To not give a damn if the Labour Party...

[slatternlymother]

Give away free flat screen TV's and a £500 Next gift card to everyone claiming benefits.

I don't care if they say 'fuck it, free immigration to everyone, we'll let anyone in'

I don't care if they spend 4 jillion pounds on a statue of Ghandi.

Just as long as the Conservatives don't get in again. They are fucking evil, aren't they?

bastards. Fucking bastards

I don't want to live in a country like this anymore

[HeadFairy]

skittish do you actually understand the paths people travel to living on benefits? Do you seriously think there are millions of people in this country who choose to have babies when they are penniless? There are probably a small group of them yes... but by no means millions of them draining our society. So as a result the folk who have got there through no fault of their own, say as a result of bereavement, redundancy or contraceptive failure are made to suffer because of a couple of thousand people who feature on the Daily Mail front pages?

[JuliaScurr]

We live on benefits and dp's p/t job. If he earns more than £110 (?) p/w he loses all his carer's allowance £58p/w.
Of course, the free car (ha!) free parking free school meals and bus pass for dd and the 68" plasma screen TV are lovely, but really I sometimes wonder if I would have been better off with my f/t job, p/t job and voluntary job that I paid Nat Insurance on for years before I fecklessly developed MS.

[CloudsAndTrees]

Because the way I see it is, when it comes to council tax, there are two options. We either make all service users contribute, or we lose the services. It's that simple.

I don't want to lose any of the essential services that are provided by my council, services that I benefit from every singer day of my existence, as does pretty much everyone else. So yes, I would prefer to make people pay. If that means a few people struggle instead of having an entire community suffer, then so be it. Especially when the majority if the community are already paying an expensive council tax bill. Why should they lose essential services they rely on and pay for, because of a minority of people?

[Skittish]

Ifnot - one reason why so many working class kids became GPO's is because of grammar schools which Labour abolished.

[scaevola]

"if you are a SAHM you now will get a better pension"

Um, no. HRP and its successors have been around since the late 1970s and a particular bit of rhetoric showed an incredible level of ignorance of the importance of the NI credit element of CB.

That said, those who say that Labour didn't leave the most godawful mess (because of global factors) also must absolve the Coalition, for the Eurozone and ongoing US crises were not of their making either.

[Skittish]

*Gp's

[sukysue]

They are all a load of rubbish labour tory etc etc , I reckon we need a political party totally made up of women no bloody fellas in it at all and no bloody toffs or chavs either just normal reasonable women. We'd soon get this country back on it's feet.

[Nancy66]

I think council tax, like income tax, should be deducted at source.

In some boroughs there is such a high per centage of non payers that pursuing them will cost more than it will reap in payment. So the easiest way of bridging the shortfall is to slap the charges on those who already pay.

[ConferencePear]

Skittish - it is a matter of historical fact that when Thatcher was Minister for Education she was one of the keenest advocates ever of comprehensive school and oversaw the opening of many of them.

[glenthebattleostrich]

They are each as bad as the other. There is no longer a 3 party system there is a little club of people who's sole ambition was to be a polititican and have never experienced life outside the Westminster bubble.

The simple fact is as long as we have the current crop of wankers leaders we are all screwed.

[HeadFairy]

That said, those who say that Labour didn't leave the most godawful mess (because of global factors) also must absolve the Coalition, for the Eurozone and ongoing US crises were not of their making either

That is true, but it's their reaction to the ongoing crisis in Europe that has been woeful. They have repeatedly failed to heed warnings that they are cutting too far and too fast. They have failed to create the conditions for growth. They have failed.

[Ilovesunflowers]

I would NEVER EVER vote Conservative. There were many reasons for our economic crisis (many, many reasons). To think this was purely the fault of labour is quite simply naive.

[Ilovesunflowers]

and I will never forgive the conservative government for turning education into a business through forced and strongly encouraged academyship. Education should never be a business.

[CelticPromise]

I could rant about the Tories all night but re council tax- the highest band is too wide. In lots of areas you pay the same for a large family house as for a mansion. If more revenue is needed- take it from the top.

Also most benefits are paid to people in work, because companies are not paying a living wage.

[Iggly]

So Clouds why should the elderly be protected from these council tax increases?

Why should those earning over £150k be given a tax cut? You can blah blah all you like about it not generating any extra income but that's because they knew it was coming so shifted their earnings earlier to avoid it then when it was cut plan to shift their earnings later to avoid it again.

I don't hear of those who are better off being asked to pay more.

The excuse being that they earn so much for the country, they should be let off.

Until that is tackled, I'll never believe for one second that the Tories are being so genuine in their quest to reduce the deficit in the fairest way possible. That is a lie! They want to hurt the scroungers, the benefit claimant who doesn't work and sits behind closed curtains. they ignore the reality, which is easy to do from an ivory tower.

[CloudsAndTrees]

No, most benefits are paid in pensions. But as the article linked to in the OP states 'Under the last administration, more taxpayers' money was being spent on benefits than on defence, education and health combined'.

That is a shocking fact, and even if half of that money is being paid out in pensions, that's still a hell of a lot of people living lives they can't afford that are being funded by other people. I don't want people to be so poor that they are living on the streets begging, but I do think people need to start living at least vaguely within their means.

[Iggly]

You want people to live within their means?

You neglect to mention that the biggest chunk of welfare is paid on pensions. Or did you not know that?

Why are companies not paying higher wages? They've been holding pay down and eroding pensions for the lowly workers way before the economic crisis. Why does the government have to subsidise companies in this way?

Most people on benefits have jobs. Their jobs do not pay them enough. Childcare is too high - the government doesn't subsidise it. Housing costs are disgusting - renters are not protected, house prices have gone mental.

Open your eyes to the bigger picture.

[CloudsAndTrees]

So Clouds why should the elderly be protected from these council tax increases?

Because elderly people have no opportunity to ever increase their earnings, and they are too late in their stage of life to make significant changes. The disabled should be protected because their lives are already more expensive than most.

Elderly and disabled people are the people who should be benefitting the most from public services, especially council run ones, and that is why everyone else who isn't elderly or disabled should be paying their fair share.

Why should those earning over £150k be given a tax cut?

Because the 50% rate that Labour only brought in in the last 30 days they were in power was only done so that they would have something to slag off the Tories about when they inevitably came into power and put it back to where it had been for the previous 13 years. And 50% of anyone's income is too much. Especially when people who earn that sort of money contribute in other ways to society.

[Iggly]

Sorry you did sorry clouds

[CloudsAndTrees]

You neglect to mention that the biggest chunk of welfare is paid on pensions. Or did you not know that?

I didn't neglect to mention it at all. It was my first bloody sentence!!

Open your eyes to what has actually been written.

[CloudsAndTrees]

Sorry, cross posted

[Iggly]

It's not 50% of total income.

It's 50% of income above £150k.

And if we're all in it together they shouldn't have cut it. Why cut it?

[Iggly]

PMSL - I'm getting very wound up and typing too quickly and skim reading

[BacardiNCoke]

Skittish
Slatternly, what ,precisely, do benefit claimants NOT get for free then?

So you call paying income tax for over 20 years before losing your job and then having to claim benefits and only being able to feed your kids because you get help from your parents getting everything for free? Right I'll tell DH that he's a dirty rotten scrounger then, because of course being employed for more than half your life and then the instant you fall on hard times you automatically go through a magnificent transformation from hard working contributor to society into a lazy rotten benefits scrounger. Right thanks for clearing that up for me Skittish.

[BacardiNCoke]

I think that's a marvellous idea sukysue.