Ed Balls forgets to engage brain

Okay we agree on correlation but BEFORE you make policy you have to demonstrate causality. The onus shouldn't be on me to prove something that I find dubious. Should be the other way round!

Indeed, you are denying any suggestion of causality with the same skill as a Phillip Morris' attorney.

I am sorry but you are suggesting causality; I am not. But I would suggest that the independent variable could be something like having a loving mother and father.

But unless you disclose the confounders I will go away thinking you are burying your head in the sand.

MmeBlueberry- can I say that you are also funny . I think it is easy to observe correlation but proving causality needs a bit more analysis or control study.

It is important though not to conclude causality as this can be dangerous?

Sorry, that last comment was mean of me.

I was wondering, what confounders are preventing you with equating (to a reasonable confidence interval) correlation with causality in this case?

You are too funny, diddy

MmeBlueberry - you are missing the point that I am making about the important distinction as to whether it is mostly stable couples choosing marriage or whether marriage itself makes couples stable. I am sorry but you have to do that regression to work out whether marriage is the underlying cause or whether it is just another effect of couple stability.

I agree with Ed Balls.

Why should someone who is widowed or a single mum not get the benefit whilst someone who is married is better off?

Thats not fair.

I would qualify for £150 a year based on our family income of just over £30k and the fact that I only work part-time.

My sister in law - who works full time and earns just over £20k to support her daughter - would not qualify as she is divorced after her partnet left her for another man.

However if he and has partner become civil partners they would qualify.

It seems to me to be a completely unreasonable policy.

Also - how do the Conservatives think it will make people stay in marriages? No-one who is not in love with their partner would stay in a marriage for the sake of a £150 a year tax break.

Even if they increased it to a higher level then that would just increase the inequality and unfairness. It might persuade some people to stay married for the sake of a 'tax advantage'.

It seems ludicrous to me that the Tories talk about wanting to support marriage but all their policy could possibly do is promote loveless partnerships if it was extended further.

Although I agree that the Tory marriage bribe is bloody nonsense, I have always had a problem with Ed Balls as I think he looks just like Buzz Lightyear.

You can bury your head in the sand all you like, TDiddy.

It doesn't actually matter about causation. Experience shows that marriage is more successful than cohabitation. There are planty of hypotheses as to why this is so. I'm sure if you were of a mind to it, you could plow through many studies and do a meta-analysis which would confirm what is basically common sense.

There are important elements that are in abundance in marriages, that are less so in co-habitations. Of course, some co-habitations are marriages without the paperwork, but most aren't, and some marriages are more akin to co-habitations. When you are dealing with people, there are many grey areas.

Having stable family units is a good thing, and marriage increases the odds of families sticking together.

The main purpose of a taxation system is clearly to raise revenue, but a secondary purpose is to influence behaviour. I am glad that I live in a country where this happens as I like to choose for myself whether to do one thing or another - much better than to have the latest government whim dictated by law. We are not in a police state and we should be thankful for this blessing.

Madge5 - good points. The social scientists could do far better key factor analysis than married vs unmarried but that wouldn't win as many votes.

It's the Tories this time but they all do this lazy sort of policy making because that is what catches the eye. Hard graft politics doesn't win votes. Simple as that.

Quattrocento - good point about having allowances attached to the children.

MmeBlueberry - you may be correct but, I must say that you should not be tempting into thinking that the correlation of two factors means "causation". It is possible, even likely, that you are comparing biased samples: So, possible that on the whole, those who are committed and less "likely to run" are the ones who sign up to marriage in the first place...so it may not be marriage that is doing the trick but the nature/outlook of the people who sign up for marriage.

These are generalisations so I do not want to offend unmarried folk but I am saying that it is annoying that politicians use statistics dishonestly to grab headlines.

This is very dishonest if not irresponsible. I think that there should be better more direct ways of encouraging responsible parenting. But this is about sending signals to the middles classes to get their votes. Pure and simple.

More single parents come from cohabiting relationsips than fom married ones. Marriage is more likely to succeed than cohabitation. Married people are less likely to run at the first sign of trouble.

This policy is born out the simplistic analysis that married couples are better for children etc. But no one has provide that there is "causation behind this correlation". That is, how do we no that the marriage instution is the CAUSE of stable, happy household.

Understood but from another perspective you could say the idea is "further stigmatise single parenthood". Many single parents don't choose to be single.

There must be better ways of rewarding responsible parenting.

The point of the policy is to elevate the status of marriage - to encourage and normalise marriage within our society, in line with what other countries do.

The amount of money is token at this time because the country is broke, but there will be scope for expanding it as the economy improves under Tory management.

Children are recognised in the tax system - it's call Child Benefit.

I think the idea that people will get married for a 150 tax break is what is most barking mad? However much, I don't warm to Ed Balls, we have to blame the Tories for this one?

"Ed Balls forgets to engage brain"

err, what brain?

Of course EB is, for example ...

They are lunatics all these politicians. It is not the wives or the husbands who should have transferable tax allowances. It's the CHILDREN. They have personal allowances from birth and have to pay tax should their income exceed the thresholds. It's their allowances that should be transferable to either parent ...

I am pretty sure his point was that people get married but don't always stay married because sometimes they marry fuckwits. Why should they and their children be penalised and treated differently because they are single just because their marriage broke up through no fault of their own, as would be the case if a man became violent towards his spouse.

He used a bad example to try and explain how tax breaks for married people discriminates against the unmarried, including those who choose not to be married and those who once were married but for whatever reason are no longer married.

yes, anyone can re-marry and get the £150 benefit if they are earning under a certain wage but why should married people be rewarded for simply being married?

the only reason anyone would think extra money for being married was a good idea is because they believe marriage is better than cohabiting or being single. It's a reward for doing what they think is a good thing and it's strongly connected to the tory idea that a typical family with married parents is good, a 'broken' family is bad.

Actually, I see this policy as being an equaliser for the group of parents who currently miss out on govrnment support they would be entitled already if both parents worked or they were single.

And I say that as a single working mother, not as a married SAHM.

I personally don't think it should be judged on marriage though, living together as if you are married should be enough. But Labours current tax credit support does favour couples/individuals who do things the way Labour want: year off mat leave, back to work a min of 16 hours, use registered childcare.