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?

[bluebird68]

thanks because its comments like yours that make me want to cry.

[FrothyOM]

mine?

[edam]

OK duchesse, highest marginal rate of deductions from wages by government then. Whatever. Point is marginal rates of money-taken-away-by-government are highest for the extremely poor, not the rich.

[bluebird68]

good idea frothy, though i think i shall stay away to avoid seeing what people think of the likes of me.

[bluebird68]

no frothy not you , meant for duchesse who thinks the lowest income people should rightly have over 85% of their income taken away. (85% plus my regular tax contributions)

[Viviennemary]

I agree with a lot of the problems are caused by the high cost of housing. And yet if house prices came tumbling down, I don't think a lot of Tory voters would be pleased. They are the ones with the most to lose not the poorer people. And then the banks would be in a worse state with negative equity and such. So you don't hear a lot about trying to get the cost of housing down.

[domesticgodless]

Thankyou for patronising me, niceguy2. You seem rather good at that and at presenting right wing opinions in a format palatable to many (not me). You'd make a great spin doctor.

I am fully aware that different factors affect the economies currently in meltdown. However, austerity is not the remedy. Cuts aimed at the poor which push people into poverty and near-poverty do nothing to remedy the deficit and may even increase it by withdrawing money from circulation.

The cuts are ideologically motivated and their primary achievement had been to dismantle state institutions, make money for private companies using public funds, and make smug conservatives feel as if lots of feckless (children) are being made to 'take responsibility'. No responsibility is ever allocated to the rotten system which has allowed fraudulent and incompetent financiers and politicians to profit from the misery of others.

I am no fan of New Labour. They started off all the crap we're facing now in terms of welfare reform and the selling off of state assets.

[Bellbird]

People on benefits are being treated like scapegoats. They have no power or influence and yet are being blamed for the foibles of rich bankers. When Hitler picked on the Jews for nabbing all the best jobs while all the 'real Germans' suffered he was diverting blame and the country loved him for it. I really hope that the British public is not so gullible. I had a massive argument with my Mum (an Express reader) about it yesterday. She has had it relatively easy with few financial worries in her life and she was echoing the opinions of right wing journalists. It is unwise for anyone to judge anyone so remote from themselves. I am really dispairing of comfortably-off people talking about what is 'fair'.

This country is becoming economically polarised and sooner, or later, our politics could follow. The gap between rich and poor is way too extreme to be safe from anarchy and unrest and Osborne is just fuelling that gap. How can we have an economy if people on low or middle incomes have nothing left over after all the bills are paid. If people are out of work, that is because businesses cannot sell stuff as more people cannot afford to buy products or services.

[Viviennemary]

I voted Labour. Heaven knows why. But now looking back I think Labour couldn't wait to hand over so when the cuts came they could blame the Tories and the Lib Dems. Well Labour had no answers. Milliband is full of waffle and hot air. I don't think I'd vote Labour again for quite a while. They have no answers or policies except spend and borrow.

[niceguy2]

Well said Vivienne. During the election, I didn't want the Tories to win. Not because I have some blind hatred unlike many but more because I saw it as letting Labour off the hook.

They took a booming economy and drove it into the ground. The banking crisis happened on their watch under their 'light touch' regulation policies. They took a balanced budget and created a large deficit.

Not to mention they started the whole IB to ESA debacle with ATOS along with the economically stupid but politically superb 50% income tax rate.

So then the Tories come along and are left with a huge bag of nails. And people fall for it all over again. Oh look the nasty Tories cutting...the bastards. It's like your dad sodding off after clearing out the bank account and maxing out the credit card, leaving your mum with the bills. Then you blaming mum for now not being able to buy the usual weekly xbox game which dad used to get you on his gold card.

[domesticgodless]

What the Tories do far better than labour, apart from wasting public money, is the rhetoric of blame.

Blame the poor for being poor, blame women for having 'too many children', blame low paid workers for being low paid (and penalise them for it- take a look at the universal credit proposals).

Labour are as morally bankrupt as the Tories, only slightly less smug an aggressive about it. Bah.

I don't know who the hell to vote for. I'm in a safe labour seat so a vote for a minority party would be wasted anyway.

[domesticgodless]

Niceguy, do you really think the Tories are at all interested in financial regulation?

No bloody way. They are into lining the pockets of their mates. Full stop.

If they are so morally sound then why aren't they doing something to remedy the grimness of welfare reform? They just handed atos the contract for personal independence payments.

Your labour bashing is tiresome: not cos I support labour but because it betrays a wish to avoid doing anything better for this troubled country.

[Viviennemary]

I'd say Labour do blame far far better than Tories. Nothing to do with them the country is in a mess. Gordon Brown said he was going to end Boom Bust. Well he didn't did he. If Labour was in now we'd be nearly bankrupt and probably have that Angela Mertle (sp?) woman lecturing us on austerity. No wonder the Greeks are all up in arms.

[creamteas]

They took a booming economy and drove it into the ground

Give that the economic problems are present in half of Europe and the US, I really don't see how the Labour Party can be blamed. That is just ridiculous.

The recession was caused by financial companies speculating, and given that the Tory's in opposition were calling for even less regulation, things could have been a whole lot worse

[Bellbird]

I cannot excuse the actions of either party. Many seem to have left the 'E' part of their PPEs behind when they pursued their political careers. As for the philosophy bit....

Investment into apprenticeships, vocational training and quality childcare would have been better than propping people up with welfare. The damage is already done though, and if people are scrounging on a pittance without the infrastructure to bring them into the world of work then we have a powder keg situation in this country.

I think investment and infrastructure needed to be there BEFORE making (possibly deeper) cuts.

[domesticgodless]

Vivienne I hate to break it to you but we ARE STILL BANKRUPT AND GETTING MORE IN DEBT ALL THE TIME.

Check out osborne's figures, they're not impressive. Austerity does not reduce deficit.

Blaming the people who did not get us into this mess- disabled children spring to mind- is repulsive and does the Tories no favours whatever. And the moral righteousness of their followers is becoming more repellent by the day.

This is not about just labour any more. It's about all of them and the particularly sick brand of moralising their policies have engendered.

[domesticgodless]

Exactly billbird.

Investment in skills would turn us into 'strivers' better than all the moralising crap This lot are churning out.

But that costs money and the results are too slow. Thatcher snd then Labour started the educAtional rot wholesale by introducing their idiotic targets and league tables. I'm seeing the results in a generation of wannabe lawyers who are barely able to read and write despite achieving way 'over acerage' results.

May I apologise for typos in the above, the iPhone keyboard is a killer!!

[Bellbird]

I am really saddened that so many (bright) kids are leaving school without a GCSE in Maths and English. If they come from a low-income family, their long-term prospects are bad unless they can tap into a latent talent or skill. Apprenticeships with part-time study would be a great way to get things going for them.

[domesticgodless]

Absolutely. But all they get are fake 2.60 an hour 'apprenticeships' in Tesco and barely- paid workfare. It stinks.

[flatpackhamster]

creamteas

Give that the economic problems are present in half of Europe and the US, I really don't see how the Labour Party can be blamed. That is just ridiculous.

Is it? So when Gordon Brown was blowing all the tax surplus on buying votes, rather than paying off our debts, that was money well spent?

Labour decided that the best thing to do was spend, spend, spend. From 2001 onwards, Labour spent more than they took in taxes. On average they spent £35Bn a year more.

The recession was caused by financial companies speculating, and given that the Tory's in opposition were calling for even less regulation, things could have been a whole lot worse

And the point that is being made here is that the purpose of saving when times are good is that if you do save when times are good, you don't have to cut when times are bad.

Labour spent when times were good instead of saving. They were feckless, selfish and irresponsible.

[alemci]

also I don't think the labour politicians were any better at being moral. they were lining their own pockets too. look at Peter Mendleson and his mortgage for example and Tony Blair has done very nicely too.

None of them seem to care tbh whatever the party, they are mostly career politicians it seems.

[duchesse]

As I understand it this current govt is also spending more than it's taking in taxes. Possibly because they have managed to drive the economy into a second recession through their supposed quick fix austerity measures that now mean that none of us has a bean to spend--> less VAT income for the govt, more companies going tits up, loads of public sector workers out on their ear in sectors that that the private doesn't want to touch because there's no way to make them profitable, although they are part of what made this country a relatively pleasant place to live.

I cling to the hope that they will abide by their statement that they will not dismantle the NHS, because without that we could rapidly become the US: Few winners, a vast number of losers, millions of people without access to healthcare and only ever a few dollars from the pavement, millions of people who are still dirt-poor despite working 3 jobs. Yes, that is the American dream: "the US, it's better than living in a war-torn shithole" for most. Just about. And it could be us!

And bluebird, you are misreading me. Yes, I think that it is right that as soon as people are able to pay their own way again wrt HB and CTC, they should. What the system shouldn't engineer is disincentives to getting back into full employment.

I also agree with whoever said that cheaper housing is the answer. I actually think we need a massive building programme in this country- to flood the market to the point where house prices go right down. Houses prices are beyond ludicrous here. I wouldn't want masses of people to end up trapped in hideous negative equity though, which would happen. That one's quite difficult. Here in E Devon there is a massive development underway. The developers were supposed to be building 3000 houses per year between 2011 and 2025, until they realised that they would be shooting themselves in the foot to do it that fast- so they are now only going to build 300 a year and there seems to be no way to make them go any faster, no way for the local authority to enforce the contract. They have been had over a barrel by big business, probably utterly condoned by Tory grandees.

[NicholasTeakozy]

Oh dear FlipFlop, using the old 'it's New Labour wot dun it' defence. Rather it is globalised capitalism that has caused this, along with aggressive risk taking by a minority of investment bankers. Our economy was weak because massive corporations were allowed to export industry to where labour is cheapest. We are now reaping the 'benefit' of that shortsightedness.

[Brycie]

Nicholas: nah, they did a lot of it. Everyone knows it. If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck ..well I'm sure you know the rest.

[ThingsThatGoBumpInTheNight]

Trouble is when people have done nothing but bring up children (and you don't have a baby to get extra money ffs you get 'given' hardly anything) they feel as if they would be good for nothing else especially when you have to write a cv and all you could put on it is 'been a mum for such and such years'

Coupled with the lack of affordable childcare and jobs with the hours that most care covers (FI i could not do shiftwork but would be more than happy to work days, those jobs are few, so will probably end up working PT)

I have worked and seen most of my wages go on childcare, had DS1 as a 'latchkey kid' and will not be doing the same with DS2.

I did enjoy working though, it gives you adults to talk to and the sense of achievement that only working for your money can give :)