To think the level of state involvement many posters expect is bonkers?

I think that the reality is that due to big business and lesser bargaining power individuals do need a protective state. The reality is that many people are forced onto minimal hour contracts and are picked up and left off by large corporations. Quite frankly capitalism has never been has powerful as it is now and the need of people for state support is due to that. Business should be paying a proper wage and also remitting taxes to the counties in which that money is raised.

Services are crucial to support people because the alternative is more crime and overflowing prisons that already cost fortunes. I would rather put that money into education. If things carry on we will have riots in 20 years time and general lawlessness.

With the advent of A1 some people’s existence will be redundant and they will be on the rubbish heap.

So I think that all those on larger salaries can pay more tax as an uplift of 1% won’t hurt. But we need to create closer relationships with all other countries to stop the exploitation of different tax regimes by big corporate who seem to be running governments these days.

Haven’t RTFT but I agree. It’s like people are begging the state to have control over nearly every aspect of their lives. Bit North Korea-ish

If not, and you are allowed to continue in your council accommodation for years as you become increasingly affluent, like Bob Crowe, then of course we'll never have enough housing stock for those who need it.

We would if we stopped selling it off at knockdown prices. At least Bob Crowe didn’t buy his council property which would have taken it out of social housing use permanently.

I've seen people post on Mumsnet that they could afford to buy a house but prefer to stay in social housing - is this the right thing to do, in view of the chronic shortage of housing for people in real need?

Do you remember the case of the notorious RMT chief, Bob Crowe, who refused to move out of his London council flat even though he was on well over £100K (about 10 years back so you can add on inflation!).

The huge problem with social housing is: who is it for? If it's for people who cannot afford to rent or buy privately then that has one set of implications (and I would say moving on when your income increases is one of them).

If not, and you are allowed to continue in your council accommodation for years as you become increasingly affluent, like Bob Crowe, then of course we'll never have enough housing stock for those who need it.

I think that's the fundamental problem - we need to decide what it's for. My personal view is it's for those with no other options, and only temporarily.* Otherwise the whole ruddy country would need to be built over!!

*Yes, I know...how do you get the Bob Crowes of this world to move on? What would be the incentive, for some selfish people, to just stay on in their social housing indefinitely.

Well yes, you're absolutely right, but where is the profit for private investors in that?

Where I was brought up there was plenty of social housing (in the 50's, in a deprived area). However this wasn't just family houses but also smaller low rise or single storey accomodation for the elderly. This meant that elderly people who didn't need a full house could move from their home as soon as one of these units became available and they were happy to do so. Obviously this was immediately post-war and people did not regard a large social housing property as a home for life, but what they actually needed at that time.

There simply isn't enough social housing now to enable people to live in a property that is too large for them. I speak as one whose DIL's mother is still occupying a valuable Victorian 3-bed house (worth well over £1m) that the council would like to sell so that they could build or convert more accommodation for families.

I've seen people post on Mumsnet that they could afford to buy a house but prefer to stay in social housing - is this the right thing to do, in view of the chronic shortage of housing for people in real need?

For the billionth time, read the full thread for details of "toothbrush gate". It's not coming from lazy parents it was part of a suggested wider initiative by Keir Starmer to partly address the lack of affordable dental treatment across the board.

Quite the contrary, child benefit used to be universal, when I was little there were school dentists, opticians, not nurses etc. free school milk. I think we’ve left with Sweet FA for our taxes compared with my childhood. Plus those things were all preventative health care which saves a fortune in the long run.

Many people do care for their relatives - unpaid carers save the country billions of pounds.

But, many people now have children later and are expected to work longer, how does that work with having elderly relatives move in if they have significant care needs? What if the elderly relative refuses to move away from friends - many people have moved away from their home town - have to 'get on your bike' and go to where the jobs are, right?

I agree, the last primary school that my GD attended had multiple choice homework on her notebook. She didn't think about the answer, just pressed and had another go if she got it wrong. This sort of pointless homework doesn't achieve anything at all and the teacher has no idea of what she actually knows.
Our new primary gives well thought-out sheets for homework and we know that they are checked and marked. If she forgets to take it in we are reminded. The staff are continually assessing the childrens' work and know when they are not understanding or are falling behind.

"A government big enough to give you everything that you want is a government big enough to take away everything you have."

People want government support when it suits them and not when it doesn't.

We seem to have introduced a new daily mile at primary. Dd asked to wear trainers (no uniform) every day rather than sandals so I’m guessing it’s new

Do others have this?

Totally up for education on healthy eating etc including impact on teeth

I thibk pp are talking about a policy to actually brush teeth in classrooms

Yearly is too infrequent & i'm not suggesting any teacher physically brushes a child's teeth, unless that child comes to school with 2 broken arms.

Children get taught lots of things at primary school, inc biology, why can't it occasionally be included as part of this? why we have teeth, the importance in eating a healthy diet to protect them, how fillings are done, why they occur & prevention.

Parents should teach their children a whole range of things but many do not, schools and early years intervention are the only means of picking up these pieces.

I once went to a uk dental school, i was amazed at what i learnt about brushing, when to brush, the angle, never to rinse afterwards, flossing, types of food etc etc
i wish i'd known these things far earlier in life and my mum was very hot on the importance of regular brushing.

I think that the growth of IT in education also brings with it massive problems. Once, all you needed was a pen or pencil - not access to the internet and some expensive device.

Homework for young children should never involve IT - they can do that in school.

I've seen IT homework given to young children which basically teaches them nothing. Ask kids to print off a picture of say, Henry VIII and what do they learn? How to type into Google?

Ask them to copy a picture of him and label it and they learn much, much more. And it's more enjoyable.

Teachers are not a catch-all for lazy parenting. The more add on jobs teachers are expected to do the worse the teacher recruitment will be. Some teachers are expected to change a nappy already.

Totally. It's one thing to say that instruction about basic personal care might be necessary in some schools, but it shouldn't be the teacher's job to get physically involved. If deprivation is so severe, then a school nurse (or similar - a member of support staff trained to lead these sessions) needs to be there to do this.

Yes, it's about as likely as pigs flying, but I absolutely stand by the point that even if these interventions are necessary, they shouldn't be the responsibility of the teacher. Honestly, teachers are at breaking point just now and this type of expectation will be the straw that breaks the camel's back in terms of recruitment and retention.

And once you as a teacher accept the chore of teaching these parenting skills, you also end up with all the responsibility if things go wrong. You can just see parents having a go because their child needs a filling and 'the teacher was supposed to be looking after their teeth!" I can see it now.

Let teachers teach, or they'll all leave the profession.

@GPTec1 do you mean a yearly lesson or daily brushing?

Teachers are not a catch-all for lazy parenting. The more add on jobs teachers are expected to do the worse the teacher recruitment will be. Some teachers are expected to change a nappy already.

A lesson once a year (which is still done - at least it is in my child’s school) is not the same as expecting a teacher to brush 20-30 children’s teeth every day. Surely you can see that?

This is a good point. Also you weren't expected to provide your child with essential books and/,or a computer/tablet to do homework.
Sadly when food and heating are limited some kids are already dipping out and it's not the child's fault.

Why? we had tooth brushing lessons as children in the 60s at primary school & the importance of them.

Was just tacked on to a lesson now n then.

In an age of almost no nhs dentistry and so many children attending hospital for decay, its a good preventative.

We don't all have parents who behave as they should but you want the their children to suffer.

This is so over the top. Parents should be doing this.

We need more flats to prevent the countryside bring torn up for housing.

Nice flats, in a square to create a community, with a playground, outdoor space, allotments.

I agree, Gruffalo.

Although it sounds OK on paper, any idea of making people move from their large houses to smaller ones is just not going to work for all the reasons stated above.

Nice, low-rise flats are the way to go, or even better - that fantastic, genius invention of the Georgians and Victorians: good terraced housing, so that everyone gets a small front area and a back yard/garden - so important for young families, as well as for drying washing 'greenly'.

What a tragedy that so many were swept away after the war* and replaced with hellish high-rise blocks on bleak, windswept estates where, if you were a young parent you'd have to decamp down 20 floors to let your children play outside or abandon them to the dangers of playing unsupervised in the 'communal' areas below. Nightmare! So ill-thought out by privileged male architects (I bet you!) who'd swallowed the brutalist ideas of Le Corbusier whole. Idiots.

I blame the ideology which created these terrible estates for many of the social problems today. I think they destroyed communities and basically, communal spaces don't really work unless the local authority takes responsibilty - people don't look after them because they're not theirs, and they often become no-go areas with delinquency and drug debris.

I've seen so many documentaries etc about rehousing people after the war and these families were SO grateful and thrilled to have their new homes. People seemed to look after things then - they felt a sense of responsibility that's gone now, because we're told we shouldn't be grateful for anything - it's our RIGHT!!! Sounds OK as a political theory, but in practice it leads to the problems we're talking about here.

You only have to go on MN to know that so many people in social housing do not look after their homes, and councils have to step in, gut these places and re-fit them. I think that's the problem with social housing provision - it's one thing to invest the money to build them, but will tenants care for them (or even improve them, as they did in the past?).

*When I asked an architect about this, he loftily claimed that they were unfit for habition, but pressed further about what he meant, it turned out they mostly just needed bathrooms putting in.

"Social housing should always be temporary though. As soon as your children leave home you should be moved to a flat"

So disturbing and so ill thought out.

@Fairyliz

"Well I’m in my 60’s so been around a lot longer than most of MN and also worked in the public sector for 45 years.
Can you list all of these things that used to be provided because I can’t think of a lot?"

Schools:
Many more SEN schools & schools for disruptive kids.
School nurses/nit nurses
There were more schools so likely to be closer to home so more DCs could walk
School day was longer 9-4 when I was in primary
More extra curricular clubs attached to schools

Housing: council housing for all, bigger houses with spare bedrooms and highly subsidised
Sheltered housing for older people
More daycare for older people

Health:
2/3 week stay in hospital after birth
Home helps after birth
Disabled kids/adults were put in homes/hospitals and 'looked after' by the state rather than families
More health visitor appointments
Everyone had a nhs dentist & had free 6 monthly check ups
More availability of orthodontics for kids
If kids were ill they were kept in hospital for months rather than expecting mothers to care for them

Other:
More full time day nurseries
More third sector funding to provide other support services
Social security paid for mothers to stay at home without any need to look for work until the youngest was 16, with lone parent top up payment and home responsibilities protection so they were classed as still contributing to their state pension.
Social security paid full rent
MIRAS tax relief for home owners
More public libraries with longer hours
More community centres
Much more legal aid
Community care grants which gave £500 to homeless people to set up home
Budgeting loans to help with new job costs like clothes & transport
Much cheaper public transport costs due to more subsidising