Hahahaha: Cameron says sorry to mums headline in tomorrow's papers

[WilfShelf]

'Sorry. We somehow forgot to mention we were removing the one benefit which universally protects women and children from some of the many financial inequities they face. But hey, we're elected now for five years and there's fuck all you can do about it...'

'But don't worry, as long as you haven't had the shame and disgrace of being abandoned to care for your kids by someone who refuses to pay his way, you'll be able to claw back a few quid a year in tax just so long as you get married. And those of you who do earn HRT, you can get EVEN MORE back...'

'I think you'll all find that's fair, no?'

He lied. What did you expect? Are you Tory, LibDem voters happy now?

Just read on Sky News website that a poll shows that 83% public agree with cutting CB.........? these polls always amaze me, because I never remember ever being asked.....

Well, don't forget that Sky is part of the Murdock brand. Along with such shining examples if intellectual thinking as The Sun.

Would you be surprised by a poll saying 83% of Sun readers agree with the cuts? The poll could well be just that.

"As a LibDem voter"

Or a Tory voter, as you might otherwise be known.

83% support the principle of the cuts, not the actual cuts. I think to draw any reasonable conclusions from the poll we would need to see the wording of the question.

What a refreshing thread.

I'm not going to say much more as when I do I always seem to end un in an argument with some tory telling me that they're just doing this for our good (do people still actually believe that?!) It's ideological, of course. The tories want rid of the welfare state.

WilfShelf it's a great image, thanks

tokyo - If I'm frank, I may as well have been. My vote is worthless. I live in Kent, and not in a marginal. Even voting tactically I'd have to have voted LibDem; Labour had nothing here.

I voted based on which manifesto I most agreed with, and for the candidate I most wished to represent me. Didn't do me any good, but I don't feel guilty. I didn't agre with Labour policies, and the local Labour candidate had, in my opinion, questionable views on disabilities.

At the time, the notion that some day there might actually be a point in me showing up at the ballot also appealed. So help me, I believe in democracy.

I tried to explain the problem of ending Universal Child Benefit today to colleagues - seems some men, however decent, don't understand that you can be as posh & privileged as you like and still need an escape fund.

Economics are stacked against women already, and this will just make things worse.

I'm seeing this all from afar but I just can't understand why everyone is so suprised by this. Isn't this exactly what everyone expected when the Tories won the election (and I don't really count it as a coalition, it seems to me that LibDems were between a rock and a hard place)? Of course they lied to get voted in - but that's what politicians always do. And where do people think the money was going to come from? Leopards don't change their spots - the Tories are still the Tories even if they have tried to rebadge themselves.

" it seems to me that LibDems were between a rock and a hard place)"

No, I'm not having them let off that lightly.

They could have perfectly legitimately reached a supply and confidence agreement with Cameron. We would have been spared the worst problems of a minority government, there wouldn't have been another election with the problems (such as the collapse of the pound) that would have been possible, and the earth would have continued to turn on its axis. But the Lib Dems could have voted on each measure separately, thus restraining the sub-Randian "smash the state" fantasies of Gideon Osbourne (what does it say about a man that, when choosing a more street name than Gideon, he chooses George? What street is that, exactly?)

Instead, the power-crazed Lib Dems, who would it now appears form a coalition with Valdemort if they got a sniff of power, have the worst of all worlds: they have no influence on policy, no ministers in positions of authority, yet have to obey collective responsibility and accept (although the proof will be in the eating) whipping for "coalition" business. Fortunately it won't last: the Lib Dems will be annihilated in local government elections come May 2011, and at that point their MPs are going to start wondering what will happen to them.

When I was in the Labour Party, I used to get irked by what I saw as tribalists who, still smarting from 1983, claimed that the SDP and its inheritors were unprincipled opportunists who would sell their grandmothers into the white slave trade for a junior ministership. No, I thought, that's unfair: they had principled differences with what ended up as the longest suicide note history, differences which Labour themselves have now accepted as right. So I was rather beset with cognitive dissonance when it turned out, lo these twenty and more years later, that the tribalists were right, and the SDP really are unprincipled opportunists who would, etc.

You know what gets me? They also said they wouldn't implement the planned 1% ni rise either then they changed their minds on that too.

Do you know what that means for a working woman who employs a nanny?

1% ni rise for your own income
1% ni employers rise for your nanny that you, as her employer, have to pay
Loss of child benefit

You had to earn an above average salary to have a nanny anyway but with all those tax rises and loss of child benefit, your net income after childcare will drop substantially.

When I mentioned this to other people I know who employ nannies, I found that many of them are paying nannies under the table which all these tax rises will only encourage more of.

So more fool me for being an honest taxpayer!

I voted for them and I'm happy. Where do people think the money to pay back the deficit we have should come from? The NHS? Schooling funds? Lollipop ladies??? Where exactly would be okay with you all?
I understand as a non leftie I'm the odd one out on the whole of mumsnet but I just can't understand the logic in moaning about every single one of the proposed cuts when they have to come from somewhere...

It will only raise £1bn at the most pomme. I am not against the whole child benefit thing but they said they wouldn't and the way it will be implemented is ludicrous.

Don't forget they are cutting corporation tax pomme. So they are willing to give breaks to some portions of the economy while screwing over the workers and families!

If this was really about raising money, there are plenty of other areas which would have generated a much larger hit.

No, this wasn't about money or economics. It was political. They couldn't even be bothered to figure out a fair way of implementing it!

The way I see it CB is a way of valuing a Mother's contribution to her own family and society in general and cutting it means... well... that you don't. They are turning what was a token of our (as taxpayers) appreciation of mothering into just another benefit.

And worst of all suggesting that the way to right this is by further tying the woman to the man by allowing a transfer of tax-free allowance.

If this isn't idiological, what is it?

Pomme, I have no problem with cuts it's just that the way they are doing this is not fair. I'm going to lose my child benefit but my neighbours get to keep it and might bring in 30k more than me, just because they both get in under th 44k? Because doing it the 'fair' way would cost too much?? It sucks.

"The CB cut will save 1 billion"

I'm not convinced it will as I BET the politicans haven't factored in how much it's going to cost to actually administer (well they have but they are not going to tell us as 1bn sounds much better even if it's not the whole truth and nothing but the truth)

Pomme, I agree with you that cuts need to come from somewhere and I agree that CB should be looked at but it's the implementation and the fact it seems so poorly thought out that is the problem.

oh and it's even worse he is proposing tax breaks for married couples to make up for it.

It's awful.... I'm not in Britain anymore, and I'm surprised by how angry I am. He hates single mothers, it's an abuse of power.