To be furious that Osborne wants to remove the right to request flexible working?

[PreciousPuddleduck]

I am so so angry about this. Have these b*stards any idea how hard it is to be a working mum, the exorbitant cost of childcare etc, constant rise in cost of living coupled with drop in income and lack of job security.
It has put me off my lunch
Will probably need later

There are plenty of folks who would like to work a few hours extra in etc. but are barred from doing so by strict weekly hours limits

People in this country work some of the longest hours in the world. I think 48 hours a week is plenty although many do more than that.

Who are these folk then?

The only way I see this working is by someone accepting a job and waiving employment rights when just starting out in a career and crucially moving on within 2 years. I think it is a stupid, pointless and counter productive proposal (after all, people who have no job security and rights are not going to rush out and spend lots of money). the shares otherwise can't be traded so are effectively worthless -and income tax and employer's NI is due on the transfer.

The only good thing is that out of my extended family of rabid Tories, no one is voting for them next time.

Iggly, they are an invention of the loony right, who are currently so much in the ascendant that I am going to have to start drinking again soon.

azazello even rabid Tories not voting for them??

Why do we have such a rash of them on MN then? Where are they coming from???

It won't affect the Working Time directive, discrimination claims or maternity (other than changing date of information about return to work) because that would be contrary to EU law. The only way of doing that is to leave the EU which is possibly a bit drastic for a policy which won't work...

Tory HQ? can we ask MNHQ to investigate whether a lot of posts are coming from Birmingham?

I think what is becoming apparent even to quite a lot of Tory voters is that the changes won't work and will make it harder for people to find and keep jobs. Also the NHS fiasco has pissed a lot of people off.

do they want women to work or not? I am really fucking confused because you are damned if you do and damned if you don't!

Strict weekly hour limits? May I ask what you are talking about Novack?

I worked close to a 70 hour week right up until having DS last year and am now doing 55 - 60ish.

Protected by EU law? Well, let's not forget the upcoming referendum on EU membership as strongly signalled by the Prime Minister recently...

I am actually giggling at the thought of so many employers groaning under the unbearable yoke of receiving toothless requests for flexible working by their ungrateful employees. Poor old things. Was offloading their training costs onto the taxpayer via the university system not enough?

Programmes like that 999 whats your emergency arent helping the situation either.

Thats maybe a bit random and off topic. But it all feels like an influx of propaganda.

So in summary, this government wants:

• to cut child benefits for multiple children

and at the same time

• reduce the cut off to abortion to 12 weeks

• to cut flexible working and maternity pay

and at the same time

• not reduce childcare fees

• to cut redundancy payments and ability to claim for wrongful dismissal

and at the same time

• make it harder to claim benefits

So, instead of having the wealthy, the poor and the 'squeezed middle', we'll just have the stinking rich and the poverty stricken.

Welcome to 3rd world Britain :(

The government has said nothing at all about reducing the time limit on abortion. That was a fringe topic and nothing to do with policy.

Nobody is poverty stricken in the UK. The poorest of society are still far better off today than they were last century.

There is the option to opt out of the European Working Time Directive, I have signed something so I can work overtime if I wish.

Novack, I really wonder how you think it's ok to give people the 'choice' to sign their rights away, even if they choose to do so. To me, it's a bit like saying, ok well some factories don't have to have strict safety rules, and we'll pay the employees a bit more to make up for it, so they have a choice to work there or not.

There are some things that people shouldn't have the choice about, and to my mind basic employee rights such as redundancy pay and the option to take a company to a tribunal to sue for unfair dismissal is one of those things.

Novack there is poverty in the UK.

For the first time ever, we've had a Feed The Children charity for children in the UK. It's really sad.

I hope that these headline grabbing, retrograde and infuriating proposals never make it onto the statute books. I hope the House of Lords gives them the kind of shoeing we can apparently dispense to intruders with impunity.

Whichever poster said companies and firms do whatever makes them look good and will very likely enthusiastically embrace these ideas if they are adopted, is correct I think.

These are ideas of a desperate chancellor with a plummeting economy on his hands. He wants to trample on workers' rights in order to promote growth. But these are real people, George, with short, hard-working lives in which they may never own their own home after all that effort. This Government makes me sick and they are unbelievably out of touch. You know that 'squeezed middke', George? They're your voters these days not retired stockbrokers from Surrey.

To my eternal shame, I voted for these morons. Never, ever again.

I would like GO to break into my house tonight. My crowbar is ready.

And how you can claim that nobody is poverty stricken I don't know, with all the food banks that are opening up all over the country. Why do you think they are necessary then, if there's no poverty? Yes, it might be better than a hundred years ago, but there are still people going hungry.

I can't help feeling you are just on a wind up now tbh.

Does the working time directive carry any weight anywhere? I don't know anyone that works a 35 hour week.

'The government has said nothing at all about reducing the time limit on abortion'

Quite right. Four members of the Cabinet have expressed their personal views that the time limit for legal abortion should be reduced in a single 48-hour period. That gives us no idea at all what the government might do should the reactions to those personal views prove positive.

Wilson I think it's just to protect people really isn't it? Stops employers from forcing on extra work.

That is like saying labour wanted to ban abortions because Tony Blair and his wife are Catholics

How can anyone think theres no poverty? How?

I would suggest that anyone who truely believes that should live for just one month on benefits, in a council house.

BBC...Cameron on Abortion rules

Living on benefits in a council house is not poverty.

nobody in this country is poverty stricken, jesus what kind of a bubble do you live in? what about the homeless people living on the streets? are they a figment of my imagination

Novack what sort of lifestyle do you live that makes you unaware of the poverty in the uk?

It's not something that's just been fabricated. The facts are there.