Live webchat with David Cameron - this Thursday 19th, 1.45 pm

[JustineMumsnet]

Hello all - David Cameron is coming on to Mumsnet to answer your questions this Thursday at 1.45-2.45. Please post advance questions here if you can't make it on Thursday. (And please read our Webchat guidelines above before posting ie only one question each). Many thanks.

hatwoman I agree (and I'm speaking as a married woman who would benefit from the system)

finally found the schools question. Clever evasion of the question there - I'll always do what is best for them giving plenty of wriggle room.

So I can set up a new grammar school if I want? Perhaps DC has in mind for his children a new state school that takes only the children of rich politicians?

I ended up finding quite a lot about care costs the hard way (8 years of caring for mum with dementia).

The current problems of uninsurable risk of care fees started in the mid 90s when Conservatives shifted a lot of care from health service Geriatric hospitals into private care homes. which meant means tested social care.

They thought "the market" would solve it with insurances that everyone would be willing to buy. It didn't work.

I,and many other people who are involved in various organisations caring for the elderly spent the last 4 years campaigning for changes to make sure people do have a realistic way of covering the costs of care at home and in care homes. The Green paper covers it pretty well. I hope it goes through.

If you have a look at the demographic forecasts for 2050 you will see that it is crucial to get the right solution to this now, or it will cripple the country.

Cameron's suggestions on this will not do the job.

Couldn't make it due to a work clash and skimmed through some of the pages - loads!!!!

I think it would be far better to have only a pre-set of questions which are put to guests especialy where there wil be loads of differing opinions (i.e. politicians) - imagine question time if everyone shouted out all the questions at once - which is pretty much what you get here.

Spend given time on each topic of questions sdo there is time for some debate and then move on. Topics should be voted on or MNHQ should take editorial control.

Seemed DC was trying not to have stock answers prepared but then shot down for lack of detail / information

If you were going to be clever about it, you would have read all the questions posed earlier, formulated your policy response (as GB did) then posted them as immediate responses, but with a bit of guff to make it sound of the cuff, that would be pretty speedy with a good typist, and then that would free you up to answer the out of nowhere questions....

Its not hard. makes me weep to think people who can't even delegate that kind of grunt work to minions successfully might be in charge of the country.

FWIW, I do think he comes across as a likeable chap and I am NOT a Tory. Sadly, being a likeable chap is not all that's needed to run the country.

I nearly fell off my chair in shock at the idea happy families would split up in order to gain more benefits...yeah, like that'll keep two households going....

Maybe I should just have put ds into care when xp scampered out the door....

David Cameron is, for example....

hatwoman;

marriage is the best set-up actually....has been proven time and time again..at least the tories arn't PC enough to admit it...Labour wont be happy until we're all living like the last days of Rome....

Reading back through it, this web chat was a real damp squib. I asked a really boring question yesterday about making sure that local council services are well-funded - which affects everyone - but wasn't really expecting it to be answered.

Was surprised that many of the more pressing questions (from some very persistent questioners 0 weren't answered though -not suprised at some of the pat answers though. I'd expect that from any politician.

I'd have thought his Malcom Tucker's would have been looking at some of these over the last few days and getting some answers prepared TBH.

Must do better.

Oh come on daftpunk...... what about those of us who have HAD to leave marriages? How about those of us who have religious convictions meaning we aren't able to remarry if we find a new partner? DC effectively lumped all non-married people together and that suggestion that people really split up to get more tax credits just made me drop paint all over my bathroom floor. What arrogance to assume that all single parents are that by CHOICE. Or that we can't sustain marriage because we are too feckless.

There is a big difference between "the last days of Rome" and someone who is a single parent through no fault of their own and who is probably only alive because they left their abusive ex.

DP

Even if you agree that marriage is the best set up, it's simply not possible for everyone- I shallavoid same sex couples as I know your views on that, but why should abandoned aprents, widows,abused partners who had the guts to run be punished?

I simply don't think that some politicnas (or people genrally) realise that being part of a married couple is not always an option, or at least a safe one. For that reason,despite being amrried etc, I am hugely oppoised to any changes in policy that protect married people to the detriment of anybody else.

C'mon dp, what the heck are you supposed to do when things go tits up? Should I have locked exp in the wardrobe to stop him skipping out? Despite the fact I was happily packing his bags?

A nuclear family, be it a traditional one or same sex model might well have the best outcomes by certain matrices, but you can't really suggest that people should stay in unhappy/abusive relationships because that's how it was always done before?

I think the breakdown of the nuclear family is only one outcome of our development as a society over the last couple of centuries, and in my book not at all the worst. In many cases, a jolly good thing too.

Demonising individuals about life choices rather than having a larger, more holistic view of society is a lazy way apportioning the blame for society's ills.

I like it when the guests arrive and copy and paste a nice BIG response to all the pre-posted questions, and then they get talked about

always feels a bit better

I love you DP

lankyalto;

oh yes, completely agree that a woman (or man) shouldn't stay in an abusive marriage....i'm talking about women who choose to be single parents....there are plenty of them, mainly due the benefit system Labour has created.

Perhaps him coming in the day after the Queen's Speech wasn't such a great idea - he and his Malcolm's have had bigger fish to fry. Please note DC diary secretary for future MN appearances

Well, I love DP too...and she knows it, but she also knows perfectly well I disagree with almost everything she says! That's why we have lovely debates.

Ah, but DP, capitalism by the way it works always creates an underclass. Its how individual capitalist societies mediate their underclasses that they are being judged by. Some say sink or swim, others say education, yet more say burn at the stake....

What we have in the UK is an underclass created from the destruction of industry, stripping the working class of gainful employment and setting up generational deprivation and low aspirations.

There are other factors at play, but that is the major one. Dealing with the Conservative legacy of that is a headache for everyone.

We can look to history to see just how damaging major societal upheaval can be - enclosures, industrialisation, enforced mobility and the destruction of communities...