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?

angstridden2 · Today 11:39
Just to add there are still trade courses available at FE colleges and from the amounts I have paid out in recent years tradesmen do very well indeed and tradespeople are needed everywhere!

I completely agree. I remember, years ago, a very pretentious colleague announcing to the office that she was planning to have 3 children and hoped they would be a writer, a musician and a dancer. An older and wiser colleague said 'Oh, no! You want a plumber, a builder and an electrician!' How right she was!

We've been lucky and unlucky in finding good tradesmen. Sometimes it's impossible to find anyone - so there are shortages. But we've also found some amazing people who take pride in their work, have really high standards and are totally professional...ooh, and pretty wealthy, I think!

Every child has education opportunities don’t they?

They don't have the same education opportunities though.

How would you ensure that?

Some have much greater opportunities than others. Surely that’s obvious or you wouldn’t have sharp elbowed parents moving into the catchment areas of good schools.

Yep big agree. Taxpayers would save so much money if deadbeats were forced to pay an adequate amount of money for the children they created.
Then dead beats have the nerve to Moan the mother who's actually looking after the child is a "gold-digger" for expecting him to pay any money towards the child ever. We should start mass shaming the deadbeats instead of the parents who actually sticks around.

And no I do not have children with a deadbeat but I still feel strongly about it 🤷🏻‍♀️

Another kinda controversial thing which hasn't been mentioned much on this thread is the effect immigration has had on house prices/rent/amount of spare council houses. And "build more" can only go so far because this country is a tiny island. Lots of people are struggling because they can't afford somewhere reasonably priced to live but the government does practically nothing about the thousands of people immigrating here every month

Just been reading round end stage capitalism and post capitalism. Interesting. Very much feeds into this debate I feel.

What makes them good schools?

As I said previously there are significant issues with the quality of state provision. I'm also of the view that the zeal for every child to obtain a full clutch of high graded GCSEs has been counter productive and has created a generation of non academic children who feel failures and many average/just above children who don't feel good enough. I believe it's a significant factor in the growth of mh issues and has led to people feeling inadequate and not valued.

I compared receiving benefits to council housing as it was readily available data. Do you have the net dependency rates for the 1970s because I can't find them. The article says it's the highest 'on record' but doesn't say when they started recording this so it's not that helpful.

https://www.bigissue.com/news/housing/how-many-empty-homes-are-there-in-the-uk/#:~:text=The%20most%20recent%20government%20statistics,before%20the%20pandemic%20in%202019.

Housing issues could be partly solved if property wasn't left standing empty to dilapidate because it's viewed as assets not homes. Just sayin'.

Ask the parents who move heaven and earth to get their kids into them. I never played that game.

I've said in previous posts. We funded schools. Breakfast clubs, extra curricular activities, youth clubs, holiday clubs, childcare all free at the point of access.

Have a google see what you can find.

Look at ONS etc

I’d say the information I linked doesn’t support your claim or method even

When/where were holiday clubs free and universal?

@FaeryRing they haven't ever been as far as I know but I believe they should be.

Here is a letter I recieved from my childs school this week. It's heartbreaking that have had to resort to saying this.

Some of them still exist.

The Cambridgeshire Holiday Activities and Food (HAF) Programme offers free holiday scheme places. It runs during the 2024 Easter, Summer, and Christmas school holidays. Eligible primary and secondary school children and young people can attend. The Department for Education funds the HAF Programme.

I’ve used excellent state, it’s usually motivated parents and dc reflect that too

On another note VAT won’t help incidentally as competition will increase for those schools, displacing dc

I think the point being made is that everybody should step up and take responsibility.
If you have repeatedly done something which is damaging your health, for example smoking, is it seriously acceptable to keep doing that and expect to keep getting quite frankly pointless treatment for free? Remember this is delaying treatment for other people. People who may need an operation because they slipped and fell on ice whilst walking to work/carrying out their job.
Yes lots if things lead to injuries but let’s not kid ourselves that all behaviours are equal.
Someone who is run over whilst correctly using a pelican crossing for example. Yes if they had stayed in their home they would not be injured but you can hardly compare that to the person who drives whilst under the influence of drugs and then keeps doing it and receiving free treatment.

Funnily enough those are the first places I checked. The ONS doesn't seem to have any data on net dependency from the 1970. I can't even find the data the article refers to.

This is a whole other topic, but if we're going to survive as a country economically and from a welfare viewpoint, we need to face up to some hard choices and accept that we can't necessarily have all we want.

The NHS was set up with pretty limited and modest aims in 1948 (or was it '47?). If you compare that with what we expect it to do for us now, you can see where the problem lies. What we want and expect now is going to cost us much more, and I don't think we've really taken that on board. Govts of all complexions know this - neither of the main parties has managed to fund it to the required level. It's great when we hear of a new drug for cancer or dementia, but do people realise that it will be expensive to prescribe? Some people complain about prescription charges, but have they any idea how little this is compared with the cost of the drugs? There has been resistance, for eg, to patients being told that doctors will no longer prescribe certain over-the-counter medicines free and that they'll need to go to the pharmacist and buy them, at a modest cost. I don't think all the NHS's problems are to do with money, but we definitely need to ask the electorate some difficult questions about future funding; how much more are we willing to pay for it? Disclaimer: I know there is huge waste, though, in the NHS and that needs addressing.

One of the areas I'm very pessimistic about is mental health services. It's an area that the NHS was never intended to cope with, and MH is such an open-ended problem that I don't think it will ever be able to satisfy expectations. My daughter has suffered MH problems and has been able to access very little help - and I get that. I don't expect much if the situation isn't acute (which is was in the case of a friend's son, and that's different, of course). If you give people 6 counselling sessions - that's expensive enough - are those people going to say 'Right! Job's a good'un, I'm OK now, thanks - bye!' No they're not - it's not in the nature of MH illness, is it? And that's the massive problem - the difference in our expectations and what the state can realistically be expected to provide.

‘Eligible’

what does that mean here?

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?
I recall earlier than that, late 70s, disposable nappies in the UK were essentially a thick wad of cotton wool that glued to the baby's skin when used! Using Pampers in Germany in the early 80s was luxurious but expensive, we never used them for everyday, just when travelling.
I personally think that this idea of staying in nappies until they can write a note asking to use the loo is designed by the disposable nappy industry, it certainly seems that their products are for older and older children. It may have been unpleasant but there was nothing like a soggy, heavy terry nappy for encouraging children to use the potty then loo, most were out by 2 and were none the worse for it. Yes, I know that 'research' alleges otherwise but experience doesn't.

• Eligibility criteria
• Families receiving income-related free school meals (FSM)
• Families where FSM eligible and non-eligible children live in the same household
• Families just managing financially (subject to referral from a professional)
• Recently arrived refugee families

£393bn was given to private firms for government contracts. Yes, there were services received in return for that, so we can't just look at the top line. But these companies are not operating at a loss as an act of charity. How much profit do you think they creamed off these contracts?

I'd wager that it's pretty damn close to the disability benefits figure. And that those profits weren't recycled through the economy as effectively either.