Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, on Mumsnet for a webchat

[JustineMumsnet]

Do post your advance questions here.

Child Trsut Fund is a waste of taxpayers' money. Why would you want to protect that?

Welcome back Mr Brown, I hope you get to answer as many questions as possible (especially mine on Tax Credits)

Do you think that being a father has changed you as a politician? Does it make you more passionate during campaigning?

Good luck on Thursday - I for one don't think it's time for a change. I think the UK is pretty family-friendly at the moment and yours is the only party not proposing to start limiting/stop completely the child trust fund scheme.

Welcome, PM!

Vote for change... back. No thanks.

Hello Mr Brown - very pleased to hear what you have to say

Good luck for Thurs, however, if you are victorious are we definitly heading for the Euro or will therebe a referendum on that? sorry havent read you manifesto

To everybody asking about child tax credits including saiditall - the answer is I introduced tax credits because I saw that families needed far more support for their children. And we have doubled child tax benefit as well. Six million families get child tax credits. It would be totally wrong in my view to cut child tax credits now - they are vital to maintaining the living standards of families with children.

Agree with southlundon. Best of luck on Thurs Gordon.

Prime minister - do you think the first past the post system is still the best at delivering democracy? in my opinion it renders a lot of the population fairly voiceless and encourages apathy

Why are you keeping the CTF when the country need sthe money now?

And will you get rid of ID cards?

Dear Gordon,

Why are my local schools so bad that I have to pay for private?

And not get tax credits even though I am saving the taxpayer a fortune?

Education has been an abomination under Labour. As a Scot, you should be ashamed.

i am in a very blue area, should i vote lib dem to oust the tories?

There we go again - lets protect all the public sector employees with their nice pensions while the rest in the private sector lose their jobs, have their pay frozen and see their pensions disappear.

Mr Brown,

Why do you insist on scaremongering and pumping out negative (and often untrue) comments on the other parties policies instead of telling us what you would do concretely?

christ i should have name changed!

Why do you keep accusing the Tories of intending to cut Child Tax Credits for low-income families when that is not the case?

Gordon

I live in Peterborough where the local school had 120 children who's first language was English. The school has dropped 60 places.

I feel that the topic of immigration has been skirted around by almost all political parties. Not one person wants to take the reins and give an honest, committed and carefully considered statement.

This is not racism this is realism. For the people who are not yet affected by these issues, they may not understand the very strong feelings of those who live amidst a nation that has changed so rapidly. You may not have been affected by these issues yet but when it hits your doorstep you will understand the strong emotions this raises, I do not want to be a prophet of doom but if this continues these exact issues and experiences will visit you as well.

Would you bring your send your children to this school? We do not earn enough to move out the area.

It is for this reason that myself, my husband and both sides of our family are NOT VOTING LABOUR

sweetkitty - the whole point of tax credits is to adjust to changing incomes, so if your income changes - eg if you go part time of if one of the partners stops working it can adjust. We've looked at all ways of making it as flexible as possible, and easy to claim, and we will continue to do that in the future.

FabIsGoingToGetFit - The boys are doing well - thanks for asking. We are managing to get back to London most nights so we are protecting a lot of family time, and we are staying in touch throughout the day by phone while we are away.

Good to see Tax Credits are here to stay. However the system does need a bit of a rethink because at this point in time I'm owed money back but yet may end up owing the government more than that amount. My brain truly hurts...

I dont get tax credits as we have savings we have worked for - but we are taxed at 40% so our income just gets lower and lower as we have to pay for everything and pay high tax

Lifelong learning, the OU, night classes etc. Most are utterly underfunded. Are you going to increase learning opportunities for those who missed out in their youth?

I don't mean merely practical courses, NVQ type things, but real brain-extending stuff, for instance, philosophy. Subjects you could study just for fun, or to keep your brain active.