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?

"It never entered my head to think about children until I was about 30, with a career, a property and a happy marriage to support them with. I accepted that I was not in a position to have a family prior to this. We have contraception in this country for free, I used it."

Well, we did all this. Doesn't mean that we're not seriously worried as our "secure" jobs, which we have been in for over 20 years look to be pulled out from under us.

I've not read the thread yet, but in response to the OP, but if you voted Labour by the same argument then you should feel 'personally responsible' every time you saw coffins of soldiers going though Royal Wootton(sp) Basset, and expect Mr Blair to personally thank you for all his millions.

There is also a difference between people who have dc when they are stable and then fall on hard times and those who deliberately continue pregnancies or don't use contraception when they know they cannot provide for them. It's not only selfish it's bloody negligible parenting as you are deliberately bringing a child into a poor income/ unstable environment

Oh FFS! Didn't vote tory but agree w much of what they have HAD to do!! Remember the note left by departing labour minister, "sorry, theres no money left"???

Ok, so you move heaven and earth to avoid your children being homeless. Your children, there's a clue there. What's not to understand?

People seem to think that having a nice life and aspirations is beyond them sometimes, they should just be up and making it happen.

What if you voted Lib Dem?

FFS, let's not pretend Labour and the Tories are that different anyway. Their spending plans differed by pretty much bugger all.

You can keep your tribal bullshit tub-thumping. They're all wankers, and we're all gonna get a lot poorer whichever bunch is steering us onto the rocks.

OneMoreChap - take a look at this thread, most people who are tory do feel that those who aren't in a similar position to them (clearly financially stable) are irresponsible, lazy even. i don't understand people that vote tory, the only thing i can think is that they are fairly well off and don't need to worry about a safety net.

That whole paragraph is rubbish.

Yes homelessness is not the best for for children, neither is having DV in the house, or having a poor diet, or having illiterate parents, or divorce or a million and one other things. Fr most of these things the responsibility ultimately lies with the parents.

Well, I'm in the same boat goin, but when it happens in about a year's time I'll have either pre-empted and got another job (still waiting to hear the outcome of an interview last week) or thanked God that I did everything I could to minimise the effects and carry on.

Seriously, if people use their brains a bit how hard is it?

Y a Being Utterly ridiculous. 9 out of 10 for imaginative thinking though, although you should spend detention reading policy not the socialist worker. No really, you're welcome.

i don't think i'm in too much of a minority, fairyjen i know quite a few people in my boat. alot of people on this thread are in the same boat as me too. i agree with what you say about those that expect things handed on a plate, but you mustn't forget people like me, who are stuck in the middle.

there seems to be an attitude of "well you should have waited until you were in your 30's, had a high flying job, owned a property etc.. before you had kids" on here. life doesn't always work like that, and it's exceptionally smug to feel like that. pat on the back to those that do/can. but for some of us it's not that easy. i think people forget we are raising the next generation, if we all waited until life was perfect and we had full financial security (which will never be the case for many of us) the next generation would die out. we are making a massive contribution to society if we raise polite, caring, intelligent kids. an equal contribution in my opinion than those who are able to pay 40% tax on their high flying wage.

sookiecookie how so? it's my opinion and what i believe. why do people vote tory then? it's their right of course, but i don't understand why. enlighten me.

All Tories are back? Just finished work?

we are making a massive contribution to society if we raise polite, caring, intelligent kids. an equal contribution in my opinion than those who are able to pay 40% tax on their high flying wage.

Hardly, surely the former should be a given for any parent?

theroseofwait you'd think so wouldn't you? read the whole of my paragraph.

I think pumpkins attitude just about sums up why this country is fucked! I want therefore will have. The idea that tax credits are not a benefit. Why is it pathetic to say you shouldn't start a family if you can't afford it? Why? So what if your dp has paid in for 11 years, I have paid in for almost 20 now and no one gives me cash back. I want my taxes to go on helping the disabled, carers, the Nhs. I don't really want you to be subsidised because you fancied 4 children.

And growing up in a culture of dependency, with non-working parents and no aspirations to a better life is probably not great for children either.

Both my parents grew up poor (in my mum's case, very poor indeed, in a country with no welfare state or free healthcare) and lived in what we would no doubt consider appalling conditions, worse than some of the 'homeless' families today. But they and their parents worked for a better future, seeing hard work and education as the way out, and counter-intuitively, we as a family are all probably in a better place now than we would have been if they'd been provided with a comfortable life on benefits.

That's what I'm trying to say, there is no magic wand to solve all these financial and social problems, and sometimes throwing money at a problem is counter-productive, even if its done with the kindest of intentions.

It's not always obvious what the best decision is in a case like this, however it's perfectly possible to logically and morally justify either the more left or right wing position on benefits, and neither position makes the person 'wicked' or 'selfish' or whatever insults are being thrown around here. It just means they have a different opinion.

london, its your attitude that stinks as you think my children should suffer. Thing is they have already been born and my dh has been made redundant, so your saying i shouldn't accept any benefits and my children should all starve?

life doesn't always work like that, - but then you've got to make it like that if that's what you want, nobody else can do it for you.

I could write a book about the cock ups I've made in my time but none of them have any effect on my dcs because I made sure I was sorted before they were even thought of.

Peppermint - the problem with the argument of "life doesn't work out lke that" is that it is so passive. Also the idea that the human race will die out if we don't pay people to have kids is laughable.

I am rich. I have lived abroad most of my life. I work in the oil industry. I am fairly confident that I will not ever need benefits and that I will never lve in the UK. I don't think people remember what countries without welfare are like. I am not talking about the insurance issues in the US. I work with an extremely highly qualified engineer from the Phillipines. he was only the other day incredulously asking me if the state pension in Britain was actually true? In 2012, he still felt he would have to have enough children to support him in old age as he "didn't have any sisters who could marry and ask the in laws for help". His 6 kids work so bloody hard, one got the highest IGCSE result in the world last year. I work almost exclusively with Indian and Phillipino men and the burden they carry for their families is huge. Most of the world hasn't changed. Whether Con or Labour, we should be grateful that there is a safety net, in whatever state it's in. And whatever people voted they should be proud.

"There is also a difference between people who have dc when they are stable and then fall on hard times and those who deliberately continue pregnancies or don't use contraception when they know they cannot provide for them."

So do you think it's fair that children in the first group will be made homeless as a deterrent to the parent in the second?

Do all of you think labour would be much different, if you do i'm surprised their spending plans were much the same as the Tories. Voting Labour in a few years time would change very little even they realized they have massively overspent and will have to cut back. It is very easy being in opposition claiming they would not do this, where would the money come from. Every Labour government seem to overspend, it is really painful to balance the books but if we don't we/our children will suffer dramatically.