Labour will base advice service on MUMSNET!

[Blu]

here

Although I am pretty outraged at the thinking around the 'shift parenting'. yes, another thing to feel criticised over - DP and I have run ourselves ragged to ensure that DS gets as much time as possible with us in our as a two-parents-woh family, shift parenting so that we can take it in turns to pick him up from school etc. There is more than one way of looking at this, and they could maybe start with the finances....house prices and stamp duty etc. It's all very well demanding that employers allow parents to work reduced hours, but if you can't manage on a reduced salary, that's not going to help.

I'm ideally placed to be one of the army of highly paid government spinners who'll roam the boards, making sure that Gordon Brown and his acolytes come over as cuddly, family friendly guys and gals, with nothing but the interests of hard-working families in their hearts and minds.

To whom should I send my CV?

ha ha pmsl Fauve- me too, although I don't think I could do that for this current govt. Open to offers from opposition parties though

We could always be double agents, Jimjams

Pollyanna, my point is that shift parenting is not exclusively a low income phenomenon thanks to the government's failure to deliver on so many issues related to raising a family.

Gordon Brown, tax credit system, misery from impoverished circumstances caused by clawbacks of overpayments, need I say more.

It is simply not fair to low income families to expect them to have the overpayment available to repay. So maybe they bought their kids a new coat rather than a second hand one or making do with the old one a little bit longer, whilst they were unwittingly being paid at an erroneously high level, maybe they ate a bit better quality food whilst they were blissfully ignorant of the overpayment. I doubt that many took a fortnight in Greece with the extra money.

Why would I type there when I can type here on the real Mumsnet?

And why oh why would we want to spend government funds on something that already exists? What a stupid idea.

im not great at political stuff but i have to say WFTC is the biggest WASTE OF TIME AND EFFORT ever!!!
i was overpaid in 2003 and so i stopped receiving any money at all, since the money stopped just before christmas 2003 (of all times!!!) i had to take a 2nd job on (cash in hand) to get through christmas then i had to get a full time job which didnt actually benefit me at all in the end by the time i had paid out for petrol (£130) and childcare (£130) i may as well have stayed on at my part time job where i was available for my child and was only up the road since having my 2nd child i have now become a childminder as i want to be a part in my childrens lives and apart from anything else i cannot afford to go out to work - i don't get help with childcare because we are apparently still paying back what we owe!!!!!!!!!!!! i did go and see inland rev after my 2nd child was born only to be told i may get £10 a week when she is 2!!!!!!!!!! (so 2004 - 2007 to pay off £1600 over payment!!)

This is pure insanity surely. I've come to the point where i don't actually care if i get any money off wtfc as even if i do i'll just be worried they will take it back off me.

i just want to provide the best i can afford for my family and be left to get on with it in all honesty. i don't want to fill in endless forms etc or spend hours on hold. i just want to be left in peace.

I agree expat - the biggest proportion of most people's expenditure is on housing. I consider the lack of choice in housing, be it rented or owned, to be the biggest challenge facing young people and therefore new parents.

We are on good salaries and it is impossible for us to ever imagine affording an actual house. So we both work and put the children in care to pay a crippling mortgage on a flat. We can't have more children because there are only two bedrooms, and in that sense we might have been better off not working at all.

The worse it gets, the more people will end up choosing between financial survival and children, or the horrible middle ground of shift parenting.

Meanwhile, every single one of the over-40s I know lives in a massive house for their actual needs.

Sort out high rents and mortgages - that would solve a lot more problems than giving handouts to people who should be able to fend for themselves.

I couldn't agree more, LoveMyGirls. We VERY nearly became homeless b/c of a screw up by the Tax Credits Office. I mean, as in, not able to pay all the rent and council tax. ALL for their mistake. Luckily I had volumes of evidence to show this, as the 28 different award notices never varied by much to have one of those, 'Gees, that's an awful lot of money. Are you sure that's right?' I have no less than 18 recorded delivery letters I'd sent them, informing them of their mistakes.

I had to wage a 7 month long battle w/them - during which we, too, had to become shift parents - in order to get them to call the dogs off. We got £100 compensation.

We're still paying off the £3000 worth of debt we racked up during this time, and will be for years b/c we don't earn much between us.

How about just not taxing low wage earners so much? Oh, but no, that's too simple.

Tens of thousands of working families are left below poverty line due to tax credit cock ups.

How about just not taxing low wage earners so much? Oh, but no, that makes too much sense.

We, too, don't bother to claim anymore b/c you know, it's just not worth their coming back and saying you owe them thousands of pounds.

Mortgage? LOL. That doesn't register.

But our rent and council tax on this 2nd floor flat are well over half our GROSS income - and this is a market value HA flat. The 'real' rents are between £100-£200/month more. Oh, it's Band C, too.

Move away? Then that would mean even less time at home and more time and expense on transport costs.

And let's not even talk about public transport.

A trip to most of Europe will show pretty clearly a stark contrast.

Labour bangs ON and ON about the evils of the car.

Until there's an alternative that is actually reliable and doesn't cost the earth, however, what choice do many people have? Particularly shift workers and those in rural or semi-rural areas.

expat if you are thinking of standing as a MP or MSP I would vote for you.

I really hope that Labour get its ass kicked next year as they need it. I am a SAHM because if I wasn't dts would see neither of us, dh works 11 hour shifts and has to use holidays to get a day off in the weekend, I hold the family together but do feel persecuted because we survive on a low wage. It is too expensive in this country and the whole housing thing is ridiculous. Tons of houses getting built in this area but no one I know can afford one and there are no social houses being built for normal working families.

Renting privately is dangerous as when we were renting privately twice we had to move because the landlord decided to sell up. Imagine the horror if that happened with dts on the scene. When Labour talk about poverty they assume it is people on benefits, well most of my neighbours are on benefits and they are doing very nicely. It is the people on low wages they need to concentrate on, but they won't as the ones on benefits are the ones who vote for them.

(And I know that view will annoy some but there are a ridiculous amount of people who choose to be on benefits rather than work, I would never have believed it before I moved here. When they see us struggling to pay our rent rather than have it paid for us I can see their point.)

Actually I completely agree with you, Twoifbysea. We've just moved to a new area in inner london and have had the chance to see Labour's benefit system operate at close quarters. I've lost every socialist conviction I ever had...and that's quite a few.

It's not a safety net anymore, it's a way of life for large sections of the population. As long as NOBODY in your household works, you have a healthy enough income not just for clothes and food, but fags, booze and the odd gamble. Nice!

And who can blame them? I did the 'right' thing: studied a 4 yr degree, worked hard at an 11 year career and we can't make ends meet with 2 kids in a tiny flat. We feel like complete mugs.

I don't expect any violins - we're still in a better position than many families - but our household budget goes entirely on essentials: mortgage, utilities, insurance, council tax. It conveniently ignores things like new clothes...those go on credit cards. I'm not thinking about how we pay for that. And forget pensions...that's just a laugh!

When I go back to work, I'll be taking home less than £30/day after tax, NICs and bloody childcare...assuming I can get back to my old salary level (unlikely). Oh, and I'll have all the red tape of being an 'employer', on top of having my own job, because Labour insists on nannies (cheaper than local nurseries) being on PAYE.

Screwed on all fronts. The only people who can afford to breed in this country under Labour (how ironic) are those who live entirely off the state. That's going to be interesting in a few years...

How about transferring the non-working parent's tax allowance to the working parent? How about abolishing VAT on more essential items?

How about restoring the ability to have your teeth cared for on the NHS? How about providing more access to legal aid for people other than those on benefits and removing the how-much-equity-in-your-house qualification? If people could afford to remortgage to fund their own litigation, they would. Just because you have equity in your home, doesn't mean you can afford to access it.

We have worked shift parenting since 1990. To me it was a better option than daycare as at least the children were with a parent, plus with 4 close together we couldn't have afforded daycare anyway.

Santa I do resent your comment "every single one of the over-40s I know lives in a massive house for their actual needs", although I realise you are referring to people you know. I am 43, DH is 45. We have 4 kids and a 3 bedroomed house. We converted the garage into a bedroom- internal because we can't afford to do it properly- but we've still got more kids than rooms. When our kids were tiny house prices weren't quite so steep but I haven't forgotten the days of the 15% mortgage interest and 20+% credit card interest when we worried we would lose our house because we were only just treading water. Things have certainly never been rosy for us. Now on paper we earn a decent salary each but as the bills have gone up by far more than our pay we are still no better off. We have to pay for everything because we are allegedly "wealthy parents" (still not earning the so-called average salary) so our kids get no help with student funding, no EMA, no nothing. We just get more and more demands to pay out. I just wish we'd never gone out to work in the first place but sat on our backsides and demanded the state looked after us.

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If this thread is being shown then my tuppence worth is that it would be nice to see indications that value is actually being placed on parents spending time with their children. This would include reversing the sentiments in the 1997 speech which described mothers who take career breaks/stop working after children as "a problem" and less pushing of wrap-around care (school from 8-8 anyone?) and more support, particularly financially, for (both) parents to be able to work shorter hours/take career breaks to spend time with their children.

Also, if there is to be a webchat, please can questions not be wasted on asking what the favourite band/song is a la David Cameron.

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Pruni - I've just picked my jaw up from the ground (is there an abbreviation for that?). That was flirting??? and with David Cameron???? The world has clearly changed in the time I've been married. Either that or they need to invite a wider range of males on here.

A government website 'like mumsnet' would be utter shite. What was the diary thing written? Rosemary's baby or something similar. Completely pointless unless you are a complete thicko.

Everything published by the government is written in monosyllables to the lowest common denominator. It drives me nuts.

Anyway, I digress.

I've been working out of the UK for the last 10 years (and I could spend a pleasant couple of days droning on about why) but one huge difference between the UK and Australia is that workplaces are flexible. My boss let me work from home without batting an eyelid because he understood I couldn't get to work in time if I dropped dd off at 8, and get to nursery in time if I left at 5pm (after a 30 min lunchbreak).

I can leave early, nobody causes a scene - as long as I get my work done they don't care how or when.

This makes all the difference in the world. Last week I volunteered to do some weekend work to help out with a crisis (work from home after DD in bed) but the PM said 'Good God No - weekend is for family'.

I . In the UK and US I would have been told to do it and made to look like the worker-from-hell if I couldn't.

The government should push for more family friendly workplaces and creches. It would make all the difference.

My boss's wife has a creche at her hospital, open from 7am that charges GBP15 a day for the nurses and shift workers. Flexible and cost-effective.

How about abolishing VAT on more essential items?

Yeah, that always makes me chuckle.

ALL this talk about fuel poverty. They always show the elderly.

What, so what about the rest of us? What about little kids whose working poor parents can't afford to heat the damp-ridden flat the buy-to-let landlord can't be arsed to fix b/c, hey, he's going to sell up when their 6 month lease is up, anyhow, and leave them homeless on top of cold?

We were charged 5% VAT on electricity. To heat the place. To cook food. To wash clothes.

BASIC.

'Wrap around care'.

Do they think the public is REALLY that stupid?

Yeah, I so want to never see my kids so I can give you - the Government - more money to line your own pockets with. To tell me to save for my pension - then keep raising the retirement age.

Oh, don't worry, TwoifbySea, I'm already actively involved in the campaign to do our best to keep Brown out of No. 10.

He'd make Edward the First look like he was playing w/a rubber mallet and wouldn't stop until he'd cleared all the locals out of Aberdeenshire - 'if we can't get them out, we tax them out' and handed it to Donald Trump w/a smile and a handshake.

My boss is a true moo - from Aberdeen, no less - and even she says she's never seen a man who so hated to be Scottish as Gordon Brown.

Well expatis, that would be if you didn't include Tony Blair who, although born Scottish is never inclined to mention the fact.

Nothing to do with the anti-Scottish feeling in England at the mo Tone is it?

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Pruni I'm not interested enough to know if his parents are Scottish or not I'm afraid, I just find the entire Noo Labour movement a joke - on us.

Hear me scoff.

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