To consider the Conservatives' manifesto pretty decent on the whole?

[Puzzledandpissedoff]

Pretty decent in terms in principles, that is ... as so often with manifestos it's too thin on costings

Main points here: www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2017-39960311

Full version here: www.conservatives.com/manifesto

Here here crumbs!

On this "Peregrina Sun 21-May-17 08:11:01
This is your every day working class person that this will effect.
Someone like MIL, who after years of scrimping and saving managed to buy her own house. It's now worth perhaps £250, 000, which is money she would like to pass on to her grandchildren, of which she has a lot. Approx £25K apiece will be a nice bonus for all of them, but it won't make them wealthy. Meanwhile the Camerons and Osbornes of the world, with their expensive accountants, will know all the wheezes available (sorry, know about efficient financial planning), to make sure that their grandchildren get substantially more that £25K."

She can give the house to the grandchildren in joint names now and then needs to pay them a market rent (which will not be huge as it won't be a house worth much - in fact it may not be much more than she gives in Christmas and birthday presents already to those grandchidlren). If one of those grandchildren is over 18 they can hold the property in trust for those under 18 too. If she is fairly far off needing care it will not be a gift made to avoid care fees and she may never need care fees anyway as plenty of people manage until the end with no care at all or the grandchidlren could together do all the care so they can avoid having the cost of care coming out of the £150k which is over the £100 limit.

Another plan would be she sells up now and gives them oney to the grandchildren who take her in to their homes to house her in return until she dies.

Another plan she sells now and gives to the grandchildren and moves into rented accommodation paid for by the grandchildren (or children).

She will need to put a lot of trust in her dgc and each of their spouses and possible future ex spouses!

Bearing in mind that just one of them may be able to force a sale of the house and then she is homeless. It only takes one of the dgc to default on a debt, one divorce settlement. Of course there would be arguments against tipping her out - but where will she find the money to pay the legal fees?

No, I don't accept that offering 2 meals a day instead of one to the poorest children is a bad thing or a nasty or spiteful thing.

You say they don't get to school on time - what else can be done? Delivering meals to their door is hardly practical. It may help some. Meals in the holidays is an interesting idea, but there's no infrastructure - perhaps reform of the school holidays is a better idea how kids aren't needed to bring in the harvest.

Janet

Good advice, but it's a crazy system that requires such contortions to avoid being penalised.

And yes, there are risks to such a strategy...

kids need a hot school dinner, for many it is possibly the only meal they will have

I'm fed up with the misinformation being peddled... and I say that as someone not enamoured with the Tories. The Tories ARE NOT removing free lunches from all school children, just those whose parents are well enough off to pay themselves. It's bizarre and utterly disingenuous that some socialists are up in arms about removing funding for school lunches for th children of
Millionaires!

The more old fashioned Tories at least seemed to know they had been dealt a more fortunate hand in life, and many of them were active community-minded citizens. Not now it seems.

The post-war consensus Conservative party (one nation) seemed to understand that there is indeed a society. Or at least they understood that gross division hurts everyone.

This new breed....the bankers/finance guys and their sneaky tricks (PIP, LIBOR, interest rate manipulation, etc, etc, etc)...they feel no connection to anyone.

You can still be poor and not entitled to free school meals you know.
Plus there is the social side of it. Giving infant children a meal helps them learn important social skills and are more likely to try different food.
Yes parents can do this too but if it takes the pressure off hard working parents who claim wtc than it is only good.

The working poor will not get them if they get WTC but people whose parents aren't working will still get them. This seems like a strange message to give out if they want parents to work.

The Tories ARE NOT removing free lunches from all school children, just those whose parents are well enough off to pay themselves

What happened to Teresa Mayhems pledge to the JAM's though, with a universal free school lunch it meant they (and the FSM qualifying parents) knew that at least they didnt have to find lunch money so it at least kept some money in pocket and its personally why I believe in the universal free meals proposed by Labour, yes I know a lot of people can afford to pay for the lunches but it takes away all the stigma from those that cant.

To the pp's saying a good nutritious bowl of porridge will help, there is no way in hell its going to be that well funded, as previous pp's have said it will be cereal, fruit or toast, if they can fund the staff to do it, remember how much they are already cutting the schools budget.

The Tories since 2010 have sold off so many public services, have made cuts in the rest of the services, shifted the blame for these cuts onto local authorities and devolved nations while telling us were balancing the books and any tiny bit of research shows this to be demonstrably untrue.

I get it that a lot of people dont like Corbyn, I do get it no matter how hard I fight in his corner, but it really is turning into an election were the poor, disabled, old and young are begging you to just please hear us this once please just listen, its really bad when youre at the bottom, but they are making it so so much worse, youre not getting told about it, the papers that you read occasionally mention it in passing but they really dont tell you how bad it is. We're scared Osbourne hated us, Mayhem hates us more.

I'm begging all of you that can see your way to voting Labour, please, for those of us who have to use the NHS, Schools, Police, Fire, Coast Guard, Charities, and lots more that my brain wont let me think of right now (literally just brain farted mid sentence )

I'll get on my knees and beg you if you want, I've got no pride when I'm scared and I really am scared that the tories will get in again. Theyve got nothing left to cut but they still will and I know as its coming across as hyperbole but it isnt, its really scary, insecure and frightning down hear please help us and vote Labour

Here ends your party political broadcast

Sorry I vented all over everyone does anyone need a wet wipe

*did i really use a hear instead of here, urgh idiot

Since our constituency has been Tory since 1974 I don't see any change here which is a shame as our MP fiddles their expenses.

*Tomorrow 'this seems a strange message to give if they want people to work'
*
I suspect the taking away of free school meals from working parents is another stick to beat people on benefits with. I actually think it's a deliberate move.
It will cause more resentment from the working poor who will now have something else to throw at people on benefits all the while MPs have breakfasts and champagne paid for and not a thing is said

I think you sadly hit the nail on the head silly

Jjustanotherposter I totally agree. I have myself pleaded with people to vote with their conscious. Trouble us there are the minority who will do anything to avoid paying their way even when they can afford it. These are the people who like May. I'm alright Jack people and blow the rest of the country/world type. They are the ones we have to convince and in this greedy world it is like banging your head against a brick wall.

I have myself pleaded with people to vote with their conscious.

I will which is why there are many people who at the moment have no one to vote for.

I will not and cant vote Labour with Corbyn at the helm.

I won't vote Tory

I am waving on LibDems but I don't agree on a second referendum.

I'm begging all of you that can see your way to voting Labour

Sorry but nor I or many of my family really can't.

Our school currently gets a great income stream from breakfast club. £5 per child per day. I assume they will lose this if this policy comes in.

Sion I think maybe we were talking at cross purposes. I can see the point that it isn't an inalienable right. I get that.
What I don't understand is why delivering a free lunch to every KS1 child is a bad policy but delivering a free breakfast is a good policy.
Why is the breakfast policy there?
I understand it's cheaper but it seems on one hand to accept the idea that children should be universally fed at school but on the other hand to deliver the meanest, cheapest option.

deliver the meanest, cheapest option.

And no one has really been able to say if it will actually save any money.

I couldn't vote labour either, for me they are not the party for the next generation. They introduced tax credits and look at the state of that now. People refusing overtime. doing the minimum hours for maximum gain or not even working at all.

Whilst I disagree with some Tory policies for me they are the closest fit as no party is perfect. I want a world where adults are responsible for themselves and their children. Not one where where we allow people to make all sorts of decisions at the cost to others. Personal responsibility and aspiration seems to be a thing of the past for many sadly. Surely we want better for future generations?

The amount moaning that parents, god forbid, will actually have to feed their own children is astounding. Quite how we got to the stage where the government had to fund schools extra to feed children is disgraceful.

I have myself pleaded with people to vote with their conscience

Yes I will as I cannot vote Tory

They introduced tax credits which was a revamped version of family credit/support that has been in existence since the 70s in various forms.

Quite how we got to the stage where the government had to fund schools extra to feed children is disgraceful.

55% of the seven million British people living in poverty are from working families. [source - Joseph Rowntree Foundation]

67% of the four million British children growing up in poverty are from working families. [source - End Child Poverty]

Since 2010 the Tories have overseen the worst slump in the real value of workers' wages since records began [source - Evening Standard]. The situation is so bad that in all the developed world only workers in crisis-stricken Greece have had it as bad as the British.

As well as overseeing the worst wage collapse ever, the Tories have also been ruthlessly slashing in-work social security (Working tax credits, housing benefit, child welfare payments, statutory sick pay, and parental leave pay) meaning not only are wages falling, but the social security top-ups for the working poor are being cut too.

"Of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity over humanity, nothing exceeds most of the criticisms made on the habits of the poor by the well-housed, well- warmed, and well-fed". - Herman Melville