to find the whole Broken Britain thing a load of horse crap?

[slightlystressed]

It's really irratating me now, Britain has never been "fixed".

I know Mr Smuggness will be our next PM, and I've been trying to avoid him, but he's frikin' EVERYWHERE! Using the Edlington case to highlight his theory was pretty poor aswell.

God, Im going to unplug the TV for a few days after the Election, his smuggness just might make me explode!

I guess it must be human nature (or maybe just our culture?) that we are constantly complaining about what we haven't got.

It wouldn't do any harm at all to count our blessings once in a while, bearing in mind the way in which the majority of the people in this world are forced to live.

ah but nowadays being able to pay for your education will give you the extra help not being able to go to a better school free. so i think maybe there was a time not so long ago when it was ok - but it's definitely on it's way to breaking now

It was BBC2.

i dont personally think that britain is broken as such but i do think that it should be made financially appealing to be together as a couple. As it is there is no real financial incentive for single mums to have a partner or get married. They stand to loose a lot of money and are basically penilised for being in a relationship. This is a hard nut to crack as quite a lot of people end up "on the fiddle" as its better for them financially. This totally gets up my nose.
i was a single parent before i met dp and father of ds2 and when we got together we were £700 worse off per month. In my area there are loads of people fiddling system and it really gauls me as we as saving for a house and it seems impossible. The government really has to make it so theres some incentive to be a family, with two parents in the same house. i know this is not always possible due to individual circumstances but surely this should be the ideal we whould be striving for.

FOLK DEVILS AND MORAL PANICS...

There will always be ignorant people who shouldn't be anywhere near children let alone have them!

I know I sound a right reactionary (I'm really NOT) but why is it that crap parents are so damn fertile? Weren't those boys from families of 7? As was Shannon Matthews. THen you have decent people desperate for kids. It's a strange thing.

But no, I don't think it means Britain is broken now or at the time of the Bulger case.

I hate Tories but they weren't to blame for James Bulger and Gordon Brown isn't to blame for this.

Truth is, it's a much safer time to be a child than it was 50, 75, a 100 years ago but that doesn't make the latest cruelty cases any less upsetting and shocking.

People have a need to find answers and there aren't any.

Anyone who thinks Britain isn't broken needs to visit an area near me in West London. It's proximinity to Heathrow should mean employment isn't a problem.

I sometimes go there as it has an Argos Extra with easy parking and am always horrifed by what I see. I heard someone using the 'F' word at staff in the bank, a mum using the 'F' word at her small child in a pushchair AND hitting her, a group of mums chatting while watching their children take the bables off the xmas tree and kicking them across the store! Walk past the pub at 10.30AM and it's filled with people drinking pints! Lots of young overweight mums pushing pushcahirs with a cigarette in their hands...........

And to top it all, this area is well known amongst the police as having the highest rate of incest in the country!

Its about time they stop giving houses and benefits to pregnant children and make them use contaception! That's the first step!

2old4thislark, enforced contraception? Now where have I heard that before....?

Are you sure 2old? becuase the police told me so,mewhere else had the highest incest rate. TBH I have been toldlots of palces by the police, I don'tthink they can actually know can they? It tends to follow arep of a v high level of poverty and SN.

'I sometimes go there as it has an Argos Extra with easy parking and am always horrifed by what I see. I heard someone using the 'F' word at staff in the bank, a mum using the 'F' word at her small child in a pushchair AND hitting her, a group of mums chatting while watching their children take the bables off the xmas tree and kicking them across the store! Walk past the pub at 10.30AM and it's filled with people drinking pints! Lots of young overweight mums pushing pushcahirs with a cigarette in their hands'

Do you think that is new? That ismy town when I was raised,and when my dad was 65 years ago. We cannot hark back to a golden age before broken britain if it was never mended.

'Its about time they stop giving houses and benefits to pregnant children and make them use contaception! That's the first step! '

Yes, because we all know women produce asexually.

A man can father way more children than a woman can give birth to.

So why is enforced contraception invariably referred to in terms of women?

Absolutely they should refuse the benefits.

get the rpegnanct teens on the streets, see the babies honeless and begin the cycle again.

Bollox.

The contraception would not be enforced obviously but if you take away the incentives for these children to have babies they may actually use it!

I was told this fact about the area independently by two seperate police sources - who knows if it's true?

So do you think this sort of behaviour is acceptable? The 'F' word directed at small children and staff in shops? This DID NOT happen in this area when I was a child. I spent the early part of my childhood in this town and have been back regularly over the years. The town used to be populated by hard working people who treated each other with respect. I am sure that there are still people like that there but they don't seem to be in the majority.

I would like polititians to visit areas like these. If they were to talk to the school secretaries in deprived areas they would really get a true picture.

Peachy - no one wants to see pregnant teens on the streets and homeless babies. The point is having sex is a choice (apart obviously from rape - before someone junmps down my throat!)and with choice comes responsibility.
A teenager's one night stand can end up costing the tax payer £1500 a month, all for the sake of a free condom that they can't be bothered to use!
Don't forget that teenager has a home before they get pregnant - in the old days the teenager and baby would say at home and have the support of the extended family.
Do people honestly think it's a good idea for teenagers to have babies and raise them alone on benefits?

I think it is better than the alternatives.

And no, tens werent kept at home to raise their babies:they were sent off to Aunts and horrid homes where the baby would usually be fostered whether they lifed it or not,and they would return often to heartbreak- orthey would raise the child up in shame and accusation with the child lookeddown upon.

I'drather see adrop in teen pregnancies than benefit support but wonder how you would explain the experience of some Europeans countries (Swedden IIRC? not sure) where teen pg'sarelower than the UK with a generous welfare syste, that would suggest the answer lies elsewhere to me.

My mother was PG at 17 (later married my Dad, lost the baby) and was shunned by her family in @1965. Fabbo. My FIL was abandoned (literally,just left there as a toddler) almost certainly as a result of being a war baby and never got to know his aprents. How is that a positive outcome?

Yes Riven I do! I have 2 and they both have ........partners and I have 'accidently' discovered their pill/condom stash! They are both hard working and responsible - sorry!

Already 10 girls from my 19 year old daughters school year have babies and/or pregnant! And this is in an area which is deemed 'leafy'! They blatantly admit they get pregnant so they can get a free flat!

Statistics have shown that the pregnancies have risen along with the rise in benefits.

The point is that it's always the children who suffer from these unplanned pregnancies. There's countless children who are born to be a statistic who should never have been born inthe first place!

The decision to allocate council houses based on 'need' rather than having a waiting list was the major cause of the problems we have today. 'Need' can be manipulated which was suggested at the time.

Some statistics, UK stats. probably- I willtake your word on that

If other stats elsewhere show otherwise doesn't that suggest that rather than rmeove benefits there are other ways of changing things?

I'd rather be living in the Britain of today than at any other time in our history. In terms of openness and tolerance things have never been better. Not perfect of course, not by a long shot, but it is a constant work in progress.

The BNP getting a couple of seats in the European parliament recently is a terrible shame but... Britain is the only country in Europe where a member of a fascist party has never been elected to our parliament. That gives me hope.

The thought of David Cameron being elected as leader of this country fills me with dread. There are people that live in terrible situations with no hope of a better life. Why are our political party leaders not focusing on making changes which will actually improve the prospects of those who have nothing instead of fuelling anger and directing blame towards them? It's like, we can't blame the immigrants any more because that's not cool- let's blame the white trash.

How do we stop him?

David Cameron and the Tories can't screw things up any more than the current lot have.

A lot of the benefit/welfare policy changes were made with the best of intentions. unfortunately it has just resulted in some people taking the easy option.

Surely we should be responsible for ourselves, not expect other people to pay for our mistakes. The countries and cultures with the strongest work ethic are those that do not have a benefit system to fall back on.

The upshot is that giving teenagers the financial incentive to be the parents of the next generation is not a good idea. They need to work in the real world and lose their own stroppiness before they should become parents!

Yes they can,some of the DLA changes they refuse torule out willesclude many disabled children and prevcent carers like me from accessing support (I have discussed this directly with Tory HQ).The potentialrule change is that SW'sassessDLA- but many children do not have a SW andsome areas have blanket policiesdenying children like DS1,Aspergers dx but needing HR care due to aggresiveness, access toaSW.

Soabsolutely they could screw that up,they could deny me CA and prevent me eating.

I understand you have a vested interest in any decisions regarding a change in benefits but that is not my point here.

I believe we need to take away the financial incentive for teeneagers to become parents - totally different issue! I'm talking about preventative measures for the future not starving current claimants!

I don't know if this is true but I read that parents get a Carers Allowance if their child has ADHD? If the child is at school I don't undertand why this happens if this is the case? Anybody help on this one?

Either you think a safety net is a good idea or not.

I happen to think that it is and I don't particularly care that a few chancers will take the piss out of the system. I'm just glad that, as a society, we see fit to take care of those in difficult circumstances.

I lived in that States for a year and saw first hand the effect of having no NHS and no maternity leave entitlement. I think things are much more civilised here.

And 2old, what would you do with pregnant teenagers that were no longer welcome at their parents house?

'Surely we should be responsible for ourselves, not expect other people to pay for our mistakes. The countries and cultures with the strongest work ethic are those that do not have a benefit system to fall back on.'

Have you ever lived in a country like this?

Obviously not or you wouldn't have come out with a line like that.

Because in countries like this, people mob bin lorries as they show up to landfill, picking through rubbish for any spare bit they can sell so they can eat the bare minimum to keep them alive.

Have you seen the slums in places like this? Smelled them?

Do you think people who work that hard deserve to live with an open sewer running right outside their shack?

Because that is the reality of country's with no social welfare system.

I can't believe people fall for all this 'it's all the fault of teens having babies' and not that of bankers and MP's scrounging billions of taxpayer pounds.

And no, I have never lived on benefits, but I'm glad they're there.