The Tories are gonna get in, it's inevitable do you care? Is there an upside?

[TheDullWitch]

Oh why not have the election NOW. Let the buggers get in, show their true colours, become universally loathed, then get kicked out after one term. Come on, let's get on with it!

Whenever tories speak about wanting people to have aspirations and valuing marriage I immediately interpret that as cuts to benefits for those most in need whilst the rich get richer.

Agree with witcheseve. My DSis has sold out to the Tories.

Glad some of us are standing firm.

The very mentioning of valuing marriage means 'we will cut the tax credits of families where parents aren't married and reward people who are whether they have children or not'. Of course it's not spelt out like that.

I am happy to pay my taxes because I get something in return (free health care, schooling for my children, police service I can call on etc). I would like them to be used better.

I don't think the Tories will be the answer.

In the private sector the wastage and delaying that goes on in the public sector, which Niceguy2 describes so well, would never be tolerated.

Hence the Tory idea of public/private partnership. Has PPP worked? No.

Does there need to be a shake up of public services? Always. No business would survive with the level of complacency seen in the public sector. But cutting budgets is not the answer.

Improving how they are spent is.

Do I believe the Tories will do this better than the current administraion? No.

The current government is tired. It needs a shot in the backside.

Oh, and while we're at it a referendum on proportional representation would be very welcome!

I interpret it that way because what I feel it means is 'marriage is desirable and people are poor because they don't have sufficient aspiration' These are both moral judgements.

I don't really believe either of those things, personally. People are poor for a huge variety of complicated reasons and I believe that judging marriage as a desirable state is a moral judgement I don't wish the Government to make. I don't feel it is a Government's place to make such sweeping moral judgements.

Even if your generalisations were provable niceguy2 I don't see how they matter. If you claim benefits it should be because you think you need it. The state should judge whether you are correct in your opinion, which they do currently. It's rather a lame point. The original point of the welfare state is to lift people out of poverty.

There will always be some people who want something for nothing but they exist in every spectrum of society from the underclass to the aristocrat. In my mind there's no difference between a multi-million pound salaried banker making money from a Government cash-injection and my neighbour who feels she should get a nice house for nothing. It's all immoral, it's all tax-payer funded except the banker has his salary and my neighbour can't move because her assertion about what she deserves is ridiculous to the DWP. WHich costs more? Which is actually more damaging to society? The poor tend to have a much smaller impact. My neighbour is poor, as poor as you can be in this country. She has aspirations, greedy ones, they are not advancing her any further in life neither morally nor financially.

The idea of the welfare state was to provide universal healthcare from cradle to grave and unemployment benefits for those who needed it on a temporary basis.

That was back in a generation where everyone wanted to work and there was great pride in working and shame when not.

Now we have a whole section of society who think they are unable to work but actually can. And countless numbers who have never worked a day in their lives and refer to getting their giro as their "wage".

Times ARE different now and I take the point of whoever said that its not fair to look at the parties performance 20 years ago and judge what they will be like now.

What I do think however is that the country is in a right mess and thats having had Labour being in power for twelve years.

I don't think the Tories are the answers to all the countries problems but I do think they would do a better job than Labour.

I think I might leave the country. Don't think I will be allowed though. Hate the Tory party much more than Labour. That David Cameron is full of c**p!

'back in a generation where everyone wanted to work'?!

Back in a generation where if you didn't work you starved to death you mean?! What better motivation to send your kids up a chimney for a loaf of bread?!

These things you keep saying about people claiming benefits are deeply offensive to me. I feel we have a generally consumerist society. Most people seem to have a sense of entitlement to having lots of things or money without much effort being put in. It is not just people claiming benefits.

These, I believe, are the capitalist values which the Conservative Government under Margaret Thatcher promoted coupled with the effect of having effective Socialist institutions like the NHS and comprehensive welfare benefits. We have been taught to desire riches whilst being protected from the effects of poverty.

Capitalism works through the exploitation of the poor for the benefit of the rich. If you remove comprehensive welfare benefits in a capitalist society you get America.

The Tories are not making any noises which convince me to vote for them, neither are Labour TBH. They seem very involved with vote winning and out manouvering each other and seem to be missing the major points. I'm judging that the Tories, IMO, haven't changed, that I do not like David Cameron and that I do not want a Tory Government. I'm not judging them on the basis of things they did 20 years ago in any other way than they things they did I don't believe were successful and they seem to be positioning themselves with similar ideas this time around.

Some of what you say is true Niceguy.
Unfortunately I do think tories will revert to type if elected. Especially with DC and the current shadow cabinet.

I Hope to be proved wrong!

Niceguy whilst that is true of some,there are an awful lot of people on benefits now who did work all their lives- redundancy, carers, pensioners for those affected by the issues there- I do think it is as important to remember that as to acknowledge the existence of the oppsosite end of the spectrum. It took less than a week on CA before I was slated for it, with not a glance towards the fact that I had been either employed or a student for the entirety of my time between leaving school and that point.

There are I agree people who don't think they can work but really can, the trick is to find a way to segregate them from those who really do have no options without causing harm- I wish I knew what that was,

'Curiosity, why do you interpret it that way? Is it wrong to expect people to have aspirations and to value marriage? I don't see how you can make that link personally.
'

Actually I think that whilst aspirations are essential, marriage isnt' something people always have a choice over so shouldn't be considerd tbh (I am married btw so no axe!)- if someone's DH or DW runs off why should they suffer? So often the system and society focuses on the one left behind rather than a twonk who ran off (and often is contributing zero).

I don't think the system should be at all based on things about which some people cannot control.

DP- perhaps you have a point about the house in Chiswick thing but again you have to be careful you don't have simply a snaphot: I live in a nice village now, the 24 years on a council estate didn't cease to exist the minute I left home though; people can be informed by all manner of experience.

BFP I'm glad you brought up some of the many reasons that people including many mothers are not married. It isn't always an option for everyone for many complex reasons and it is not the role of the state to cast moral judgement by means of tax breaks for those they feel have better morals and/or higher aspirations.

I remember the 80's and it was tough under the tories. I can't bring myself to vote for them and I am certainly not voting labour. A lot of tory initiatives were brought to fruition by labour.

If/when the tories get in expect the poor to get a lot poorer and you can forget all about shiny new schools and hospitals but it will be a darn sight easier for the rich to get richer.

I'm voting Green. Won't do a darned bit of good, but at least I won't have voting tory on my conscience.

While I am frustrated with the government over public sector waste (there undeniably is some) and acting so slowly on the reform of the benefits system (James Purnell looked promising, then went and resigned) I don't think there is an upside to the Tories getting in.

Underneath the rhetoric, many current Tory policies will be divisive. In education for example, focussing on extending Academies will not help those kids whose parents do not care about education - they will probably end up in even worse schools. But, the Tories calculate that many voters won't care about that (until perhaps they get mugged by one of said kids).

I am also perplexed by the Tories' plans to end benefits dependancy. The only firm(ish) plan they have announced so far is to attack Working Families Tax Credit, which helps keep many parents in the workplace, making them less likely to fall into long-term unemployment. Why is this a good place to start?

Finally, some people have pointed out that we've forgotten what things were like in 1997. Back then, shortages of teaching and healthcare professionals were a huge issue. Stabilising the situation is one of the reasons why so much public spending has gone into public sector wages. It's not all gone to bureaucrats!

The thing is WFTC's are IMHO a really bad thing. Instead of doing stuff to control house prices and improve wages the TC's have essentially allowed the government to wriggle out of ensuring that work actually pays.

It's a disgrace that working families have to be supported in this way. Why shouldn't someone working full time on the minimum wage be able to support themselves?

The fact is that successive tory and labour governments have ensured that work does not pay and instead of addressing that issue they've implemented a stealth benefits trap.

Actually they have given us a way out

WE're just one family I know but nonetheless

DH was amde redundant and by having his income made up wioth tc's he has started his own business

it's still early days but heck it's better to earn part of your income than none IMO- basic self esteem for starter

The WFTC is a difficult one - OTOH the government is subsidising businesses, who should be paying their workers a proper wage; OTOH, nobody would vote for a government that gave itself the power to tell businesses how much to pay people (well I would, but there wouldn't be many of us )

Wello I wuld PW, but that would only work in our favour if we oculd force people to buy from us LOl

So whilst being generally consideratte of greater benefit etc- not voting for hunger either LOL

I don't think the Conservatives are saying 'abolish Working Tax Credits'. Surely they're just saying that households with an income of more than £50,000 shouldn't get them? Even at the moment, WTCs phase out at about £55-60k - so it's not a huge cut, but one that will save money whilst hitting those at the highest end of the scale who need it least?

Loved this from The Sun today - read at my Dad's house of course

"On the NANNY STATE, the Tory leader accused Labour of strangling ordinary Britons by poking the Government's nose into their lives"

Is that what they call a mixed metaphor?

They also had little snapshots of how certain people's lives had degraded under Labour.

The pensioner who has savings and no entitlement to pension credit choosing between heating and eating while the druggies on the corner have windows open in the winter.

Do they think that the winter heating allowance won't be one of the first things to go under the Tories then? (To be fair, they did also mention the abolishment of the 10p band which was a disgrace, effectively doubling tax for pensioners)

The single hard-working mother losing 96p in the pound for every earned pound in benefits benefits. That was based on her bringing in £150 per week, not even the minimum wage, (what will happen to that I wonder?) and the variables are so many - ages of children, childcare, housing, it doesn't work as a blanket statement.

Interestingly, The Sun did not, for their readership, draw attention to the plight of the hard-done-by banker earning just over the £150K mark who has to pay a whopping 50% tax on anything earned over that

Oh and regarding the single mother statement, I found myself thinking how they plan to address that, if it's true. Will paid income for single parents increase or will benefits be slashed? If there is another option I'd like to know what it is.

Theya re saying over £50k missing, I will agree with you on that.

My parents have lost their pension due to something outside the control of any party (employers sold company to American owners so that it became subject to American law- whicgh if I understand (I may not) then makes the pensions an asset, at which point they vanished). With pension credit and benefits, they are fine; increase on savings won't help as they have none, they palced it all into an apprently good pension account- or rather two of them, one of which was supposed to buy them a bungalow, the other pay the bills etc . They are scared of a change- any change- that could make their lives more fiddly as any change of power inevitably will.

I did see in the speech about protecting carers but some of the other proposals being considered change the definition to one I cannot fall under: won't help me get rid of the fucking* autism though will it?

(sorry for swearing, was at disease not any person)

Yeah Riven well I remember Labour govts from th 60's and 70's who almost bankrupted the country. Gordon Brown only cares about his own power base. Tony Blair was ex pubic school so why not bleat about this. Ihate all this inverted snobbery I went to state school send my son to a state and am on minimum wage but I will gladly vote for Cameron. And Dullwitch I bet I have met you I think you are a sad Labour activist. GET A LIFE

TRICKORLINKS It was the Tories who bought in the original Winter Fuel Allowance so gen up on your facts first