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.

Well he didn't answer my question about climate change and CO emissions (quelle surprise - targets for 2050 are not exactly appealing for a politician planning only for the life of one parliament), but I still think it was AMAZING that we had him on at all, what with him being a busy chap! Thanks MNetHQ!! Clearly he didn't answer all our questions, and cherry-picked like they all do, but how many people in the country get to directly question the prime minister do you think?!?!?

Hang on, chaps - he said he'd come back if we'd have him and that Sarah's coming on soon.

I would very much like to talk to him about what's ACTUALLY happening in the NHS with regard to things like breastfeeding support, etc - and not the "coo, it smells rather of fresh paint here" effect that any politician's visit has on a hospital, with all the staff on best behaviour and anybody who might show them up stuffed in a cupboard somewhere.

If e.g. Maternity Matters was actually being embraced as something that maternity staff actually believed in and wanted to implement for the sake of the women using the service, that would be great. As it is, it's largely another box-ticking exercise.

And don't get me started on accuracy of data collection from maternity services or the relationship between hospitals, GPs and the PCT.

Gordon, do feel free to email me - hunkermunker at gmail dot com

sniff
no mention of booze ridden small towns.

If someone is using SarahBrown as a name what will Sarah Brown use when she's on? You aren't allowed 2 people with the same name.

It's the rules.

Hmmph. He didn't answer my question about Gary McKinnon and the wider implications of the USA extradition policy, I see...

oh am changing tonight

TheGreatScootini - his response is as follows:-

Paolosgirl, Fabhead,loop9, Domesticlattern and many others,

I can see that Childcare Vouchers are a big concern to many of you, so let me take this opportunity to clear a few things up.

Firstly, no one who is currently using the scheme will be affected in the next 5 years, so please don?t worry about any sudden changes. We are phasing in the changes so that families who currently benefit don't lose out in the next Parliament.

Second, low and middle-income working parents will be able to benefit from childcare support through tax credits that are worth on average £68 per week for 470,000 families - much more generous than tax relief on vouchers.

And third, we are not actually abolishing the childcare vouchers. What will be happening is the Treasury will be phasing out the tax and national insurance relief employees receive for childcare vouchers, but companies will still be able to offer childcare vouchers to the people they employ and in fact, we expect many of them will continue to provide support for childcare.

We are making these changes because we feel that the tax relief is currently badly targeted. Around a third of the benefit for ESC goes to the 6% of parents who pay tax at the higher rate

But more importantly, we want to use the money to extend free nursery places to many thousands more 2 year olds. These nursery places are really popular with parents and they give children the very best start in life - helping to achieve a fairer society in which everyone can thrive.

What a load of tosh. (This bit's mine)

Sorry for hijack but

littlemischief

If youre getting £40 get it looked at, we get £53 which is ahrdly gold but it may be you've had some docked for income and not popped up

In response to:
Can I ask why if your a carer to somebody who is seriously ill, you get hardly any help, I get carers allowence which is £40 a week and thats all we are entitled too, I have recently lost my job and now have been told i loose my tax credits and dont get any other help.

Sorry for hijack

Sorry for hijack but

littlemischief

If youre getting £40 get it looked at, we get £53 which is ahrdly gold but it may be you've had some docked for income and not popped up

In response to:
Can I ask why if your a carer to somebody who is seriously ill, you get hardly any help, I get carers allowence which is £40 a week and thats all we are entitled too, I have recently lost my job and now have been told i loose my tax credits and dont get any other help.

Sorry for hijack

Sorry for hijack but

littlemischief

If youre getting £40 get it looked at, we get £53 which is ahrdly gold but it may be you've had some docked for income and not popped up

In response to:
Can I ask why if your a carer to somebody who is seriously ill, you get hardly any help, I get carers allowence which is £40 a week and thats all we are entitled too, I have recently lost my job and now have been told i loose my tax credits and dont get any other help.

Sorry for hijack

Bloody missed it.

Same old with the webchats.....Should rename them webshats.

They are just impossible to do in an hour.....there is no way he could have answered all those questions so inevitably people will be disappointed.

I thought he came across better than he comes across 'on t'telly'.

I would have told him I like his new wavy hairdo, and it looks very shiny.

I went to work at 12 so missed it-however it doesn't look as if I missed much! I don't think that it was a satisfactory way of doing it-it all moved on so quickly and he couldn't keep up.It would have been better to answer one question at a time-he was able to ignore any that he didn't want to answer-or maybe he never had chance to read them all.

I saw a few people ask why they should vote for him.

Was his 1.31pm post in answer to my question?

I have no idea how anyone, least of all the PM, can think that a 30% pass rate at GCSE is acceptable. Why isn't it around 80 or 90%?

We are talking about basic functional everyday maths and english here and how is it ok to aim for only 30% of the population achieving this?

oh oh oh halloween emoticons

I think his refusal to engage with the biscuit question illustrates rather well his communication problems. He just can't get the right tone, and missed an opportunity to show his human side. I had an image of him shuffling through pre-prepared answers while someone typed them in for him. I can understand that he might not be able to answer q's about the minutiae of particular people's problems / issues but he also avoided the more general 'where are you coming from' / philosophical open question (like mine - did he really believe that boom and bust was over).

Really so very glad to have had the opportunity to tell him about singing 'Gordon Brown, texture like sun' when I see him, though. I think more people should join in - maybe a mass sing-along at PMQs.

thank you bambipie! that was sort of the whole point (from my perspective) of repeatedly asking!

I agree Madame D and bambipie. Tried ot make that point earlier somewhere in the mass of pages. He just can't get anything right, he's a bright man with poor judgement, particularly political judgement. He dithers so much he forgets the POINT. He could have answered that question in ten seconds flat, but he got in a panic about being seen to be trite, or picking a biscuit made by "foriegn" companies, or small children in China. And all over a blardy biscuit. Just to reiterate, did love Golden Brown moment bambipie. Really made me laugh out loud. That and Terry Wogan, which was a hilarious, and ahem, perfectly pitched gag IMO.

bambipie - I've had that in my head all evening "never a frown with Gordon Brown. Do da da da, do da da da, do da da da da da da..."

Seen this on the Times website and this on the Beeb sure there'll be more.

Thought we should confirm that SarahBrown is not the real, Sarah Brown, wife of the PM. (SarahBrown could you name change please, as we'll be needing that name back for the real Sarah Brown, as she's coming on for a chat very soon, she says - many thanks).