To think the main Mumsnet demographic are out of touch politically

[Veiledveritas]

Reform.are smashing the polls yet any Reform voter is despised and ridiculed on here.

It IS as simple as that.

Both the robotics and the AI are still in infant stages. That article is 7 months ago and already out of date.

Personally I would far rather be cared for in my old age in my own home by a humanoid robot who never sleeps, never complains, never steals my credit card, never patronises me, is always the same equally well trained person, will discuss quantum physics and fusion power with me not Coronation Street (nothing wrong with CS, I've just never seen it) etc. It might be achieved in time for me, I think so and hope so.

So if your friend are eligible for a taxi to school for their disabled children, ask them what would happen if they approached the council and said they would drive their children to school themselves. Because many will offer to pay mileage. We have an electric car so if we drove our daughter instead of allowing her to get a shared taxi (five children), we'd make a nice profit. The minibus option many advocate is obsolete.

We cannot row back on disabled children's rights. Transport to SEN school is based on the disability that also entitles children to a SEN school place and in many cases that disability means the child cannot share or cannot share with a minibus full of others. School taxis are the simplest way to solve a logistical issue, not something demanded by sharp elbowed parents at the expense of the wider community.

Like everyone who gets involved in any benefits discussion you assume that because your own needs are genuine that everyone else's are.

Well we'll see won't we

personally I don't want to die holding the hand of a robot

Do you think that children are offered a place at SEN school because their parents pretend they're disabled?

Advances in care will help. For dementia, cancer and weight loss.

This will reduce need for increasing population to support the older one. On posts not illuminating stuff you haven’t answered that question, should the population keep going up?

You might not realise that it is one 😉

My answer to the question was that, in the longer term, we should invest in alternative strategies to reduce the burden on social care. A pp mentioned Japan, where healthy life expectancy is much, much longer than the UK. This undoubtedly helps them to deal with their ageing population.

I'm not talking about advances in medical care. I'm talking about wider public health measures, including tackling issues such as poverty and poor quality housing, which are major drivers of poor health.

If fewer older people need care, we will need fewer people to care for them.

To cope with its aging population, Japan did lots of things, first it upped retirement to age 70.

Second (as well as increasing robot use) they introduced mandatory private health insurance for all to pay for care for those over 65 (!) , including nursing homes, home care, and meals.

Thirdly, they greatly upped immigration (granting full residency for families as well). This is to fill critical gaps in manufacturing (industrial products), building, food and drink as well as nursing. Also taxi, bus, and truck drivers, railway and forestry.

This is a major shift from Japan’s historically restrictive policies as they now need their foreign workforce drawing from Southeast Asia including Vietnam, China, Philippines, Myanmar, Indonesia and Sri Lanka.

By the way on population growth the UN project the world population rising for 50-60 years before declining slightly by the end of the century.

One thing I do agree with Reform on is incentivising young healthy educated people to have children and support them more. Rather than tax them through the roof, which is what Labour and Tori have done. This makes sense as typically they can also provide a better quality of life to the children and the children will more likely be taxpayers. But they need to be having children younger as the older you are, the more likely you are to have a disabled child. That is proven scientifically. People can whine as much as they want about pushy parents and SEND kids and taxis but if the whole system is incentivising people to have kids closer to 40 due to tax thresholds and high house prices, what exactly does anyone expect would happen.

I thought they were pledging to bring back the two child benefit cap if they won a GE?

Yes, fully agree with all that.

So did the Nazis to be fair.

Personally I think 2 children per couple is enough. Better than having none at the moment when workers can't afford the costs due to being taxed heavily, huge child care costs, expensive COL for children etc.

Those working in decent well paying jobs won't be claiming universal credit and even if Child Benefit was restricted to 2 kids, it's a drop in the ocean compared with childcare costs.

To start with the £100k cliff edge needs to be scrapped.

We also need to extend free childcare to ALL children up to primary school age, regardless of employment status, income, etc.

Maybe even go as far as bringing back additional tax-free personal allowances for parents with school age children so parents pay less tax in the first place rather than having to navigate the benefits minefield to get support.

I made it very clear that the child whose taxi journeys I was queuing was attending mainstream school.

Reform would encourage women to have children earlier and then demonise them when they end up single parents. Cut any funding to support them being able to access childcare and carry on working, which would result in them either having to leave the workforce or limit their careers. It's not a policy to benefit anyone, its a way of controlling women now they aren't as trapped in marriage anymore. You can see exactly the same ideology being peddled in the US now.

I could be wrong but it sounds as if you're advocating that the better off should be encouraged to have children.

Did you ask your friends and neighbours why they didn’t take their child to school? On the face of it that might seem surprising, but none of us have access to the facts - you do/did.

Oh right. So the parents are just lying about the disability in order to get an EHCP or IDP. Because you're unlikely to get disability related transport without one.

I hope you are consistent and believe that able bodied children should also not get free transport. 1/3 of my LAs budget on transport is for children without sen. If families of sen children should take their children to school then so should families of non sen children. It should be much easier for them to do so.

Unfortunately the evidence doesn’t agree with either you or Reform. And it’s not about couples, it’s about women who are the ones bearing the brunt of it all. Women don’t want to have children in exchange for incentives, that are put in place to ensure worker bees for the future, and anywhere this has been tried it’s seen small increases - mostly people having a second or third child, rather than a childless woman having one. Things like shared parental leave, childcare, reduced costs of HE etc might have some impact.

The rising age of first births is probably less to do with tax and more to do with cultural/social desires and expectations. Why would an educated 23 year old woman with a pile of student debt, likely including a Masters, and in a competitive field - eg medicine, engineering, tech, finance - want to quit her burgeoning career in her 20s to have a child’s, then go back and start again, and then maybe do it all again in a few years time? You’re either motivated to have kids, or you’re not. Of course people want to think they can do it all, but reality kicks in.

I think this is a really interesting overlap (probably not that unusual but is very marked in many of these areas). It really is turkeys voting for Christmas, and if I was a Labour SpAd I’d have been furiously arguing for massive resource allocation in those at risk areas. The public health and health inequalities are massive. I don’t want to malign any particular of the areas that voted in reform (not least because I live in one!) but some of the northern midlands and northern constituencies are shocking places to wander around and see some of the least healthy people you can imagine. It’s so fucking tragic that they’re voting for what is effectively managed decline but by a bloke they think is their friend. I’ve worked in social policy all my life (after law) and it’s frustrating that politicians don’t always use the evidence we present to them, but this has been predictable for 20 odd years at least. It’s also plain as day when you go to these places that the problems are not about immigration , so I have to say my sympathy for the residents is waning. Should have gone into corporate law instead!

You are correct in your observation, many on MN identify as hard left wingers that will trash anyone else's opinion. A good example was the 2017 snap general election where 19/20 respondents in a thread on here said they were voting Labour and wanted Corbyn for PM, the reality was that the Conservatives won comfortably with a 100 seat majority; MN is NOT the real world.

Wow that's real commitment to the MN cause.