Yay! Looks like Child Benefits are next on Dave's hitlist...

[cupcakesandbunting]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11009535

Speculation, my bum. We all know what's coming, Dave.

Something will happen and it won't be great for those in the poorest brackets.
I do believe though that there is a lot of sense in paying CB for the first two children only, which I know has been mooted more than once.

It does talk about "freezing" child benefit rather than stopping it altogether. Which is some comfort I suppose. Beter than ending it completely.

why can't politicians just be fucking honest? Ever?????

absolutely!
once again only the vulnerable everyone will suffer! what ho!

It makes me mad that they seem to assume that people use their CB for extra's or save it.

My cb pays for my food shopping every week.

We will be fucked if they're means testing as we earn just about £45K, but we're still broke each month and CB goes towards essentials rather than bloody Boden knitwear, like Dave & Co assume.

At the rick of sounding juvenile; I hate, hate, HATE him. :)

*risk

Well, he does think that he's middle class (despite having £30mn or whatever), so he's coming from a rather different viewpoint.

It's just a pity that being MC does not necessarily mean that you have £30mn and a house in Notting Hill.

Didn't they do this in Ireland? There was all talk about scrapping child benefit but when the government reduced it by 10% everybody was relieved?

How does £45k compare to the average family income in the UK?

We would definitely be classed as MC if it were an income based judgement being made. But this month, for example, we can't afford to do a bog food shop until next week, so am being creative with what we have in Admittedly this is an unusually bad month for us but we rarelt have any spare cash at the end of the month. We aren't bad at budgeting but bills/food/essentials eat the vast majority of the income.

Still, I'm sure that there are some poor people much worse off than me so mustn't grumble and all that. I'm just a bit smug disappointed that old Dave has turned out to be the duplicitious little twat that I said he would be.

Cupcakes, we are in the same boat. I lost my job last year, and the cb makes all the difference between sinking or swimming

I think the winter fuel allowance should be means tested. I have a relative with close on half a million in the bank and she gets this benefit!!

I wouldn't have much of a problem if the universal benefits were made taxable. That would be much better than means testing which would be very expensive to administer and result in lots of people not claiming.

Cupcakes, you bring in 'just about 45K' and you are here moaning about CB??
Unblievable.

Um I thout that they were just freezing CB for the next 3 years?

That they said that ages ago?

This is what people vote for

great well our income is about £26k before tax which seems to put us in the bracket where we earn too much to get anything, DH is self employed and his wage is just getting lower and lower as they know that they will work for a pittance rather than be out of work

If they reduce our child ben we won't be able to afford to eat unless we go bankrupt is what we were trying to avoid

this details the average wage BUT those statitistics are skewed as they do not include people who do not pay PAYE, so self employed, contractors, etc who could be amongst the highest earners.

We rely on child benefit too and our wage is similar to cupcakes

I cannot see how someone with a 30m fortune can be a normal middle class person, mind you i class myself as working class anyway

I bet it will be scrapped for top rate tax payers, and rightly so I suppose. I hope they actually limit it to the first 2 children only for children born in the future.

I think the people who are on the cusp at 23k upwards are going to bear the brunt of most of it tbh alices :( It is very worrying

I must be dense - I thought they already announced just after they got in that CB would be frozen anyhow????

The only relevant thing though is disposable income, assuming you dont have a massive mortgage on a mansion, its what you have left after roof over head and bills that roof over head generates as to whether you are "allowed" to moan or not (yes, of course excluding those in houses larger than they need)...

Means-test Winter Fuel Payment now. Link it to Pension Tax Credit. We have a pal who gets £27,000/annum, that's just his works pension, final salary. Has no mortgage. Swans around travelling like no one's business as he's only 62. This guy does not need an extra £260/annum. They use it to go on holiday some more whilst we rack up debt trying to keep our children warm.

Scrap the bus passes, too, means test those as well.

I don't see how it's anymore expensive than means-testing stuff like leisure centre membership. You go into an office to get a bus pass. So make the person demonstrate being in receipt of state pension at least rather than just a free for over 60s. Show proof of drawing a state pension and/or pension tax credits.

NOW, not 10 fucking years from now.

I'm getting pretty fecking fed up of subsidising rich pensioners.

Who cares if they 'paid into the system' all their lives? We all do. Anyone who works does, and we'll be working far far longer than these boomers.

They did Toccata - I was expecting this article to say something new but it hasn't

Tis a Dave bashing opportunity.

Winter fuel allowance should definitely be means tested.

Interesting series on radio 4 at the moment with Alvin Hall about how the babyboomer generation have done so well with property/pensions and basically shafted our and future generations.