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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Today a tin of Morrisons beans sent me over the edge

96 replies

e1y1 · 08/05/2017 23:11

Just come across THIS, a story from someone called Gill Watson - it's so so sad.

Can't tell anyone how to vote of course, but hopefully we all will think what it really is we're voting for next month.

OP posts:
streetface · 09/05/2017 10:23

"It is a vote that says, I hate the poor, the disabled , the vulnerable, our NHS and our police force."

This is such a reductive argument. You'd think that no police, no doctors, no poor or disabled people voted Tory. It's such a simplistic argument.

Some people just cannot get their head around the fact that many people do not WANT state intervention. That for them, a government should do the minimum in terms of welfare and concentrate on wealth creation through capitalism. That tax breaks for big business means that rich people want to invest here (particularly important after Brexit) and that is what government is for. The rest is up to the people.

Other people believe the state should be more welfarist and involve themselves more in helping create a more equal society through wealth distribution and higher taxes on those at the top. They would like the government to take more responsibility for other people's welfare.

This argument that anyone who votes Tory is just 'scum' 'nasty' and 'thick' is immature and simplistic. Just like shouting all Brexiteers are white and raaaayccciist.

Beerwench · 09/05/2017 10:25

"I have looked at the major party manifesto's briefly, and done a lot of soul searching.
That's impressive - they haven't been written yet
A few headline statements have been made it's true but no details or costings or actual manifestos are yet available and won't be for a while."

Fair enough, maybe I should have said policies then? I'm not an expert in political terminology, I've looked at the things written/said by the parties to see who's are most aligned to my beliefs and values. Mistakenly I thought they were manifesto's. My bad.
But I have tried to look at each party to see what their values are, and what they intend to do with the country, rather than reacting to headlines from the media to make a decision who to vote for, or to not vote at all.
So would I be correct in thinking then, that the manifesto is written explaining the policies in depth, closer to the time?

ThatsNotMyMummy · 09/05/2017 10:28

wando but how many people abuse it? You can only use it x amount of times a year. It can't be a huge number.

I would sooner they are there with the occasional person abusing it than more genuine people going hungry. Its the same as the benefit system, i would sooner its there for the majority of genuine cases with the occasional abuser than done away with and genuine people dying as a result.

ThatsNotMyMummy · 09/05/2017 10:34

I can't remember the exact figures, but isn't there some evidence that suggests if you give the wealthy £1 they just put it in the bank to save it for a rainy day.
But if you give someone poor (hate that term) the £1 they spend it which boosts the economy by 70p, with jobs, goods etc etc.

street i get your point about some people wanting that way and it makes me so so so sad. I really hope thats not the society we live in.

The health of an economy is run on the health of its workers surely? The healthier the population the better the economy? So to keep the worker bee working you need to invest in the health system.

loobyloo1234 · 09/05/2017 10:37

The Tories will get in as (so many) people in this country are very much 'I'm alright Jack'

BUT Corbyn is not the person to lead Labour back to power

It's so depressing Sad

tiggytape · 09/05/2017 10:38

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

stitchglitched · 09/05/2017 10:42

'Adhd/autism/whatever'

So you don't even know what conditions these children have but are confident they are fraudulently claiming for them? You think children are skilled enough to put on a performance and fool trained professionals? Have you actually been through the assessment process with anyone? It's a bit more complicated than that.

cdtaylornats · 09/05/2017 10:50

Just another anti-Tory rant. If you are shopping for cheap stuff for food aid why are you in Morrisons?

mummabearfoyrbabybears · 09/05/2017 10:56

So everyone should vote labour who will remove the benefit cap and just be all about the non-workers. What about the families who work and don't claim and then getting less than people on benefits. Under Labour some people were receiving £100k. At least the tories have capped it to just under the average yearly wage. That's more than fair. The tories want to privatise the NHS. Everyone's up in arms about it but don't really understand what it means. I certainly wouldn't be against a hospital selling its space to house a Boots chemist or a WH Smith to bring in extra funding. Privatisation doesn't mean private doctors etc.

Frankiestein401 · 09/05/2017 11:12

Which bit of this is Labour tanking the economy? And which bit was austerity reducing the debt?
Budget Deficit Net debt
1996-97 . 20.7 . 341.9
1997-98 . 10.6 . 364.0
1998-99 . -6.4 . 361.2
1999-00 -17.0 . 364.4
2000-01 -25.4 . 328.2
2001-02 -18.5 . 328.8
2002-03 . 6.4 . 358.8
2003-04 . 18.1 . 390.2
2004-05 . 17.1 . 448.7
2005-06 . 13.9 . 492.2
2006-07 . 11.7 . 527.3
2007-08 . 9.6 . 562.5
2008-09 . 37.2 . 733.3
2009-10 . 98.6 . 938.9
2010-11 . 97.1 1136.9
2011-12 . 78.0 1240.7
2012-13 . 86.1 1349.7
2013-14 . 73.8 1454.0
2014-15 . 65.6 1556.0
2015-16 . 44.0 1610.5
2016-17 . 22.4 1701.8

www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/612098/PDB_-Web-_April_2017.xls

Elphaba99 · 09/05/2017 11:16

mummabear I defy you to name an actual person you know who got £100k p/a from DLA and ESA. Seriously. That's what we're talking about here, the Tory Party targeting the sick and disabled by changes to PIP, cutting ESA and ignoring court rulings that say the PIP rule changes are inhumane. Secondly, many poorer families have at least one working adult and many of those who have to claim ESA or PIP were able to work so did contribute to the system.

Half the trouble is that gullible people believe the RW "news" papers and Channel 5, lump everyone "on benefits" in as a group of scroungers, little realising that (a) becoming disabled could happen to them in the blink of an eye and (b) if you even accept Child Benefits from the Govt and nothing else, you too are a "Benefit Claimant".

Elphaba99 · 09/05/2017 11:18

FWIW I don't have a problem with capping benefits. I don't even have a problem with a rise of 1% each year. What I do have a problem with is whining that "benefit scroungers" get more than "hard working people" and that it's a doddle to claim ESA or PIP when you have no idea of the indignity of the process.

HardcoreLadyType · 09/05/2017 11:51

@24HourTrainer, I'm not really sure why you've delivered a rant about the Labour Party in response to my explanation of the term ("illegal government") that someone else had used.

I agree we are innocent until proven guilty. But I doubt the Conservative government had any taste for it all being dragged through the courts, with potentially one by-election having to be called, after another.

Why do you suggest that this election is branded as being fought by "Theresa May and her team", and not by the Conservative party? I suggest it's because polls seem to show that she is more popular than Corbyn (which, to be frank, is hardly surprising) and she is trying to appeal to those who would never normally vote conservative, by distancing herself from the party.

(Just to be clear, there is no point in coming back with another tirade against the Labour Party. I won't be voting for them, anyway.)

Beerwench · 09/05/2017 12:12

"Sorry Beerwench - my post to you was snippy.

Yes manifestos will be published in the coming weeks.
They put the flesh on the bones about how things will be paid for.
And they sometimes contain less popular policies that none of the main parties should about or put on posters.
They also cover every area of government not just the bits that the party in question think it does well or has a positive message about.

What is coming out at the moment is a mixture of what the parties want to tell you (the stuff they think will be most popular) and a bit of limiting expectations (so hinting as some of the unpopular stuff in advance in an attempt to get a justification in quick)"

Thank you Tiggytape, for the apology and the info, just trying to make an informed choice, rather than vote blind or just refuse. Find it hard to sort through it all and discover what's real.
I do think though, that it's not a great situation to be in to have anyone relying on food banks. Sadly I don't know what the answer is.

tiggytape · 09/05/2017 12:37

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

mummabearfoyrbabybears · 09/05/2017 13:05

Elpha as the wife of a serving soldier I know how little help a labour government will give its armed forces. Practically nothing! While my husband was getting blown up by a landmine and I was at home with our three children there were A LOT of civvies around us with just one child, neither working, yet living on far more than us. A labour government gave us no financial help with my husbands subsequent injuries. Also under Labour my friend lost her husband (murdered by the Taliban) and was given a lump sum of just over £110k. Then they washed their hands of her and her two children. He died fighting for his country and that's what she got? At least the tories appreciate a greater circle of people. Not just the sick and disabled.

e1y1 · 09/05/2017 13:33

kwoggers

Are you saying the debt hasn't gone up?

OP posts:
cdtaylornats · 09/05/2017 13:54

The other thing is voting Tory atm IS voting for the privatisation of the NHS

The Labour party have been claiming this since I started to vote in the 70s - still not happened. Fastest outsourcing is in Scotland under the SNP.

Food banks aren't caused by Tories - every country in Europe has them. One of the biggest is in Norway.

tabbymog · 09/05/2017 14:17

Voting Tory is voting for the privatisation of the NHS. What's happening here is what's happened in the USA. Noam Chomsky's written extensively on this process, he's well worth reading specifically for these essays. Unfortunately they are individual essays; if they were collected into a book I could post a link but it would take too long to track them all down.

Being a lone disabled 70-year old just having moved house, there's a lot of other stuff I have to get to grips with.

mummabearfoyrbabybears · 09/05/2017 15:54

Privatisation of the NHS. Why are so many against it? So Boots chemist pays the hospital for ground space. There's a W.H. Smith down the x-ray corridor. That's what is meant by privatising sections of it. This is what the Tories have suggested. I really don't see an issue. It's win win. No one is saying privatise it so we pay doctors private sector wages. It's not the railway system!

tabbymog · 09/05/2017 18:30

There isn't enough money because big corporations don't pay taxes. Another is the official Luxembourg policy of crafting special tax deals to tempt big international companies to base themselves in Luxembourg. This is the idea and plan of the former Luxembourg Finance Minister and Prime Minister, Jean-Claude Junker, now President of the European Commission.

Unfortunately, the UK has a long history of being very bad at designing progressive tax systems, the class system in action to protect themselves from paying taxes. It's always the lowest paid who pay the highest amounts of taxes too, one of the main results of austerity policies. Mark Blyth, a Scottish economist at Brown University has written about this in Austerity: the History of a Dangerous Idea. This is the fourth time the world has tried austerity in the last 150 years, with the same results every time.

And, also unfortunately, Britain doesn't earn enough by its own efforts, it never has. We've never been very good at business and aren't productive enough. Management is largely awful, uneducated, inexperienced in the nuts and bolts of business but overflowing with MBA newspeak and theory. Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Krugman are experts at illustrating this.

I've run my own one-horse typesetting and design business, successfully as well as working in the railway industry for a lot of years (British Rail, InterCity Great Western, Railtrack), and have been appalled at the lackadaisical attitudes I've seen to investment, planning, project management, and paying one's bloody bills on time.

Our education system, that perennial political football, isn't fit for purpose and before you scream, no I'm not blaming the teachers at the coal face. I'm blaming that class system again, with its parochial attitudes that Britain is Great and all those foreigners know nothing. All children should have the opportunity to do three sciences and maths at school, or music and arts, or two (at least) foreign languages, whatever it is they need, to 'A' level, or the IBL, their choice, even if it means splitting school weeks between two separate schools, as happens a lot with musical education in other European countries. No chance. For these Tories investment means selling off the country's assets to their academy chums. Education isn't for profit, it's to produce rounded individuals with the skills and attitudes needed to make the best of themselves, to be thinking, decent, considerate, hopefully fulfilled, contributing individuals in society, and to be happy in their lives.

This is so depressing. I went to Uni in Germany, bachelors and doctorate. It's a different world out there, I've loved it ever since. People who know their history, the good and the bad, and know they aren't responsible for it so they're not in hock to it. Their industrial success is based on their education system; look at how many of their manufacturing and other successful companies have top managers who've come up from the shop floor of their industries and know it to their fingertips.

If you've read this far you deserve a medal.

Off soapbox, I'm just getting too depressed and I have work to do.

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