Gordon Brown on Mumsnet this Friday (16th October) lunchtime between 1-2 pm

[JustineMumsnet]

We're delighted to announce that the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, will be logging on to Mumsnet for a live webchat on Friday (tomorrow) lunchtime from 1 to 2. The PM is ready to answer Mumsnetters' questions on a wide-range of policy issues from the economy to education and from childcare to climate change.

As you know we're not great ones for rule books here at MNHQ, but we'd like this to be as useful and enlightening an event as it can be, for all involved. We aren't going to pre-moderate or pre-select questions - the format will be as per usual - but given the likely popularity of this webchat, the sheer number of you all and our past experience of trying to fit everything in, we've come up with a few ground rules which we'd be very grateful if you'd follow.

Guidelines for MN webchat with PM

1. To allow as many folks as possible to be involved, please restrict your questions to one per member plus a follow up question if appropriate, i.e. once you've had a response. (NB don't even think about name changing to ask another, we'll be watching!).

1. Please keep your question reasonably brief (we'll not doing a word count but it will increase your chance of getting an answer, we suspect, if you don't bang on for paragraphs)

1. It's highly unlikely he'll be able to answer everyone's question but we'll make every effort to bring common themes to his attention. Please don't be too disappointed if your specific question doesn't get answered and do try not to keep posting "What about me?". He can't answer them all and he is the PM after all - so has a quite few time constraints.

1. Obviously you're free to voice your opinion but do be civil/polite - the PM is our guest on Mumsnet so, whatever your politics, please afford him the same cordiality you would if he stopped by your own house.

Many thanks - feel free to put your question up in advance if you can't make the live chat on Friday lunchtime.

am with Michkit and Bleh. Legal immigrant for over 5 years. I've paid a lot of money in taxes here and never claimed any benefits. I feel I'm helping to support people who are too lazy to work yet have to read and listen about immigrants living the high life on benefits and taking the british people's jobs

crumble queen thanks.
I agree Gordon needs to answer this question.

starlightMcKenzie,
The child trust fund is about giving every child the best start in life, with the chance to have some savings. Nearly five million kids now have a child trust fund, which gives them £250 at birth and again at the age of seven. Unfortunately, under opposition plans, 900 thousand children would miss out on child trust funds so a family with two children earning over £16 thousand a year would see a £1000 cut in payments. If you're against this go to www.labour.org.uk/the-conservatives-choice

i cant believe the prime minister is here!!! hello gordon brown, i would just like to ask you about the police service in this country, how is it that police have the time for things that in the bigger picture dont really matter yet when i am in danger in my own home a police callout takes over an hour to get to me?

do you think that less money could be spent on changing the law (vast amounts of new legislation under the current governemnt) and more money coul be spent implementing it?

after all, it was possible to legislate child abuse/ terrorism/ fraud etc out of existence - that would already have been done?

PoFace - (blushes). Gee thanks.

PS - good answer on the Married Couples allowance.

Mr Brown

Is the parliamentary pension system as messy as the lack of expenses system?

Do you set your own pensions? How in line with the rest of the public service pension schemes is it?

Sorry about the spelling mistakes - and me a product of the (much superior) Scottish eduction system too!

Hello Gordon

I am not a British citizen so am unlikely ever to be in a position to vote for you BUT before you leave and perhaps as a nice neighbourly gesture you could answer my question, which is do you have any one piece advice for Ireland in the wake of collapsing banks, various financial scandals, property market implosion, corruption everywhere? Unfortunately no-one here can think of much to do.

Thank you

VintageGardenia

well, george osborne isn't "in it" is he? LOL. the daily mash did a hilarious satire on his speech. i'll see if i can find it.

Dear Mr Gordon Brown,

Wow I'm so happy you are on Mumsnet ! My question is, dont you get sometime inspired by the way France is leaded ? Do you think Great Britain will get the euro one day ?

Thank you for the reply - it's not so much child care costs that are an issue for us, so we don't really benefit from that - it's more the ever increasing burden of things to pay for - either through taxes, or uni fees etc. And the middle income families are the ones who suffer here.

There are also men on MN too

Dear Mr Brown,

Please, please ensure you answer my question about the home education review. I'm concerned that your time is short, but I really don't understand the government's motivation and strongly suspect it is much more about surveillance and control than about what we are told.

So you don't have to look and find it, the questions I asked are:

Why is your government trying to push through legislation regulating home education that is based on a review that was highly flawed in many ways, and motivated by the suspicion that some parents choose to home educate to hide child abuse and domestic servitude when there is no evidence whatsoever for this suspicion?

No other sector of parents are assumed guilty of child abuse until proven innocent, so why home educators?

There must be so many bloody wonderful women on MN who would make great MPs.....

Following the tragic and preventable death of Baby Peter Connelly and the report in this week's Daily Mail, which states that 3 children a week are dying due to council failings, when are the Labour Party going to address the important issue of Child Protection, by either making the 2nd SCR into Haringey public, so we can learn from its findings, or allowing a public enquiry into Child Protection in the UK?

to pollyanna,
We are abolishing prescription charges for cancer patients from April. And Andy Burnham is trying to cut back on car parking charges paid at hospitals. On cancer care, nearly everyone now sees a consultant within two weeks but we want to do better. We want anybody with suspected cancer to have their diagnosis within a week. We are trying to take the fear out of cancer, because if people are screened and there is early detection then the rate of survival from breastcancer is over 90%.

Hello PM

I am currently on maternity leave from the police with my first child. I am planning to return to work full time after my leave but am concerned at the lack of childcare available for emergency services.

Given the large number of people who work shifts in the public sector I believe that addressing this problem would be very popular with the electorate. It would also enable people to return to work save a lot of public money. They only option I have is to ask my employer to give me set shifts on a 9-5 basis (which would still cost me over £12,000 per year and restrict my role and cause inconvienance) or hire a nanny!?! I am not asking for free child care but just the option of having nurseries we can pay for available 24 / 7.

Hello Prime Mnister,

I think the free school meals is a fantastic idea (eg this is happening within County Durham). Do you intend to continue this policy after the two year trail?

Thank you

Can I please ask again about why the 16 hour rule for tax credits exists?

I stayed at home longer than I wanted due to not being able to work less than 16 hours.

Also, I will be waiting at least 3 more weeks for Housing Benefit, because they need two full months wage slips. That'll be 10 weeks into working.

The other thing is that I wasn't entitled to the extra help of a months rent, as I had only been out of work for 5 months, not the requisite 6. I was almost tempted to turn down the job, so I could get the help a month later.

The system needs to encourage single parents back into work, not have them terrified of not being able to pay bills if they do.