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.

i claim my cb, have saved £3000 so far which is what my sons first years prep school fees are, I was saying that those in my situation don't need CB. will take while they give it but anyone who will be paying 50% tax doesn't need it (I would say anyone earning over £30k a year should pay less tax and not have to rely on the state to support them).

We have a public art display of fucking flowers next to the M8 which cost us Glasgow tax payers £1.3m.

What about these Private Finance Initiative schemes milking the tax payer with draconian contracts for cleaning and maintenance.

What about the city bankers getting paid tax payers money as bonuses for just doing their fucking job? Badly.

And they attack Child Benefit?

Grrrr

I do think that astronomical housing and childcare costs have fuelled the need for tax credits and mean that people have become reliant on them.

cleverlyconcealed ..the £40 a month basic tax credits was paid as tax relief in peoples wages as child tax allowance ..it is just administered in a different way now

Agree about PFI semicolon. Bloody rip off - the school I work in we can't change our own lightbulbs have to send for two men and a van FGS and pay for the privilege.

This amused me

Let's see...

£45k

after tax, £34K

Now pay childcare (about £24k)

You have 10k now

That's £830 per month to pay rent, buy food, clothes, all the contributions at the school gate, and so on...

£830 in the southeast will get you a 2 bed flat and nothing else!

Now, if there is no childcare cost, £45k paints a very different picture. WE need to staart subtracting the cost of childcare before we means test the working class. By "working class" I mean those who work.

I don't understand why anyone thinks parents should feel guilty for relying on CB.
It has been around (or it's counterpart) for over thirty years, its not a recently thought up bonus for parents.

DH and I earn about £20,000 between us. We've managed not to get into debt, we budget very carefully to keep paying the mortgage etc. But we do rely on cb to help with that, as did my parents 30 years ago.

Everyone lives to their means. My sister and her dh earn nearly £100,000 together, and still claim to be skint all the time

If cb does end up means tested, it'll probably be those single mothers of 12 who end up with the better end of the deal, so I'm not sure how that will help the system - all it will do is penalise the middle earners who pass on their hard earned wages to the taxman!

Strix, don't forget student loan repayments because you had to borrow in order to get qualified for that £45k job, and pension contributions because you cannot live off a state pension.

For me, these two things reduce my income by over £300 a month, and I don't earn anything near £45k.

Well, I ran out of money before I even got to the water bill so I figured my point was made.

And was made well. And there I come and gild the lily, eh?

'Can't you see that x years ago we didn't have or need "credits" to top up salaries. How did everyone manage then?'

People went without. If you didn't have it - you didn't have it. My Gran used to tell me stories from way back when, really interesting but a little bit sad at the same time. One story always stuck with me though, and it was about how when her and my Papa were short on cash, he'd just take a 'piece and butter' to work - nothing in his sandwiches. Don't know why, always made me feel a little sad hearing that.

I'm in the 'screwed if cb gets scrapped' camp. The 80 odd quid a month I get from it covers my monthly electric bill. Single parent, no financial help from muppet dad bla bla bla. Had Pneumonia in November, wasn't much fun. Wouldn't reeeeally like to have it again as a result of having no heating. Right lung's now permanantly damaged at the grand old age of 23. Be a bit of a shame if the left one was to go too - won't be able to flog it on the black market when finances do end up going royally down the crapper.

Still Dave, I hope you and your lungs are perfectly happy together in your lovely warm house, as you sit signing document after document that bends a good proportion of the country over your expensive wooden desk... Bet all your sandwiches have nice fat fillings too ya bugger.

pssst tether - though you were buggering off with me

Shit.

I assume you just came back to get me?

Bugger child benefit, it's the assault on pensioners' benefits I hate.

Fun withwincies, excellent post.

Assault? Means-testing Winter Fuel Allowance (and I agree with the suggestion of linking benefits to tax system) and raising the age at which people are eligible for free bus/travel passes based solely on age (because it currently stands at 5 years under official retirement age). Yeah, that's a real assault.

I don't see why they should be exempt from means-testing, either, seeing as that children, who also cannot work, and the disabled are not being spared.

of course I did - I'm far too chilled here on a comfy sofa in a gorgeous house, with laptop on my knee, and kettle about to start whistling on the hob to get drawn into silly threads like these tonight (sadly none of the stuff I've described is mine and I have to leave it all behind on Tuesday when I go home lol)

I thought I was reading the Daily Mail comments page for a minute.

Can't old people cut down on Werther's Originals?

"i claim my cb, have saved £3000 so far which is what my sons first years prep school fees are"

Impoverished and disabled children can apparently go without adequate heating whilst plenty of comfortably-off boomers jet off on yet another holiday with the money.