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?

Awful - that film has been running through my mind today.
Apparently, people at the time were so affected that they approached the actress who played Cathy and pressed £1 and £5 notes into her hands...a fiver...in those days!?

The Tories have fallen for the line that if we make cuts to benefits and make people destitute that will shore up class wealth and power. What is really key to this is that our economy thrives on inequality but only to a point. Just look at the chinese workers working for a pittance to service our needs in the west but the need is diminishing. We actually have no need to compete with them if we play a waiting game. As the chinese state spends billions of lending and on infrastructure to tempt investors......they are also failing to get back their public investment and welfare needs are just starting to get a foothold. China will be the USA of tomorrow. Capitalism though sows the seeds of it's own destruction when the inequality reaches a tipping point, which is what is happening now. It happened in the 20's. Cutting welfare will directly lead to greater inequality and therefore it will deepen the crisis.

londonone has it, state sponsored theft is not the answer.

Shelly, you said that Labour brought down the minimum wage by letting loads of immigrant in.

This was a ridiculous statement for a start as it was Labour who brought in the NMW in the first place (opposed by the Tories).

But the idea that immigrants are coming to steal our jobs is a racist one IMO.

Your last reply to me was a personal attack, so I did not respond.

I attacked your ideas, not you personally.

MiniTheMinx do you have the faintest notion of the nonsense you are trying to spout?

One thing I've been thinking about - Pumpkin was labelled a net beneficiary.
Wouldn't you have to wait until she's no longer of working age or dead to work that out?
I'm sure I saw somewhere that very few of us really pay back what they get from the state, but that your labour, existence and children are still essential.

aufanie where on earth have I said that immigrants have stolen our jobs!

And you wonder why I'm so angry about what you're saying?

I find any sort of racism utterly abhorent.

I sincerely apologise for making a personal attack on you. It was uncalled for but I'm so, so appalled at being thought of as racist!

Brown is on record as saying open borders would disempower labour. So there is some truth in it. However what we should remember is that foreign workers come here to make a better life free from even harsher exploitation. We should welcome our peers. We are all in the same boat.

Toombs, come on then lets have your argument.

Are we about to have an econo-scrap?

I don't do straw man arguments.

Go on.....

Seriously, the straw man in Mini's argument is big enough for Edward Woodward to get in, don't you see it?

Well I'm glad racism appalls you! I'm sorry if I got the wrong end of the stick.

What were you trying to say then?

I know bog all about economics, I'm afraid.

Sorry to keep dipping in and out, I've just made about a million cake pops for ds' bake sale.

It will come as no surprise that I totally agree with happymummy, I also think tax credits should be removed completely and I also think London's right in that if you need child benefit to feed you kids then maybe you weren't in a position to have them.

We're there seriously only four of us in the country that did the sums before we conceived?

Am just popping for a bath but I'll be back. . .

Toombs or words of more than one syllable or complete sentences it would seem. I am genuinely interested to hear your opinion, I'm sure others are too.

We need children, they are consumers of today, the workers of tomorrow and the tax payers of the future. When we have low birth rates governments start to panic because people are living longer and an aging population is drain on welfare.

I am more than happy to pump my wages back into the economy, reduce my tax burden and I will definitely spend more!

I rest my case.

We have had 30 years or more of trickle down economics and the welfare need is still growing. It doesn't work.

You're going to have to be more explicit that that, Toombs.
For me.....

Ah the 'we need children' argument. Of course the world population is rapidly falling, oh no it's not!

The welfare need isn't growing, the welfare expectation is. Not the same thing

Bravo.

Of course we need children from an economic perspective. We're not talking about world population, we're talking about people within our own tax system.

Not enough children becoming workers and consumers, not enough tax in the system. Simple maths.