I’m saying the rich should not get free childcare because they have the means to make their own provisions and that money can be better spent on those who really need it
Is this really a socialist view? Or does it feed a more an ultimately neo liberal capitalist view which is driving privatisation of certain services?
One of the arguments in politics atm is one about equality v fairness.
There is a whole argument about whether one family can work very hard, have full time, high stress professional jobs and still be struggling to afford housing whereas you have someone on benefits who has a council house and only works part-time.
That's where a lot of the support for austerity has come from.
We know one family locally where the father works at McDonald's and they have a council house which on the open market would be worth in the region of £275k. The mother doesn't work.
If you work on the assumption of a 3.5 mortgage multipler you'd need a household income in the region of £78,000 to buy the same 3 small bed house. (House prices here have stagnated for 10 years so equity gain from property locally doesn't exist).
It also means that local families which previously would have been able to move up the ladder to 4 bed detached can't afford it unless they have inheritance. Or they are only available to families that have moved in from elsewhere having benefitted from equity increases elsewhere.
I know a number of professional families with two incomes who are having to move out of the area when they do want to move to a bigger property because they can no longer afford to stay in the area. Or they have to stay in a house the same size as the 'benefit scroungers' to stay in the 'nice area with good schools and security' they see as their right having worked for it.
This neglects to consider the historic and family ties that the 'council family' have to the area and perhaps their right to stay in the area. Is it fair they should be shipped off to somewhere cheaper, which has worse schools and more crime? Why shouldn't the council flog their house on the open market and then build 3 others in its place somewhere else in the area from the money raised?
That's why we are getting this resentment building up between different groups.
The benefit of working isn't being perceived as being there. And the value of long term communities isn't there.
Is this promoting equality of opportunity?
Then you have the older generation who don't understand how affordability of housing has changed and how much pressure and tension that's producing who have strong NIMBY tenancies to protect their environment and what they see as their quality of life who are resisting the building of anything, combined with developers who are out to make a profit first meaning the only things getting built are large detached executive properties that can only be afforded by those moving in or those with inheritance.
None of the major three parties have really got to grips with providing a solution to this, all for their own reasons, and because they want to pander to their voter base in some way.
It does always come back to the shortage of houses there are. EVERYTHING comes back to the cost of housing and how this is affecting perceptions of fairness and equality across the country and between different groups.
It frustrates me intensely as I feel somewhat sympathetic to everyone and understand their point of view and motivations.
What is 'fair'?
How do we promote equal access to things like 'good schools' at the same time as getting the benefit from working?
I don't have any answers here but the lack of selling the need to 'balance the needs' of different groups in society is one of the biggest problems here. Instead each group is being pited against the other, with winner takes all because of the way our political system is working and how parties are pandering to their core vote through popularism (and being the least worst option) rather than selling a wider vision and ideal which has broad appeal and benefit to everyone in someway. Politicians don't canvas in areas which they don't think they will pick up votes; they only campaign to easy targets.
Brexit is merely a symptom of the same clash and is more obvious. Society has fragmented and is no longer cohesive and politics reflects that.
It's hard for someone living in a big 4 bed detached to be friends with someone living in a run down council flat because of the inequality and the wedges that are being driven between us because of financial inequality. It's increasingly being the case that the two properties will be in completely different areas and not side by side anyway and never shall we meet.
What should the state provide, and what should we pay for ourselves?
What is it we value most and should we have equal access to those things we value most?
I don't think we are really having proper conversations about this as a nation.
Please remember the formation of the NHS came out of one of these type of conversations: The idea that everyone should have equal access to care even if the could afford it already.