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?

[dreamingofsun]

infestation - perhaps you could explain to me how its fare that i work practically full-time and pay loads of tax to subsidise another mother's tax credits so she only has to work 16 hours - this is her lifestyle choice and she declines all extra requests from her employer to work extra hours.

[pumpkinsweetie]

sookie-Who do you think bought in Tax Credits & Working Tax Credits? Tony Blair did, he bought it in the help families who are struggling.

[degutastic]

I'm deeply amused by the naivety of some posters who think Labour care about the poor. Like all polticians, they care about the votes. If they had cared about the poor, or the economy, or indeed anything constructive, we would not be in the level of debt we are now.

I'm not sure that it's necessarily on to defame the characters of conservative voters in such sweeping terms as some posters are either. It merely re-inforces the right wing view that lefties and liberals are all hysterical nutters.

[sookiesookie]

pumpkin and you think it was because he cared?

Not to secure voters or encourage people to work after having kids. No it was because they cared of caourse

[theodorakis]

Shame he blew most of the money on an illegal war then isn't it, otherwise he would have been able to do so much more.

[NutellaNutter]

The country has no money left.

End of story.

[pumpkinsweetie]

Yes but that war bought down Saddam Hussien who was an evil muderous man.
It was not pointless at all

[BitOutOfPractice]

pumpkinsweetie you can bet your sweet life you know loads of people who voted Tory but are too embarrassed to say.

Bit like it was not acceptable in certain circles to say you voted Labour in the 80s and early 90s down south

[Rooble]

Aufanie (sorry if I spelt that wrong, am on phone and can't flick up and down page!) - thank you, will sit down and read those when DC in bed because I am really quite out of the picture. I think I'm nowadays inclined mostly to worry about what directly affects me (human nature, I suppose,) and start to forget the bigger picture which needs to be kept an eye on before it's Too Late. (Which I did when I was younger).

[sookiesookie]

Yes but that war bought down Saddam Hussien who was an evil muderous man
Iraq is no better off. But my brother is dead because of that war. So yes the point is lost on me.

[BitOutOfPractice]

sookiesookie I think your grasp of the economic crisis is a bit shakey. The Government lending to the banks didn't caiuse the crisis - exacty the oppositein fact (the banks lending, not borrowing)

The govt had to give money to the banks after the crisis to hold them up...

[economistextra]

Yabu. I voted Tory last time and may do again. The line has to be drawn somewhere. My previous neighbour was a young single mum, she'd never worked but moved out of home as she 'was bored of her parents and wanted her own place', so taxes were used to pay for her rent etc, not as s safety net but as a lifestyle choice, she could easily have carried on living with her parents. In fact she may as well have done as they were round all the time looking after her ds whilst she went out partying. What a waste of a life.

[Leena49]

I agree can't wait to get the bastards out before more children end up in care as a direct result of these policies. How long do we have to witness this poor bashing.

[BitOutOfPractice]

Sorry sookie :( x-post. I am really sorry for your loss :(

[pumpkinsweetie]

But soldiers are meant to go to war, i'm sure your brother didn't see his job as pointless. Thanks to wonderful soldiers like your brother an evil man was stopped from killing thousands more innocent people.
Your brothers death was not in vain, we went to war we suceeded

[theodorakis]

Why not invest in popping off Mugabe then? Nothing to do with oil? It is so arrogant to say that getting rid of Saddam was morally justified. It was nothing to do with it. Sixth form politics as usual. I swore I wouldn't bother to get involved in this, there is no point in arguing with extreme left wing Brits, it is like trying to stop a stupid person reading the Sun.

[pumpkinsweetie]

I don't read the Sun or the Daily Fail

[sookiesookie]

sookiesookie I think your grasp of the economic crisis is a bit shakey.

Not really. Which government sank trillions into banks and allowed them to pay massive bonuses?

[theodorakis]

I work with many Iraqis who only left their country after the invasion. they can never go back. I have never met a non political Iraqi person who hated saddam. they hate Britain and the US though.

[aufaniae]

Rooble I find the news filter of mumsnet is handy when you can't find time for the news! (I was studying last year and didn't get time to read the papers, but mumsnet kept me fairly well informed I'd say!)

It's scary stuff

The biggest change is that they seem to be changing the minimum wage from something which employers have a responsibility to pay you, to something which you have a responsibly to earn. Fail to reach NMW and you will be penalised. This is meant to be an incentive.

There is nothing about job creation, as far as I can see. Their answer to there being not enough jobs to go round, seems to bash us all with a big stick until we find them somehow. I know 7 years olds who could see the fault in that logic.

(aufaniae is spot on btw - no need to doubt yourself!)

[theodorakis]

I would never have dreamed you would have. guardian maybe...

[Orwellian]

aufaniae, are you a Labour voter? If so, I hope you feel personally responsible for all the deaths caused by Labour in Afghanistan, Iraq etc? If not, why not?

[economistextra]

I blame Blair and Labour for the tragic deaths of soldiers in Afghanistan. It is a pointless war, Russia gave up fighting it in the past, no one has ever won. It will be a mess still in ten years, I hope not but I fear it will...

[InfestationofLannisters]

dreaming I went back to work after maternity leave when DD was a baby aged three months. My marriage had broken up due to domestic violence and I had a mortgage to pay. I used to look at the couples picking up their DC from the upper Junior School where I worked (during the day and into the small hours at home) who had been shopping or sitting in the sun and feel a bit jealous.

I shouldn't have, because after having a disabled child I am now in the position, despite the advantages of my degree and experience, of not being able to work. I am in social housing and having to live in an area with sky-high economic and social deprivation which cause countless problems which I am powerless against.

It probably isn't fair, but who said that life ever was?

[aufaniae]

theodorakis well, yes, a real paper is preferable of course :)

But the headline stuff seemed to filter through when I was in my little studying bubble last year I thought. But I digress