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?

I find WillShelf's comment slightly trite. The whole point of this cut is to make sure the funds are there for households on lower incomes. I'm one of those who will lose this benefit but I accept that's fair as we are in a huge financial hole and I'm in a better position to cope with that than someone on a lot lower income. Why can't people get it through their heads we're in the biggest recession since WWII. The piggy bank is empty; we've been living on the proverbial credit cards for far too long. If we don't sort it out fast, we'll plunge into an economic disaster zone we won't get out of for decades. I can't imagine what it must be like to be in government at the moment and the mess they're having to sort out. Some of the decisions that have to be made must be heartbreaking. My husband and I both run our own businesses and are biggest concern is making sure these stay solvent and functioning, not just us but all the people (many parents) we employ. Welcome to the reality of 2010; its not going to get better quickly but we have to bite the bullet. The alternative is we end up in years of debt which our children will have to shoulder. I'm not willing to do that to my two young daughters.

southcornwall

We're losing the cb too and I don't mind in principle as we are well off (well, we have a v.big mortgage - our choice - so not exactly the old champagne lifestyle )

Agree that something needs to be done...

But the WAY the CB cuts are being done won't target well off HOUSEHOLDS, they'll target well off INDIVIDUALS, which means there are quite a lot of households with children and a greater NET income who won't lose their child benefit - no fair, surely?

e.g

£75,000 pa income - being bandied around as the average wage for those HRT who will lose CB

Single income £75,000 pa will pay an additional £10,000 pa in tax compared to a dual income pa of £75,000, where neither earner is a HRT.

QED: the dual earners are already £10,000 pa better off, but will keep their CB.

OK so if the children are under school age then a significant majority of this money, if not all of it, will be absorbed by the childcare, but not all families where the parents both work have under school aged children, lots of them don't (lots of SAHPs return to work WHEN the children are school aged IYSWIM) so how these cuts can be peddled as fair is what I find REALLY offensive.

Plus I'm in one of the lucky families - I can be flexible and forced to return to work when the CB goes and we won't be able to make ends meet, what about the single family HRT payers who have all of the commitments and none of the options to increase their revenue streams for the family?

I too feel let down and very upset about the child benefit changes! Why are women treated like second class citizens?? We are told that going back to work or staying at home is our choice, but with cuts like this it's not a choice anymore, for too many families it's become a necessity for the mum to have to go to work and subsequently feeling guilty and overworked all the time!Value the mothers David Cameron!!

This merely highlights a feature of our democratic system - that the party not in government has a rude awakening when they win power! It is not their fault. They are in the happy position of making up their Manifesto as a Wish list designed to get them back into power (the party in government before the election has to be a bit more honest and this does cramp their style!). Remember 'Yes Prime Minister'? Well the civil servants basically run the show for the first 18months of a novice government - and most of it even after that. They after all get to present the 'facts and figures' as they choose to the Ministers. Plus all government has anyway to deal with matters as they arise - 'events dear boy events'. So it would be better if we electors learnt a bit about our system and asked the right questions before making our judgements. Alas we seem to allow the media to decide for us. So real Power in the land is in fact like a game of tennis between the civil servants and the media perhaps?

Sorry bb99 I didn't make myself clear; I do agree with you about the slightly barmy way the CB point has been worked out but suspect this is the change that's been hinted at. My point is that all we seem to hear is one group or another squeaking about cuts and its not fair. No, none of its fair but that's the mess we're in and we've got to get out of it. I'm fed up with hearing about how this is a tax on children. If we don't sort this mess out now, then all we will do is burden them with uncontrollable debt in their lifetime. They're already facing spiralling pension costs to cover so I'm not willing to dump this responsibility on their shoulders too. The bottom line is this was never going to be a nice time and no government, whatever colour, was going to be able to wave a magic wand and make it all go away.

Southcornwall

totally agree - everyone will get hit by the cuts, the less well of disproportionately as the cuts are being made to the nice things in society like supporting people, instead of having massive tax hikes (which are going to be in there somewhere)

No-one likes cuts, but unless we want the IMF running the country in a more obvious manner than they already do, then it's cut, raise and sell...

I'd rather cut now too and see some kind of economic future for the kids. People need to stop worrying about who's the worst off and look at just getting through this. Knew it would be brutal - hope we all survive!

I'm just glad I don't live in the States where so many people have lost their homes and jobs and have NO help, pretty much from the government. We're all still going to be fairly fortunate even with any cuts, in this country.

All4u

Still done in a barmy way tho!

I agree with the comments that the process is unjust and there needs to be parity especially if your neighbours earn say 42k each and you as a parent only earn the threshold. Also if you work in the public sector you get the added bonus of pay freeze pension loss and increased contributions as well as longer working life. Thank you to all the politicians for this!! You can save lives but yours is taxed and ruined.

Nobody likes paying tax. It cannot be beyond the wit of those clever tax people to look at joint income for CB. I reackon I could russle up a database to do it for them. However, we must make cuts or put up taxes. I think that there is a good case to put income tax up. Everyone understands it. Its fair. The more you earn the more you pay. BUT then who would vote for that? We don't want to be told the truth, do we?

The Jolly Party.

for goodness sake. they think it will only save 1 bilion a year to change CHB. Then as they are coughing up married persons tax allowance it will all be but canceled out [the one billion]. by 2017 it will be gone altogether i read.

It all speaks volumes of 'families' first and foremost [eg: woman and man], and not children.

None of this is or will be making a dent in the deficit it seems. niether is paying out billions to set up the new universal credit.

similarily, axing all the quangos-won't see any cash for at least ten years and meanwhile they will be setting up new ones.

It truely is a joke.

I would not go back to the married couples allowance, it saves nothing and causes people to feel that they are being unfairly treated.

So arguments against making it simple and just increasing income tax. - off you go.

trident?

a more gradiated system of tax, like 60% tax, 70% tax, 80% and 90% tax.

Government for the rich by the rich. As a public sector employee, my salary has been frozen and now my child benefit will go - yipee.

gagalala so please let us know what you would do?

If you haven't done so already use this calculator perhaps you may understand how much the public sector pensions cost. I want everyone to have a jolly retirement but we have to pay for it.

jollydiane, gagalala didnt mention her pension, unless she did earlier and i cant see it?

A jolly retirement? Even the Tories' Labour stooge John Hutton admitted that the notion public sector pensions were 'gold plated' is NONSENSE when you consider the average public sector pension will deliver approximately 6k per year. And the vast numbers of public sector workers on very low wages who wipe arses, empty bins, clean hospitals etc will get a return of much less than that.

And the whole bargain about public sector pensions was that this was to compensate for their lower earning power in the marketplace. Why? Because the state HAS to pay someone to do the jobs no-one else wants to do.

And if the final salary pensions are removed from the legions of low paid workers who keep essential services ticking over, then I'm afraid you'll find that salaries will have to rise so that they can afford to fund their own private pensions, or to provide sufficient salaries to deliver decent career average pensions.

Or, as I suspect the Tories will attempt to engineer, you just leave poor old people to fester and die earlier. Thereby saving further costs. How very humane of them...

What the Tories are learning, very rapidly, is that when you take stuff away, it still costs to do so.

Can I just ask whether anybody here participated in the oft-quoted Sun survey supporting cutting child benefit? I cannot be the only one doing paid surveys. I am only asking because last night I had a similar survey and you could tell who commissioned it. All questions were like "Would you prefer child benefit being cut or frontline services such as doctors and nurses?" If the Sun survey was done like that, no surprise they got the expected / paid for result.

The other thing that upset me was that little man (Tim Loughton?) going "End of. End of." thinking this is an acceptable way to treat the electorate.

I was not suggesting that public sector pensions are gold plated - far from it. However there are plenty of people on the private sector on the minimum wage, yet they have no such protection in their retirement.

Take away the emotion and look at the hard facts. Pensions have to be reformed.

Most benefits and services for children seem to be under attack.

We invest in all our children to ensure that they have the best chance of health and happiness (plus in the hope that they don't become a social menace to all of us in future years).

I thought there was a general acceptance of that but it seems we are heading back to the dark ages (1980s?) - survival of the fittest.

Some ideas to find the cash: Get our money back from the banks! Put up the higher tax rate! Scrap Trident II! Surely these are the obvious for the governemt to do the equivalent of reaching down the back of the sofa.

We need public services and benefits to support our whole society. The Labour government might not have been right or liked on lots of policy but doesn't anyone remember how low Britain had got to before 1997?

I don't want to live in a society where children go hungry, face homelessness and absolute poverty, where only those who can pay a lot, get what they need.

I have emailed my MP (Sam Gyimah East Surrey) and asked for an appointment. Looking forward to it!

I am so disappointed with lying backtracking politicians about this. (and I speak as a member of the Lib Dems!) This was in nobody's manifesto and I doubt any mum would have supported it.

My husband earns £45k and we have a massive mortgage living in London. I am a SAHM with a newborn and a 2 year old and I think will genuinely have to go back to work now to make ends meet. Although I'll barely make enough to cover losing child benefit once I've paid for childcare.

BASTARDS!

That is a real shame Libbylou. And you should have been just the sort of person old-style Conservative party wanted to support.

Sneaky thought...if your husband went part-time and you also got a part-time job, would that take you under the higher tax threshhold? Just wondering......

BTW I am old enough to remember Maggie Thatcher's super-duper government, such that I would never ever not ever vote Tory.

But I stopped believing in Labour too, after their "card" of promises before the 1997 landslide included a promise not to start charging students for university

They are all liars, unfortunately.

Quote from fiscal study:
QUOTE
A single-earner family which makes £44,000 a year - or £32,377 after tax - and has two children would miss out on more than £5,200 as a result of changes to child benefit and tax credits combined with the end of child trust funds and health grants for pregnant women.
UNQUOTE

Let's not let this go. ALL of us need to write to our MPs. I have.
We need to keep the pressure firmly on.

I'm frankly tired of all the moaning about reduction of child benifit they are your children, you decided to have them so you support them. No child will go hungry as a result of this measure.Why should it be right for people working night shifts on minimum pay who pay tax to support the choice you made to have children.

Because as far as quite a few of us can see, it won't actually save any money anyway?

I do like Wilf's Doris Day impression

'Golly gosh, I've caught a politician lying'

Very refreshing.