All these 'promises' yet STILL no mention of removing Bedroom tax.

[AnyoneForTARDIS]

He must think we're thick.

Last time all the promises that never came to be.

At least taking off the BT for disabled would go some way to redeem himself.

but nope, once again the disabled are forgotten.

No it's a fact involving more than one family.

YoMr white can you really not see the difference between Lha ( you choose where you live based on what you can afford) and bedroom tax ( you lose money or are forced to move) .

"The LHA we are entitled to is about 650 and our rent is 775."

Exactly. You can't decide how many bedrooms you'd like; it's decided according to a formula. You are entitled to, say, two bedrooms? for your family, you can't decide you'd like more, so your LHA is £650.

BUT, if you moved to a really crappy/remote area, your £650 might stretch to renting a 3-bed. Or you might, as you say, top it up. Previously, that was your own business.

But now, if you're in that 3-bed, you don't get the £650. You now get 86% of that, £559. Which is quite a shortfall if cash is tight. (As you say, this only applies in council/HA accommodation)

But the councils haven't planned for this - Birmingham, say, has row upon row of council 3-bed semis/terraces that they churned out in the 50's/60's and expected to do whoever, whenever. They didn't really build 1-bed flats or bedsits. So the under-occupiers have nowhere to move to.

Benefits are to be frozen to try to get us out of this massive economic mess.

So how come we can suddenly afford hefty tax cuts, atticus? And, given that the Conservatives have said this doesn't apply to pensions, how will the peanuts that will be saved by this measure have any effect whatsoever on the mess?

And why would we entrust the people who have been in charge for the last 5 years (and gave us double dip recession) to get us out of the "massive economic mess"?

@icimoi

I'm with you on the first part. Despite the fact that I'd personally benefit from the proposed moving of boundaries of the higher rate tax, I do have to question the logic. That said, the change is long overdue but the question really is now the right time? Even I have to say that it's probably not.

The second part I think you have to put it into context more. The coalition arrived in 2010 with an economy that was a steaming pile of turd. The fact that there was a double dip recession probably matters far less than the fact we're now THE fastest growing economy in Europe whilst countries like France which poo pooed us when we were having the double dip are still languishing.

We've still a long way to go before the books are balanced and I fear both main parties are forgetting the real mess. Labour are no different. They're promising all sorts as well.

I guess that's why overall people are pissed off and hence the rise of UKIP and the SNP/Scottish independence.

It's fine to say we're in a right mess and hard choices & tough medicine need to be taken. But then quite another thing to send a message out about tax cuts at the middle/top end.

Cameron/Osbourne are deeply out of touch I think but sadly I fear the two Ed's are even worse.

BoulevardOfBrokenSleep the LHA Is nowhere near enough to cover the rents down here in the south west.

And surely, anyone is CH or HA properties would also have that option?

Lets not forget the REASON why the Coalition, in desperate economic times with “the money all gone” and no plans in place to significantly BUILD more homes by Labour for the foreseeable future - tried to free up 800,000 plus ‘spare’ bedrooms within the UK via the dubbed ‘bedroom tax’.

Shelter (2009); The housing crisis in numbers – and the need for spare bedrooms, never mind homes.
england.shelter.org.uk/campaigns/why_we_campaign/the_housing_crisis/what_is_the_housing_crisis.

• Over 1.7 million households (around 5 million individuals) are currently waiting for social housing
• 7.4 million homes in England fail to meet the Government's Decent Homes Standard
• 1.4 million children in England live in bad housing. [3]
• In 2008/09, 654,000 households in England were overcrowded. [4]
• The number of new households is increasing faster than the number of house builds.

Social housing supply – By Shelter

england.shelter.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0016/212038/Factsheet_Social_Housing.pdf

“There are more than 3.8 million social homes in England. The number of social homes declined by 10 per cent between 1998 and 2007,"

“However, the number of new lettings19 fell by one third during the same period (see Table 6). As a result,households in housing need have to wait longer as fewer homes become available.”

Clearly it was a ‘blunt’ policy that tried through tax and cash incentives to get those with spare bedrooms to ‘trade down’ and has not worked anywhere near as well as hoped, but in 2010, arguably as a ‘sticky plaster’ fix, what was the alternative to urgently provide homes/bedrooms to that waiting list?

Why doesn’t anyone seem to blame the party that were warned in 2004 by the Barker Report Brown commissioned, that pre immigration we needed to double home building to around 200,000 a year?

And 2.5 million new EU and NON EU citizens later, what did the government of the day expect to happen to those needing homes by 2010, where was THEIR cunning plan?

I understand from a low base, the Coalition have built 200,000 new social homes and more Council Homes in the past 4-years, than Labour did in 13-years.

It’s a start, but I guess we have to wait for General Election manifestos to hear the 2015 onwards plans - and arguably those that could/wanted to move would have done so by then.

thing is theyre saying they WILL do things if re-elected next year but they've been there 5 years already and not kept up most of their promises, they'll just lie thru their teeth again.

landlords (private rent) AFAIK can charge what the hell they like for rent and take advantage (most of them, not all).

and as for disabled (my whole point in the 1st place) they bully us to move yet don't have suitable accommodation for that move.

theyd have top spend more adapting another place than leaving us where we are in the 1st place.

most disabled don't have 5 extra rooms, only one usually with adaptations.

they think the extra room is a church hall size when its usually a box room size.