The Tory attack on family 'v' The State of the Economy. I don't want to like the Tories, I Would Rather Eat my Own Arse. So help Me Understand

[Tortington]

abolition of Child Trust Funds;

money in bank for being born was always a shit idea. lets give kids £100 for existing.

the economy down the shitter - i think its proper that we pull this.

the Health in Pregnancy Grant;

not essential is it. does one reaaaaaaaally need a grant to be healthy in pregnancy?

jesus again i have to say - as a benefit to be pulled, its hardly essential considering that cut back have to be made

Surestart Maternity Grant for second child;

i dont know what this is- more money for having children?

the three-year freeze on child benefits whats the problem
and the introduction of housing benefit caps.
great

then theres the biggee - CB.

WTF am i not seeing that everyone seems to be going apoplectic about?

is there general agreement that a cb cut should be on household income? is it that its unfair in this way?

if that is the case - i see the point.

if its just bitching becuase people who earn over 45k aren't getting cb, then im finding it hard to agree.

and the argument that its a failsafe paid to women that help them get out of abused situations etc - you can't just pay women benefits on the offchance that one dayt hey will be abused.

am i missing a mahoosive point?

tell me the tories are targeting poor people like this but are not targeting rich people.

tell me that yes yes!! yes yes yes!!! you would agree with benefits like this being withdrawn, IF he also targetted rich people by some tax or other

tell me the equality?

they seem like non essential benefits to me - that have to be reined in cos we're financially up the shitter? or are we - maybe we aren't financially up the shitter and its a huge lie and the tories are just lying and whipping poor people? tell me?

abdnhiker- yes most of us can do our own taxes; what about those that cannot though?

Do they not count?

Or is it going to come down to epeople like me with already enough on opur paltes to go aorund and help as we already ahve to dow ith DLA, CTC, HB forms etc?

HappyMummy

you do relaise a great many people on HB are in work, yes?

Polarising this to in work- our of work beenefits in a bad thing: I have noted HB and CTB sdescribed by the Government as out of work benefits and it simply is not true

And if you are in a city and on minimum wage you often get HB but you don't have the flexibility to pay lots ecxtra for transport costs in.

So huge swathes of TA's, HCA's, cleaners, nursery staff etc - people we all rely on but are poorly paid- are better off on even measly benefits than commuting in to a poorly paid job. That's if tehyc an FIND a HB house to take them: there's not a single alndloed in our small town takes HB claimant, not one.

Yes, that works then!

"Polarising this to in work- our of work beenefits in a bad thing: I have noted HB and CTB sdescribed by the Government as out of work benefits and it simply is not true
"

Very good point.

And it's not about them working "minimum hours" either, working 40hrs a week on minimum wage I would still get over 1/2 my rent paid for me by HB

Excactly

And Dh works 16 hours as well as doing a retraining course (last industry ahs moved out of area wholesale) full time; being paid minimum hours I accept, working them however not

And someone might combine 16 hours with looking after their elderly Mum, or disabled child, but the HB cap would still apply: it's only the £26 cap that takes disability into account. lots of kids in inner cities about to be moved from their special ed units- to either a massive taxi fare cost (to the state) or MS provision at teh cost of thsoe kdis already tehre no dounbt, as the SNU's are alrady full to teh seams in most aplces and won;t be able to absorb an influx

Thank you for this thread, Custardo.

It appears counter-intuitive but taxing high tax payers highly results in a lower tax take.

'High net worth individuals' will very very simply move to the lower tax regime, after taking into account other lifestyle/business etc factors. It is not important where they were born, or where they were educated, or where they live now. Lots of companies (Wolseys) have already left and Xenia is threatening to move to Geneva. The very last thing the treasury needs is for HR taxpayers to relocate. That is just the way it is.

Royal Bank of Scotland Shares Owned By British Taxpayers/British Treasury: I would like this cleared up. I think the shares are worth more now than they were when the taxpayer bought them. So what is going to be done with them? I have heard a rumour that they might be sold in the way British Gas Shares etc were sold. I would like any thoughts on that.

Basically, the welfare state should ahve two aims:

protecting the very most vulnerable people- elderly (becuase rich elderly people are not a norm), childrena nd disabled

Maintaining the workforce so that it can pay taxes

to an extent this clashes with the capitalist model that requires a half-starved population of the unemplyed to maintain a flexible and willing (to tajke whatever crap is thrown at them) workforce

bBut on all three counts this current model is failing: vulnerable losing out, jobs and the ability to move close to work limited, and no point in a mobile workforce willing to take anything if there is nothing to be mobile for and the infrastructure emans you can't live near the decent work anyway

It is SWC, it is

Why should a lazr arse in a cheap area get to stay put in a nice house becuase their rent is under a set amount and someone trrying to desperately get a job in a small house in the inner city be fored out becuase the rents are high?

Blunt tool!

This is a really interesting thread, without the usual "Tories=bad" kneejerk posts that there are on MN (and no, I've never voted for them).

What I don't understand is why, for starters, they don't just raise the tax rates for all? No-one could say that was unfair. It would then give them some breathing space to work through changes to everything else to make them as fair as possible.

Incidentally, did anyone hear John Bird's take on the benefit system a few months back? I was really interested to hear his views - he wants the benefits system designed to be a trampoline rather than a safety net as he thinks the current system traps people and prevents them moving off benefits. I thought he would be an excellent person for any government to be talking to.
I like the idea of everyone doing their own tax r

If we accept, for arguments sake, that we need to deal with the deficit now, it still doesn't automatically follow that these cuts are the right way to do it.

We could always raise income tax.

HMOO, you do realise that HB isn't just paid to those out of work? Workers on low incomes also receive HB, is it okay for them to lose their houses too?

London will be a very different place if all of the shop workers, bar and restaurant staff, cleaners, nursery nurses and teaching assistants have to leave the area because they can no longer afford to live there. Where will they go I wonder? What will happen to the businesses that rely on these workers?

I think it's absolutely right to sort out the 'benefit culture' but so far they have basically targeted women and children. There is much worse to come though...

..eturn too.

Also, I was wondering about having two levels of jobseekers allowance - "benefit lite" which would be a bare minimum to get by and "enhanced" whereby if you did 20 hours pw voluntary work, you could receive a higher rate?

Someone please explain to me how that won't work .

www.senscot.net/view_art.php?viewid=9793

I really dread to think what this town is going to be like once they start cutting the public sector jobs. We have a pretty high unemployment rate (I did read an article a while ago that put us something like 6th in the country!).

There are very very few jobs. Of the jobs coming upthat are over 16hrs a week (where WTC kicks in) many are things which require skills or experience (HGV drivers, nurses, fork lift drivers, machine operators. Then another load that are night shift, or 4 on 4 off type jobs which if you need childcare make life difficult

As someone who is currently on IS - but intending to return to work in the next 12 months, and a regular looker on the job centre website, the local paper and the council website it's actually really really depressing and worrying.

goldenticket - a major problem with your idea is child care - who is going to provide/pay for the child care for 20hrs a week for someone that's volunteering for free, and therefore unable to pay for it themselves??

It's your ideology.
Either you think children and mothers are worth supporting, or you don't.
I'm a socialist, but that means that I believe all mothers should be supported with their children, regardless of their background. SOme mothers are poorer than others, yes, and the poorer mothers should get more help but rich mothers are still far far more vulnerable than rich men. So I think the government should respect the work mothers do for society by giving them a stipend.
NOt paying for bankers' bonuses and the like

OK, if it was 15 hours then that would be covered by the funding for 3+ year olds, so maybe do it for those who are not primary carers for under 3's? That's got to be a heck of a lot of people surely? Who will then get more money and relevant skills to take into a paid job?

The Guardian warned about the Parisian style "Donut of Despair" coming to bear on London - meaning that all the rich stay in the middle, and all the poor get shoved to the outside. Specifically, they don't get pushed to the leafy surburbs, but to the run-down, just outside the edge of town estates, with no investment, often poor transport links.

www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/oct/05/benefits-cap-housing-cities-communities

ahh but 15hrs isn't going to be enough is it?

I mean - DS3 actually gets 12hrs a week - (4 days a week) but his nursery is closed to LEA children on Fridays - but open through the school hoidays. Plus unless you volunteer at the nursery/next door you're going to need childcare for the time to get to and from work?

Well at least I'm presuming that's how it works. I'm discounting jobs that start at 7am because none of the child minders round here will take them before 7........

may i chip in my two penn'orth

we live in the SE where house prices are stupid and DH is one of those this will hit - his salary is right on the borderline, and I am a SAHM, because we firmly believe that was best for our children.

we made the choices we made so that we could survive on one salary, we have a much smaller house than many of our friends, we have to scrimp and save for any home improvements, we have just replaceed the car after saving for the whole life of our previous car, and will aim keep this one (not new BTW) for about 10 years all being well. we have no foreign hols ever, have one 16 inch ancient TV, no Wii, no PS, no DSs etc etc

I dont wear designer clothes, make up or jewellery AT ALL, and go to the cheapest haridressers I can find. neither of us smokes or drinks much at all

I am not trying to make us out as poor, i know we are very very fortunate indeed,and
yes we will survive CB cuts, but it WILL have a significant impact on our budget.

and HOW can it be fair that people with 2 incomes almost double our income will keep CB.

and as for the complaints about the lower earners paying their taxes to pay our CB, I dont get that at all - DHs tax more than pays for the CB we get

I toatlly agree with the cap on the benefits of those who have no work ethic and who expect the state to help them out and give them a better quality of life than many who work long hours in menial jobs for their pay. that never has been fair

GT there is merit in tour idea with the 3+ caveat

Asl long as abenfir lite is not set so low the chidlren of the unwilling suffer

Becuase that's the huge problem isn;t it?

Like SWC I ahve worked in teh fireld 9albeit charity support so very different) and know these people to exist, though at a far lower number than is supposed (SWC I suggest saw an- erm- certain element as a criminal lawyer)

But- we're all temporary taxpayers: we're all gonna die. Big revelation!

So the next generations need help too, and we know very well that raising kids in poverty causes health, education, social issues. If you want to massively raise entitlement and criminal behaviour start by making famillies feel tehy are outside the acceptable society.

So where does paying off a deficit to protect the kids end and protecting the childhood outcomes of future taxpayers end?

I say give the kdis a chance, regardless of their aprents

I would make it a very localised system thereby removing the need for travelling time. I don't know, I just look around my town and see plenty of charities struggling, schools that could do with more help, sports clubs needing volunteers, public buildings and spaces that need sprucing up etc. And then I think about the people being paid to effectively do nothing and I'm sure that they'd rather be doing something, especially if it led to a "proper" job. Giving people no reason to get up in the morning is not kind, is it?

Not read the whole thread but in response to the op and cut n paste from another thread this is why I am upset:

"I had a bit of a cry after watching newsnight last night.

The smug smirking tories saying "children are a choice! if you can't afford to look after them don't have them! why should decent law-abiding blah give any money!!!".

Put aside whether we need a larger population or not.

What about the fact that many people on benefits already have large families. They can't change that "choice" retrospectively.

So what the tories are going to do is punish the "undeserving" poor by not giving them enough money to feed, clothe, house their children. It is going to rip these families out of their localities, support networks and extended families, tear their children out of school and dump them in another part of the country, where there are no opportunities, and leave them and their children to rot.

Wha choices are there? They can hand excess children over to social services, or let them starve. We are going to see people dying on the streets.

Oh hold on -that's where big society steps in. So all of the people who have compassion and empathy, all of the people who wouldn't step over a starving child, are supposed to step in for free and sort it all out. Take the place of the state. But what if they don't? What if they can't?

How are people going to feel when the first busloads of "undeserving" poor start to leave the cities? When the first families are living on the streets? When the first children start dying? seeves them right I guess. Basic tory policy from the tory policy handbook.

This situaiton is appalling. What of the extended families left behind? What of the grandparents who were getting help from their children, who are now going to be shipped away? What of the free childcare they were able to provide so that people could work? What about people with mental health problems being removed from their support networks in this fashion?

And this is just the start."

'I toatlly agree with the cap on the benefits of those who have no work ethic and who expect the state to help them out and give them a better quality of life than many who work long hours in menial jobs for their pay. that never has been fair

Wow they've fund a way to only cap those with no work ethic? Great

Oh no sorry hang on Perpetually is amking judgements about everyone on benefits....... argh!

We all need to start by relaising there are less jobs than seekers right now and that will rise wrt the public sector workers cuts. Now figures as to how big the difference is vary but the shortage IS there.

And it is a shame to accuse those whose businesses have crumbled or who ahve beem redundant, or abandoned by some feckless partner, of having no work ethic.

I mean- all of thsoe cut off EMA who go on to get it returned at tribunal (again, NAS website- autistic community being hit) are on JSA for a while as it is sorted.

We need to recognise who WILL be affected by changes, not hit out at catch all groups randomly becuase we are scared ourselves.