A country where people don't ask what am I entitled to but rather.....

[RustyBucket]

What are my responsibilities....

Cracking line, hope they are going to crack down on the "entitled" culture, it is all over this board like a rash at the best of times.

RustyBucket a full fat to your last post.

I am about to be a higher rate tax payer, I have a secure job, an excellent education, savings in the bank and think that I actually give more than my fair share to this country.

But I also have a mental illness that is lurking waiting to strike. That illness could turn me from someone paying into the state to someone needing to take out.

Cameron's words terrified me. God knows how people feel who have all of my frailties with none of my advantages.

I have no problem with it either.

The children are taught at school that rights (or entitlements) come with responsibilities but too many adults have forgotten that.

Same with benefits - if you need them you should have them - that should be a right but too many people stick their hands out and think they don't have to give anything back, they don't have to make an effort to take any half decent job, or to get training or an education and don't take responsibility for their children. I don't get that this means single mothers, more the feckless fathers, for example, who don't contribute towards their children, don't get a jobs and don't show any sign of doing either.

The reality, I suspect, is that very little will change. The Lib Dems will temper their more extreme policies and the rest will end up being tinkering.

that's the first thing you would do? The first thing?

Good god. Glad you're not in charge of the economy.

V. good point, Ninja and toccata.

ahhh yes expat you got there before me on the men thing

Why punish the parent left with the child while the man fucks off and lives his life????

Bastard fucking men the lot of them (well apart from a few lovely DH's of a few MNers and RL friends and that gorgeous bloke who was parked in his car outside my house when I came home earlier today and wound down his window to smile at me and say hello"

ONe thing DC said he would do is crack down on unpaying parents, hard.

Rusty, I have to disagree somewhat - I think it would be easy to have more than one child with different men and find yourself a single parent - look at Ulrika Johnson, doesn't she have 4 kids by 4 men? But all concieved in (what I assume to be) loving relationships. I am sure many women don't set out to 'breed for profit' as it were, but I know people who do. Tough job though sorting them out , I wouldn't fancy it.

I do love mn - cross posted with 4 mnetters all defending lone ps

Blimey, Loser Cameron's barely got his big toe over the threshold and already the hysterics have started bashing single parents. We'll be back to Peter Lilley's infamous little list of people wot don't vote Tory and must be exterminated within a few days at this rate.

And here's another newsflash about lone parents: they're not all female.

Whoa!

Yes, there's even one at DD2's nursery.

A single dad.

Well, I should take him outside and shoot him if I were you expat, you'd only be doing the country a favour...

He's on [whispers] income support.

actually edam - I did vote Tory (figured no matter who got in I was fucked anyhow with the economy as it is, so looked to see which candidate would do the most for local people in general......and went for the MP we already had - who happened to be a Tory who does actually help his constituents from what I have seen/heard of him)

edam and expat thanks

it's just JFK lite innit.

sorry did someone already say that

I'd like to see how broken a society can truly get when we turn on those with the least.

oooo you know we've got one of them at DS1's school (a lone dad) think he works though so does he avoid the firing range?

Well, herbie, presumably he's hoping that your PILs and parents will sudddenly become responsible citizens and give back the cash.

no, working does not help
I work, and study too
but not the right kind of family

nah Nija - those of us with the least will stick together >>

Yes there are jobs.........round here (not many was looking yesterday to see what was around) but no childcare for shift work/evenings/nights.

'yes they do claim Winter Fuel Allowance. I am perfectly aware that means testing it would cost more money, but there are people on this board who need that fuel allowance more than my parents and In laws.'

Yes, so why don't they return the money to the Treasury then? Or become DC's Big Society and give it to someone in need, or a nursing home or assisted living facility?

That's what Big Society is all about, I'd have thought.

good point ninjacat.

The whole thing is just scary

oh bugger - I can't even claim to be studying right now as I've dropped out this year......going to pick it up again next year.........I am the lowest of the low in terms of single parents

'I know there has been a recession Edam, but there are jobs out there.'

How would you know? You don't work outside the home and aren't looking for work outside the home.

, soph. JFK was a Democrat, too.