to dread a Conservative govenment?

[tryingtobemarypoppins]

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

haven't read the whole thread but I agree, for many reasons, but also selfishly for my own livelihood. Working in adult education I can see the writing would be on the wall for services like Learndirect. My company are already looking at providing more commercial training as Government funding for adult education will probably be drastically reduced, if not dried up completely.

flatcap... yes of course, and she is desperate to go back to work as she is bored. However, i still don't understand how she can be better off week to week by not working. Were she of a different mind set, where is the incentive?

Oh yes, and there's also Jonathan Aitken.

Having married into big business I know that businesses do not just exploit legal loopholes when it comes to tax. It made me sick to the stomach to listen to people wit millions in the bank boast about how they got out of paying tax and then moan about benefits scroungers.

As a middle income person I am proud to pay my tax and it would never enter my head to find a way to pay less.

Dissove Parliment and let the Queen run the show.

Social mobility is the lowest it has been since the 1950s. Surely this proves that Labour has not adequately looked after the interests of its voters? Wake up everyone.

You're right they don't Swedes but it's not gonna get any better under the Tories.

spokette ,love- you do sound just a tiny bit envious!
Sorry, but i can't see where I became personal except to ask if you were brainwahsed, because you didn't give any examples to back up your points.

When I made the point about the politics of envy, it was not aimed at you as a personal attack, just at socialist policies.

You made the point that tax payers were bailing out the banks- well yes, but you seem to have missed the point that Brown et al were the ones who did not regulate the banks in the first place, and then paid up when it all went tits up- and accused the Tories of not wanting to do the same!

Labour have been in government for 11 years- are you saying they are not to blame for the mess we are in now? That G Brown didn't save for a rainy day but spent, spent, spent, sothat we have the biggest national debt ever?

Just come back to the thread.
Sceptic- I agree with most of what you have said.
I also agree about there should be different help depending upon circumstances for how you become a single parent.Of course women (and men)play the benefits system. To the poster who said that teenage girls do not get pregnant on purpose knowing full well that the state will provide a free house and basically free welfare for them until their child(ren) become adults, what planet are you living on?!!!
Stop providing a "free" ride and just watch the "accidents" plummet. Oh how these girls/women will then make use of the masses of free contraceptives/abortions/morning after pills available then.
When I had my first 2 children there was no such thing as any payment towards childcare full stop. Hence my original post I was virtually no better off working so stopped!
To the poster who claimed that they couldn't work without the state paying for the majority of her childcare cost-welcome to the real world!!!
Riven it is sadly a fact that the benefits culture favours (in the circumstances I quoted) single parents.
If you left your dh he would (possibly though not neccesarily-but that is another thread altogether)pay you maintenance-assuming he is the breadwinner. This would be no more than he can afford as he is paying for them now.
You would be housed by the state and receive either wftc or is etc. If you are a sahm you do not get IS. WFTC is not double for a couple what it is for a single parent.
Anyhow as Barnsleybelle has said, my friend is in this very postion and the state is paying out considerably more to her than it was when she was part of a married couple. Of course single parents do struggle financially but the fact remains that it costs tax payers a lot more to "keep" people who are not within a marriage/living together.
That is the crux of my argument not the morality of married/single tennage pregnancy etc but if you are looking at the cost of benefits then look at hard facts not just opinions which we all have.

I think that most Mums here are prob 20s 30s andmay be 40s.

Those of us who are older can recalla different world;

my father lost his dad when he was 8- his mum was left as a single parent with 3 kids aged 8 and under. She had to work at 3 jobs in order to provide food, although they did get a council house after they were bombed out during the war. According to my dad, she never ate properly herself for most of her life, always putting the kids first- and died from stomach cancer. There were no benefits.

Now, from what I understand, people receive benefits for nursery equipment-furniture, prams etc etc. This includes unmarried teenagers. it makes me furious when I hear about this and other benefits, as my DH and I bought some second hand nursery things, even though we wee both working and in our 30s before we had DCs.

The state hands out a huge amount of money like this which is a sheer waste.

If unmarried girls were forced to live in the parental home, and not receive any hand outs, the rates of illegitimacy would drop.
Contraception is available everywhere and so is the MAP and abortion. Bar the genuine "accidents" there is no need for unplanned pregnancy in 2009.

I see it where I live- unmarried mums awho had their kids at 16, and now their kids are following the same pattern, all living off the state. It becomes a way of life spanning generations.

When I had my DCs there were no childcare benefits at all, except the family allowance. I don't expect the state to pay for my kids- it was my choice to have them- and I don't see why we should pay for feckless girls who choose pregnancy in order to get a home.

This is just one tiny aspect of the benefits system. The whole system is being abused.

If the Tories make cut backs that will make those who can get off their backsides and work all to the good- and then those who are seriously and genuinely disabled will get what they should.

I feel sorry for the Conservatives having to sort out the mess that Labour have made of this country. so IMO YABU.

It costs the tax payer a lot to keep married couples who have children - not just lone parents.

The hard facts - do you know the number of teenage live births for the last year? have you any idea what the percentage is of all live births.
I would be interested to know how many teenagers actually had live babies.

Perhpas you could also look at how much tax evasion tesco ran to last year and compare the amounts of money that this cost the general public - I wonder if the tax evasion would have paid for over 10000 teachers to work in schools and reduce class sizes?

hmm....but, are there jobs for all those people on benefits that could work? That would have to be addressed, too, wouldn't it....
just wondering about this....

Im not a fan of david cameron. he considers single mums to be the scum of the earth. He wants to try bringing a few kids up on his own in a dodgy area with a low income and then make a judgement.

1billion in tax evasion

Scaryteacher, my experience in/of the UK is limited, but I found Exeter quite depressed when we first moved there. I don't think that had been caused by 1 year and a half of Labour government.
I think it improved a lot in the yrs we lived there.

But as I said, living now in a country with a laughable conservative right wing govt, I do miss Labour

Socialist policies are not the politics of envy, of course some socilaists may have be envious but to say that all are is ridiculous. I could have chosen to follow any career I wanted, I chose to work in the publicb sector, I am not envious of anyone's job. I could have taken my husband for half of everything he had and lived the high life I chose not to , so again I am not envious.

I do think it is important to help those who for whatever reason cannot make their own living. Nothing to do with envy.

Dha dn I are petrified

As poor people we are very vulnerable to slight changes, and DS3 is dependant on them keeping teh Special Ed palces aas they are. Sadly, they are expensive, small and constantly under review already.

There's nothing more we can do as a family to help ourselves, we are trying; it's such a close balance it wold only take a mnor restructuring of TC'#s, CA or Dla to have us homeless and stuffed.

howtotellmum We received the sure start grant (the one for nursery equipment) for 2 of our children; the other two we did not, we bought second hand. We qualified with ds3 becuase DH lost his job suddenly 3 weeks before I deliverd DS3. With ds4 we qualified because of out severely disabled 9their classification) ds's, it helped with the additional costs for eg playpens etc to keep ds4 safe from the autistic duo

i don't beleive for one minute that the disabled will be protected under the Conservatives; their record with special ed provision is shocking, and the DLA already checks claimants very accurately no matter what the appers may choose to print (see if you can find a copy of the DLA form if you don't believe me- over 50 pages, all to be abcked up with reports etc).

Dot eh epoepl whoa dvocate cutting benefits to single aprents retc (tens specifically) realise that there are babies in these famillies? Reagrdless of my opinion of the details of their conception why on earth would I ant more children raised in poverty to recreate the cycle, have lower healtha nd academic attainment etc? I;d call that a cruel aim in all frankness. 'Stuff the kids- do as I want or be abandoned'.

Yep, and see the copst to the NHS, Social Services, LEA's rocket.

FWIW I've never been or expect (but who knows in this workld?) a single parent, and have no eprsonal axe to grind: our current poverty caused by a mix of redundancy (DH) and carer status (me)

Ivykate I'm surprised at your figures TBH

becauze Dh now works 16 hours a week (is starting own business) and we are decidedly not better off than before the redundancy from a normalish waged job- even after cutting out petrol / bridge tolls (significant) we're still a few hundred ounds down.

'I sat between to men the other day - one his company went under

he now works 14 hours a week and his wife doesn't work, he is better off than when he ran his own company.
'

Well isn't that presumably because his companyy went under and wasn't making a profit?

Having worked in a school where 10% of our year 11 girls had been pregnant by the time they left I think that women may get pregnant to get somewhere to live but is rarely as simple as that. They do it because they can see no future for themselves, no way of getting self estemm beyond being a mother, no way of getting commitment from a man other than to have his child.

I can remember being 15 and living in real poverty ( child poverty under a tory government in fact) in a highly abusive household ( my mum could have benefitted from sure start) and thinking I need to get out of this situation. I had 2 choices, 1 get pregnant and get a flat ( although I did not know if I could actually do that I had justheard runours) or 2 get to university. Student grants and loans meant I could do the latter.

I have also been a homeless single parent and did not walk into somewhere to live. I had to sleep on the streets with my baby, followed by hostel that was terrifying, bed and breakfast accomodation which was not much better. I was kicked out at 9am every morning with my baby and had to walk the streets until 6pm whatever the weather. I wad told I would have to wait 10years for a council house and 2 years for a housing association house.

I work part time in the civil service and have a final salary pension. You may not agree with that but I get paid a lot less than an equivalent job in the private sector, and certainly a lot less than my counterparts in the US. My pension is my compensation.

My DH works for the local authority and also works part time on a fixed term contacts. We don't own a house and have very little disposable income. Damn right I'm dreading the Tories getting in!

Ivykaty - here's a second link with reference to that story:

www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2008/sep/16/corrections

I was married when I had my dd so did not qualify for any sure start grants , not sure if they existed 7-8 years ago. But surestart and similar schemes are the reason that I still have my daughter and that We coped in some very difficult times. They have been a huge success of the labour government and quite a brave investment as money into early years does not have immediate pay offs infact we may have to wait 10-15 years to see the results of that investment. Could they have spent less, I am sure but still a good thing that I am sure has saved many lives and has kept many familes together.

As someone with a mental illness I am also very very nervous of the cuts in spending that will happen.

Og FC&P I hope there's no baby and mum sleeping rough here, I'doffer them a bed and hot meal if I knew there was. Bloody awful.

I guess out backgrounds are similar- ditto to retty much everything you said from the abuse stuff to poverty. Most of my friends went to factories or got pregnant (many aged 14, a whiol;e batch of them together, this was in 1987) but i went of to nurse school (hated it mind but nonetheless had the option).

For a great many kids on my estate HE / FE weren't a real option- either through a necessity to pay high rents to aprents,or simple low ability.