Malcolm Armsteen wrote: ↑Mon Aug 04, 2025 7:46 pm Teaching in an inner-city school in the 80s was often pretty grim as industry closed or went abroad and Tory councils cut spending to the bone. As was trying to bring up a family on ever-eroded wages whilst we watched our national assets (including North Sea oil revenues) pissed up the wall. A shit period.The one plus point was that there was still a sense of community. Everyone seemed to have either been unemployed or knew someone who had been and they knew it could happen to anyone. If you had the money to go into a pub for a pint, get talking to someone and and mention you were on the dole chances were you'd have your next pint bought for you. Say it now and you'd get a sneer about how they were paying your benefits.
I hate to say it, hatchet job as this op-ed is, bu[…]