To ask why you are worried about a Tory government?

[NolanThorne]

Genuinely interested. I'm not British and didn't vote. My husband a FIL are saying this is the first time in a long time they are NOT worried about the UK. If you are worried, why specifically?

Ah it was Labours fault that employers paid shit wages? That would be why it was so much better for your mum in the 80s working her two jobs then?

Tax credits may be a sticking plaster, but they have helped millions of single parents into employment and lifted them out of poverty. It's often nothing to do with lack of ambition and everything to do with the cost of living. As for running a car this can be essential for some to get to work and get back for the kids. It hardly living the high life, I've often being praying that my old banger didn't break down so that I could get back to collect ds from nursery I worked an hours drive away, no way could I have caught public transport.

Also as far as I'm aware single parents didn't become parents by themselves. The government is silent on the issue of parents who contribute nothing.

But what about throwing money at all the richest people and the multinationals that the Tories are merrily doing and will continue to do? What about the Tories throwing money at the all ready rich? Isn't that just a different direction to throw money?

Except that's not what's happening Noelle. Rich people pay plenty of tax, and actually pay more income tax than they did under the labour government.

People out of work and on benefits already do have a lower standard of living. Socially and financially. You're always better off in paid employment with the exception possibly of very large families or those committing fraud.

I don't think that anybody is saying that an able bodied adult shouldn't seek employment.

I genuinely don't believe that the Tories are going to help the situation long term by demonising groups of people and stirring up myths and hatred.

I don't see them giving willing people the leg up or tackling the social problems that lead to some resigning themselves to a life on benefits. I believe that when all is said and done nothing will change in terms of people having better lives but we will see more poverty and children suffering.

my Dad contributed nothing on account of being dead. She was a widow. We has no car because we couldn't run it and she had to find a job which she could catch the bus or walk to. Running a car was just a giddy dream! She worked around her situation. The cards were all stacked against her too.
It is possible to climb out of despair and support yourself. Why is that seen by some on the left as some fascist ideology?! I'm genuinely baffled. Why the negativity on the left? Why is it wrong to encourage people to help themselves? What's wrong with ambition, hard work, scrimping, saving and aspiring?

Amazon and its ilk aren't paying their way though are they?

And a lot of the wealthiest still have large proportions of their wealth offshore, there are huge companies of accountants whose sole expertise is moving money away from the UK taxman. That is an issue for many people who are aware you can go to prison for theft but tax avoidance on a grand scale might just get you a Knighthood. A little hypocritical.

Because I don't trust them on the NHS.

They will abolish the TV licence fee which means we'll be stuck with advertising on the BBC and it won't be the beacon that it currently is.

I don't want to leave the EU so have to rely on enough people in England to have the same view.

I don't want Scotland to leave the union, but with the Tories in power in England and the SNP in Scotland, it doesn't look good.

Fox-hunting made legal again.

Probably even more of an assault on employment rights.

Getting rid of the Human Rights Act. I do understand the frustration of not being able to deport terrorists and criminals but getting rid of Human Rights Act is not the answer.

Being stuck with the reforms to GCSEs (not against the idea of making them more robust but what's with the piecemeal implementation and moving to numbers instead of letters)?

I don't believe that anyone should just stay on benefits through choice. Of course everyone should seek to be independent. It's better for everyone long term. I was a single parent and never took the option of being off work.

However having been a single parent I think that lots of the Tory policies are preventative.

They've cut help with childcare which is a basic essential if you're in work, universal credit remains to be seen but the rules suggest that someone may be forced out of let's say a permanent 30 hour a week job into a short term 36 hour a week job or lose the childcare help.

Meechimoo Unemployment went down under Labour, and they introduced the national minimum wage so what you are saying isn't entirely correct.

Unless we want the government to regulate the shit out of big business and force them to put employee wages before profits, then we're stuck with our sticking plaster.

The BBC won't just be left with adverts, the BBC will be destroyed, have no illusions about it, they object to its very existence.

What I resent is that no one remembers how hard a time the BBC gave New Labour, I mean Alistair Campbell HATED the BBC.

The country needs someone to be capable of speaking truth to power. Or shall we just leave it to Rupert Murdoch...

Just as the Labour Party are the party of spend not save, they're the party of cure not prevent. That's where my issue lies. It's a fundamental difference and one which means that even when I've voted Labour in the past, I've never really trusted them. It's a flawed ideology.

Meechimoo there is nothing wrong with scrimping, saving and aspiring but I'm not sure that I understand your point?

When I was a single parent I was already employed, I'd already saved, I then found myself in a situation where I was on my own after domestic violence, I never just gave up and went on the dole I carried on going back to work, I claimed tax credits and they mostly paid for nursery fees while I worked, I ran a car after my employer moved by place of work. I then got a better paid job and eventually to a point where my ds was in school meaning I claimed far less tax credits.

I'm not sure what you suggest I could have done differently?

I'm not pyjama. You did bloody brilliantly by the sounds of things, just like my Mum.

I am worried they will change maternity pay and allowances
That they will bring back brutal fox hunting
that they will scrap the Human rights Act
That poor families with children will not be able to feed or clothe them.
That there will be no right to be able to hold protests in public.
That people will be detained for a long time without any charges being made against them and with no evidence
That funding is withdrawn from hospitals
That people will have to pay to make GP appointments
That children will be tested and tested in schools as if ticking boxes is the only good thing for them.
That people with disabilities will be forced into work they cannot do and not given the tools with which to get to their place of employment

Well because it seems that many are for getting rid of tax credits.

I don't think that they're perfect by any means, they are a sticking plaster but atm they're the best one we've got.

I appreciate the plight of people who struggled in the 80s without a lot of the help we have available now. I'm not convinced that it was better. I think that people on and off benefits have things easier now. I suppose that can work two ways in terms of aspiration but for me knowing that I could go to work and afford to cover the bills helped me to sleep at night.

Standards of living have improved in lots of ways, when I was growing up we had no heating and it was usual to have damp and mould inside the house. That isn't the norm these days.

I suppose to me the cuts are another sticking plaster. They make the hardworking tax payer feel better.

They make the working family feel better when they see their neighbour who's never worked having a fag and a can of beer.

I don't think that the cuts are tackling the root cause of why some people end up living the lives that they do, or why wages just aren't enough to live on.

In 1997, Labour inherited a deficit from the previous Conservative government , high unemployment and a lot of people who'd been bumped on to incapacity benefit in order to make the official unemployment figures seem not as bad. A chronically underfunded NHS and education system.

The Tories do love their household analogies so here is one. It costs less money to do small amounts of upkeep when needed than it does to renovate after a house has been neglected and allowed to fall in to near ruin.

Think I've killed the thread!

Just on the subject of not having children that you can't afford.

My now dp and I don't earn too badly between us, we certainly can't claim and tcs, but we can barely afford a child because of the childcare costs.

I do t think that a couple both earning minimum wage could ever afford to have children without top ups.

EXACTLY erretating!

I used the exact same analogy with my more Tory thinking dp the other day, Labour did spend a lot, but at the time a lot of investment was needed. Totally agree a out incapacity benefit.

I envisage it going the same way in the next 10-15 years.

How about their inheritance tax policy? So we can't afford to help the disabled into work, but we can afford to throw a load of money at people who didn't earn it? Most inherited wealth comes from property: property values are sky high, so generally home owners only worked to pay for a fraction of the cost. The rest is just inflation.

So with that policy the Tories aren't rewarding 'hard work', they're just rewarding their key voting demographic (older people). Now prices are high, it doesn't matter how hard you work, very few people are likely to amass assets worth £1 million. So it's hardly encouraging people to work hard to save for the future. It's simply a cynical giveaway, that completely undermines their rhetoric of "we can't afford the NHS/education/access to justice etc."

Because wealth inequality is a major issue. Because zero hours contracts have tripled under the Tories. Because I don't believe they are the best party to look after the NHS. Because they have demonised the poor (including the working poor) by talking in terms of 'handouts'. Because I don't believe services like Sure Start should be decimated. Because I don't believe the Bullingdon boys and girls have the slightest concept of what it's like to be 'ordinary' - to send your children to state schools, spend the bulk of your income on housing and utilities etc. Because I don't like their disregard for the environment etc.

I could go on.

Really worried about tax credits going. I'm a single mum working full-time on low wage, without my tax credits I wouldn't have enough coming in per month to cover my rent and bills (don't qualify for any help with rent or council tax).

Pyjamaramadrama That's not true. The type of people who are dependent on benefits are unfit for work and would never be able to earn the money they receive from the government. That's the point. If you're getting 22k of the state and having your rent payed for you and you barely have GCSEs the most youll earn is 15k as a checkout person in waitrose. Hmmm choices.

I don't think tax credits will go from hundreds a month to zero when they're replaced with universal credit. I think it will mostly be people choosing to work only a few hours and be topped up that will be hit the most rather than full time people on a low wage. And I think that's fair.