to think George Osborne swanning around in the Royal Box at Wimbledon is wrong?

[LilyBolero]

George Osborne had prime seats in the Royal Box on Centre Court at Wimbledon yesterday, for the Federer/Tsonga match, and the Murray/Lopez match.

This REALLY annoys me. On the day when the Greeks were taking a critical decision, with riots in Athens, and implications for the whole world economy our hirsute Chancellor took the afternoon off.

On the day before hundreds of thousands of workers feel compelled to strike in protest at the prospect of a much grimmer future (whatever the rights or wrongs of that, this isn't a debate about strikes), our Chancellor took the afternoon off.

At a time when we are told ad nauseam that 'We are all in this together', the Chancellor took the afternoon off and went to the best seats at Wimbledon (incidentally, do they have to pay for those seats?).

MPs currently get very generous holidays. I don't suppose a teacher would be able to take the afternoon off to go to Wimbledon (in fact I have friends who have requested this and were given very short shrift). To those who say 'teachers get very good holidays and benefits, they knew about the fixed dates before they went into teaching' I would say 'MPs get very good holidays and benefits, they knew about the fixed dates before they went into politics'.

We pay the Chancellor's salary. I think he should be accountable.

IndigoJohn, the reason I cited that is because that's the biggie affecting us. I said earlier that there are far worse cuts for far more vulnerable people.

As far as your statement "And why should someone working full time on minimum wage pay tax to those on 40,50, 60 plus K a year can get CB for kids they CHOOSE to have?" the answer is they don't. As your income increases, the tax you pay also increases, and the benefits you get decrease. However, under Osborne's abolition, a family on 45k WILL be paying tax so that a family on 80k can receive a benefit that the family on 45k do not get.

If he'd wanted to change CB, he should have returned it to being a tax allowance to recognise that 45k to support 1 or 2 adults is very different to 45k to support an entire family.

as for choosing to have kids - as a country we do actually need people to have kids, because otherwise the economy will grind to a total halt.

YANBU Lily
George Osborne is wrong, full stop (and LOL @ hirsute)

'we're all in this together' has always been such bollocks from him and cameron. They haven't got a clue.

I don't want this to be about child benefit. But bear in mind, before you start saying 'Child benefit cuts only hit the rich' that if you are just over the threshold for HRT, and therefore losing CB (and in our case 10% of our income), you are only bringing home a little bit more than the proposed benefits cap of £26k, because there is no tax payable on that. Hardly the rich then.

LilyBolero.

OK, so a) will you marry me, cos I love EVERYTHING about what you've said on the thread so far....
b) you are MOSDEF NBU!!!
c) Osbourne makes me want to kill myself.... or better yet, him.
d) how the FUCK did you get from hirsute to esteemed. That's just bonkers.

It's SO about the timing. We all know this.

And another point. If I hear one more fucking fucker bollock on about 'ooooh, the private sector doesn't have the opportunity to strike', then I, as a teacher, having moved from a bloody lucrative private sector sales job, will ask them how they justify all the bloody jollies they go on. Because they do - and we all know it. But our media doesn't seem to want to ask those sorts of questions at the moment.

OK. I can't actually breathe now, I need to go lie down in a darkened room...

(and by the way, I'm at work, typing this whilst shovelling a sandwich down my throat between lessons on a very late lunch, because I'm in the union that isn't 'out' today...)

So you don't have an income of 30K, you have an income of 45K. That's why you're losing CB.

I work in the private sector. Jollies are somewhat thin on the ground. Redundancies, on the other hand...

oh ffs, a TAKE HOME income of 30k. Hence CB cut of 3k being a 10% cut of income. If you want to look at gross income, it is essentially a cut of 5k.

As I said further down the line, a take home cut of 30k is not that much more than the proposed benefits cap of 26k, (as you don't pay tax on the 26k) and I don't think you would describe that family as 'wealthy'.

"I work in the private sector. Jollies are somewhat thin on the ground."

I don't know, it's not all bad......

"Directors in Britain's top 100 companies have accumulated final salary retirement pots worth £2.8m on average, according to figures that reveal a widening gap between the pensions awarded to boardroom executives and the shop floor.

Incomes Data Services (IDS) said about 46 per cent of FTSE 100 directors were still accruing final salary benefits in generous schemes that typically pay two-thirds of final salary as a retirement income.

A pot of £2.8m could buy an employee a pension annuity worth more than £170,000 a year, IDS said.

Company directors, like MPs, have among the most generous schemes in the G20 group of richest nations, with guaranteed benefits worth two-thirds of final salary accrued at an accelerated pace. Many directors can earn their full pension after only 20 years service, while it takes MPs just 26 years. Most workers take between 35 and 40 years to accrue a full pension.

Tax relief on pension contributions of £37bn is heavily skewed towards the better off. Treasury figures show that 60 per cent of tax relief goes to higher rate taxpayers, with 25 per cent going to the top 1 per cent of earners."

Oh yes, because clearly everyone in the private sector is a FTSE 100 company director.

No one talks of incomes in terms of take home. Your initial post on the subject suggested CB accounted for 10% of your household income and you were going to lose it. Neither is true. You pay income tax on your income of 45K. A household with an income of 45K per annum is far from poor and it is absurd that it receives 3K in benefits per year. That is the fact of the matter. Tax credits when rolled out massively across middle income households made a bad situation even worse.

You cannot make a statement like £45K is far from poor without knowing the pertinent circs. for each household. Unfortunately, the government is very good at making blanket statements that have become embedded in the public mind.

For example, to state that £45K is a good income is simply not true if, for example (and this isn't me, I'm in Wales...) you're in London with two children plus all the day to day living costs that are going up - and let's not forget that many public sector workers have had their salaires frozen for two years, thus effectively facing considerable decreases in take home pay... how is that not being poor? You're probably approaching fuel and food poverty at that state.

However, the government is doing a bloody good job of making 'US' think that public sector pensions are 'gold plated', the private sector is the 'engine of the economy', thus all bets are off when it comes to hammering businesses for higher corporation tax contributions... most immigrants are blagging off the rest of us, disabled are pulling a fast one in terms of their benefits.... need I continue?

Really - is this the country that the government wants us to live in? Where society goes head to head in a 'you've got more than me and it's not fair' contest?

Because that is what they have created in a short space of time. It's dreadful and what is worse, is that many simply don't see it.

Osbourne showed a dreadful error of judgement and real lack of compassion. As he has done several times. I will never condone it. The tories do not build a big society. They are fragmenting it. Just dreadful...

I don't vote Labour, I work in the private sector, I am under constant threat of redundancy, have not lost any CB, have not had a payrise for 3 years. I also know plenty of people who earn lots of money and don't resent them.

And I agree entirely with the OP.

LostMyId - I think you would struggle to find anyone who would agree that someone earning a salary which goes into the higher tax bracket is poor. Definitely not well off but there are a lot of people who earn less (even with benefits) and seem to survive. And that is why the OP is not getting as much sympathy as you think is due.
I think the OPs large family must cost quite a lot to run though....

And Lily if I were to be super pedantic I would say that 3k lost only equates to 5k salary if it is all taxed at 40% - which it is not at 45k (unless of course you earn more....)

You are talking rubbish I'm afraid. If you have a salary of 45k, for example, anything on top is taxed at 40%. Therefore, if you have a salary of 45k, you get into your bank account about 30k per year. Child benefit is not currently taxed. But in order to replace the 3k lost, you would need a salary increase of 5k.

The interesting thing about the CB though, is that the family getting 80k gets to keep their CB, because they are dual income, with both earners just under the threshold. That's why it's a crappy, unthought-out, stupid policy. Whether it should be a universal benefit, or where thresholds should be is a different argument. The point I was making was that it is arbitrary and unjust.

Royal Box is for VIPs,TV people eg M.Parkinson,politicians and Royalty. It's not for the likes of you (unless you make it) so hard luck. I think most of us would like an afternoon in the primo seats. He gets in free as part of his 'job' just like all MPs get free parking at BAA owned airports.

The thing is that Gideon swanning around anywhere is wrong, really. In so many ways.

Georgimama, it is absolutely true that our household gets approx 30k of money, and are losing 3k. If you're being totally pedantic, it's possibly more like 1/11 than 1/10, which makes it just over 9%.

I do find his smug, gloaty expression makes me think he can't quite believe his luck- and that he's going to dig everything he can out of the trough while he can

...and stuff us Normal Folk at the same time, of course

That's the thing. A visceral nausea and horror descends, clouding any more rational response. I do realise this is not perhaps the most sophisticated form of political analysis, but really I feel that for Gideon one can make an exception.

he is possibly the most revolting Tory ever. And that's saying something.

you know, I have never heard anyone say anything even vaguely positive about him, left or right? he appears to be universally loathed

except by longfingernails and I think she might be him

Absolutely MI. His face makes me feel very sick!

What is a bit more worrying is that all the Tory press has him lined up as the next leader. The only person they think is a credible rival is Boris.

That interview he gave about the economy contracting in December, when he blamed the weather, and said 'We will not be blown off course by bad weather' about 50,000 times in 2 minutes...let me see if I can find a link, was SO vomit-inducing.