Gordon Brown on fatherhood

[Janos]

I just saw this and thought it was a lovely story, which makes a nice change.

Fatherhood changed me, says Brown

Of course it may be a massively cynical ploy but so what. I liked it

Thanks, this was lovely to read! Am big fan of Gordon Brown. So glad that the BBC have rightly talked about their thrid child, as recently others have said "their second", when everyone knows it's not. Agree with him, having children has changed him for the better IMO

Ah.

How sweet.

Well, much as I think it's lovely, you do have to wonder if he had any idea about the pressures on families when he was dictating what happened with the economy before he had children himself. Is he now saying that no one who doesn't have a family should be put in a position to affect the lives of those who do as they will have little understanding of the pressures of family life??

I think parenthood can often bring great empathy and it can only make him a better PM. (If he wins)
I have a lot of time for Gordon Brown and I actually find him quite sincere. I certainly don't think that parents who have suffered the kind of loss that they have would ever use their family for political gain.

ooh isn't he lovely? (sucker for big stong me going all soft and family-ish!). Gordon for PM!

No, he's not lovely. For all his caring about the family, he's got a lovely way of showing it to many British families. Sorry, I can't stand the man and can't wait to vote him out of office.

expat, are you in or near his constituency? Just curious

No. He hasn't endeared himself to many around here, and particularly those in the North whose livelihoods depend on the oil industry.

Hi Fair enough. Have to admit my reasons for liking him are fairly flimsy!

Tell us more expat.

The energy company will be sure to pass on the increase to the customer:

double tax

Gimme a sec, let me find the ones about how he refused to dismiss 'debts' resulting from errors in the tax credit computer system, saddling thousands of working poor families w/huge bills they can ill afford thru no fault of their own. But for that I need to get on The Scotsman website.

Message withdrawn

Amen, Norms. We were one of those thousands of working poor families, too. It took months of appeals, having to contact our MP and various advisers, etc. All whilst not receiving any tax credit. The result was nearly £4000 worth of debt - we'd been debt free before that - which will take us years to pay off. Our appeal was upheld, the Tax Credit Office's computer systems were to blame for the error. Our 'debt' of £7,000 was written off and we were given a whopping £100 of compensation.

I lost ALL faith in Labour and will never, ever vote for them again b/c of that.

I mean, we were very nearly rendered homeless by their errors. I spent the first trimester of my pregnancy in floods of tears and worry over how were were going to survive, even had be prescribed medication by my doctor.

So how Gordon's changed by becoming a dad means FA to me. Try being a dad threatened w/homelessness thru no fault of his own and no way to feed his family b/c he's already working two or three jobs.

Oh Expat. I never knew. I hate him too. I think he is the devil in disquise. Just make me love you more.

What a load of sappy PR tosh that article is. What like the rest of us parent aren't just as wonderful. What makes him special?

What makes him special is that he controls the priorities of the government vis a vis finances and families.

He decides if the tax system is biassed towards double income childless couples or families with one earner.

Oh yes, he's special all right!

(It's a bit pathetic that he's only discovered this in his fifties though. Talk about late developer.)

Tell that to the families of the workers in the North Sea who are going to be made redundant as a result of his tax increase on companies operating there. Like Scotland hasn't seen it's share of hard time in the offshore business?

I pay him WAY too much. His taxes are so crippling I think I'm going to have to leave the UK. Really don't want to. I like this place. But I just can't make ends meat with the cost of living... and let's not even talk about the price of housing.

Well my tax bill has gone way down. And tax credits awards have gone right up. [irritating grin icon]

EXPAT how did the Tax Credit problem arise. I have heard a lot about it on TV but never fully understood how you could get into debt. Is it something to do with their record of your salary being differnt to the actual salary?

DOn't worry if it is too long to go into.

It's because tax credits is basically a benefit, but they didn't want to call it a benefit because of the stigma attached to the word benefit, so instead they use the word tax and it's run by the Inland Revenue instead of the benefits agency.

The problem with that being, that the IR just aren't set up to deal with the immediacy of need of people on benefits and they calculate your tax award by what you were earning the previous financial year.

Which is a bummer if you earned thirty thousand in one year and are now only clearing ten thousand. And of course, the families who are most likely to be affected by that, are those where there's a new baby, because the mother is on maternity leave and therefore isn't drawing her full salary. Or of course, anyone who has downshifted.

They've got better at that aspect (have a more immediate response) but basically what they did was keep families waiting for months so that they had bailifs at the door or overpaid and then demanded it all back, when the families had spent it thinking it was theirs, because the IR told them it was theirs. Complete and total balls-up and some families are still paying for it.

My fracas happened when they misentered our details from the get go. They had ME - I was working, my husband was a SAHD at the time - as eligible for working tax credit w/higher disability element. Where they got that I don't know b/c 1) my husband receives and ALWAYS has received for his whole life, lower care component DLA 2) my husband had no employer, so would therefore not be in receipt of working tax credit at all 3) then they had my husband as being on Job Seeker's Allowance, something he's never claimed in his life.

I kept a copy of hte application form. Nowhere we were in error. Thankfully, that form saved our asses.

I contacted the Tax Credits Office via Registered Delivery no less than 17 times in an attempt to correct their mistakes. Was sent a staggering 28 award notices, all with slightly different, but not by much, award figures on them. Again, luckily I saved all of these. B/c over 2 years later we got a letter, accusing us of defrauding the British government and leaving us to live on £13,000/pa. Gross. That's below poverty line after taxes.

Want to help working families, Gordon? Don't fucking tax us so damn much. MUCH easier than your pork barrell Tax Credits and the computer system your pals' company probably built, as huge taxpayer expense.

Seriously, he still makes me want to spit every time I see his mug on telly.

'We want to attract more immigrants to Scotland'. Oh yeah? Good luck! B/c I have a sneaky feeling my kids, two Scots, are gonna be outta here like bullets the moment they turn 18.