To think the level of state involvement many posters expect is bonkers?

[FaeryRing]

It seems like there is nothing the state shouldn’t be responsible for any more! Feeding your kids, getting them to school, hiring ‘behaviour specialists’ for every classroom because parents don’t want to discipline their own children, giving you money towards virtually anything you ask for because it’s not fair you have to pay for anything yourself.. I find it absolutely wild and don’t think it’s at all realistic or representative of what most adults believe?

Unfortunately many parents now view school as being a "service" they are a customer of, a.k.a. low-cost childcare, and not a "duty" they have.

I read a thread a while ago by a woman complaining that her son was being "settled in" to Reception. She wanted him in school from 9am to 3pm from day one. Posters pointed out that the settling in period is meant to make it easier for the child to adjust. Her reply was that teachers should remember that parents, not children, pay their wages, and they should put the parents first. It didn't seem to occur to her most parents would want their children's needs to be put first!

When mine were small (they are 29 and 26), pre-school nurseries would not have three year olds who were not potty trained enrolled. It focussed the mind. We also paid about £800 a term for it. Three hours for four/five days a week. No free nursery hours, no nursery vouchers, labour revoked that scheme in 1997.

I wonder if disposable nappies are more comfy now than then? When did was born in 1998 girl nappies and boy nappies had only just ceased. Gah, pampers in pink packaging for girls and blue for boys. Huggies gave DS a rash! Perhaps a damp feeling gave the infant more incentive?

Anyone earning over £12,570 p.a. pays tax and yet that tax often goes to people on benefits getting astronomical tax free sums well in excess of what the tax payers themselves earn.

It is time people took responsibility for themselves instead of taking money from those worse off them than them in many cases.

I've been homeless and even then it never even occurred to me to seek government help, it was up to me to resolve my situation. Decades ago people didn't want to take "charity", nowadays no one wants to take responsibility for themselves and quite happily sponge off people earning far less than them.

you only have to look at the recent stomping of the feet and ranting in response to the government’s plans to address the benefit/disability process, to see that people are just becoming more and more dependent on the authorities or tax payers

Do you think people choose to be disabled?
It's not a fun carefree life. I know someone who's unable to work. It's really really shit for them. They used to work btw and they're still a taxpayer. Everyone is, working or not.

Do you not realise there's no magic protection for you? You could one day become unable to work and in need of support.

The 'feet stomping' is because the plans 'to address the process' won't address it. They'll make things worse and make people more ill. Even if you don't have empathy for the disabled, it's false economy again. The consequences will be increased demand on NHS, social care, and the police (mental health crisis).

You want the same as me. Less dependancy on the state.

What's needed to prevent increased dependancy on the state isn't a punitive benefits system that makes people ill. What's needed is tackling the root causes.

Provide early and effective support. Invest in public services, housing, education and training, and the NHS, and it will pay off. This is relevant for disabled people but also the other social problems discussed on this thread.

Employer attitudes is another issue that needs addressing. Many businesses no longer want or can't afford to provide training on the job. They also don't want to hire longterm unemployed or disabled people. They don't want or feel unable to make adjustments or offer flexible work options. That needs to change. Encourage and support businesses to do this.

Do you not see yourself, and the views you express here, as "very right wing"?

If not, what would "very right wing" look like, to you?

Whilst "everyone" might pay tax, very few people are net tax payers compared with what they take from "the system". Wasn't it last year that less than 50% of adults actually are net tax payers anymore? i.e. most people take more than they put in. That is not sustainable nor equitable.

It’s not a constant though. Most working people without school age children are probably net contributors. So you have a few years pre children when you are, followed by about 20 years when you’re not and then the years up to retirement of net contribution and your last years when you’re not again. Across my working life I reckon I was a net contributor for 27 years out of 45, particularly in the 20 years of being a higher rate tax payer.

I've read posts on here saying schools should provide "relationship education" so that women don't end up with men who won't commit to them. No, that's the parents' job. Schools really shouldn't be teaching about relationships beyond the basics, i.e. sexual consent and so on. I really wouldn't be comfortable with my daughter's teachers holding classes where they say things like, "Girls, if he hasn't proposed after three years, dump him." It's not appropriate, and more to the point, it's not the school's duty.

Nobody earning £36K a year is paying net tax let alone a paltry £12K.

The level of financial illiteracy on here says it all.

Nobody earning £36K a year is paying net tax

They quite possibly are if they’re childless and healthy.

Break even is about 36K for a childless person in reasonable health.

The vast majority on here are definitely not net contributors.

I've been homeless and even then it never even occurred to me to seek government help, it was up to me to resolve my situation. Decades ago people didn't want to take "charity", nowadays no one wants to take responsibility for themselves and quite happily sponge off people earning far less than them.

I'm glad you got out of being homeless and hope things are better for you now. I've no idea how you managed homelessness, including getting food, without any help or charity? Did you beg? (which is taking charity). Steal? Squatting was legal decades ago so perhaps you did that?

Several decades ago there were better funded public services. Several decades ago disabled people unable to work were supported and people didn't resent it. There was compassion. Several decades ago housing was more affordable and people could afford to do lower paid work without needing extra help. Several decades ago fewer people had to move away for work or housing so were more likely to have family support nearby. Several decades ago you could walk into a job without experience and get trained up. Several decades ago people had family doctors who knew them so there was continuity of care.

'Taking responsibility'. What do you suggest? How do you magically stop illness or disability, or one parent fucking off and not paying child maintenance, or an abusive relationship, or other unplanned shitty life events? Shit sometimes happens and sometimes people need support.

Effective and early help would reduce the numbers of people needing longer term state dependancy. It would also prevent many cases of homelessness in the first place. It all comes down to investing in public services, social housing, the NHS, a supportive benefits system, improved CMS, and work and training opportunities.

The vast majority on here are definitely not net contributors.

That’s a very sweeping statement. Evidence?

Weird given how many threads we get about the holy grail 6 figure salary household. 😂

A lot of people either don’t want to or don’t know how to take personal responsibility these days. It’s frightening. The Govt should do this, do that, Schools need to be doing this or that, your employer should be doing this…..etc, the list goes on.

Haven't RTWT but the thing is, in the past, if I was stronger than you, I could just march in and kill you and take what I wanted from you - your land, your food, your gold. Those who were strongest throughout history ended up concentrating wealth and power amongst themselves and ensuring their position was protected by ruthlessly suppressing discontent amongst the serfs and working classes and even getting the Church onside to preach about the morality of being happy with the position in life in which God has placed you and respecting your "betters". But it turns out that this only works for so long, and eventually it was necessary to share opportunities and resources a little (not much but a little) more equally to avoid full-scale revolt.

On a pragmatic level, there is a minimum level of resources you have to ensure that most people have access to so that they have sufficient "buy-in", firstly, not to rise up and murder you in your bed, and second, not to rock the status quo too much by demanding further redistribution of wealth. It's a kind of "contract", I guess - yes, I expect state involvement to ensure a basic minimum standard of living for me and my children, but in exchange I'm not going to be burgling your candlesticks.

I wish the state would introduce educational infomercials about how to drive on a motorway.

Specifically what the inside, middle and outside lane are for.

Threads like this make me so sad, what is my granddaughter with cerebral palsy going to grow up into? I have always worked, I have owned my own house since I was 24, I was lucky, my 23&24 year old are never going to as lucky as I was 20 years ago. My mortgage when I had on was £250 a month, a house on my street recently went up for rent for £850, it is ridiculous!
As for the state, when I was in school, like others have pointed out we had dentistry in school, nit nurses, school nurses and probably more things I have long forgotten about. All the people who are moaning about how much the state provides probably benefitted from these services, but now the school children who have none of these things and cannot even get an nhs dentist, are scroungers expecting too much. The hypocrisy is astounding!

The State should start with taxing big corporations more.

Its a fucking crime that Amazon, Starbucks and the like get away with paying so little tax.

Its also abhorrent that so much welfare is sent directly to private landlords.

Also, triple locked pensions? If we can't afford to support disabled children, we cannot afford that, that is now to go

@ChishiyaBat I am 63. I didn't have dentistry or the nit nurse at school. My mother always said NHS dentists needed to be avoided.

We did have our eyes tested. My surname was at the end of the alphabet so I memorised what the others said and my short sight wasn't picked up at school. My mother took me to the optician just before my 7th birthday due to headaches.

It's OK, a certain politically motivated class of poster is raising the spectre of a whole generation of feral untermensch to keep our eyes on the prize, which is to save the squeezed middle from penury by having to pay for them.

It's a classic tactic to divert attention from the growing economic inequality across the board, and get us all at each others throats.

Yes, there will always be people who don't live up to "standards" but they don't come into being from nowhere. It's usually pretty easy to see how they've got to where they are, and it's often a great deal to do with engineered poverty and lack of opportunity to progress.

Don't forget there are huge industries around poverty where the government pays private contractors far more than the employees or end service users get. If all social ills were solved, a section of the economy would collapse.

If you evict a family for non payment of rent of say 1000 a month, because the LHA doesn't cover it in benefits and the shortfall can't be made up in other ways, and you then place that family in temporary sub standard accommodation costing 1000 a week rather than paying the original rent for (hopefully) a short period, how is that helpful to the family or the state?

It can very quickly lead to a spiral of needing yet more various forms of support as the effects of destabilisation kick in. Hopelessness, depression, addiction, short term thinking because the future is uncertain, all creating an extra burden on the state and largely engineered by it.

Of course from this we get disaster capitalism, and technology brings us surveillance capitalism. My guess is we're being primed for a social credit system such as China operates where every citizen is spied upon and controlled via their bank accounts.

Which Rishi is a big fan if as his cronies have their fingers in the CDBC pie.

So don't worry, the brave new world approaches.

Of course there shouldn’t be two tier pricing and the government should look into it. They have had to keep the supermarkets in line in the past with their corrupt price fixing. This is no different.

So because your experiences were bad no one else benefitted from them, is that what you are saying? What about a school nurse and proper dinners did you have those at least? I am 44, I did have the things I mentioned and eye tests(one of the things i'd forgotten about) the children today have none of these things and a sub-standard education because schools are chronically understaffed and underfunded.
University and higher education that people in both our age brackets had access to are also out of reach for too many children today.
Jobs are hard to come by especially in my area, travelling is out because we have no trains and the buses are useless, one an hour (When they actually turn up) , when only 10 years ago they were on time and 2 an hour, so working outside the area was made a lot easier. It's far harder for young people today than it was when I was young.
Too many people have the attitude of "I worked to get where I am I don't want to be paying my taxes for all these scroungers" when in reality the opportunites we had at their age were far better, but too many people forget that these opportunities were even given to them!
The state is fucked and cannot and a lot of the time don't want to help the people that actually need it!

@MistressoftheDarkSide

Everything you've written in that post is so depressingly true.

If you evict a family for non payment of rent of say 1000 a month, because the LHA doesn't cover it in benefits and the shortfall can't be made up in other ways, and you then place that family in temporary sub standard accommodation costing 1000 a week rather than paying the original rent for (hopefully) a short period, how is that helpful to the family or the state?

With all the talk on disability on the multiple benefits bashing threads and in the news, this situation is something 'bashers' should think about. I just saw on another thread a disabled poster told to work from home. That poster isn't well enough to work from home or anywhere else, but other disabled people might be. If they had a home. Because of the shortage of social housing and the lack of private landlords willing to accept benefits, many disabled people end up homeless. Sub standard indeed, when it comes to temporary accommodation. Admittedly it varies. Some is ok but often it's just awful. Definitely not a home or somewhere suitable for working from.

Agree with @CrispieCake and also @ChishiyaBat (and your granddaughter deserves support and how can people disagree with that?).

Again, well said!!