These tea party people....

I agree with you. It is elitists who influence ordinary people into having less children. They can use the media to con the people into anything. They are the same elitists who really controlled and founded the green movement. They can con the people to believe anything. It's not really ordinary people's fault that they start spouting what elitists tell them. Start googling on the internet and you will find who advocates these policies politically and you may even find out who the elitists are who control these movements. It is the same mentality that allowed the Irish people to starve in the Potato Famine. It was elites then, and it is elites now. Except that now, the elites control the movements that con the public.

The other thread that you are referring to is not the only one where people are talking about children in those terms. it is all over the place.

And I don't know what that person#s politics is (on the other thread) but her posts make me feel extremely uncomfortable. Whatever she stands for it is most certainly not the same as me. Anyone who advocates restricting money for feeding children is not someone that I can have any truck with.

They most certainly are claig.

And the worst thing is, that this new regime is already bringing out the worst in people. Otherwise pleasant people are suddenly talking about the need to stop providing for children born to large unemployed families. There is a change in the air, and it is for the worse. Every man for himself, people are starting to behave differently out and about.

they aren't. Look at the thread that you recently replied on. It was not a right winger. Read up about these eugenecists. Look into the green movement. Read Sir Jonathon Porrit's writings and you will see who wants to restrict family size and stop people having children. Look at who takes freedoms and civil liberties away and who restores them. Look at who has a controlling, bullying nanny state and who lets the people breathe and be free. Look at who is conning you and who is for real. The liars, cheats and spinners are very sophisticated, they know all the tricks about how to fool people.

complimentary please expand on what you mean by "He could not care less about this country or its people, that is why he and his pal Straw orchestrated the multicultural society that does not exist."

claig on MN the people who talk about others "breeding" are conservative / other right wing people who are explaining why the benefits cap is the right thing to do.

complimentary, like you, I am no fan of Blair and the last government. I was taking the mickey about Blair's heart. Does he have one?

To be honest I'd rather have millionaires in power, who are not easily bought, than "cabs for hire" like some of the ex-Labour ministers. Have you noticed that most people who talk about "breeding" are left-wingers and greens? Good churchgoing people dpn't say things like that. The rightwing Catholic Church don't say disgusting things like that. It is the Sir this and that, the much applauded green gurus who talk about restricting the size of people's families.

These people are influential and we should always be on our guard for these people. The "don't expect us to feed your kids" was disgusting and may possibly have their fingerprints on it, or it may have been a diversionary tactic from the coming cuts. We should always be on our guard.

Claig 'more heart than Tony Blair' Tony Blair was a bastard (sorry but that's how many feel). He could not care less about this country or its people, that is why he and his pal Straw orchestrated the multicultural society that does not exist.This was done to help big business and create artificialy low wages, but forgot that schooling, housing, education would all be effected, and it was the poor who would pay. and to put his fingers up to Lord Snootys in the Tory party. That man did not have one ounce of patrotism in his whole body! He is the reason we sent our boys into Iraq, killing over 300 of them. He withdrew civil liberties from his own people, he must rate as one of the worst politicians this country has ever seen. The labour party was the worst politically for many years. The labour party brought in laws that
criminialised young people (as young as ten) for name calling, under the hate crimes policy. Straw wrote to every mosque in the country and told them vote for us and we will bring in hate crimes. At least the coalition will go some way to give us back civil liberties, and also the pride we once had in this great country.

I know conservative voters, my in-laws are daily mail reading tories, they are good and kind churchgoing people. But they do have a bit of an edge suddenly when you talk to them about certain things. The usual, daily mail things.

I am a bit surprised that you think that people who are already millionairres have no interest in enhancing their wealth further. In the expenses scandal all of the parties came off badly. The extremely wealthy were milking the system with all the enthusiasm of the less wealthy. The rules allowed it, so I'm not surprised they took advantage. Very few came out clean.

The liberals in the coalition don't seem to be tempering things much so far.

I am honestly dismayed at the benefits cap. And then the giving of that money to people with no need. I will never understand that approach. I can't understand why people support it. They talk of "scroungers breeding" as if they are animals. It is real actual people who are going to be affected, and if people can't bring yourself not to loathe them, can't they see that the real people being punished are the children? Why don't people care? You can't convince me that they do, because they don't. There have been threads on here saying that "scroungers" who "breed excessively" should have their children removed. Not much compassion there. And not very cost-effective either.

Don't forget that there are Liberals in the Coalition. It is not a coalition of swivel-eyed rightwing maniacs as progressives like to paint it.

Michael Gove is a good person. He was adopted and knows that he has been lucky in life. Here is the progressive, Michael White, of the Guardian, saying that Gove's plans to give a leg-up to poor children is worth a try

www.guardian.co.uk/politics/blog/2010/sep/14/michael-gove-leg-up-poor

I never used to like Gove, but after giving him a fair listen, I am very impressed with him. I think he has integrity and good intentions, something that has been very rare over recent years.

These politicians are not monsters, they realise that they have a duty to serve the people and the country. Many of them are already millionaires, they're not in it for property portfolios and book deals as others were.

Conservative voters are your neighbours and people who serve you in shops. The largest proportion of votes cast were for the conservatives. They are good people, people who believed that the progressives were wrong and had harmed the country. They wanted to try something new.

Cameron, Osborne, Gove, Clegg et al. aren't monsters. They are trying their best. There are monsters out there, there are eugenecists who really do think that they are superior to the public in the street, and they really are uncompassionate, but they hide it under a caring, compassionate exterior. You won't find many of them amongst Tories. It would surprise you where you would find them.

I dunno claig. I've had a sad day today, and maybe it is colouring my view. I hope that your ideas of a wealthy and compassionate utopia with excellent universal healthcare, and loads of jobs and prosperity for everyone comes to pass. But I don't think it will, the first announcements (based on ideology rather than need ie take from the "bad" to reward the "good" so very little in the way of actual savings) point clearly that this govt will have standard right-wing ethos at it's heart.

I really hope I'm wrong, but I feel in my heart that I'm not. I honestly believe that children are going to suffer terribly, and worse. That the poorest in society will be punished for the misfortune of being born on the "wrong side of the tracks" and that the people born into wealth will be richly rewarded for their stunning good luck.

I don;t know what to do with myself TBH.

I'm glad you don't vote Labour. I hope this government will be more compassionate than Tony Blair was.

No government is perfect, as we saw with the last lot. This one won't be different in that respect. But painting them and their supporters as monsters who lack compassion and revel in the suffering of people in need is a caricature.

Huhne has said that they may have to go easy on the cuts if the recession worsens. They are talking tough to reassure markets that they will be able to pay back the debt. But they will ease up and help people who are suffering. They are not heartless people. We may even find that they turn out to have more heart than Tony Blair.

Why are you talking about Iraq? i abhor what happened with Iraq, and what continues to happen there. That's why i don't vote labour.

If the govt are so compassionate then why have they disconnected benefit for families from need for the first time since the formation of the welfare state, and given the money saved to people who mostly don't need it, married couples. AFAIK being married does not in itself attract a cost, having children does. Yet they take the money from the poorest children in society, and hand it to married couples - including wealthy pensioners, childless couples, lords, millionnaires etc.

It;s just wrong, I don;t understand how anyone can say otherwise.

'I honestly believe that families will be on the streets and people will die because of what the government are doing, and I know that many of you will be filled with a sense of utter self-satisfaction when that happens.'

Are you talking about Iraq? Does your compassion extend there?

Anyone who thinks government supporters (who elected the Coalition into power) "will be filled with a sense of utter self-satisfaction" when "families are on the streets and people die due to government policies" has a very low opinion of people, and believes that these people have no compassion, and that compassion is a quality that only they themselves possess.

The government will not let that happen, they are good people. They have ringfenced health and they will support the vulnerable. they are not the inhuman, uncompassionate monsters that progressives like to portray them as. They gave the people their civil liberties back (which were taken away by the progressives) and they will sort out the financial crisis.

I don't vote labour BTW I don't know why that has been asserted on here.

Why do you think I think I am superior. I am nothing of the sort. I just don't want to see the welfare state smashed so that children suffer, and the NHS privatised at huge cost and slowly dismantled.

There's no going back from what is going to happen to the NHS, I think we need to say goodbye. I think we also need to say goodbye to the notion that children in the UK should have a minimum standard of living, and a whole raft of other things.

I find the whole thing so utterly depressing it makes me cry. All this triumphant gloating over the removal of benefits from the poorest in society, the calls to tax less and cut even further, move to an american system where many millions are without even basic healthcare provision.

Continue to support all sorts of regimes around the world who torture their citizens daily, so that we can profit.

There is no compassion in extreme right wing politics. It's a harsh regime of sink or swim, and no-ones going to offer you armbands. It's what we have coming in this country. I honestly believe that families will be on the streets and people will die because of what the government are doing, and I know that many of you will be filled with a sense of utter self-satisfaction when that happens.

LibDems used to represent the middle groung Claig, but TBH I'm not sure what they stand for any more.

'I wish there was a party that would claim the middle ground.'

It sounds like you are 'for a fairer Britain'
and have had enough of 'playground politics'. I think you should look at the policies of the leader who promised 'four steps to a fairer Britain'.

He's honest as the day is long, fair as the moon is bright, he's Nick Clegg alright.

www.libdems.org.uk/news_detail.aspx?title=Four_steps_to_a_Fairer_Britain_says_Nick_Clegg&pPK=800fa58c-5bc9-45d3-8b58-32b93d5c2e96

Slug gave two definitions of 'fair'

"If I earn it I should be able to keep it".

"If you earn more you should contribute more to the upkeep of those less fortunate than you"

Why is the debate so polarized? I find this in real life. Do I support the tories (well the coalition) in encouraging individual enterprise but shrinking the state massively with the problems that brings, or labour who want a huge welfare state that provides for all whilst removing individual self determination and the incentive to work hard? I wish there was a party that would claim the middle ground.

I'm with Litchick on wanting individual freedoms but I'm willing to pay my way in taxes, and I would absolutely hate to lose the NHS but I'd be happy to see some of the functions that the state provides less effectively be privatised. Sorry to go off on a tangent...

Oh I don't doubt it.
I just think that culturally, the Americans are more hard wired to question state interference, whereas we seem to expect, nay, demand it.

The attack on Home Education summed it up for me.

That is exactly why the Americans fight for freedom and the right to home educate and all the other things they fight for. They know that big government wants to jab their kids. If there was nothing wrong in America, then the Americans wouldn't fight and there would be no need for movements like the Tea party.

Ah, but Litchick, you should read the American anti-vacc boards, where Americans have to fight with their schools as well as their paeds about not having to get their kids jabbed.

Or Yanks who have to fight to be allowed to hang their washing out (see Riven's thread).

I couldn't register for Uni classes in California until I got a measles jab.

And you try being a leading American politician who is also openly gay. The Land of the Free is not half as free as they think they are...

Slug - I also think the Americans in general cleve far more to their ingherent freedoms than we do as a nation.

Even a very ordinary person with no real day to day interest in politics in the States seems to hold certain freedoms very dear.
They want to raise thier families, educate them etc as they see fit.
Even leftish leaning politicians don't seek to undermine a family's right ot self determination.

We are far more state centric here. For example, I have heard so many people ask if Home education is legal in the UK. As if this is something only the state should be allowed to do and they can't quite believe some parents are allowed to take a different course with their own families.

Whern Ed Balls began his attack on HEers, most of the country just shrugged. The fundemental right to educate your own child seemed of little interest to them.

Well said, Slug.

It is about fairness. It is about elites and fatcats awarding themselves huge salaries out of the public purse. It is about a public body like the BBC paying many of its presenters over £1,000,000 a year and Jonathan Ross, who was paid in the region of £6,000,000 a year, while pensioners, who had paid all their lives, were going blind due to lack of medicines costing in the region of £10,000 a year. Is that fair?

Is it fair that people should die because of the postcode that they live in and the fact that this determines whether they can get life-saving drugs, while millions of taxpayers' money is wasted? Sir Philip Green has said that he will be able to save £20bn and not axe a single job, by reining in government waste. Is it fair that nanny state bureaucrats should have wasted taxpayers' money in that fashion?

We all want more spent on health and education, but we want the waste reined in, the fatcats cropped, the bloated bureaucrats reined in and the peoples' money spent wisely and in the interests of the public. There is a lot of talk about spongers, but little is said about the sponge of big government and how they soak up taxpayers' money and waste it.

We need effective management of public bodies and we need people like Sir Philip Green to review wasteful expenditure. The people count and it's only fair that the peoples' money counts.

We saw the cavalier way in which MPs spent the people's money on porn movies, bath plugs, home flipping and kitchen refits. That wasn't fair. We need accountability and transparency. We are all for sharing with the people, but not for sharing out huge portions to fatcats.

The Tea Party don't trust their fatcat elites, straight out of Harvard, followed by jobs at think tanks, to appreciate and spend wisely the money that they take in tax. That's why they have huge support, because millions agree with them, they think that they are Taxed Enough Already.