i was temping for about 18 months. no job security, no opportunities to save money - just constant treading water worrying if you will get enough work that month to pay the rent. now im in a pretty shit job but at least its permanent. i think most of the blame for why this country is fucked is the counscious effort during the last couple of decades to change us from a manufacturing based economy to a financial and other services based economy. who is to blame for that? well it might be easier to work out who isn't to blame. successive tory and labour governments have done nothing to change this.
add in the free movement of labour within the eu and you end up with the very deliberate consequences of wages being driven down to rock bottom. so even if you can get a job chances are it wont pay enough to support a family. when i was growing up my dad worked in a factory full time, my mum worked as a cleaner part time and they could support three kids and a mortgage on a semi detached house.
although we might all feel a bit richer because we can afford some cheap consumer goods the reality is that for the first time in a long time this generation of teens to twenty/thirty somethings will be a lot worse off than their parents. and that goes for both the working classes and the middle classes.
current economic policy is seeing us move headlong into a race to the bottom. the rich will get even richer and the poor will get even poorer. in fact the gap between rich and poor is at an all time high.
so yes, i'd say this country is royally fucked and i cannot see anyone being able to change it. not labour, not lib dems, not tories, not ukip, not the bnp, not the greens. no one.
