To not understand how people can justify it

[ijustdontunderstand]

Okay, not a bun fight I just want to understand how those who vote Tory can think the cuts to disability benefits are OK.

This is NOT saying if you vote Tory you're a bad person, at all, I just want to understand. Will you vote them in again knowing?

I would certainly favour abolition of housing benefit. However Labour paid jouising benefit too and remember that brining the upper rate of tax/NI down from 52% to 47% raised the amount of tax raised. When tax is high higher earners pay less tax so ironically high upper tax rate means less money for the poor.

I am glad there is so much support for the Tories on this thread but also that people on both sides are prepared to discuss these issues politely with each other.

Oh and if the Tories are so good with money, how come the national debt has gone UP since they came to power?

www.economicshelp.org/blog/334/uk-economy/uk-national-debt/

The Labour governments (from 1997 - 2010) actually borrowed less than the Tories have since 2010.

Not that you'd know that from reading the newspapers!

Twinkie1 - the cold hard facts of the matter prove you wrong.

As do countries like Iceland. Who had a very well-documented, completely catastrophic financial collapse. And who have recovered far faster than us and indeed most other economies, without cutting the welfare state. They pumped what little money they could muster into it. And they are back to not just being relatively financially stable - they're the happiest people in the world, according to polls. That's all the citizens. The rich and the not rich. Honestly, read these articles and weep:

thjodmalastofnun.hi.is/sites/thjodmalastofnun.hi.is/files/skrar/icelands_financial_crisis_and_level_of_living.pdf

www.nordiclabourjournal.org/i-fokus/iceland-back-on-its-feet/article.2014-06-12.4696424263 They

But please, carry on believing that mothers going without food so their children can eat and disabled people losing their benefits despite being no less disabled is the way forward. Make sure that the 0.7% of benefits recipients that are taking the piss are punished and punished good, even if it takes everyone else down with them.

I just did a quick sum. Apparently the welfare budget costs each UK taxpayer £5.95 a day. Which means £15/year of my hard-earned cash goes to 'scroungers'. You know what? I'm happy to write this off if it means everyone else gets to go to bed with a full tummy and warm feet. I can fucking live with £15 a year, if the alternative is widespread suffering, humiliation and despair.

Again with the disingenuous and selective arguments. Very few people here are celebrating Blair/Brown's NuLabour. What we are doing are pointing out the flaw in the generalised and over-simplified "Tories are good with the economy, Labour are shit" line because actually, the Tories aren't that hot either.

I didn't vote for Labour under Blair or Brown, FWIW.

they then stuck the boot in to to "the elderly" as though it were a homogenous group gobbling up resources and going on 5 Saga holidays a year. I see some frighteningly poor elderly in my voluntary work and they are remarkably stoic ime

Young My comment about the elderly has been intentionally taken out of context. I was giving my view of how people seem to lose empathy when they are in a secure position, i.e. wanting the interest rates on their savings to be as high as possible regardless of the fact high interest rates can have the knock-on effect of families having their homes repossessed. Obviously I wasn't speaking about hard-up pensioners who are living on the breadline - they don't have thousands of pounds sitting in a bank account earning interest.

My point was that people who vote Tory (not all) are generally people in a comfortable-ish position who can't feel any real empathy towards those worse off than them because they (often mistakenly) can't envisage themselves ever being in need of financial help.

My comment was aimed at the Tory voters, not unlike yourself, who are very good at quoting statistics but are happy to remain oblivious to the real consequences on real people rather than pay a little more tax.

The only defence of the Conservative party policies I ever hear is, they're better than the last lot. It is driving me completely potty. That is no defence. Rose West killed less people than Harold Shipman. Please, do let me know when you get to your point.

You're probably right green - I do favour low tax, small state government because I believe in personal responsibility and freedom (with a safety net for those unable to look after themselves). I think it's nuts that able bodied young families have to claim tax credits and child benefits to survive - the tail is wagging the dog. We are all too accustomed to handouts and don't view self-sufficiency as an achievable or desirable objective any more.

Your perspective also assumes that the amount of tax collected must constantly increase to feed the ever-growing state. There is a tipping point at which the better paid will simply leave rather than pay ever-increasing tax. I actually don't think that governments of any stripe manage money well. Increased tax collected does not always translate into better services, it just encourages politicians to be profligate (like Brown with the NHS or the veg for new mums example above).

When you take a pound out of an ordinary person's pocket (eg by cutting their public sector job), you shrink the economy because they pay less tax and spend less in the shops. Which is why Osborne's plan isn't working. He's taking too many pounds off too many ordinary people by cutting jobs in councils, schools, government offices etc. and also refusing to spend money on things that would create more jobs.

Such is the economic madness that those notorious socialists at the Financial Times, the IMF and OECD are actually begging Osborne to drop all this austerity crap cos it ain't working!

^YES. When better off people have money in their pockets, they tend to save it. People living hand to mouth will spend it, stimulating the economy.

beaker and the treasury proposes to give £30 million to the garden bridge project - an oasis of calm for people who aren't calm enough having walked next to the already tree lined river or in one of the many neighbouring parks. (Except the Royal parks are being turned into charities so they can 'raise more money', which does't sound too bad until you think about what has happened to schools. How long before the Government stops funding parks because we can make an appointment to look at plant pots in office blocks? (E.g. Sky garden).

Also green I understand your point about the elderly but I was making a more general one about the attitude on MN towards the elderly which is often one of quite pronounced ageism. It's frowned upon to criticize or display any prejudice towards any group of people on MN (rightly), but mention baby boomers or the elderly and there is righteous indignation. I just find it rather disturbing.

I think you usually get 50/50 on threads about 'baby boomers' being responsible for everything that is wrong with the world.

In answer to the op, not enough people care about the disabled in all honesty, & I guess the Tories know that.
Everyone's fighting for survival out there & it's not going to change if Labour get back in, I think we all have to be a bit more realistic as to what help is available ( not much )

Yes sorry I should have added garden bridge to the list! I work right next to where it's going to be and even I think it's an utter waste of money.

Stop throwing council workers and TAs on the dole, Osborne. We can do without the bloody garden bridge and academies and massive NHS reorganisations thanks.

On a board which has a lot of struggling young families often living on one wage only as the other partner is at home you tend not to get much sympathy for the old. I am always more interested in solutions however. I don't think the Tories have cut in the ways they should and they have not reduced the deficit as well as they or any of us hoped. Their interference in the market to raise the minimum wage is likely to lead to fewer jobs - super markets are already cutting back in their plans so even that is not likely to give people more to spend that goes into the economy. However they are the best of a bad job.

You're right about the minimum wage, that will screw councils even more, will lead to care homes and nurseries closing, more people on the dole. Some women will have to stop work to look after children and elderly relatives. Less tax paid. Even more austerity. And so the whole ridiculous situation carries on.

Best of a bad bunch? I preferred the Coalition, the Lib Dems seemed to tame some of the Tories worst excesses. I'm not generally a LD supporter though.

Can't believe some of you think some people are worth £6.50 an hour

Young Are you suggesting that all women should ensure they earn the equivalent of two peoples' salaries before they have a family - in case they end up being the sole wage-earner later in life?

Working/child tax credits has been a Godsend to so many (unintentionally) single mothers (and dads), enabling them to go out to work instead of being completely dependent on the state to survive.

I used to feel quite proud of the fact that I was able to work and care for my family alone, with the help of tax credits. Not anymore. Since the recent demonisation of tax credit claimants by this government I feel like just another 'lazy scrounger'.

It's disheartening to see how many women people on here are willing to 'stick the boot' into other women people Young.

Most of us didn't foresee or choose our situations - but if mine was to miraculously improve a hundred times over I would never help to keep the Tories in power.

I didn't vote Tory to save myself tax and neither did anyone else I know who did.

It was the paucity of alternatives that drove quite a few of us.

Get rid of housing benefit? The only way that is feasible is if rents came way down, which would also mean house prices reducing drastically. That would have a negative impact on the middle class most.

I didn't vote Tory to save myself tax and neither did anyone else I know who did. It was the paucity of alternatives that drove quite a few of us.

....giving the Tories a majority.

Better to have done nothing IMO

Whilst I don't agree with the cuts The biggest thing people fail to realise is that they aren't cutting ALL disabled benefits.

Long term ESA is untouched as is PIP. My DH is on both of these so we know this as fact.

The lifestyle of a lot of disabled and long term sick people would be greatly improved by ensuring that they are placed in the CORRECT category for benefits. ATOS fucked that one up spectacularly under labour.

The benefit they have cut is supposed to be a temporary benefit to help people who are SHORT TERM unemployed due to sickness. It was originally designed to be a short term stop gap in the same way JSA is. It is supposed to be essentially JSA but without the frequent treks to the job centre and with more support to help you get back into work.

The biggest and best thing that can be done is to MOVE disabled people or anyone likely to be unable to work in say the next 12 months into the support group. Then to actually support the people in the support group who should then consist of people who really want to get back into work but need help or time to do so.

And have Ed Miliband? No way.

PIP is touched by the change in the points system

Love the demonisation of Atos. You do realise their replacement, Maximus, is doing exactly the same? These companies are told what to do by the government (DWP) which then gets to pass the blame onto the evil private companies.

Politicians just passing the buck as usual.