Question to people aged 40+

I finished university at the height of the Thatcher cuts in the early 1980s. I was unemployed for two years with my shiny new science degree. If you listen to 'Ghost Town' by The Specials it will give you some idea of the zeitgeist. The 2008 financial crisis was a mere blip compared to the misery of the early Thatcherite era, the later 'Loadsamoney' boom, which only really put money in the hands of London stock market traders, tends to overshadow the dire earlier period for those who did not live through it. My wife was at school with Nick Leeson a derivatives trader whose speculative trades resulted in the 1995 collapse of Barings Bank. In its effect on ordinary people 2008 was chickenfeed in comparison to Thatcherism. She sold off the national 'family silver' which we are still dealing with the consequences of, with bankrupt water companies who have not invested in infrastructure, a not fit for purpose prison and probation service, disarticulated rail system, non-existent rural bus services etc. etc.

Certainly a bad time to graduate back then, there was fierce competition for what few job vacancies that there were.  I felt that I would have been better off if I had just left school and got a job rather than spending three years at university (while the unemployment rate soared).  My father didn't understand as he had not known such difficult times to get work but my grandparents did as they lived through the tough economic times of the 1930s.

Certainly a bad time to graduate back then, there was fierce competition for what few job vacancies that there were.  I felt that I would have been better off if I had just left school and got a job rather than spending three years at university (while the unemployment rate soared).  My father didn't understand as he had not known such difficult times to get work but my grandparents did as they lived through the tough economic times of the 1930s.