to be fed up of George sodding Osbourne and his Knobbish Ideas

[avivabeaver]

The economy is proving harder to fix than he first thought

Solution- suggest cutting £10bn from the benefits budget and "limit the number of children people can claim for". So- are you supposed to choose your 2 favourite and just feed them then? Or what?

Did anyone else hear the guy on radio 4 last night who was claiming benefits for a family of 4.

He and his wife had their children before he lost his job.

But I can already hear the 'responsibility cheerleaders' saying that having 4 children under ANY circumstances is 'irresponsible'. Surely, anyone should know, jobs can be lost and dont' expect our taxes to look after you blah blah blah.

So look forward to your own benefits which you may well need one day soon when the accident happens or the child you can 'afford' so easily turns out to have SN or the jobs run out in your now-prosperous town.

And wait for all the people who were too responsible to EVER have children to start spouting off at you.... in this economic climate how dare you have ONE child without a full income protection plan and/or a trust fund from daddy?

Because only the individual matters to you lot, that's what you'll be left with in the end. That and nothing else.

newchoos I don't bleat on about lack of cash and I am not waiting with my hands out for more. Good for you for working but I am choosing to stay at home and give up my career for now, I have my qualification and can go back when ever I want.

But that's quite different domesticgoddess. I work with people who choose to have child after child when they can't look after the one(s) they have got.

you work with them? But you don't see them as people... just little units of irresponsibility. Do you meet their children? Fancy watching them starve? Don't worry, you will do in a few years' time.

do you honestly believe the government will make the distinctions you do?

People who were 'responsible' in the past like the man I mention above will not be protected. The government will not give a sh** that he once had a good job when he had his 4 kids. They will simply conclude that now that he no longer has a job he and his children are too expensive, and will be knocked off the state rolls, thus ensuring some figures look better while the rest (the care bill, the local authority emergency housing bill, the crime bill, ad nauseam) go through the roof.

Do you think the government takes any personal circumstances or 'correct' choices into account in applying the benefit cap? Do you think it doesn't apply to 'good' people? Get real.

Open your eyes, you're being massively deceived, all of you.

Monkey, not sure about when ever you want. I work in the finance industry and everyone is scared of getting the boot. Big redundancy waves across several sectors starting with finance are coming up our way before xmas or by the new year. By the time you are ready to go back to work there won't necessarily be a job open.

Bottom line, everyone is at risk of losing it all, job, house, health. Money or not does not change anything in that perspective.

As for responsiblities... the UK is overpopulated, Europe is overpopulated,. the world is overpopulated... breading less will become a necessity. In the next 25 years we'll go thourgh our first water wars or food wars. Why would you want to contribute to the problem? Because it's always the others that do...

Oh god this thread is depressing...

- The economy is in an appalling mess.
- The bank bail-out has cost us (UK taxpayers) at least £124BILLION <span class="italic">so far</span> (that's £5billion per YEAR or more than £100 <span class="italic">each</span>, <span class="italic">just in interest</span> ).
- Unemployment is as high as it has ever been, but the figures are massaged.
- A million unemployed people who used also to be 'claimants' now don't qualify for benefits.
- Youth unemployment is so bad they've had to raise the school leaving age by 2 years to keep kids out of the jobs market.
- There were 3300 children in care last year, costing the state £2.4 billion (£40K each) (with this number set to soar)...
- One in 3 children in the UK are living in poverty.
- 6/10 of these have a parent <span class="italic">in work</span> whose parents simply don't earn enough...   
                                            
                                <strong>... And yet working people should be angry and axe state support for society's most vulnerable</strong>. 

We're supposed to watch our neighbours' bloody curtains, and resent them if they have a lie in ffs!

This bunch of Tories is proposing and doing things that Thatcher's crew would never have dared :

• Axing benefits and targetting children, pensioners and disabled people;
• Limiting the number of children people can have, while simultaneously lowering the legal limit for abortion;
• Taxing people for the number of bedrooms they have;
• Changing the law so that people are allowed to use unreasonable force against burglars;
• Ending universal employment rights and allow employers to pay people to 'opt out';
• Bailing out those bloody banks...

And we are not yet out on the streets rioting.

I am starting to think we are all just DOOMED.

[Sources: www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19259913 ; www.endchildpoverty.org.uk/ ; www.guardian.co.uk/politics/reality-check-with-polly-curtis/2011/sep/12/reality-check-banking-bailout ]

Maybe we just live in an age of entitlement? Kids have to have the latest laptop, phone, games consoles, designer clothes, their own rooms etc. Bloody stupid if you ask me, but I've been called a bad mum for not having buckets of expensive educational toys for DS. I can't afford them, he gets them from family for xmas and birthdays, but tbh he's happier with a £2 pack of 30 crayons and a 50p pad of paper. Keeps him occupied for hours. Teaches him to develop his imagination too!

Irresponsibility is buying all the expensive shit and not being able to feed your kids. Irresponsibility is going out on the lash every night and not being able to buy them clothes. Irresponsibility is being strung out on heroin while your child shiver because there's no heating. These things are irresponsible whether you have 1 child or 11. If they are all fed, clothed, warm and have a roof over their head, even at the expense of the luxuries, and they are loved, then you are a responsible parent no matter how many kids you have. My aunt had four, and next to no money, and they all turned out to be healthy, productive members of society.

Hate to break it btw but UK population will probably INCREASE in the coming decades.

No more health service so no accessible and free/affordable contraceptive services will mean more pregnancies. If the Tories stay in abortion will be progressively restricted. People will start dying younger and infant mortality will rise as a result of the healthcare 'reforms' and so family size will also rise as a response to this.

But heck, more of those feckless breeders will die in childbirth, so there's something for the responsibility gurus to welcome eh?

More people, less money = no longer a developed country. Welcome to the new China!

I work with people - they are colleagues. But actually I really do care in particular about the welfare of children, this does not mean I can't have an opinion on benefits/welfare/budgets.
I probably have a harsher view than I should- I provided for myself from a young age and just don't have a sense of entitlement.

Charleybarley.

No its not that his business isn't doing well at all. Its the fact that self employment can't fit into the system the government expect to bring in.
You can't work under the proposals. So if one week you don't work 35 hours or you buy goods or equipment leaving you with less profit than the minimum wage, you have no benefit that week. You can't then work 40 hours the next week and those hours or money be carried forward.
The worst affected will be Actors, Musicians, Artists, cleaners, Au pairs and nannies etc. Many will be forced onto jsa as this will be more beneficial to them.

flow4 the riots may start once the real cuts come in. They haven't hit yet. Wait for London to blow up.

I live there and I'm really quite scared of the next year. We have really seen nothing yet.

domestic. I tried the economics (that's when I pulled my head out my arse) maybe appealing to their base instinct of self interest is actually the way to get people to understand.

The Tories believe that being poor = feckless because they are mostly successful businessmen, or live on the proceeds of successful business. They are the winners in the capitalist pyramid. It is arrant nonsense on their part to believe that everyone can succeed in the capitalist pyramid. There will always be people at the bottom of that pyramid, quite a lot of people actually, and certainly more than can ever get to the top. Still, feeding people the aspirational notion that everyone can make it if only they try hard enough, makes them buy more stuff, which feeds more cash to the top and benefits them. So of course they keep spouting the same old claptrap- it benefits them!

NewChoos, I also have no sense of entitlement at all and pay a ludicrous £1500 rent for a smallish 3 bed house in SE London- and we're not talking leafy Blackheath.

That does not mean that I think equivalent families claiming the same amount in housing benefit which I pay out of my taxed income should be forced to move out of their homes. They will be, though, come April when the benefit cap comes in. Unless they only have one child (maybe).

What is it with 'responsibility' BS and the need to divide people into groups which must be pitted against eachother?

Where they go, you go soon. The economy is in terminal decline. Clinging to the idea that you're a 'good person' so you'll never need any help from anyone is sheer fantasy.

It's not entitlement IMO, ThreeEdge, it's over-consumption.

Think about the number of baths you had when you were a child... Was it one per week, like me? Now think about the number of baths most children have nowadays... It's one per day. That's 7 times as much hot water, electricity, soap, shampoo, clean clothes...

And a parent who decides to buck the trend and only bathe their child once a week is likely to be criticised. So is one who buys only second-hand clothes. So is one who sews and knits clothes for their kids or cooks meals from scratch, not only because that's seen as 'weird', but also because to have the time to do this, they'll have to stay at home and claim benefits...

I take you point re distinctions. Very hard to have a fair system and I truly do think we should help those genuinely in need.

"As for responsiblities... the UK is overpopulated, Europe is overpopulated,. the world is overpopulated... breading less will become a necessity. In the next 25 years we'll go thourgh our first water wars or food wars. Why would you want to contribute to the problem? Because it's always the others that do..."

MouMou, what makes you think this out of interest?

I think you're right, domesticg :(

I absolutely don't cling to the idea that I am a 'good person' and so will be ok. I try and plan as much as possible for a rainy day but completely appreciate others aren't able to. It's why I keep working in a really stressful job, I can't risk leaving the job market.

Why the puzzled face? People who work obviously also make lifestyle choices and decisions re number of children they can provide for...