What's coming on 20th Oct

[Brollyflower]

So go on then all knowledgable MNetters... if the big slashes are yet to come, what will they be?

Are we talking tax rises or what? People keep saying no part of peoples lives will be untouched and the savings needed are massive, so can we please have some examples of what might actually be cut?

Tootles - as Riven said- there are already plenty of people who work hours that long and don't get the benefit of massive pay to go with it. I regularly used to work 60 hours a week for £13k ( a year, not a week ) and thinking about what was happening with my tax and people poorer than me was not number 1 priority on my list.

I am better off now. To be perfectly honest, the Tories are probably the better option for my family. We are their demographic. But that doesn't mean that I only give a shit about money. I would rather eat my face off than vote for a party that cares so little for other people, for those with no money.

"we're all in this together" we aren't. We should be. But we aren't.

If anyone was going to leave the country because they wanted to pay less tax, then they would. And no changes are going to affect that. And to be honest - if they want to go, then they can!

Tootlesmummy Sat 09-Oct-10 08:09:42
Flight that isn't right is it, look at the latest CB cut. That hits higher rate earners, (granted there is an issue with it still). But if you think that they want to keep the rich rich then they would have 1) stopped it for the over 16's, 2) said they were only going to pay for say the first 2 children.

___

You're also forgetting that this little CB cut is taking approximately 1bn from the middle classes.

The benefits cap of £500 per week, irrespective of location or family size, is taking 15bn from the absolute poorest.

How is anyone meant to survive with 4, 5, 6 children (who have already been born) on £500 a week?

There's been an enormous fuss about the Child Benefit but nobody is marching about the cap. I suppose the thinking is the poor deserve it.

There should be a cap, there has to be something to make people take responsibility for their actions.
Sorry but unless they do have a cap then people will continue to have more children to gain more benefits. How do you propose they deal with that?

Also, £500 a week is £2k per month take home, those in work would have to earn approximately £32k per year. These people have to and do manage.

"those in work would have to earn approximately £32k per year" It's actually more like £35k gross. It's not 'poverty' by any definition.

Thing is though, Tootles, is that it's all well and good talking about caps in theory to stop people having children for benefits (which I think is a very small minority of benefit clamaints, not all of them as some tories seem to think).

But in reality what happens? Are you happy to see people with children out on the street? Are you happy to see people living in shelters, or children taken into care while their parents live rough?

Is that what they all deserve? Because this isn't theory - it's reality. People have these children - and if they can't afford to live in a house, well...they have to go somewhere. They can't just euthanise a child to get down to the "correct" number.

What do you propose that they actually do?

Chil, it might not be povrty if you live somewhere cheap-ish.

However say you had 4 kids and lived in a rented house somewhere near London.

You're looking at rent of probably something like £350 a week at least (the thread the other day where someone was renting a 2 bed flat in London for £340 a week?) fuel costs for heating etc, then feeding all those children.

Those people are subject to the same cap as everyone else, for instance those up in the north where rents are probably half that.

Could you manage it? I know I couldn't.

So then Pfft you think it should be a pay as much as is needed then and damn the consequences!? so the debt rises or the richer pay more....?

It gets to the point where people will begin to think what's the point in me working to earn £35k per year which others get for sitting on their arses!

Don't have what you can't afford and if that means 1 child or 2 children so be it. It isn't a right to have endless children.

I only have 1 child because that's all I can afford.

Tootles I am asking for your solution.

I know that you can say "reduce their money - that will stop people having loads of children" BUT what about those that exist?

What is the real solution - once you have taken away the money WHAT DO THESE PEOPLE DO?

What are you happy for them to do? Are you happy for these people to live on the streets because, I suppose, they made their own beds?

I would keep them in their homes but I would change the way they get paid so that the state controlled what they were using the money for. That way they would get bulk discounts for certain items and it would be spent appropriately.
I would allow an amount of money per week which was discretionary which they could do what they wanted to do with.
If they decided to have more then they would have to make do with the same amount, their look out.

Oh my Good lord.

Have you really thought this through, Tootles?

how would you feel if it were you? (not that it ever would be, naturally - you are far too moral and of course ALL parents on benefits with several children have had them for the express purpose of upping their entitlements)

having children is not a crime.

Get over yourself, it's not a workhouse it's trying to maximise what can be got for the benefits people receive what the hell is wrong with that.

No one is suggesting a workhouse. And having children is not a crime but it is if you can't afford to keep them.

And yes I wouldn't have children I couldn't support.

I have also previously said that people who fall upon hard times should be looked after.

mental health services will take a battering. they have done already in many parts of country.

i work for charity sector and I am 99 per cent sure I will be out of a job, as we get funding from county council. We have already been warned their funding priorities will be for ''essential'' services only. So it depends on their definition of essential, I suppose.
local MP had a meeting with voluntary sector reps. He said ''everyone will be behind the Big Society''. Someone said: ''will there be funding for projects for the Big Society'' the MP allegedly laughed and said: ''well not exactly, but as you all may have a lot of time on your hands soon, we're hoping you'll do it anyway...''

But a number of people don't, so they shouldn't be able to control it all.
I agree, and I believe that's exactly what the benefit system is there for. However, it should be a short term measure to help people get back on their feet.

Sorry I get pissed off hearing how people cannot support their families on £500 per week, I support mine on a lot less than that, without any help.

But don't you think that if people don't spend the money in the right things then they should lose the right to decide how and where to spend the money!?

Recently went to look round local primary school for DS -headteacher said they'd been to a meeting with Michael Gove where they'd been warned to expect 35% cuts in their budgets.

(And, reportedly, he kept punctuating his chat with, 'when I was at Eton', and referring to this as the 'Michelmas term'...)

And as an aside it isn't really fair to use the 'I have a huge mortgage to pay' argument as a stick to beat those who came later to a housing market which has superinflated since our parents/grandparents' generation bought their homes. (Disclaimer: I don't have a huge mortgage to pay. Though it's certainly much bigger than the £150/month my parents had...)

That last bit is really, really bizarrely opposite to my experience with HB.

Here, what are termed 'private' rentals (ie not council housing or housing Scheme) are normally far, far dearer than the LHA will support.

We managed to get a very rare place that was actually priced just below the LHA. I had been looking for three years before we found it. And it is was a complete tip.

Everything else I've seen is at least £100 more, usually much more than that.

mollyroger I'm, a trustee of a small charity and we have been told to expect our LA contracts to go and if we could just carry on what we were doing for no funding that would be great...