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.

Gordon Brown and co didn't know their CfD's from their CDO's!

They had the wool pulled over their eyes and allowed debts to be hidden and carried forward to prop up balance sheets. It was a game of smoke and mirrors that the govt was complicit in to avoid the dreaded "bust" which the economy needed. Which is why housing is so expensive.

Arf snoozathon

cupcakes - possibly in this Big Society you won't need childcare as your local community will rally round and look after the dcs for you?

We couldn't afford the benefits, we couldn't afford to bail out the banks.

Maybe the country Is broke because it's stocked to the gills with people who have no idea how the economy works and just want the govt to act like mummy and daddy and dole out money to them.

Right. So, to surmise- the country has been brought to its knees by benefit claimants bailing out the banks and pulling the wool over Gordon Brown's eyes?

Sheesh. They're more powerful than I thought.

Ok Alouise, if the country is full of people clueless about the economy, what's a solution to that? Funding for education projects related to economic well-being in our poorest areas perhaps?

No, I think it's to give tax breaks to higher earners or something?

It's a myth that we have a massive benefits bill anyway, perpetuated by the Telegraph, Mail and the Express.

The UK spends a lower percentage of it's GDP on benefits than Italy, Greece and Poland for goodness sake! We give less to benefit claimants than the US or Australia. I don't understand how the media get away with perpetuating the myth that we are paying a larger than reasonable bill.

We are 14th in the OECD index of developed countries in terms how percentage GDP we spend on benefits. If you accept the welfare state as a moral good thing then I'm not sure why there are so many people complaining about it. I think we do pretty well in the UK.

tethersend - certainly the fathers should support them...but the knowledge that the state will do so regardless means that, lacking in morals just as they do in achievement, they can continue to impregnate as many women as they wish.

2 things should be noted here - the law of unintended consequences (i.e. paying those at the bottom of society's ladder ever more to 'lift them from poverty' does not work, and simply compounds the problem)...the other is that of people responding to financial incentives.

If we pay people to have children, they will do so.

If we pay people not to have jobs, they will not have them.

Benefits recipients that see multi-parent families, wherein no-one works, as a legitimate lifestyle choice have been deluded and let down by the very people that claim to care for an represent them - namely, the liberal left.

I've spent a bit of time reading the Lone Parents or Relationships boards - which are full to the brim of examples of the lunacy into which we have pushed ourselves - the broken homes, the men that fck and then fck off.

I genuinely believe the current system to be akin to abuse. The welfare state is beautiful in concept, yet wicked in practice.

Glad to see you have admitted your mistake and changed 'women' to 'people'.

BA, we've argued this to the death on a previous thread. If you remember it, go back and have a browse to save us doing it all over again

Snoozathon - ha ha ha

This is what arguing with a leftie looks like:

"There are social problems that lead to unhappiness, crime, drugs and teen pregnancy"

Leftie: "Yes! We should spend more money, and then more, and then yet more! That will work!"

"Ok, but haven't we been doing that for decades and things are simply getting worse?"

"Exactly! We should spend even more - including on those people who actually don't need it!!"

"But isn't that a bit of a waste? Shouldn't try something else?"

"NO! Fascist!!"

if you don't "pay" people to have children - they'll still have them

if you don't pay people not to have jobs - they'll still find a way to sponge off others...

I know very very few "multi-parent families" where no-one works.

I do know of several families (in RL) where the mother became a single parent and later remarried and had more children with their new DH (who works - or in one case did work until they were made redundant a month or so back)

Yes of course these multiple parent families that don't work exist - but in nothing like the numbers that some people suppose they do

"the next generation of "workers/contributors" should come from those that can afford to raise them without a specific subsidy"
Fucking hilarious, the next generation will be subsidizing the generation currently aged 40+ until they bleed.
Labour thought rightly or wrongly the way to spread the load was to encourage middle class educated people have babies, so there would be more working people to support the aging population. With that comes the odd disaster of families of 10 to support.
Has somebody not already said this 11 pages ago.
We all did the maths before we had children and those of us with kids under 10 factored in CB and in many cases tax credits.

My boy is 3 months old so we haven't had it for long, (and we haven't even managed to get Tax Credits yet), I have no idea if I will be allowed back to work part time, my other half earns 24k if I do work thats going to be less then 5k a year anyway.

CB pays for my boy, I've worked it all out, at the end of every week we have £8 of it left over which gets saved for his clothing, new dummies etc and toys.

I think the rotten Tories think people use it on booze and fags, I'd be happy for it to be means tested too many people say they are struggling who have Sky TV and Cars they don't need, struggling because they have things they deem as essential which are actually luxuries, no one living in a big city needs a car.

But means testing must take into account things like rent and council tax in your area not just the amount you get paid, we pay £800 a month in rent on a one bed flat, if we lived elsewhere we could have a mortgage on a house for half that and be able to afford a deposit, means testing is fine as long as it is done right taking everything into account in the area you live.

depends on your job as to whether you need a car.....even if you live in a big city

I think scrapping CB would cause a national uproar, people should protest in a similar way they did when the poll tax was introduced. I think it should remain a universal benefit, why shouldn't better off people get it - they pay enogh in tax etc into the system. It is probably the onlything they get back? I am not saying this becasue we are rich - we live on a modest £20 K per year. Are we classed as MC? We get WTC and CTC to help with day care for our pre-school son. It will be the children who suffer....In one breath they talk of social mobility but how can this be achieved by restricting child benefits?

V. good point about weighting by area, Ryoko.

tethersend - everyone always seems to think house prices drop by 75% north of Birmingham, you have 3 bedroomed houses for sale in Birkenhead one of the poorest areas in the country, certainly not safe selling for £90,000. Mainly to landlords of course, but if you looked at the average wage their it would need to be weighted as much as London.

What dreadful spelling, please read it as though it's correct.

If we support and encourage people who are soley on benefits to have more children and those children see their family being looked after by the state what incentive is there for them to make any meaningful contribution - it will end up being a vicious circle, they will have children often very young and have no plans to work and it goes on and on......

Surely assessing against income and average cost of housing in the area would mean that it would be mama?

I hope so tether, but I bet it doesn't happen.
The watford gap is where life ends according to many.

Rocky12 stop reading the Daily Fail, it's only a very tiny percentage of very smart people who work the system the majority of people want to get somewhere in life.

I was brought up on a estate the main problem isn't that everyones life is so comfy on benefits they never want to leave, it's fear, fear that there living standards will drop if they get a job, fear they will not be able to pay the Council Tax, Rent, Bills, Travel, Food etc on the NMW, thats not because benefits are too high in this country it's because the NMW is far, far too low.

The fact you can be in full time employment in this country and still need housing benefit and other help to get by is a testament to the stupidity of Government and how much they value the working people of this country, it can not go on, something has to give.

it's an endless circle, a catch 22, more people need benefits because everything is too expensive and tax is too high, tax needs to be high to give everyone benefits and keep roofs over working peoples heads, if it wasn't for the benefits system this country offers we would be like third world nations with shanty towns of people working full time and living in glorified sheds.

Ryoko. I don't dispute that being brought up on an estate where there appears to be little hope of gaining a decent standard of living. What annoys me is people that are already living off taxpayers, then think it's OK to have a child, paid for by the taxpayer??