to be really scared of the Tories getting into power?

[Coldhands]

I've never really been into politics but now I have a DS, I am thinking about the things that have helped us etc and I realised that Labour has actually done a lot to improve the things that I think are important.

If the Tories get in, the things they want to change/cut effects me and my family and I am really really dreading them getting into power to the point that it is making me quite upset.

I am on In Cap benefit for M.E./CFS and everytime I have a medical I have to prove how I cannot work. It is difficult to do this with a fluctuating condition that you cannot test for or see and the Tories want to retest everyone on In Cap with harder tests and I am terrified of not passing and being forced back to work where I would end up at square one again and have no energy, have to give up work again and go through the whole sodding process again whilst not being able to afford to live.

Then they want to get rid of the Child Trust Fund for anyone who earns over £16000. My DH earns just over this and it wouldn't be fair to subsequent DCs for them not to have a TF and DS has one so we would have to find the money to start them one.

They want to cut funding to Surestart that I have found to be absolutely brilliant and it really helped me when I had PND. There is more stuff that I can't remember and don't want to make my post too long.

I have sent off my postal vote so I have a voice but me and my DH were talking and we really don't see Labour getting back in as there are so many people who are fed up them and blame them for everything. One reader in The Sun (I know, quality paper that I read) was blaming Gordon Brown for the sodding volcano.

AIBU?

Paying tax is a legal requirement and tax evasion is illegal, rightly. Tax avoidance using the regulations to minimise what one pays is perfectly legal - ISAs; savings in the non-taxpayer, lower rate partners name to avoid more tax is legal, and many people do it.

I don't think Janos, that the way TSC talked about 'the fucking Tories' warrants tea and sympathy really.

grr think my point may have been missed in that in my book the goverment investing in childrens future is not a bad thing and the CTF encourages saving. And yes I work for the NHS which is still recovering from the mess the tories left it in 15 years ago.

The NHS is by no means perfect but I have zero confidence that the tories would improve anything.

This thread appears to have turned into an MN version of 'Outraged of Tunbridge Wells'.

I don't see why people being concerned that they may not be able to pay bills/afford childcare/work - all utterly reasonable and valid concerns = a massive sense of entitlement, or perhaps I'm missing something?

janos I think you are indeed missing something. The point I've taken issue with is that I don't want taxes to fund a holiday or a new car for an 18yr-old. I certainly don't think there is anything wrong with people claiming benefits so that they can afford childcare etc.

Girliefriend: so do you really, honestly think that people who've never saved a penny in their lives (for whatever reason) are somehow going to become magically educated about money and are going to become lifelong savers all because of a £250 handout from the government?

Of course there will be the occasional few people who suddenly see the light as a result of this handout . But for most people, it'll either fester in an account until the child's 16 or 18 or whatever it is, with nothing added to it in the meantime (by when it will be worth next to nothing), or it will be a nice but essentially unnecessary little extra for people who end up paying for it in tax, NI, etc several times over. Personally I would prefer to pay less tax/NI over the next 20 years and sacrifice my two dollops of CTF in return. That would be far more beneficial to my children, if we're talking about what benefits our own offspring (as you were, girliefriend, in your first post).

Clam how do you think you are contributing to waste - can you clarify?

I am not being smart arsed, am genuinely interested here.

dinosaur - I don't think girliefriend is claiming the CTF so her daughter gets to buy a car/go on jollies.

Well I too remember being a very poor hard working woman under the tories.
The tories absolutely screwed me and I will not vote for them as once bitten twice shy.
Poll tax=mass rioting where the poor paid more and the rich paid less.
Vat on utilities=the poor hardest hit as bills such as these are a higher portion of their earnings.
Abloishion of miras=home owners worse off
Abolishion of the married persons tax allowance=married coupls worse off.
No help with child care costs=myself giving up work as I couldn't afford to actually work!
No paternity rights
Less maternity pay.
National companys sold off=profit making companys no longer an asset of the state.

No I personally am better off under labour, even if they are far from perfect.

Contributing to waste - when you pay tax it goes into a big pot for distribution as and how the government see fit. In recent times I've seen the current government:

(1) spend money bailing out the banks with no conditions attatched (and we've all seen the stories of bonuses being paid to people who had no small part in exacerbating the crisis in the first place)

(2) spend money on a quangos for education and healthcare which they themselves admit have not been fruitful exercises

(3) spend money on huge IT projects for public services (again lining the pockets of various consultancies) and an ID card scheme - most of which will be abandoned.

(4) give out benefits that are not means-tested e.g the CTF.

These are just a few examples of what I consider contributing to waste, but of course clam should explain her own thinking if she feels like it. Also - if you read back to the original message from girliefriend you'll see for yourself why she feels she needs the CTF. I didn't make it up. I'm just saying it's not the right way to help families (single-parent or otherwise). Having listened to the debates and read the manifestos of each of the 3 main parties - it does strike me that the Tories are focused on families just as much, if not more than the other parties. muminthemiddle they address many of the gripes you list in your previous post. Of course you could be saying that you fear they will not deliver on their promise, do an about-turn and go back to their policies of old which of course is a valid concern...

To add to the waste Labour have spent £61,000 on mugs and pencils advertising the new Contactpoint database. That would pay for a lot of EMA or CTF surely.

I am saying that both my dh and I are financially better off under labour than we were when the tories were in power.
I also dislike "financing" layabouts or whatever you want to call a section of society.
I dislike the fact that new mums are in effect paid £250 just to have a child-personally I would scrap this payment altogether.
I dislike the fact that my council tax bill is extortionte and I would gladly pay less and have services reduced, but I know that it was the Tories who helped paved the way for the unfair way in which the "council tax" is calculated. Before then it was the old rates system which basically was a system were houses were banded in rateabilty ie if you bought a nice house in a posh area you knew straight away that you would pay x amount of tax. Now we are lumbered with a high tax for living in a not so great area. Sorry to waffle on but it was also the tories who helped create the banking crisis when they deregulated the entire banking industry and allowed building societies banking status. This meant that instead of building societies being friendly societies they became banks. Floated on the stock market and under ransom to "perform" hence the pressure to make more money by whichever way the could etc etc all spiralled towards the recent crisis.
Northern Rock were a building society and at one time of day would not have been allowed to lend to the extent in which they did. Becoming a bank under the act of 1986 took away that restriction and control.

The only reason we survived under the tories was because Margaret Thatcher could rely on the profits of North Sea Oil. Her government sold off all Britain's assets to the highest bidder. Again the rich got richer and the poor could go to hell.

I think no matter who gets into power we are all fooked.

Dinosaur - I think bringing up the amount of money the government ploughed into banks is a bit niaive - if the sahres get back to what they were post crisis - and they will - the government will make billions and billions add to that the huge amounts of interest and fees the banks are having to pay and it could turn out to be a fantastic payday for those in power because they will effectively solve the debt problem in one foul swoop.

As for someone whining about not being able to support their 5 kids - well love you chose to have 5 kids that you could not afford to support - that makes you a negligent parent IMO - and you should be worrying about the economy going tits up if Labour stay in or there is a hung parliament because CTC and WFTC will be the least of your problems when interest rates soar and you can't afford to keep a roof over your head - or maybe you don't have to pay a huge amont for that either - maybe the state coughs up to house your family of 7!! State of entitlement arguement again!!!

And working in the NHS as I do - we both work you see - think it is our duty now the children are at school to be able to support them without financial help from the government - I see the huge amounts of money wasted on stupid groups getting together to chat over how things are going and how they can improve things - these are usually held at lovely golf clubs with catering laid on and a flip chart costing £20 just to have in the room that is - I also see the amount of days people take off sick - in a private sector company these people would be on theior last warning but in the NHS it is expected and well known that you would have to do something pretty dire to lose your job. So cutting waste in councils, the NHS, whitehall - all of it would go a long way to plugging the huge hole that we are all going to have to tighten our belts for.

Good point Riven. I suppose the idea is that with interest added but even then it won't amount to a lot, unless topped up.

I do agree that the CTF is not great, but then it could be helpful to some, eg help support university students?

Scaryteacher - yes, that certainly is wasteful. No disagreement there. Historically speaking however, I'm sure there are similar examples of Conservative wastefulness.

The bailout of the banks..well, wasn't it the tories who deregulated the banking industry in the first place?

I seem to rememer interest rates at 18/19% in the early nineties..again, under a tory government. Then of course Black Monday (1987), Black Wednesday (1992).

I'm not sure the Tories as fiscally responsibility as they like to portray themselves.

My mistake, peak interest rate was 15.3% in the early 1990s, according to this article from The Independent.

Just had to say...

I was one of five children. My parents did financially support us. However, things got very hard under the previous conservative government until things changed again.

It is easy and unforseable for people to loose their jobs. It is a good thing that support is there to support families NO MATTER how many children they have. Unless of course, you can live with the idea of homeless children and families camping out at the end of your road begging, starving and wearing rags. Or maybe they should be sent to the ''workhouse'' ?

no newyorkshire - I just expect them to be responsible about birth control - not hard is it - if you can't afford to have 5 kids on your current income - don't have them - you are doing nothing for the economy - infact you are probably claiming more back than you are paying in and if your kids have the same attitude as you to social responsibility then the line that we need population growth to pay for all the pensioners in the future is crap - we will be pumping more money into families who time and time again leavge it up to the state to finance their lives.

MITM - whatever happened, the taxes you paid on your house would have risen.

The rates needed revising; there hadn't been a general domestic uprating since 1973. If there had been one done about the time that Community Charge was introduced you would have paid more than Community Charge, because the rateable values were so out of date.

Council Tax is actually an amalgam of Rates and Community Charge, so you have your 50% property element combined with the 50% personal element that can be reduced by 25% if there is only one eligible person living in the household. When it was rates, there was no banding of properties per se, the RV was for each individual house.

I don't see much difference between all three methods of raising Local Government finance personally. I thought CC was the best as it was charged on the individual for the services provided, rather than taking the value of the property into account. The only reason it was scrapped was because people move and it is easier to tax a property as it stays in one place.

Actually, I AM hoping that my children have the same attitude towards social responsibilty as I have: I teach them to care about everyone and especially people less fortunate than themselves and I teach them not to judge others.

madamecastafiore I totally get that the government will make money if the shares in RBS and Lloyds do well, which hopefully they will, but my point about was waste was that before handing over the cash, they should've had a list of conditions signed, one of which being that there would be no bonuses paid to executives until the shares had reached a certain performance level.

Also - despite what they all say about putting curbs on the banking industry - as you point out our government has got an interest now in the banking industry doing well if it wants to recoup it's money, so how will any of them (Nick Clegg included with his "bonuses capped at GBP 2500"nonsense) actually be able to reconcile these 2 conflicting points. They can talk until they are blue in the face about taking charge - but if they want their money back, they are going to have to facilitate their success.

They won't be able to dinosaur - we have to realise and swallow that most industry is backed up by the banks and what they pay executives making it's way back into the economy so caping bonuses at 2500 would be stupid - at DHs work they were just talking about massively raising salaries to negate the need for huge bonuses - which would be worse as at least for the most bonuses are results driven - and although lots would love to believe that those stupid bankes gets paid hundreds of thousands it isn't true.

So you are going to bring your kids up with the same sense of entitlement that you have are you newyorkshire? That is where this country is going wrong - a work ethic is a much more valuable ideal than that of a sense of entitlement.

"Actually, I AM hoping that my children have the same attitude towards social responsibilty as I have: I teach them to care about everyone and especially people less fortunate than themselves and I teach them not to judge others. "

Well said newyorkshire.

I enjoy discussing and debating these issues but some people are not worth engaging with, as their prejudices simply are too entrenched.

So because some of us don't think the same way as you Janos we are prejudiced? That says it all really - perhaps you need to take a look at your own attitudes?