Last night I watched a show on the jobs and salaries in the UK: What Britain Earns (the only link I could find. Amazingly, or typically, the BBC site search didn't show any results, yet Google managed this... on their site)
An engaging, if not very thorough romp by Dad/son team Jon and Dan Snow.
I think I was surprised just how many folk (like our family) were struggling along on not very much). Equally, the number in the super-bracket seemed pretty low, though the amounts were obscene.
Speaking of which, I was simply appalled that in a very healthy upper mid-level was some lady who makes a very tidy living keeping rich plonker's cupboards in order. Tellingly, one of these clients is an MP, which must suggest something is awry.
It was also brought home to me by a couple of other coincidental things. First up I was trying to score a bit of additional income online with a job as a rep for a US music agency. In a charming rejection (getting any feedback at all being a near zero chance in the UK) they also advised that in Portland a salary of £10k was perfectly good to enjoy a life in a flat with car and enough for 'fun'. Meanwhile I just caught a programme on emigration to to Australasia where the salaries are near half here, yet the quality of life (houses, etc) pretty much the other direction.
Plus I just can't get out of my head how things seem to be misrepresented, or skewed, especially by the media, here.
On BBC Breakfast the bouffant and blonde were chatting about ageism with the usual vastly representative cross-section of the UK population, namely a reporter and a paper columnist, and all around the sofa seemed to think popping £5k away for a quick nip and tuck and Botox was the norm.
What planet are these folk on?
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