to dread a Conservative govenment?

[tryingtobemarypoppins]

As a teacher and mother I feel I should dread Conservatives getting in.....

auntie maggie it was labour that scrped the grant!!

www.independent.co.uk/news/labour-will-abolish-grants-for-16m-students-1348390.html

Heard a great quote once somthing along the lines of..........

Those who receive money are never as happy to receive it as those who have to pay for it are angry.

www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2005/nov/08/cherieblair.highereducation

Smallcat, it is very easy to spend other people's money, hence the ongonig expenses row which, quite frankly is disgusting.

My local council spends money, rate payers money, hand over fist as if it is going out of fashion. This is why I voted against them in the local elections. As far as I am concerned they can cut spending so long as it results in a cut in my council tax bill. As you said more spending does not always equate with better service, purely "wiser" more carefully thought out spending.
I know lots of people who earn far less than my dh and I do but would look at us and think we are better of. The reason? I have had to work for everything in life and so value and respect my hard earned cash and spend it wisely.

Interesting Ivykaty. If the conservatives do win a general election I hope to god they prove me wrong an do not make HE any harder ESP for student parents!

But on the issue of public spending, I cannot believe people are suggesting it should not happen! I thought it was general knowledge that public spending = higher standards of living, employment etc??? What is to be gained in NOT spending??? (genuinely interested if their is an answer to this)

Sorry that should read I know people who earn far MORE than we do.

Manatee you should live where I do, apparently the council has run out of money! I kid you not.

"auntmaggie"- where are you getting you facts from please?

It was actually the Labour government who introduced top-up fees and higher tuition fees- the bill got through only very narrowly with Tory support.

Loans are not a problem imo. Both my Dcs will have loans of over £20K to pay back, after 3 and 4 yr courses. There is simply not enough money in the pot to support 40-50% of people in higher ed. If youw ant to go back to the 7% at uni as it was in "my day" then yes, grants are feasible.

The Environment Agency- where do you get your figures and facts from please? I cannot comment as I have not seen any figures- but if the agency is wasteful, then yes, 1500 jobs would have to go! As a tax payer I am not happy to support any public organisation that is wasteful. If you can prove to me that any cuts would be detrimental to the work of the Agency, fine- go ahead- but remember there are always two sides to every argument!

How do you know it is "just because they can"? Give me the evidence rather than dogma, and I am happy to listen to you(do you work for them?)

Right, I don't work in public service (I work part time as well as being at uni full time), and I see my job as safer (touch wood) than public services. Just my perception perhaps...?

I worked as a medical secretary during the last Tory Gov.

When I started the job it was on a higher pay scale than general sectretarial work. You needed specific training and a good knowledge of medical terminology. It was a good job and I was proud of it.

Then there was a public sector pay freeze. By the time I left the job about 6 years later I was on about 5k less than my non public sector contemperies.

Seemed a little unfair to me.

I KNOW there is an awful lot of waste in the public sector but it seems that the lowely workers are easy targets and can do feck all about it.

Saying all that I dont really feel this gov has been real Labour. They are a bit Tory Lite IMO. Not what I voted for.

I couldnt bring myself to vote Tory though. Just couldnt. No more than my mum could ever vote labour.

At least the Conservatives don't support a benefit state unlike Labour - labour have ruined this country with lax immigration laws, giving more and more benefit to lazy pigs who just decide to spurt out kids as it is easier and more 'cost effective' then working for a living. So bring on the Conservatives - anything to stop this nation continuing to be the sponging mess it is.

Riven,I would be surprised if David Cameron ,having had the tragic experience of his own disabled child,would either want to make life harder for yours or consider her a 'useless eater'.
I voted labour in 1997,but cannot understand why everyone drags up memories of past conservative govts.We might as well blame MacMillan or Heath.Pat is past,as Tony proved

Here we go

The "tax not paid is the same as sponging off the state" argument pisses me off.

Tesco paid 20% overall tax rather than 29% through legal tax avoidance schemes apparently. But how much tax is that? Billions and billions.

The idea that producers, who are providing jobs, creating wealth, paying taxes, etc., are somehow equivalent to the sort of scumbags you see in tabloid newspapers occasionally ("I get £5000/month in benefits - and it's not enough") is just bollocks.

I avoid tax, quite legally, but I still pay it, and substantial amounts. My children are getting a good education (which I'm paying for on top of my taxes) and will most probably end up paying lots of taxes themselves.

By contrast go to somewhere like Islington, which was destroyed by the Labour party, who pledged to 'build the Tories out of London'. This they did successfully, knocking down the solid Victorian homes of the working classes, destroying their close-knit communities and disbursing them to concrete towers which quickly turned into slums.

In Islington no less than 45% of children live in 'workless households', 43% of children only have one parent and half of all children are living in council accommodation.

What are their prospects? Very poor. Not only do nearly half of children live solely off benefits (a COST to the state, unlike Tesco who are in fact paying for their and their parents' life styles), but despite the apparent abundance of leisure time, very few are interested in learning. A walk down the street at chucking out time from school will reveal rude, belligerent children apparently at war with the world.

The cost to society is not just the benefits, not just the social housing cost, but also the policing, the 'youth centres' (which get vandalised as soon as they are built), the collateral damage to decent people in the area.

And as for social mobility, there is none. It's plainly obvious that what were once decent communities have been destroyed by the welfare state over the last 64 years. There are 47 times more crimes now than in 1900. Not 47% more, 47 times (4700%) more. Whereas there are about 1 million burglaries per year in the UK, there are fewer than 1,000 in Singapore (which has about 10% of the population of the UK).

I fail to see why Tesco should feel guilty about minimising their contribution to this mess.

Someguy you have some valid points but I feel you are making an awful lot of assumptions about families in Islington.

Whilst I cannot argue with your statistics I would say you cannot know what people are like just from said statistic or from watching stroppy kids at kicking out time.

Quite a few of those rude belligerent children will come from middle class homes and will be far from deprived. Islington is a borough with a huge rich/poor divide but the rich and poor live cheek by jowel quite often go to the same schools.

How on earth do you know which ones are the benefit scrounging no hopers and which are the wannabe wiggers from nice homes?

AND my kids were part of a benefit dependant, council flat dwelling family in Islington. It was never meant as a career path but as a stop gap until things improved. And they did with a lot of hard work. But even whilst they were part of a single parent, benefit dependant, council dwelling household, they were taught the value of education, politeness, ambition and consideration.

I lived in Islington whilst it was under a Tory government and a Labour one. I cannot say I saw a huge change in that time.

Alir24 The Labour that supported a 'benefit state' was the one in power before this lot! The post WW2 gov., the ones that were responsible for the high economic growth at that time! These days all the main parties are versions of neo-liberalism, with slightly different policies, reflecting the groups of people in which they have interest.

It is wrong to cheat tax paying, tesco avoided paying nearly one third tax, a billion pounds - it is disgraseful and it can't be justified in anyway.

A billion on teachers, police, education wpuld go a long way.

Actually in Britain there is what is called the post-war 'consensus', which basically meant there was no difference between the Tories and Labour on social policy. Particularly Ted Heath - he was to the left of the current Labour government.

Just to get non party political, I've no doubt the Tories increased the size and scope of the welfare state. And I'm not sure that the Tories will do anything to rein it in (partly because they don't want to scare off the voters). But at least it's a step in the right direction.

I'm not sure whether the scummy children I see in Islington are middle class or not, I know plenty of nice children go to school and are led astray. Left-wing policies on school discipline (or lack of it) mean that one or two troublemakers can destroy the opportunities of a whole class.

Of course the welfare state can be treated as a safety net, and if that was all people used it as there'd be less argument with it. But the fact of half of children growing up in Islington living solely off benefits is clearly wrong. I wouldn't dream of saying that each individual family is 'bad', but I do think the statistics speak for themselves in aggregate - they show the effects of welfare.

It's not as if there's a lack of oppportunity. There are hundreds of thousands of jobs in London. Go into a coffee shop or sandwich bar and you'll most likely meet a very pleasant young person serving you. A Polish person. The belligerence these kids learn in school makes them essentially unemployable. And why are they so arrogant? Because they are basically untouchable. They've already seen you don't need to work to get money and housing (how much is a house in Islington otherwise? £300k for a small flat). I was chatting to one guy who had the vacant glaze of the middle aged 'never worked in his life' outside an estate agent. He said how he was going to sell his right-to-buy council house for £550k and go off to Spain. That's what passes for enterprise in inner London.

And as for the youths, if they commit crime, assuming they get caught, the punishment is likely to be minimal. And whereas the merest blot on my credit record is likely to leave me unable to rent a house without a massive deposit, they can sell drugs, stab people, and still the council is obligated to house them.

But Tesco didn't cheat, they followed the law. And they contribute vast amounts to this country.

The billion pounds is in any case is going to Tesco's millions of shareholders - pension funds, universities, etc., who IMO are much better equipped to spend the money than the government.

I too can't see how we would survive without CTC/WTC. We are a family of 5, with 1 'severely disabled' (their definition) child.

We get more in CTC/WTC than DH's net wage (he works over 30 hours per week). That means that our income would be halved if it was abolished.

Raising tax allowances would not help as an alternative for those who rely on CTC the most, because the amount of tax we pay is small, so it wouldn't compensate for losing £1000's in CTC.

YANBU

Are the Conservatives actually proposing to abolish tac credits??? I really would be stuffed without them.

Someguy Tesco do contribute but they also take, and the 'word' 'Tescopoly' has not come from nowhere, they take at the expense of small businesses and use every loophole possible to get in new stores to increase their monopoly.
Also, I have to say, I am a tad at your focus on, and stereotyping of, Islington and it's residents!