarst who used the term to describe a combined middle class family income of £100,000 as "middle income". I wouldn't describe £100k combined as middle income. To me it is middle income, you gentlemen may see it differently. I see two senior teachers as being 'middle income'. Or a police superintendant married to a nurse - middle income. Once we start talking executive salaries around the £250k mark we can think about calling it high income, but when a GP earns over £100k, along with dentists, lawyers and an awful lot of middle managers, I don't think that £100k is all that great.

Oh, so only working class mothers and fathers want children, they must just be 'necessary evils' to the middle classes? That lifestyle and investment are one and the same thing; building up their way of life to one which will benefit the child as well as their ability to pay for nappies. That usually means getting ahead in a career so that one of them can take a career break to raise the child to schooling age. Just putting a few coins in the piggy bank isn't enough. No, it may imply quite openly that people should not deliberately start rutting and producing snotty-nosed wastrel kids if they have no intention of feeding them from their own pockets, but I have never said that there should be no safety net for genuine cases of hardship that are not self-induced.

So it doesn't matter whether you quietly and calmy lead it into a slaughter room then stun it before it knows what is going on, or if you chase it down with hounds then hack it to death with a machete? If the fur trade is not good for animals, does that mean that it doesn't make any difference whether they are skinned alive or killed first?

Perhaps so, but I also wouldn't confuse 'average' income with 'middle' income. The 'average' income is quite low, being heavily offset by the hordes of benefit-dependent types and part-time workers. That should not affect the 'middle' incomes which are what a senior teacher or policeman must be described as. In a study last year of constituencies’ incomes, Sheffield Hallam came among the highest ten in the country in terms of proportion of households with an income over £60k, higher than Windsor among others. I don't see the majority of Hallam constituents as anything but middle-income earners.

Well, let's stick to just the last few post-war generations within the last half century or so then, shall we, as I was hardly referring to medieval times. Which only goes to show - in your own words - that the middle classes are more responsible than the lower classes. Many of my relatives, mostly working class families, have over the last few generations planned their families, and made financial sacrifices to ensure that they could provide for a family. So have all of the people I work with and socialise with - it is the norm among responsible taxpayers. You mention your grandparents. Around 1920 my maternal grandparents had the first of their 7 children. He was a foundry worker, she mended clothes. They had their family, and he worked extra shifts to pay for that family. His 5 sons and 2 daughters applied the same principles of hard work and selflessness, and provided for their own families, families which they did not have until they could afford to have children. They were all raised to be too proud to be spongers.

Happy with that. But, and you seem to know your stuff on many of the illegal drugs knocking around, what about the matter of longer-term effects of some of these drugs? It's often not just a case of popping a pill, or shooting up, and being safe to drive/work the next morning, is it?

A very good point. In previous generations, a husband and wife would save and plan to have a family, not doing so until they could afford it and had put in place the security and backing to do so. It required responsibility, pride, and dedication to each other. Today we have scrotes who simply see it as their right to have as many kids as they want at the expense of the taxpayer.

Two points. First, their choice to use private education releases places - and therefore funds - from the state education system. That should be of interest to everybody whose children benefit from the state system being subsidised by families who choose private education. Secondly, £100,000 is very much middle-income - it's only £50k per head for two people for goodness' sake, and that's hardly big bucks. That's only about what an Army Major earns, or a Police Chief Inspector, or senior teachers. Or look at it as one earner in the house. Doctors, dentists, architects, lawyers are all likely to earn more than 100k – does that mean they are beyond middle class? A head teacher will be on around £75k, or a Police Commissioner, or an Army Colonel. Are they not middle class occupations?

So, are you saying that you disagree that middle-income families should be facing 5.8% rises compared to 4.6% for those on lower incomes? What is the point you are making about the Telegraph?