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.

That's the thing Alouise , you had the choice to do that, presumably as your DH earns enough to support you. You shouldn't be impatient of other women who are not as lucky as you, imo. You don't understand their circumstances.

We earn 75k between us, and we struggle to make ends meet. True story. We literally cannot afford to have our first child. It makes me very confused how people survive on less and more than a bit

Teachers doctors and firefighters should be paid a bloody salary by the government the sodding government that are paying them, taxing them then giving some of their tax back. It's a joke they should be paid properly in the first place. The money all comes from the same pot.

Like louise I do wonder where it all went awry. When I first had my children tax credits didn't exist we just got CB, nor was there a minimum wage. Then someone had a good idea to pay a load of people to take tax off you and then give it you back. And tax credits is such a misnomer - you get them whether you pay tax or not.

Well I guess you should tell the swathes of unemployed in Glasgow to relocate to Dubai, Singapore etc...

There is a benefits culture. A quarter of adults of working age are on long term sick.

But there are no jobs.

And wee Malky from Possil ain't gonna get on a plane to Hong Kong to become s property developer.

Bollocks, let's just sterilise poor people so they don't try and reproduce.

Wondered when the accusations of poor bashing would surface

FWIW, being poor and being on benefits are different things. You can have two people in a house working and still be poor, my best friend and her DH being an example. Of course I don't think that "poor" people should be stopped from reproducing! I think that people who rely on benefits as an income should stop reproducing.

Tax credits did exist ...family credit and child tax allowance have been around for years

That's a top question, cerys.

I don't claim CB actually.... but I'm not sanctimonious about it- can't say I've ever mentioned it in conversation with other people.

X years ago my FIL was able to afford a 5bed Victorian house on a teacher's wage. Not too different in my own family actually, where my dad was an administrator and my mum never worked. Pretty different today. And x years ago there might not have been CB or CTC but there were equivalents, such as transferable tax allowances for married couples and mortgage tax relief. So a spurious argument at best. Unless we're going all the way back to the good ole Victorian era...

I'm a teacher - I took out a key worker mortgage at the height of property prices because as a couple of have to be earning under 60k to be eligible and we were about to go over that. It's a good deal - the govt own 30% of my house. However the mortgage is still astronomical, and on top we both have mountainous debt from studenthood and our wedding last year.

Basically we're paying for past mistakes, but we can't extricate ourselves as it's a 5 year mortgage.

Boring story but it means of my 2k a month, 1700 disappears before I see any of it :(

I'm abso-fucking-lutely desparate to reproduce but I can't, and don't even have the option of benefits - if only!

Yes usualsuspect but you had to be on a really low income to get them. Family credit was an in-work benefit and you had to earn less than £80 a week if my aged memory serves.

I don't understand why they are taking away from the poorest and not addressing the fact that for the wealthy life has changed very little.

I would suggest the public sector workers currently bleeding the country dry are working for HMRC.

To be fair, semicolon, the minimum wage has made hiring staff frightfully expensive.

As a nation, surely we need more children to be born, not fewer? How would capping CB at 2 children help that?

(as a PS to my previous post because I know people are nosy and I want to give a clear picture)

It's only a 2-bed semi-detached in a skanky commutable area outside London.

"Teachers doctors and firefighters should be paid a bloody salary by the government the sodding government that are paying them, taxing them then giving some of their tax back. It's a joke they should be paid properly in the first place. The money all comes from the same pot."

Eh? That's an answer to a question alright- just not the one I asked you Alouiseg.

You talked about market forces doing away with the need for unions and workforces moving to a different job or a different country if they didn't like the pay and conditions offered. What happens if all of the teachers/doctors/nurses do as you suggest and (in lieu of being able to change jobs here, being as pay and conditions are the same nationwide) and bugger off to other countries? Or are you assuming that the government would never offer anything less than the finest pay and conditions known to man?

isn't it funny though how on this thread you've got the middle income earners who "need" their CB - and then you've got posters saying that if you need the CB to have children you shouldn't have any.....

so what's it's one rule for them.... oh wait that doesn't work as some of those on the higher incomes say they can't survive without it either.

So - we know what we'll do - we're drag up the tabloid examples of 12 children families where they rely totally on the state......

I do claim cb but for 3 and a half years I could have claimed DLA for ds2. I didn't claim it, I didn't even claim for the blue badge.

Sanctimonious enough for you all?

...take me with you, toccata...

Hmmm, when governments start talking about 'the poorest in society' they rarely mean the working poor. If you only support people already on benefits (which is what they appear to be talking about) and take away help for those in employment, then how does that fit with the promise to stop people being reliant on benefits.

If you risk losing so much when you move back into the jobs market, especially if your wage is 'borderline' then where is the incentive, especially if you have a family depending on you?

Meanwhile, the bank executives and politicians who were so free with the country's money don't seem to be losing out .

tethers - you've nailed it!!! Solve 2 problems in one go - get rid of a shit load of immigrants (especially from the NHS) AND reduce the number of people needing to rely on government top-ups