£220 per year to park you car at work, the joys of the NHS.

[hubgearfreak]

I have no jobs near me that pay enough for me to be able to keep the roof over my head and feed my family as well as being able to look after elderly parents but hey why should I bother I can just relocate and increase my mortgage to double what it is and live within 5 miles of work but oops sorry that job does not pay enough to keep up with the new mortgage payments so what do I do now?

how do the people who have the jobs near where you live cope?
what would you do if fuel was £5/ltr?

[workhard]

I just do not see it thst way at all.

It is very easy to say that you can just get a job elsewhere and or relocate.
I have no jobs near me that pay enough for me to be able to keep the roof over my head and feed my family as well as being able to look after elderly parents but hey why should I bother I can just relocate and increase my mortgage to double what it is and live within 5 miles of work but oops sorry that job does not pay enough to keep up with the new mortgage payments so what do I do now?
In theory there may be choices but the practicalities of it is not as easy as some would make out.

At no point have I, or others, said such choices were easy to make but that is not at all the same thing as saying you have no choice. As others have said - if petrol was £2.50, £5, £10 or £15 a litre what would you do? Do you really think you would have no choice in these matters if it cost you £250 to fill your car up with petrol each week?

FWIW - I've been down the 50% pay cut/change of lifestyle/relocate work route when I wanted to change careers about eight years back so I know exactly how much that hurts. But, having made the choice, you cope. My 87 year old widowed father lives with us so I also have some insight into what commitment to elderly relatives involves, you make that choice, you adapt, you cope.

[workhard]

Except I cannot afford to do so socially or financially. Its really catch 22...

If i move to Southampton as I can get closer to tha hospital by a few miles, I would still have to travel to Gosport to care for elderly relations, or do we rip her out of her comfortable social circle and impose our wishes on her?

Which raises a slightly different view... from the patient perspective. If I have a chronic illness, do I need to move when the hospital moves as well?

But surely Southampton is not the only place on earth where your skills are valuable and you are employable? There must be other parts of dear old Blighty where the cost of living is less where you could live and work? But that is just an solely economic argument whereas you make an excellent and compelling point about social/familial responsibilties which I cannot challenge you on. I was lucky, when I told the aged P we were thinking of buying a house big enough (i.e. with an extra bedroom -no granny annexe) for him to come to live with us, he cancelled his council tenacy by return!

The patient perspective? A whole different argument. I'm happy to pay 40p in the £ basic rate in income tax if the money was spent on healthcare and education and wasn't wasted in both sectors on layers of management (Good leadership, however, I'd be happy to pay for). Joe and Joanna Public , it seems, only want governments that cut taxes and guarantee continuing house price inflation. Thus we get standards of education and healthcare that we pay for.

For many of my relatives though, living in non-urban, non SE England settings, say in Wales or the NE of England a trip to the hospital has ALWAYS been the sort of major trek that we now all face as we make our way to our "local" centre of excellence. A good friend died in an ambulance making the 45 mile trip from very rural wales to the nearest A&E in Aberystwyth at a time, (early 90's) when such a journey was unthinkable in SE England. Now my nearest A&E/major hospital is 18 miles and 40 minutes from home and they've just binned all the public transport that was introduced when things were centralised. Great when your Dad is 87!

[pigman]

As others have said - if petrol was £2.50, £5, £10 or £15 a litre what would you do? Do you really think you would have no choice in these matters if it cost you £250 to fill your car up with petrol each week?

.

I wouldnt worry about it on an individual family basis. I know its a simplistic head-in-sand approach, but millions are going to be affected. All those in rural areas, all those who work in other towns, all those working in out-of-town retail parks, the list goes on.

there will have to be wholesale changes somewhere - better public transport, fuel subsidies/tax reductions, back to building local shops and factories, even possibly mass poverty. But, you wont be alone. War time often brings poverty and make-and-mend approaches, but from a team working and camaradrie approach, these are (Ive been told) some of the best times.
Its a bit like dying - we know its coming, but no point in living your life worrying about it. Enjoy your family, your work, your cycling.

[ianr1950]

I just do not see it thst way at all.

It is very easy to say that you can just get a job elsewhere and or relocate.
I have no jobs near me that pay enough for me to be able to keep the roof over my head and feed my family as well as being able to look after elderly parents but hey why should I bother I can just relocate and increase my mortgage to double what it is and live within 5 miles of work but oops sorry that job does not pay enough to keep up with the new mortgage payments so what do I do now?
In theory there may be choices but the practicalities of it is not as easy as some would make out.

At no point have I, or others, said such choices were easy to make but that is not at all the same thing as saying you have no choice. As others have said - if petrol was £2.50, £5, £10 or £15 a litre what would you do? Do you really think you would have no choice in these matters if it cost you £250 to fill your car up with petrol each week?

FWIW - I've been down the 50% pay cut/change of lifestyle/relocate work route when I wanted to change careers about eight years back so I know exactly how much that hurts. But, having made the choice, you cope. My 87 year old widowed father lives with us so I also have some insight into what commitment to elderly relatives involves, you make that choice, you adapt, you cope.

Well done you and others like you but if everybody did that and went into low paid jobs where would we be, so get real. It's great that your elderly father lives with you but I am not in a position to afford a house large enough to house 2 sets of parents who are both in their eighties.

I disagree with your assertion that if something is difficult then you still have a choice, it doesn't always work out that way and you are left with only one choice however that is different to the choice you were able to make.

Hubgear freak, what about those who work near where I live? The vast majority travel into work from outlying areas and a lot of the work here is in agriculture.
The biggest employer uses mainly contract workers which they get rid of as and when they desire and they don't take on anyone as permanent workers over the age of 40.
If fuel was £5 a litre what would anyone else do? Do you think that there would suddenly be a massive movement of jobs or more than likely a massive increase in unemployment.
I think that if it was the case the whole world would be up the creek.

People make the choices they make but to get on a high horse and spout all about we can all do it is nonsense.

[hubgearfreak]

Well done you and others like you but if everybody did that and went into low paid jobs where would we be, so get real.

errr. if we were only employed near home, then the well paid jobs near you would be vacated by the people who drive into your town/district. and your job miles away would be vacant for someone in that town/district. it'll all come to balance as the fuel goes up.

what about those who work near where I live? The vast majority travel into work from outlying areas .

i'm amazed if you really can't see a pattern?

[ianr1950]

Good grief Hubgearfreak, they are doing jobs that I can't do, we are not all experts at every flaming job.

It's nice to see you on the soap box in your little comfy world.

I do not profess to be as all high and mighty as others I live and work in the real world.

[Tom Richardson]

People make the choices they make but to get on a high horse and spout all about we can all do it is nonsense.

they make choices from the options available to them. its pointless complaining about those that aren't by picking on the unsustainable cost of traveling to a job that you would like but can't afford to get there.

Fuel will eventually cost £5 per litre and the world will be up the creek unless we plan and prepare for it. So far we seem to be dealing with it by pretending it won't happen and complaining about the consequences when it does

[ianr1950]

Well done you and others like you but if everybody did that and went into low paid jobs where would we be, so get real.

errr. if we were only employed near home, then the well paid jobs near you would be vacated by the people who drive into your town/district. and your job miles away would be vacant for someone in that town/district. it'll all come to balance as the fuel goes up.

what about those who work near where I live? The vast majority travel into work from outlying areas .

i'm amazed if you really can't see a pattern?

So a job I can do will become available where I live if I stop commuting into work and the job that someone comes to near my home will be one I can do and mine is one he can do.

Don't make me laugh.

[workhard]

Well done you and others like you but if everybody did that and went into low paid jobs where would we be, so get real. It's great that your elderly father lives with you but I am not in a position to afford a house large enough to house 2 sets of parents who are both in their eighties.

I said lower paid not low paid - I still earn a decent salary and live a 'normal' lifestyle. Trust me, I live and work in the real world.

I disagree with your assertion that if something is difficult then you still have a choice, it doesn't always work out that way and you are left with only one choice however that is different to the choice you were able to make.

As I disagree with your assertion that because a choice is a tough one then it isn't really a choice. Let's agree to differ.

People make the choices they make but to get on a high horse and spout all about we can all do it is nonsense.

What does "people make the choices they make" actually mean? Does it mean if they fail to make a choice, or recognise than an opportunity to make one exists then it didn't really exist in the first place? If so that would be errant nonsense.

People fail to recognise that they have choices all the time but prefer instead to complain that some "other", their God, their priest, their employer, their local authority, their government, their family or their social or economic circumstances have disempowered them and they therefore have no choices. In some parts of the world that I've been to, like Zimbabwe, or Burma or Albania this is/was probably/possibly true. In the UK in 2008 I don't buy it.

[ianr1950]

What do you call lower paid as opposed to low paid. It is all relative so I can't see what you are comparing it to.

Sometimes the situation is such that you can only go down one path and it doesn't only apply to countries other than the UK in 2008.

[pigman]

Its a good debate, but a bit polarised and getting personal. it all depends what your commitments you have. At one extreme, if youre single, no extended family and do a fairly average job, the decision is easier. At the other extreme, a parent with extended family and with more than one householder in key jobs will find it tough. Theres more to it than selling the second BMW and forgoing the carribean holiday.

The big problem trying to argue the £5/litre issue is that it creeps up. So if its an increase of 10p this week, you arent going to make massive lifestyle changes this saturday. Same next, and the next. If on the other hand it jumped to £5 or £10 this week, then you might. Until we reach breaking point, people in general arent going to anything. maybe they should, but commitments mean that people will firefight till theyre broken. At break point you have 2 options
1. Stay in your current job and move house - highly emotive
2. Live where you are and find local employment - highly costly

In terms of the geographical redistribution idea suggested by Hubbers, then he's right ... but ... its going to take years (poss decades) before the equalisation has taken its course. The only way that it could possibly be achieved fairly quickly would be for the govt to issue an instruction that no-one is to be employed at their workplace if its more than 10 miles from home at a certain date and if it facilitated job swaps etc.

[Sares]

A mortgage sounds more like a millstone than anything else, making choices far more difficult. I'm quite relieved that I don't have one. I'm not independently wealthy, I rent. I've been told that's foolish, but it leaves me with some options.

[workhard]

The big problem trying to argue the £5/litre issue is that it creeps up. So if its an increase of 10p this week, you arent going to make massive lifestyle changes this saturday. Same next, and the next. If on the other hand it jumped to £5 or £10 this week, then you might. Until we reach breaking point, people in general arent going to anything. maybe they should, but commitments mean that people will firefight till theyre broken. At break point you have 2 options
1. Stay in your current job and move house - highly emotive
2. Live where you are and find local employment - highly costly

why not...

3. Change your job/career and move house - highly effective

or is that not a real choice?

My fear is thousands will firefight until well beyond the point where their futures are broken beyond fixing but then they will claim, as some do already, that the state must then intervene and assist them or bail them out and reduce fuel and other taxes, provide subsidies, nationalise the bankrupt banks, etc., etc..

It seems many are happy to live according to the market on the upswing but want the state to intervene or control things on the downswing

[workhard]

If a mortgage is the millstone you describe it as, ianr1950, such that it leaves you with absolutely no choices whatsoever, I'm very, very glad that I don't have one!! I'm not independently wealthy, I rent. I've been told that's foolish, but at least it leaves me with some options.

Home ownership and 'cheap' credit aka running the risk of being in debt beyond your ability to repay it have to be some of the canniest pieces of social engineering ever mis-sold to the UK public.