if you voted for the Tories, you should feel personally responsible when you see homeless people on the streets ...

[aufaniae]

...once their policies start to bite.

They want to removing housing benefit for under 25s, many of whom have children. Just one of their policies which will drive people into homelessness.

I thought this was meant to be a civilised country. If the safety net is removed, many people including children will fall through it, some of them ending up on the streets.

How can anyone support that?

I suspect london and I are in same profession and I agree it is possible to be good at your job and not vote labour

Or maybe we understand the issues perfectly well but have a differen viewpoint to you on how to tackle them. Go on, open that mind up and consider the fact that maybe people don't agree with you.

I actually agree with Londonone. On the whole it's better to help someone out of a hole they're in, by giving them a hand and showing them the way. They'll still have to do the climbing themselves though. No good sitting down next to them with handing out tissues is it.
Sometimes people need to be shown that there is a way out of their situation. It doesn't have to be like this for ever. Being shown the way may open a whole raft of opportunities they simply didn't know existed or know how to access them.

Londonone passive it may be, but it's bloody true in my case. Life hasn't worked out exactly how i thought, and believe it or not, i work hard, trying my damnedest to provide, i'm hoping eventually it will work out, but what do i do in the meantime? Get fucked over by this government and get what little they give me taken away? It looks like it's going that way. We can't all be perfect and get ourselves out of every sticky situation we face as quickly as others.

And as for your last comment? So, you believe people should only have kids if they can afford to go back to work and pay for childcare without any working tax credits? I think you'd find the population of britain would decrease rapidly if that were the case.

The population wouldn't decrease, not that we need more people, but some people's standard of living would fall.

A small point.

Working Tax Credit, is that not just a bailout by the gov on behalf of big business? In other words if the multi billion pound companies such as, I don't know... Tescos ....paid their staff a decent liveable amount of money they wouldn't have to be paid WTC.

Minimum wage jobs aren't really enough to live on therefore those people get benefits to top up their income to be 'reasonable'.

So we need a gov brave enough to tell big business to pay their staff better/ raise minimum wages. This would cut a bit of the welfare bill, wouldn't it?

Are any of them proposing this? No because a great many MP's sit on/ will sit in the boards of big business in the future. So it's not in their interest is it?

These are the details which should be sorted out before penalising great swathes of people who all will have dry different circumstances.

I still believe that if you make it profitable for people to work, they will. But they need jobs and a decent living wage. A decent living wage is key.

I voted Tory last time, won't again. But I'll never vote labour either. They're all as bad as each other.

Labour have to take some responsibility for this country been in such a financial mess - it happened on their watch! Brown can mutter about a global recession, etc but I'm sorrythe banking crisis happened here. Labour happily let banks lend silly amounts of money on mortgages,etc.

So that was one reason I wouldn't vote Labour. Then there was the illegal war in Iraq. Then all the general underhandness of the Blairs with stuff like dodgy property deals, freebie clothing grabs, etc.

Saying that I do think the Tories are fucking the poor over, the working classes, public sector workers, etc. While making sure that all the upper middle classes, upper classes, etc aren't affected.

I am getting caught up with the thread.

But just wondering if the OP has accepted responsibility for voting labour. Since they sent my step brother into a war zone, in an illegal war and only his body came back. Since his dd has no dad.

many Tory voters don't support ALL their policies, just like the OP opposed the war. But of the OP is to stand by her OP she is personally responsible for my step brothers death and all the service personnel and civilians.

are you accepting responsibility OP? Because I can't see it anywhere.

Oh, and more child care again priced at a reasonable level that is good and affordable to someone paid a reasonable minimum wage... We need that too.

Here here sookie I've lost friends in that war to. RIP to your brother I hope little dd knows her dad was a hero

Impty, I agree. The government should not have to top people up to get them to a living wage. That said they apparently find it better value for money than tax breaks or other measures that could encourage companies to pay more.

sookie the son of someone that served with my exh was very badly injured in Iraq. I feel for you all regarding your brother, and his poor child. But I'm sure you all derive comfort from Blairs belief that god thinks he was right, and all the money he's now making on the back of it. no, not bitter, not at all

But I'm sure you all derive comfort from Blairs belief that god thinks he was right, and all the money he's now making on the back of it

Yes loads of comfort, not. That's why I think its so laughable that people the blair/ brown 'atvleast acred about the poor'.

Just like they cared about all the people they sent to die. . God approved my arse. :)

The thing is, I'm a Labour voter who protested against the Iraq War. Dh was so pissed off about it he had a fit of the stupids & voted Liberal last time.

Can't remember too many Tories protesting about it. I do remember their MPs enthusiastically encouraging Blair from the opposition benches.

So that particular analogy ('Labour voters should feel responsible for Iraq') is what one would technically term bollocks.

Sorry, Raven it was done on their watch under dubya's Blair's decision, so absolutely a valid analogy. Of course they should, by the OP's argument.

I think I'd exclude any Tory voters currently going '...........arrrgh WHAT? We didn't agree to this!' from the opprobrium over this latest clusterfuck, though.

But what I'm mostly seeing on this thread is gleeful Tories, who can't wait to hand the dc of the feckless poor a big pile of oakum & a smaller bowl of gruel.

Hence the analogy isn't valid. Iraq cost Labour the election.

So that particular analogy ('Labour voters should feel responsible for Iraq') is what one would technically term bollocks.

No its not. The OP says anyone who voted Tory is PERSONALLY responsible for effects (in this case homelessness) of the choice the government makes. According to the OP voting makes you responsible for their decisions even of you don't agree with that particular decision.

so following the OPs theory, voting labour makes you responsible for the war, whether you agreed with that decision or not.

I don't think voting makes you personally responsible. But if the OP is going to say all Tory voters are responsible for this, then she (and other labour voters) are responsible for sending my step brother to war and his death.

Remember its the OPs opinion that would hold YOU responsible. You voter for Blair he went to war, HIS decision to make and live with the consequences. Except he isn't living with them is he. But we are.

That's what bollocks actually is.

You haven't proved the analogy incorrect, though.
I assume this will cost the Tories the next election so Labour can fuck the whole country even more by buying votes.

Yes it is valid. Because we are talking about the OPs opinion. Not yours raven.

I haven't actually commented on the policy just on the OPs, op.

So actually you don't know what I think of this policy.

If that's what the OP's actually saying, sookie, than that is where she & I part company - if people didn't change their minds about governments when they do horrible things their voters don't agree with, we wouldn't need elections.

My argument is more, though, that the Tories were absolutely ALL for Iraq. If Labour now announce that they think cutting HB for under 25s is a cracking idea, that would be analogous.

That IS what the OP is saying - if you didn't read the post, the title say it all. And In my original post I started by saying 'by the same argument'.

raven read the title, that's what it says.

I am not saying labour voters are responsible for my brothers death.

I am following the OPs opinion in the hope she sees how ridiculous it is. I don't actually care who supported it, it doesn't make the voters responsible as we did not vote directly to go to war. We didn't get th choice. I KNOW many Tory mps supported it.

But the fact is, it was a labour decision. They were in power. So (again only following the ops logic) if its labours decison, the labour voters are directly responsible.

Fair point, lisaro. On which basis, my question for OP would be:

Do you mean everyone who voted Tory, or can we refine that to 'everyone who voted Tory, excluding those who didn't anticipate & certainly don't support their current draconian social policies, not hinted at in their manifesto, & would now seriously re-think their support for them for 2015?'

After all, dh voted Liberal & two years on, I'm considering speaking to him again...

I didn't see anyone accusing Labour voters of being responsible for the war in Iraq. This is ludicrous.