I agree with a lot of what cathf said a few posts back, but I am not sure you can say poverty doesn't exist in the UK. I believe it does Cath, (a bit,) but the ones who CLAIM to be poor are usually not.
Agree about tax credits though. People coped before them perfectly well, and they were only introduced just over a decade ago, so people needn't start going on about how wages were waaaaay higher before, them and that is why people coped.. Yeah wages did used to be way higher, but pre 1980's, not the early 2000's.
And I absolutely agree that tax credits had to be capped at 2 children, and a benefit cap was essential. The tories are only undoing the ridiculous damage done by labour in the first place with giving tons and tons of benefits with the more children you have!
Whenever it was done, it was going to sting. But it needed doing. If I had a fiver for every single mother I have ever seen in my area (with 4 to 7 kids,) who have had £500 iphones, 3 or 4 holidays abroad per year, sky tv, a new car, a 50" tv etc etc, I would be a millionaire! And they smoked and went to the pub every week, and also got council tax paid, rent paid, free school meals and free school trips for their kids etc etc. In addition to their 'rent-free' council house having everything done to it when it was needed.
I remember a few years back, one woman with 4 kids (with 20 years between them!) who had never worked a day in her life, being allocated a 4 bed council house, as her 3 bed was 'too small' and she moaned and whinged and bitched because it wasn't ready for her to move into for Christmas.
The house had had its occupants for 30 years, and was having a new kitchen, a new heating system, a new bathroom, new windows, new doors, and she had a £500 grant for carpets and decoration. And she was MOANING. Ungrateful entitled-to cow. It's people like her that make me glad the benefit cap, and 'tax credits stop at 2 kids' rule has come in.
The great thing is, this woman's kids are all at secondary school now, (or have left home,) and she has been forced out to work in her mid 40's after almost 30 years of claiming benefits. About time too.
As someone who has worked for over 30 years, and has always paid my dues; when I see people living off the state and flat out taking the piss out of it, and churning out tons of kids, and never working a day in their lives, it makes me pissed off to the nth degree!
As for the remoaners, they go on about how the country did NOT vote for brexit as it was only 52% who voted for it, yet if it had been the other way round they would have said the country voted to remain LOL.