Did you vote Conservative?

[ampere]

Do you regret it or do you think the government are doing what they said on their tin?

"and would not have been there now if were not for the banking crisis."

But you see that's the problem. There was a banking crisis and because we only had a 'falling deficit' rather than a 'surplus' and because the economy's success relied so heavily on banks we quickly went from 'falling deficit' to 'bloody enormous deficit that isn't just going to sort itself out'

Labour did, therefore, overspend because their spending plans were based on the unrealistic assumption of there being continuous strong growth in tax revenue.... The 'end to boom and bust' statement came back to bite them

... we also can't afford a tax break for married people.

Idealogical pet projects are not solely the domain of the left.

It's easy to feel confident reducing the welfare state if you area millionnaire, like most of the members of the cabinet.

My area was virtually destroyed by the Conservative government under Margaret Thatcher. There is a deep, cruel sense of complacency in many Tories that revolts me.

I used to vote libdem and was really hoping that they would stick by their pledge to make the bankers (Tory cabinet's friends and family) pay. I feel betrayed.

Green for me from now on. Caroline Lucas for PM!

My take from looking at the deficit / surplus numbers is that from a good economic governance perspective, Labour should have had a budget surplus between 2002 and 2007.

GDP was at a high and cyclical costs such as unemployment benefit at a low. It would have been prudent to keep spending levels within income. Any extra increase in spend should have been met by increased tax.

I'm not sure how much of the 2002 - 2007 spend can be classed as investment - if it was, then it should be possible to freeze this investment and cause a significant drop in public spending.

I do think it's down to how you interpret the data. And hindsight is a wonderful thing.....

But I doubt we'll hear another chancellor claim to have removed 'boom and bust' in our life times..

TBH - if Brown had built the Severn barrage, or better roads (notably absent in my area) - or more trains (i mean a massive rail-building plan would have been brilliant) I could forgive him a bit more.

but wher did that money go?

it went into various peoples pockets,for the government to fish 80% of it back out and chuck it back in again....

we have little to show for it. The local school has a drama studio. We have a surestart centre. Personally I'd have considered a new roador trainline to be a better long-term investment to get the UK properly out of the crap it was put in by WWII

From page 3: ..." Surestart was a load of bollocks and waste of time. I attended two Surestart centres, mostly attended, by yummy-mummies and the middle classes.It was meant to be aimed at the Bangladeshi community, but they never attended, (but bless em, the workers did employ a Muslim girl with headscarf, and when that did not work they gave up!) the classes paid and run for by the tax payers, were for instance 'the challenging years' 'how to cope with your child'. bear Everyone at the class was middle class, or au-pairs, apart from one woman who was told to attend by Social Services! it has been well recorded that Surestart did not change the life chances of poor children one jot, It cost millions, another labour initiative and waste of money. A strategy that was well intended but not well thought out."

"...Take your point on that, I must say that it did give you somewhere to go in the day, especially in the winter! Me and my mates, left Surestart with a nice cup of tea and sat in the Park, ahh those were the days....great times! "

Well, this kind of tells you all you need to know. Along with 'bless 'em'..

The middle class yummy mummies, including the poster in this instance, took full advantage of what was on offer, elbows well-sharpened, and eff the families for whom Surestart was intended.

me, me, me.

the scheme was very open to that though -
if something is on offer, why not take it? frankly, things like 'baby massage' are going to self-select their audience.
very far from targetting of resources. Infact the 'scattergun approach' was pretty much what was wrong with the spending - health in pregnancy grantfor everyone, EMA when it didn't affect the decisions of 9/10 of those receiving it, massive government advertising programmes with no particular benefit...

money up the wall.

they could have built houses, roads, raliways, invested in power generation - ut instead they threw money at people that didn't need it.

Why souldn't complimentary and others made use of surestart? they were mothers were they not? I'm sure they realised who it was aimed for. Surestart as you may be aware cannot discriminate against 'users', on grounds of colour or ethnicity. Rightly so.

That post was aimed at ampere.

Edgarallanpoe. You cannot 'target' the audience otherwise you have to discriminate, which they legally cannot do.

erm yea - yes you can. i think it patently obvious that a surestart centre in the centre of a cuncil estate is better targeted than one on a suburban street. Also, courses like 'baby massage' 'pregnancy yoga' are bound to pick up lentil weavery MC types....

Edgaralepie. Yes you can set it up where you like, but you cannot stop who comes through the door.

In it's early days Surestart was clearly targetted at the most deprived families.

In fact, the original Surestart centres were set up in the most deprived areas with the involvement of the local community who decided what to offer to meet the needs of local families.

But Labour decided to change the Surstart programme and make it accessible to a wider range of families.

Whether this was to the detriment of the original aims of Surestart is a matter of opinion.

I attended a drop in that tried to ban children who had au-oairs or nannies with them. The parents including myself said that they felt this was very wrong, because they were effectively banning the 'children' (not the carers) from attending a centre with other children. The ban was quickly dropped, not sure if this was a Surestart project though. The ban was nonsense anyway!

drop-in!

As someone who comes from what is considered a "working class background" in this country, I know what it is to live in that social position under a Conservative government and a Labour government. I would never vote Conservative in a million years. As time goes on, most people are going to wish they could reverse thier vote in my opinion. Luckily, under Labour, I was able to recieve a good education and move up enough in financial terms that I will be relatively ok. But many people, especially the most vulnerable and many vulnerable children, are going to suffer. I do think that voting Conservative = selfishness as someone else stated. My partner is a teacher and you can already see how it is affecting the educational system for the worse, especially in the more deprived schools in deprived area's.

LFN - why on earth do you think that an insurance system of healthcare is better? Look at the US where they spend much more than us and many people are not covered at all. Where the sick will not be treated until their insurance cover has been verified! Inhuman.

Not the US system, the US system as it stands is very bad.

I want a universal system - like the compulsory insurance system in Germany, or maybe the voucher system in Singapore.

Certainly moving away from a state provides to a single payer system is the first step. Tony Blair started dismantling the NHS by stealth by introducing foundation hospitals, trusts, etc - and thankfully the coalition is continuing along this path, whilst keeping the shiny NHS logo everywhere, of course, so the public don't get unduly outraged.

David Cameron, sadly, because I voted for him, is not being politically adroit in alienating his core vote, the poor, put upon, English middle classes who, pro rata, pay the most tax (you can't catch the rich). Benefit claimants, Labour voters to a man or woman, are to be the only beneficiaries of his proposals on child benefit and tuition fees.

Why should the children of people who contribute very little to society be assured of a free passport to university just to maintain Cameron's image as a "compassionate Conservative"? Politicians in power always waste money on an epic scale. Tax revenues should be used to benefit the people who pay them. It is not fair to take away money from the people who work and give it to people who do not. ~ Edwina Baggs ([email protected]).

at Edwina Baggs quote! My inner child says bag by name......

Why "should" ANYONE do anything at all if there is nothing in it for them personally? Isn't everyone in the first instance a human being with thoughts, feelings etc? Isn't it when those things are discounted that problems arise?

There is no CONSISTENCY in the messages that the "Authorities" give us. Everyone is equal and must not be discriminated against, but if you have difficulty making and keeping money, that is exactly what will happen.

We have learned that what children learn from constant negativity plus uncertain boundaries is bad behaviour. We are ALL in that boat together. It's a case of do as I say, not as I do, unless there is money to be made, in which case it doesn't matter where it comes from, unless it has come from the state, when we will make it's receipt conditional on the right level of expressed gratitude and abstinence from wide screen plasma TVs.

You don't put a five year old in a classroom and give it a book and tell it to read. You don't give it a book in a foreign language. You don't blame it for not being able to do it straight away. You don't put the book on a high shelf, and when the child gets within reach of it, move it higher. You don't then take all the books away and say you're not allowed to have them until you learn to read. That is abusive. That is what has been done to the citizens of this country.

Where once there was a minority of people who did not want to work, now we have a large number who cannot, for a myriad of reasons, and some of those have been direct results of policies going back years.

All the policies do is focus on how to create more money, not on how we do it, or how doing it affects the people doing it.

Life has become a rush to get somewhere else as opposed to a process of learning and enlightenment, and the worst thing of all is that when one questions this it has become a symptom of being a bit "woo".

I am getting so damn angry about it because I don't know what to DO!!!!

And no, I didn't vote Tory, strangely enough.

mycounty
I agree with you about the £8billion we saved by cuts and handed over to Ireland. Would they ever do the same for us? Pundits say we export a lot of stuff to Ireland etc but I'm not so sure.
longfingernails
The national debt is the thing I lose sleep over. What a shambles! I know it's a drop in the ocean but why don't we have a new national lottery to pay off the national debt? It would be more worthwhile than some of the projects the present lottery has funded IMO.

I voted Tory. I'm not in the least upset about the coalition. I'm perplexed about the mish mash of policies and the inattention to detail that appears to be accompanying their neverending proposals for change. But perhaps the mish-mash is an inevitable result of coalition politics?

I think they are making changes for change sake which feels all wrong.

I certainly did not vote tory.

Even though I thought I knew how callous the tories were, I'm shocked and sickened by this government.

DC made so much out of understanding the needs of the vulnerable and his personal understanding of the needs of carers.

So how on earth can he account for what's actually happening now?

My Dad has chronic multiple sclerosis. My Mum is his carer, she has had a stroke. They have worked all their lives, paid taxes, contributed to their community in many ways.

Through no fault of their own they now need the help SS for basic care.

But the government is washing it's hands of their needs and the needs of countless others. They are trying to blame future inevitable demise of SS care visits on local councils because they refuse to ring fence social care money. Their ideologically fuelled cuts to councils are so extreme that councils will have little choice but to cut social care in many cases.

We (me and my siblings) do what we can to help with my parents' care needs. But we are cracking under the strain.

When we phone SS for more help they say 'not in the economic climate'.

I wish I could tell Cameron to his face how utterly desperate we feel. I wish I could explain how when I am trying to care for my parents and my two young DDs, I feel that something dangerous is about to happen as the demands are too much. We not able to access a multi million pound trust fund as he could to buy care for his poor son.

And to make matters worse, the government are proposing to abolish Disability Living Allowance because it is apparently a 'barrier to work' for people like my parents. So now they are being made to feel like worthless scroungers because they made the 'mistake' of becoming ill.

Meanwhile; if you're a banker, enjoy your second or third home confident in the knowledge that this government won't be doing anything to reign in your greedy excess.

These are bad times and the sooner we can get rid of this lying, complacent, cruel, immoral

government the better. Cameron, I thought you would know better with what you'd been through, but a tory is obviously still a tory. 'All in this together'? What a joke.