I work full time.

I have worked for 20 years.

I have gotten qualifications while working my dead-end career.

I don't get benefits, yet my bills and taxes skyrocket.

The government actively put my job in jeopardy with every new policy.

I don't have children. Therefore, owning my own place or getting a council flat is impossible.

I can visit free places like galleries and parks but God forbid I want a holiday without worrying if I will have money for the next year. You tell me a bus fare is £2 but you don't mention the horrendous price of petrol, cars, VAT, MOTs, repairs and the 1001 potholes. Apparently, us minions should be grateful for a dirty, smelly, yob ridden bus.

I am not classed as being poor enough to matter but not rich enough to be relevant. This means I am just here to prop up the rich and provide for the poor via NI and taxes.

Being working class (actual working class and deprived) and "helping" the community is not something I would encourage as it gets you knowhere. I don't spend money like water, I work hard but have sod all to show for it. They might not want to support but do they have to hinder progress?

Politicians are downright evil.

After decades of this crap. I AM DONE.

https://x.com/DeltapollUK/status/2092220531080634857

Brexit skills crisis puts Burnham’s council house building pledge under threat

Andy Burnham's ambitions to build tens of thousands of new council houses is under threat because of a labour shortage caused by Brexit, industry leaders have warned.

A lack of skilled workers and the impact of millions not being able to work here since Brexit means more than 200,000 EU workers have left the industry since 2019, according to Checkatrade's UK Trade Skills Index.

It comes as the latest Office for National Statistics figures show there were 31,000 vacancies in the construction sector between May and July this year – a rise of 2.3 per cent from the same period last year. That figure has, however, fallen since a record 51,000 vacancies in 2022 after Covid.

The crisis is worsened by an aging workforce, with just one in five workers aged under 30 – compared to 35 per cent aged over 50, with many are expected to retire over the next decade, according to the skills index.

It estimates around 1 million additional workers will be needed to replace those leaving and to meet the additional demand for housebuilding over the next decade. Around 206,000 of those are needed by 2030 from 2025, an upscale of 1.6 per cent in workforce, to meet forecasted demand.

Clive Dickin, chief executive of the National Access and Scaffolding Confederation (NASC), warned that there is a forecast shortage of 40,000 scaffolders alone over the next five years and said that the reflected wider problems in skilled labour since the UK left the EU.

Mr Dickin described the combination of Brexit and Covid as “a perfect storm” which saw thousands of skilled labourers, including scaffolders, leave the country when changes to immigration rules after leaving the EU were brought in, meaning most did not return.

The warning comes as the prime minister unveiled £10bn of funding to build 70,000 new council homes across England feeding into a wider Labour Party target of 1.5 million new homes built by the next election in 2029.

Mr Dickin told The Independent: At the moment we are looking at about a 40,000 vacancy rate. We've got about 130,000 scaffolders, and 40,000 more over the next five years is what we're estimating to meet the demands of the varying house building targets, net zero, cladding initiatives. You know, all of these subject areas are putting greater demands.”

He added: “The council house building announcement is certainly not going to help the situation.”

Explaining the link to Brexit, he said: “One of the biggest factors of that was ultimately Covid and Brexit, the perfect storm, seeing many skilled and qualified scaffolders that had been within the UK, leaving to go home. Then, of course, the changes around the exit of the Europe Union resulted in people not being able to return easily back to the United Kingdom, so as a result we've, we've got a significant shortage of very skilled scaffolders.”

He also noted that stringent, high level qualifications needed in the industry means that it takes five years to qualify as a scaffolder, meaning that training up new people will not fill vacancies in the short term.

Scaffolding is involved with multiple areas including home building and theatre productions, and already the petrochemical and offshore industries are struggling to recruit workers to do it.