I won't be voting Labour because

[PanicMode]

next year they will be spending more on debt repayments than education, and that's just one example.

From a £6bn deficit in 1997 to £167 bn now....

Oh, and the only new idea (reduction of stamp duty) came from the Tories in the first place.

All those thinking of voting Labour, please read Squandered or The Rotten State of Britain before letting these financially illiterate numpties back in.

ooojimaflip - it may be interesting to compare these figures against working population statistics . . . since the numbers given are percentages of GDP, a country with a low tax % of GDP but a low working population could end up with a higher tax per individual than a country with a higher tax % of GDP, IYSWIM.

Zazizoma - that's true in one sense, but it gets hard to make like with like calculations as everyone pays VAT/equivilant/some other types of tax dependant on counrtry if they are working or not.

Following links from the article there is much more available, but it looks like I'd have to pay real actual money for it.

Ooojimaflip, I see your point.

Ooojma it's a bit of both (my last major job excluidng Uni pt ones held the rather odd title 'Sure Start Home Start Co-ordinator' pmsl)

Absolutely erther is an aspect of surestart that picks up the kids whose parents will never provide them with anything of their own free will. I can't tell you the stories obv, but they would make you weep .

OTOH a lot of the stuff we ran really was accessed by aprents trying to make a change. After all struggling is a big catch all term- we had people with PND, multiple births, disability (or disabled children) terminal illnesses attending groups. There was quite a good peer breastfeeding group- I doubt the sort of mothers attending those would flag up on amny high risk lists but tehy were still there using the support.

And sure start funded my home start role (hence the shitty title that emant I spent teh first part of every visit explaining what the diference between HS and SS actually was). HS pretty exclusively works with aprents trying to make a change; OK sow e'd get refered onces who were not interested by SSd but we referred them back damned sharpish!. We amde excellent changes.

Adn of course a lot we did was accessed by people who had good incomes but happened to live in a designated area, and why not? Whilst it is ime true that if you have problems you are more likely to land in state housing it doesn't follow that all people in state houisng / identified high ris areas (becuase actually one of our two specified areas was all private) have all the problems. Economic advatage does not eman you can't get ill or have PND, and it did sadden me that people who were in otehr areas weren't included: one particular area in our tyown was notorious but not identified and that used to be a real problem for us. There seems to be more than a need for suerestart to pick up people on teh edges of society and rather than close the abses I would prefer to see them extended to all that need them regardless of your actual postcode.

oooji;

I think SureStart is a total waste of money, if lazy feckless parents are indeed lazy and feckless...they aren't really going to take much notice of anything are they...do you think they walk into a SureStart centre as Vicky Pollard and come out as Sarah Brown..?

Ok...it's Friday..6pm...I am out of here..

Enjoy your weekend...

X X

I take it you enver went to one DP?

The vivky pollards do not present themselves at SS bases. We might have seen their kids for a few hours of emergency nursery provision but that was about it. The ones we saw were way different- we ahd a good teenage dad programme, for example. An interested and invovled Dad is a boon to all of society, it was A Very Good Thing.

I'm sorry oojamaflip, life isn't fair. I can't afford to subsidise the feckless.

I sympathise greatly for example with Riven's situation, it's not "fair" to have a child with those disabilities. Nobody wants to take money away from genuine cases - this isn't blood Romania!

But if someone can't be arsed to spend a few hours painting with their kids then why should I pay for it?

Exactly Riv

That is the entire reason such schemes and even HS was set up: becuase by motivating the motjer (and if =you think all people cannot be motivated then youa re clearly wrong) you have the best most effective way of ensuring teh child grows up well, safe and a productive member of the communities

Of course children like Riv's shouldn't have to live with Cp, and mine shouldn';t have the ASD either. But they are better equipped and cared for with aprents who love them than a child with no support syste. the thing is, CP, ASD and the rother disabilities can't be cured: an impoversihed childhood (in terms of emotional enrichment) can be

anyone who thinks labour do surestart etc to help sweetir ickle bsabies is crackers, same with tc's

its because long term the more people work the more revenue they have to play with

simples

Skihorse - what Riven said. Someone needs to be presenting the analysis that says it's CHEAPER to intervene in these childrens life at this stage, so that you don't end up paying later - in damage to society, socail costs, crime etc.

Instead we get all this touchy feely crap.

Calrissimo - re:earlier post - I was simplifying for, well, simplicity

By having services open to all the benefits are spread more widely, and there is no stigma to discourage uptake. Means/Needs testing can cost more to administer than it saves.

Skihorse - You aren't subsidising the feckless. You are paying money to the state. The state then makes decisions on how to best spend that money, in principle for the greatest good.

There is a quote I saw as someone's sig on another message board (it'll probably turn out to be some loony ) "I like paying taxes - it buys me civilisation"

Oh I know oojma

it's just quite nice being able to soapbox on something I had a lot of input into LOL

And there ooojimaflip brings us back to the core point . . . do we believe a continuation of the current Labour govmt buys us civilisation?

Can anyone convince me to vote Lib Dem? The Tories want to implement reading tests at age 6. So much for the lip service about revising the national curriculum based on child development principles.

Skihorse - if you can't afford to pay your taxes then that's a serious issue. So what you really want then is to reduce the amount of tax. I'd suggest the best way to do this is to find where you can make the biggest savings. So it might be better to look at the massive fuck-up that is procurement, especially in the defense sector instead of worrying about piffilingly small, but emotive issues like expenses and sure start that are only in the 10's of millions, the cancellation of which would make little difference to your tax bill.

I don't think that expenses were an emotive issue - more one of honesty and integrity and in some cases fraud.

Agree about procurement, but if the govt didn't keep asking the MoD to slash budgets and do the same and more with less money, perhaps the contracts wouldn't be put back to save the money that the Treasury wants saved. Give the MoD a decent budget and then stick to it; stop bloody chopping and changing and asking them mid financial year to make more savings when there is a war going on (£90 million from the core budget to finance Afghanistan this year instead of it all coming from the special reserve as it should do).

Or we could stop basing MoD procurement on propping up employment in the Midlands.

All I know is I won't be voting Conservative. Probably not Labour either, but definitely not Conservative. All those that say 'we need a change' need to actualy look further to what those changes may be DC hasn't really come up with much yet - wait for the Manifesto first, then think hard.

www.theregister.co.uk/2009/05/15/eurofighter_tranche_3/

www.theregister.co.uk/2009/12/02/type_45_viper_paams_fail/

The expenses issue was emotive - in terms of actual cost, and in terms of the degree to which it reflects actual corruptions it is pretty trivial. It DOES make MP's look terrible, but there was very little criminality, and a lot of people accepting what they were told they were entitled to, in leiu of increased salaries. It's just at the end of the day, really not very important.

Love thy neighbour eh? Not if they happen to earn less than you or are more needy. If they're unemployed, well, lets just get the firing squad out now.

As no contraception is 100% safe so maybe we should just sterilize the poor?