To have zero sympathy for this woman

[wasonthelist]

The tearful woman on BBC Question Time claims to have been a Tory voter. She's reaping what she sows.
www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/hame-you-hardworking-mums-tearful-6643284

But the Tories only keep in power because of working class voters who vote for them (yes MIL, that is you for one, who has swallowed the Daily Mail wholesale.)

I sincerely hope that this is an enormous own goal for them. I wasn't hopeful seeing the extract from Question Time though - instead of answering the woman they babbled on about Labour and chaos.

The tax credits system when it was brought in by the labour government was so clearly and absolutely the dream child of lunatics, it's hard to believe how long it, has been allowed to persist, and not surprising that it has created an enormous deficit.

When it first came in, I was earning around £60k a year (yup, lucky me). I didn't bother applying as assumed I earnt too much to qualify and didn't need the money. I was a single parent, of a 2yo, working full time and paying nursery fees. Ex DP also earnt well and paid a substantial sum in maintenance ( as the childcare costs were high). Friends said "ooh you should apply, as a single parent you'll qualify for maximum WTC" . So I did. Wish I never had. The sum I was given, and I was brutually honest about all my income, was more than I paid in tax. At the time I can recall discussing with family and close friends how the fuck that could possibly be sustainable. Clearly it wasn't.

But I learnt as so many others did to rely on it. To live according to my income, which included this ludicrous benefit. And now it's gone. Completely, we receive no benefits of any kind, are distinctively worse off (than we were) and having to make substantial cuts to lifestyle, and standard of living, as well as seek alternative sources of income. And I am relieved, that at last a government has the bollocks to strip out this insidious system that has spawned an entire generation of greedy fuckers that expect someone else to pay for their lives.

Benefits should be reserved for those who are in genuine need - the ill, the disabled, the elderly, the infirm, the abused, the helpless. I am wholeheartedly in favour of my taxes to be used for all and any in this category.

This woman, in her prime, has chosen to have 4 children, run a business that makes no profit (WTF for - oh, right to 'qualify') and chance her luck on the vast majority of her income coming from benefits. I have no sympathy for her. I feel sorry for her kids, who chose none of this and can't do anything about it, but not for her. She had better come up with a plan pretty damn quick to find an income to support her brood. I can't ever see how running a nail bar and doing a few eyebrow shapings in her front room was EVER going to be a sustainable financial plan to raise 4 children. Or even raise 2, assuming her exDh was paying 50% of the cost of raising them all. So her long term plan was to live on benefits? Hmmmmn. If that's her plan then she was a mug to vote Tory yes. Labour would indeed have been the better party for her.

I don't disagree with the right to choose to work PT, or to be a SAHM, as long as you can afford to do so - not because some other tax payer is paying for it.

Yes I voted Tory. Yes I am worse off for it. But contrary to a lot of people I do believe that short term pain now to bring down and clear the deficit, to return the economy to one where employers will have to pay wages that are sufficient to live on without state benefits propping everyone up, to return rents to a proportionate level to wages, to allow the government to pump more funds into the NHS, state pensions, schools and the armed forces will build a better future for my dc not a worse one.

How on earth did you get benefits when earning £60,000 a year?! Wow. Why did you apply for it if you didn't need it?

Busyworkingmum you are coming across as a massive massive hypocrite.

Culture I wish I fucking knew. More out of curiosity I suppose. Everyone was on WTC - I was told I was an idiot for not applying, that it was my right as a single parent. I couldn't believe how much I was awarded. I kept asking if they were sure that was right and for the first year I put it in a savings account as I was sure that they would ask for it back. They didn't, it kept coming.

That's how fucked up the tax credits system is and was. The brain child of lunatics, that has caused the deficit, and bred a generation of entitleds.

I was on the gravy train with everyone else and bitterly regret it. The disabled,the elderly and the needy have suffered, at the hands of the labour govts insane vote winning benefits policy. The sooner it's gone the better.

And in the late 90s there were actual jobs in the JC .....fulltime ones advertised at £1.50 an hour £50 a week. People in these jobs are who it was suppossed to help.

It sounds like now they have served their purpose for you you want to yank up the drawbridge for others.

Yep i think I have been a hypocrite. Why do you think I regret it? At least I am honest. Now and then. I have never lied about my income, so is it me at fault or the system that allows benefits to be paid to those who don't NEED it to survive?

Yes I could have not received WTC or CB, I could have denied it. How many people out there have done that, really?

I'm only being honest. Knew I would get flamed.

Thing is Busyworkingmum When the tax credits are cut do you really think it will go to disabled people instead Because that is the way your stance reads if followed to its logical conclusion.

Not at all, I cerainly think those that need support should receive it. I have said that in my post. WTC are still available to those on the lowest incomes. if you're on a very low income and choose to have lots of dc it's not rocket science to see that you are going to be very poor.

I would hope that once the deficit is reduced preferably cleared that we will see much more investment in services for those that are helpless, ie cannot improve their own situation. The disabled, long term ill, elderly, infirm etc.

I cerainly don't want a return to the loadsamoney culture of the 80's, no.

BusyWorkingMum im childfree by choice. But i can see further than the end of my own nose. I dont see things as black or white......good or evil. You should take a read of the Relationships board someday. You would be shocked at how many women are reproductively coerced.

Also contraception is not 100 % Shit happens.

Let's hope you donated all that unnecessary WTC you claimed to charity then.

Honestly, I cannot understand the thought processes that you went through. Doesn't matter what other people say, you knew if you needed the money or not.

"The tax credits system when it was brought in by the labour government was so clearly and absolutely the dream child of lunatics, it's hard to believe how long it, has been allowed to persist, and not surprising that it has created an enormous deficit. "

Would that be that the tax credit system that has been around in some form or another since the Heath government of the 70s?

Would that be the deficit that in 2007, with two wars (that I disagreed with), and the biggest level of investment in public services and infratstrucure for years, public services and infrastructure that were emaciated and stuggling after 18 years of tory rule but was at the same level as it was in 1997 when the tories left government? Despite this level of spending?

Oh and the same levels of spending that the Golden boy chancellor of the moment said he would match, whilst calling for further deregulation of the banks.

Would that be the deficit and the debt that is lower than other G8 countries? Or the myth that in a time of low interest on bonds that debt is a bad thing (and has been higher for large amounts of time)

Blah blah, sick and tired of the economically illiterate on here, your economics is crap.

Don't try to take benefit cuts as an attack on the deficit when inheritance taxes levels are being raised ( loss of £1 billion + a year to the exchequer), don't try and claim it when subsidies to land owners are being raised, don't try and do it when taxes on the highest earners ( who benefit the most from society) and taxes on unearned income and wealth are at a relative historic low.

This is not about deficit, this is about transfer of wealth, its about restoring things back to how they were before the second world war (the post war consensus never stuck well with some). Keynes for the rick, Hayek for the poor, suck it up and take what your given... Fuck that.

Let's be clear - I haven't earned £60k for the last 14 years and received max WTC. My situation has changed over those years, as has my income, the number of dc I have, my marital state, the WTC I have/have not been entitled to. But at that time and until recently it has been available to those that don't truly desperately need it.

For women who are reproductively coerced as you put it, would IMO, fall into the category of those who need support, they are abused women and I wholeheartedly agree that financial support, housing and an array of funded support services are available to them.

For those for whom contraception has failed, well as you say shit happens. I'm not sure they should become the responsibility of the state and the tax payer, but that is perhaps a different discussion. There is one very very robust form of contraception, and that is just not having sex. Everyone seems to have forgotten that.

The point I am trying to make is that the WTC system is far too blanket and indiscriminate, diverting much needed funds away from those that need it. The Tories are trying to restructure which will mean taking funds away from those that gave got used to it and have built their lifestyles upon it. Which results in much wailing, it's not fair and teeth gnashing. But this woman on BBC QT does not need WTC in the same way that abused women, disabled, elderly etc need it. She has other options not open to the groups that IMO are deserving of welfare benefits, she may not like them, but she has the option to work.

BusyWorkingMum Not once have you mentioned Child Support and the fact that many NRPS DONT pay and are getting away with it. THIS IS a form of financial abuse.

As for the "just not having sex" Why do i get the nasty feeling you are putting the onus just on women when you say that.

Yes I could have not received WTC or CB, I could have denied it. How many people out there have done that, really?

I have kids quite a few of them, I've never claimed CB. Or anything else.

One of my neighbours a very nice lady was widowed last year, she has 4 kids she works 16 hours per week at NMW on top of the almost 100 hours per week that she is a carer for a significantly disabled child. Her youngest two are almost the same age as mine so toddlers,when her husband was alive he worked serious hours, afaik they received no tax credits obviously she now does. She will be worse off by something like 1600 next year. It is not possible for her to work any more hours than she already does there is no way at all (unless her older child dies) it can be done. Come April she will be compleatly unemployed because she will not be able to afford to go to work.

It's a massive shame because she felt she had a value as a human being being in work, it also provided her with valuable respite from her careing responsibilities but she won't be able to afford to do it anymore.

"The Tories are trying to restructure which will mean taking funds away from those that gave got used to it and have built their lifestyles upon it."

The Tories are trying to restructure so that more wealth goes upwards and is not shared equally, or that it stays where it is and becomes harder for others to get on. Not so that the deficit is gone, the current chancellor has raised more debt than every Labour chancellor combined, but hey, sit with your tinfoil hat on and believe the crap peddled by the tory press (whose owners have a vested interest in the restructuring).

Consider this, in a time of austerity why are the poorest being hit hardest? Why are those with ample wealth not being asked to contribute more? Why are corporations being told they can contribute less to the tax take? Why are those who are fortunate and have seen their parents house prices rise through luck and government funded inflation being allowed to keep more unearned income?

Deficit, nahh, this is deeper and darker than that.

Oh and David Cameron and Osbourne claimed CB despite being millionaires, DC claimed DLA, DC got top notch treatment from the NHS for his kid.

Benefits, entitlement, hypocracy.

Knew I'd get flamed.

I could stay and argue, but it's not worth it. I'm going to sleep. But before I go....

longtime your economics are wrong. £15bn deficit in 1997, £156bn in 2009, hardly the same?? Inheritance tax is being raised in response to property price rises, not just the old boys network and wealthiest looking after the wealthiest. Such a shortsighted view. It is enabling average working class couples who bought a house for £3k 50 years ago, worked hard and paid their mortgage off, now finding it's worth £750k and being able to pass that on to their dc free of inheritance tax. And you say Tories are making it harder for you to get on, to acquire wealth - are you sure that's what you would want? Because then you'd be one of those rich wankers wouldn't you, who had got it all but didn't deserve it?

needs surely your neighbour falls into the category of those who need supporting, due to her severely disabled dc, combined with no other parent.

helena no I haven't mentioned maintenance much, I also haven't mentioned a lot iof things that weren't relevant to the OPs original post.

Goodnight

" £15bn deficit in 1997, £156bn in 2009"

Oh dear, oh dear, MY economics are wrong? As a % of GDP you measure deficit, much larger in 2009 than in 1997, and then you must apply real terms. Also I stated that it was the same level in 2007 pre crash, and then you state a post crash figure, which is dishonest and an poor attempt to manipulate the facts.

Please do not seek to educate me when the gaps in your knowledge and understanding are so gaping that I'm shocked you feel the capability to comment.

"It is enabling average working class couples who bought a house for £3k 50 years ago, worked hard and paid their mortgage off, now finding it's worth £750k and being able to pass that on to their dc free of inheritance tax."

Oh really? But they'd get £600 odd k inheritence tax free at the minute and thats not enough for unearned income? Yet at a cost to the exchequer of £1 billion a year? Whilst changes to many families at the bottom will cost individuals more and yes cost the economy more as a portion of consumption is sucked out.

"Because then you'd be one of those rich wankers wouldn't you, who had got it all but didn't deserve it? " I am a "rich wanker" on paper, my properties that I bought a long time ago have increased in value, because of good care, but mostly luck. I acknowledge the role that society improving has played and the fact that this extra wealth has so far been untaxed, my kids haven't earned it, neither have I, they'll get some, but tax needs to be paid too.

Oh and the passing it on to your kids point is poor, if I live as long as my mother my children will all be mid 60s when I die. Its essentially a subsidy to the wealthy by the state at the expense of the poor, a transfer of wealth as it were, as I said earlier, but maybe you didn't catch that.

"I knew I'd get flamed", for good reason, your arguments are terrible and don't stand up to any rigourous challenge.

From an economic analysis from the Observer:

"a two-child family with two parents working full-time, both parents would need to earn £9.55 an hour in 2016 to reach the same standard of living they would have had when earning the minimum wage of £6.50 in April 2015."

Ask yourself, are these people less important than those whose parents have been lucky? Yes lucky, house price inflation has been luck not shrewd investment. Less important than tax avoiding corporations? Less important that the highest earners and the wealthy that have recieved large tax cuts?

Cookie you've actually said/done precisely what I said you would.

"However, I was responsible for myself so had no choice but to get on with it. Yes I could have turned to benefits but why should I when I was able to work. I knew I wanted a family and who chooses to have childre and raise them on benefits?"

Able to work - not everyone is!
Who chooses to have children and raise them on benefits? - I know of one person who has chosen to keep an unplanned pregnancy while not working and on benefits. Circumstances change. I CERTAINLY didn't CHOOSE to be a LP, disabled, mentally ill and raising my daughter on benefits!!

Actually as a result of that post I have even less respect for your view that those in receipt of welfare are "lazy". To have been through hard times and STILL not have sympathy for others that do shows an astonishing lack of compassion.

"No, the welfare state is preserved by the Tories, by ensuring we can continue to operate it, by living within our means,

What bollocks. We aren't living within our means now, any more than we were living beyond them before. Trying to pretend we'd be like Greece is just arrant nonsense. These silly home-spun homilies about looking after the pennies are just an excuse for spiteful and unecessary policies fueled by idealogy, not evidence." Absolutely agree with this!

"Don't try to take benefit cuts as an attack on the deficit when inheritance taxes levels are being raised ( loss of £1 billion + a year to the exchequer), don't try and claim it when subsidies to land owners are being raised, don't try and do it when taxes on the highest earners ( who benefit the most from society) and taxes on unearned income and wealth are at a relative historic low." And this!

I don't think the Tories give a rats arse even about the so called 'deserving' they just want to look after their own (those with inherited wealth who've never know financial hardship a day in their lives) and stay in power!

I don't see anything wrong with a basic assumption that you should make life choices based on what you can afford without ANY benefits. Obviously if you lose your job, get ill etc there should be a safety net but otherwise, nothing.

Most of the country would be with busyworkingmum on her posts above as am I. Yes we know before Blair decided for political reasons to make all families earning up to £60k (yes tax credits went up to incomes that level) there were some minimal credit for the very poor. However Blair's plan was to make just about all families a benefits claimant through this invidious scheme. The left always like to control people and this achieved that control. Also it used to cost £1bn and now costs £30bn!! It has got totally out of hand and many many people support these changes despite what you read on mumsnet.

Only the Tories really care for the poor. The left can say nice words but unless you manage the economy to live within your means there will be no welfare state left. The Tories through their policies preserve the welfare state.

If you're talking real terms, £1bn loss from inheritance tax is a drop in the ocean compared to the £1.1tn (yes tn) in real terms borrowing.

I know that deficit is different from debt longtime thanks. I also understand debt to gdp ratios. Saying pre and post crash figures are the only way of looking at it fairly is a nonsense. Effectively what your saying is "don't blame labour for the crash, that's not fair, it could have happened to the Tories, it could have happened to anyone, don't blame poor labour, it's not their fault". Which IS manipulating the figures. In power to 2009, but we'll only count until 2007, because those figures are much prettier and we will just sweep 2008 -09 under the carpet and deny all responsibility for it. I'm afraid running a govt involves being held accountabie for your actions, and you're spending, all of it.

I hope you will be donating all of you're 'unearned income' gained on property investments to worthy causes, to charity, after paying your taxes of course, because if you leave any of it to your dc you are subsidising the wealthy (your kids) at the expense of the poor. Have you told them yet?