Tories want to cut sick peoples benefit.

[dottypotter]

Surprised no thread. Our wonderful caring Tory government want to cut ESA for people on the benefit. More MPs voted for cutting then against cutting. It makes me ashamed to be British and to think we live in such an uncaring society. How low can they go?

Cutting peoples money will store up more problems and is so mean. They don't know the meaning of the word support. Its everyones business what they doing. Nobody is immune from needing government help at some time.

"Those of us on the right tend to be very polite to others with no personal attacks"

Rubbish DG. I remember posts from right wingers on here calling low paid British people fat and lazy. Posts saying that female tenants could always cut all their long hair off to make it easier to wash if the landlord is stalling fixing the boiler.

You are on the Cologne threads hand wringing about the safety of women. A lot of the cuts will affect things like DV shelters.

Thats one of the reasons i left the Cologne threads. I couldnt stand the fucking hypocrisy.

We will just have to agree to disagree but I certainly understand that there are those on the left who get very upset that so many in the country voted for and support the cuts and that those people find it hard to understand the position of those us who support the changes. Thankfully mumnet does let those who vote Tory and those who vote Labour both post on MN rather than requiring that we all pass some kind of red flag socialist test before we are allowed to express a considered view.

Who you vote for is up to you We live in a democracy.

Just dont pretend to care about women when you are doing it.

And you cant make sweeping statements like RW on here tend to be very polite unless you have read EVERY single post written on this site by ppl of your political persuasion.

Helena thanks. doty I do not know any period cut or austerity-free. The cut ideology was routed since end of 1970s and has been popular with broadly similarities in Labour and Conservatives. The first victims were always the disabled and sick until the 2010 Equality Act that made discrimination an offence. Nobody is immune from needing government help at some time is the correct thing to say because people believe they R healthy and that sickness is a something that would never ever hit those voting conservatives and that they will never need any hospital or a medicine, but I have seen so many friends falling from the sky when they find from GP their life suddenly changes.

Mariscal i find your posts on the Cologne threads quite measured. I was only reffering to a few on there who have taken things too far.

I've just come across a parliamentary petition to reverse the cuts petition.parliament.uk/petitions/124016 It won't do any practical good of course, because in fact we do not live in a democracy, we merely get the chance once every 5 years to choose between which one of a few rich crooks are going to screw us over the least (you can google that too, it's called a minimal democracy. Also google the recent changes to electoral registration and how they've incidentally disenfranchised loads of people who might have voted against thegovernment). But it may be important in the future to know that not everyone agrees with it.

The big problem in Britain are these immense divides between the phenomenally rich and privileged and the poor. We have the biggest inequality in the EU, and this is what it means. The former have never really had to really struggle for anything in their lives and cannot even begin to comprehend the lives of those who have been born at the bottom of the heap and for whom everything is a struggle. Those who can afford to chuck away hundreds on handbags and fancy clothes they'll never wear again, a few thousand on one night out, can't grasp what it's like to have to live on benefits, or even minimum wage, with no hope of decent paying jobs any more. They even claim such people don't exist. It is extraordinarily hard to convince them that most of their good luck is just that, luck, and most people were not born into it.

Though just about all the high earning women on MN have come from not a huge amount of money and had years of earning less than our childcare cost, going back to work full time when babies were 2 weeks old, deaths, divorec - my life has not been some wonderful bed of roses over 30 years - it's been a struggle to get to a point of owning a house and I certainly don't take things for granted - I don't really even eat out and I only drink tap water. In fact one reason some of us have spare money is often because we don't spend money we don't have.

Most people in the middle who support the Tories and their cuts (and yes masses of us do despite comments on threads like this) are not a privileged billionaire group. We just want lower taxes and less spending on welfare.

You know that for a fact do you? Because it's certainly not my impression.

In any case if life is now hard for the 'squeezed middle' imagine how much harder it is for those born at the bottom. I was born into a low class family, and have worked up to the 'squeezed middle' so I can see both of those. They should not actually be enemies. The problem is those who can afford so much more and don't actually realise how lucky they are. You don't need to kick those below you, there is one hell of a lot of wealth in this country and it is being concentrated more and more at the top.

Most of what is called "welfare" actually goes to pensioners, and nowadays, while there are always exceptions, that age group is the most well off by a considerable margin. Remember that the wealth divides are increasing, not staying the same, not diminishing. Of the rest, most goes to people in work. The idle feckless benefit scrounger of tory propaganda is not non existent, but does not represent a high proportion of claimants. The cost of them to the national finances is dwarfed by the cost of the feckless rich, who also bear the biggest responsibility for environmental damage.

There is also considerable evidence that redistribution is good for economies. Leaving the vast majority of people with no spending power does not help economies to grow. Removing all the ladders by which people can climb and better themselves removes talent from the pool. Nothing about austerity economics is good, most of these myths have been debunked some time ago, but Osbourne and his ilk are determined to drive the majority into the ground.

State Pensioners pay taxes
State Pensioners get £115.95 per week - this is not huge ? - and this is after 40 years of work, paying their taxes as well, bringing up family and most I know look after grandchildren and in my street I see them continuing work.

My supermarket employs several pensioners.
Here is something interesting about working pensioners www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-21668880
The pensioners who choose to work

I did say as a class. It is natural for people to accrue wealth over their working life, but the point is that for more and more of us it isn't possible now. A lot of it is to do with housing. By the time my generation gets to pensionable age we will have a lot less than those who have gone before us despite having similarly worked - worked harder for less real pay in fact - and the generation behind me will have even less again. As classes.

I seem to have derailed this quite a lot. Sorry.

The right are very very caring indeed, more than the left. You don't care for a nation by spending money it doesn't have so it cannot help those who are least fortunate. Instead you conserve the money to ensuer you can protect the poor and enable people to help themselves with carrots and sticks. I know hearing Tory views upsets a lot of posters but we are a big group out there and I don't think it helps if we just never post on MN because others take a different view.

DG You say you have struggled but now earn your own home. You went back to work when your dc were tiny. And now you want lower taxes and less spent on welfare.

I was you. At the age of 30 I was a single mum of a 1 year old, working full time and paying full time childcare. I owned my own place and was doing great. At 36 I had my second child but the relationship with her dad broke down due to DV. So I was on my own with 2 children and still on mat leave. I had decided not to return to my job and had a place at college to retrain as a support worker. Three months before starting college I woke up one morning and couldn't move my legs. The pain was excruciating and I was told I had sciatica.

Fast forward 10 years. I now live with a new partner of four years. I'm on high rate mobility. My partner was in a serious accident two years ago and as a result we lost the house. We were forced to sell my place and literally survived for months on charity hangouts.

We now rent. I cannot work and I need major surgery. Dp has gone from a decent wage to nmw.

None of this was our fault. All of the things we've gone through (and its been sheer hell) have been compounded by waiting five months for benefits to be sorted then living on £112 a week as a couple with tax credits and cb keeping us going.

And you think you are immune from ill health or an accident? Do you really think that the cuts in welfare will be ploughed into tax cuts? I hope you never need to live on benefits but my God, your callousness is unbelievable.

coffee

I agree with DG. I was born to immigrant parents in a very rough inner city area. My father was an alcoholic. By today's standards I was probably neglected. However I managed to work hard and eventually got a very well paid job. I have brought up my dcs and never had benefits. I worked hard, didn't spend money I didn't have and saved. My brother also worked hard and became CEO of an international company.
We had incentives to work....to better ourselves and give our kids. A better life. Benefits drag people down and remove the incentives to work.
Many of us voted Tory and welcome the cuts. I want lower taxes and therefore more choice about spending my own hard earned money. I have certainly not been born into anything but poverty, but my hard childhood has made me resilient and determined.

coffeeisnectar

I am similar.
Worked hard from the age of 14, often had more than one job at a time.
Started in what was to become my career at aged 20, worked hard and exceeded what was expected - consistently got promoted ahead of my peers.
Got married & had 2 kids, husband was successful career wise too.
Never claimed tax credits or any benefit other than CB in my life.

Aged 39 I was suddenly taken very ill out of the blue - aged 40 I was medically discharged from my 20 yr career, and my marriage broke down.

I went from a double income household of app £80k per annum to a single mum of 2 on sickness benefit as I am currently still too ill to work.

To all those posters who 'work hard' and 'overcome' - thumbs up! Well done! Seriously, well done.

But don't be so blinkered or complacent as to think that that is the reason why you are not on benefits.
We are all only an illness or unplanned life event away from having to rely on the safety net that our country thankfully provides.

coffee and bunny , similar things happened to ALL my family members and myself. It is extremely painful for me to hear someone in need to sell their home because of an accident and illness. Who can boast they are immune from ill health or an accident? There are also conditions that require treatment which constantly causes many side effects and emergencies. Disabled persons can live independently and can earn and pay taxes provided they have supportive equipment and regular tests which are not expensive.

Please stop saying "this is what they all voted for". Remember 2/3 of voters did NOT vote Tory.

The first past the post system is what brought these evil fuckers into power.

FFS It's people like Longjumping who are so shortsighted, growing up with free available healthcare, free schooling as an immigrant, local services and support created by labour voters. Perfectly happy to pull the rug from under everyone else. Perfectly happy to close down all these things they had, and took for granted by voting Tory.

coffee, the sciatica sounds very painful. I'm sorry. Would you have been better off not taking the maternity leave though? So was part of your problem that you took a maternity leave rather than just 2 weeks off when you had your second child and that had you done as I did you would not be in this position? I always say long maternity leaves are a poisoned chalice. IN a sense women are conned into playing second fiddle to male earnings and staying home.

I don't think those on the left like those of us who are the majority Tories and support the cuts to post on mumsnet as it upsets people but do realise we are here and we are very concerned to help the less well off. It is just we know a better route to that than the left has.

The Tories got in fair and square on the same basis Blair got in. If you add in the UKIP voters (who got one MP compared wih the SNP which for the same number of votes got 50 MPs) the Tories would have done even better. We won under the current system which both Labour and the Tories accept.

There's more at stake than benefits when voting Tory. It destroys everything.

My brother also worked hard and became CEO of an international company.
what has it got to do with taxes? How relevant is this information to the Conservatives policy even? I believe it bears no connection

Benefits we receive: All women in UK that have children get child benefit in cash for each child till age 19. In addition you get tax credits and maternity benefits if you have worked before you gave birth, plus you get home protection responsibilities to 12 yrears and that is to add to pension years.

Mariscall...no, not all women who have children in the UK get CB if they have children ......my daughter does not and neither does my daughter in law. Neither do they get tax credits and never have......they work as do their husbands and earn too much to get either