To think that the Tories will mess up this country worse tahn teh last goverment?

[poshsinglemum]

With all this talk about shuting down libraries. I am horrified. It's disgusting. What else will they do away with? Nappy changing facilities, buses? Hospitals? What were people thinking when they voted for thm?

They're trying to sell off the forests and woods too ... if I was a conservative cabinet members granny I'd be shitting myself right now !

I voted for them to go back to be a country where we dont expect everything handed to us.

Labour wasted millions and actively encouraged people not to work to gain those voters. They gave away so many freebies whilst those that worked and supported themselves got treated appalingly and watched others get the things that they had to earn themselves.

If we were not so far in debt or had let people choose not to work or have children and not support them we would have more in the pot for other items and the cuts would not be so severe.

Not sure on the NHS changes, until further info comes out I'll hold off making judgement. Havent seen anything on the forests - wouldnt support that but its rare anybody would fully support every aspect of the party they voted in.

they couldnt do worse than the last lot

I doubt they could do a worse job than GB.

"Labour wasted millions and actively encouraged people not to work to gain those voters. They gave away so many freebies whilst those that worked and supported themselves got treated appalingly and watched others get the things that they had to earn themselves.

If we were not so far in debt or had let people choose not to work or have children and not support them we would have more in the pot for other items and the cuts would not be so severe."

I agree with HappyMummy entirely. Some people who have never worked and have no intention of doing so were laden with benefits and therefore lived a better lifestyle than if they got a job. Whereas people who work can go fuck themselves and pay for all the benefits for that lot.

Labour ought not to have let it get THAT bad in the first place. That is why the cuts seems so severe. Labour created so many new benefits for everyone no wonder we're in such a mess financially.

Yawns

i have always worked, apart from maternity, and was absolutely thriving a few years back. the global recession tightened things a bit, but nothing compared to now.

as a single parent i could not have contemplated working without the tax credits system; it simply would not have been an option with childcare costs etc.

the people in this country are not a new phenomenon. whole communities whose careers were centred around mines etc found themselves facing unemployment in the 80's; and as anyone who has been unemployed knows that can wreck your confidence. it must have ruined so many people's lives. and yet here we are again: people who had mapped out their futures are having the rug pulled from under them.

shit times in my opinion

Can anyone tell me exactly how many are on benefits and not working? In 2009? And in 2011?

I'm just wondering how significant our benefits bill is. I'm talking about unemployment benefit.

Unemployment is currently rising, isn't it? Aren't there going to be a lot more on the dole soon?

They are not making worse but definitely going about trying to make it better in all the wrong ways. Just as bad as the last Govt.

I am convinced we are back in the 1970s mode of politics with weak alternating Labour and Conservative Govts cravenly pandering to Europe, with stagflation driven by high oil prices and increasing union action on the horizon.

What the Tories want is to complete the transfer of ownership and management of public services to the private sector. This includes the privatisation of the NHS and education; the transferal of council-run services to the private sector; the selling off of the forests and coastal areas and large parts of city centres, and so on. They want to cut anything that cannot be made to benefit the private sector, eg Legal Aid and Benefits.

What's not to like?

I've felt in the past that even when a government started off doing things that were good for the country and neccessary they often went too far when in power for longer.

I'm not a Thatcher admirer but accept some of her earlier actions were for the good of the country even if not to my taste but the later years of greed and vindictiveness were too much.

Likewise the Blair govt started off well caring for the vulnerable but went too far and ended up handing out money to far too many people and encouraging some into a culture of dependency.

This lot seem to hve jumped straight to the later chapters without having the knowledge, experience or consideration of the lives of others they need

PSM given the changes proposed to the support of the disabled and their carers I think yes the country will be an awful palce to live soon. It's a simple chain of events to see many such people ending up homeless now.

Bloody awful in a country like ours.

(And if anybody doubts me:

DLA changes include proposal to cut by 20%- their own estimate of fraud is 0.05 or 0.5 % deopending on what source you read.
Carers' Allownace is directly accessed via DLA. No DLA = no CA.
If you don;t get DLA or CA you will be palced on JSA for benefits.
If you cannot attend compulsory work training becuase of a disability or carer role you you will get all your beneits removed. they won;t help with the caring as technically that will no longer exist- apaprently a clean assessment cures all, even when done by an under qualified know nothing such as they employ.

No income = homelessness.

And that's just one sector of society.

I was definately better off when working full time than now when on benefits tbh. That was BEFORE dd however.

Benfits is a shite way of life, really it is. It reduces choice and that takes away people's power to change anything themselves. Want to move where theree's work- can;t, three eyar's minimum residency before you cn get a house on LA (I know theya re talking about change there: not sone yet). Want to re-educate yourself around teh kids? more than a few hours and off your benefits go (CA is notorious for that).

Want to get abck to work Even if you find work many aplces want a hefty deposit for chidlcare and sometimes six months notice.

I registered self employed last week: I;d much rather work employed as it's not right my sector should be inaccessible to only the richest (carer support) and although i;ve dropped the cost as far as I can I still have to pay my own rent- especially as Government talking about making anyone earning under minimum wage self employed not count as employed at all. I;d rather earn far more of course; but equally i;ve also registered and been interviewed for the awful job of census collection rather than taken when I can earn. becuase most people by a long way think like that.

YABU - let's give them a chance...

I was willing to give them a chance and frankly I've been horrified at the extreme way they have behaved. The cuts are brazen and it's horrible that the weakest are taking the brunt.

I'm absolutely incredulous that they have the cheek to make such a massive change to the way the NHS is run with so little consultation.

Now the forests!! Selling the fucking forests to greedy bastards who don't give a shit about anything but money.

Utterly sinister. Horribly depressing. And most galling of all ... they are making these RADICAL changes to our culture without even having a proper mandate to do so.

Shocking.

Spider i've been meaning to say how nice it is to see you around again.

And not becuase of your answer here either: just nice.

I don't understand though how they envisage these cuts affecting society in the long run.

Cutting things like libraries may save money short-term but surely is going to deprive those who cannot buy books, etc of reading material which cannot help the country in future having an educated workforce. Surely this would be a long-term loss.

Personally I'd like to see some redistribution. DH and I both work (me P/T) and DCs are now older so times aren't as hard as they were when younger. We pay all the tax, NI, etc we should and am happy to help those who need it but it does seem that benefits, credits, etc don't go enough to those that need them most (although I freely admit to not being an expert here) and sometimes seem to go to those who do not deserve them.

i have no idea why everyone is so surprised. they'd privatise their own nans if it would make money.

next royal mail..

YABVU

The conservatives AND liberal democrats have only been in power for a few months. Plus they are having to deal with the crap labour left us in.

Mrs Rigby, the 'cure' in this case is worse than the complaint.

If you go to the local library you will not find people who can't buy books in my opinion, people who don't want to fair enough but they could if they didn't have a library.

i thought labour were doing very well - i just cannot see why we were in so much shite

why did we bid olympics if we were in so much trouble? lord coe is a tory why would he promote something so money swallowing if we were in so much debt??