Dave's cuts are going be deep and they will hurt

[FellatioNelson]

I've been hearing this all day on the radio. I can't take the suspense any longer. They are going to affect the lives of 'every one of us'

I feel like a person wincing and clenching my teeth in anticipation of the big fuck-off needle the school nurse is wielding, and I'm next in the queue....

Come on then, what's it going to be?

He'll have to work harder, frankly. If you have children you work as hard as you have to. If that means doing 3 jobs scrubbing, roads, toilets and windows thenthats what you do.

If that was what was expected of fathers/ parents they'd be a lot more thought about contraception.

What happens to the children if he can't then?

With ya all the way Alouise.

my friend tells a powerful story of being employed as a 1:1 support for a child with severe difficulties and spending hours nad hours in the home with ihm while the father drank beer, played computer games and used vile aggressive language. one day she called by and the tiny child was wondering anbout alone as the father was in bed pissed.

He didn't need to do anything-it was all provided for him.
(Unsurprisingly he cleared off to impregnate several other women.)

I'm not saying that getting fathers to pay for their children is a BAD idea - just that, as in many of the benefit/social policy areas, the DETAIL is actually more important than the principle.

Give and take between employee and employer.

TBH truly and utterly taking the piss sounds a lot better that slaving all day for a plate of rice.

Detail is probably where we've gone wrong over the years.

Don't tell me that there are men out there who are capable of pulling a women and impregnating her without being able to do some sort of work?

I think the public has had just about enough of criminals walking free anyway so more prison are going to be built and conditions will deteriorate, so whilst we're at it the feckless fathers might as well spend a week or so in there.
If you take a typical man, 2 i'm thinking of immediately and told them they were going to prison unless they supported their children, they would. Very few would even let the matter go to court, as it happens unless the mother is on income support or has the means to take the father to court not even a letter is written, it's really hard to get the absent parent to pay.
And as for more children in care again I disagree most parents wouldn't let their child go without, they might suffer themselves but so what that's what happens when you become a parent, I have less as a result of choosing to have so many children why should somebody else not make the same pro rata sacrifices ?

Alouiseg - a man who has multiple partners can easily father children at the rate of several a MONTH - fortunatly this doesn't happen very often and is constrained by the fertility of the women he is able to encounter. But it would not be hard for someone to have 6 children and be working in KFC.

If he were forced to pay for those 6 children perhaps he'd keep it in his trousers.

Pay up up or we call in Mrs Bobbit.

Perhaps if these "men" and I use the term loosely were obliged to be financially responsible for their offspring they would consider putting something on the end of it.

Yes detail IS where we have been going wrong, and where we need to put things right.

I don't think anyone disagrees that:-

a) It would be better for those who can work to work.
b) Parents should support their children.
c) We would like the children of people who make 'poor' choices not to make the same choices.
d) We would like crime rates to remain low.
e) We don't want people to starve to death, or be homeless.

It would be very hard to find ANYONE to disagree with those statements. The previous government was trying to achieve those aims. In the process perverse incentives have been introduced - in some cases due to ideology, but in other cases due to the fact that it is just HARD - b and c are often ideals in conflict for instance.

If the current government is not careful the same thing will happen - just with different ideological distortions and mistakes.

The detail is not just important - the detail is the WHOLE THING.

SapmFritter/Allouieg - but what if he DOESN'T. Those children still exist. What do we do with them?

I think SpamFritter may have the answer. We've tried incentivising which hasntbreally worked so let's limit their unchecked fertility.

Win win situation.

The point is coalition, it won't be optional unless he is dead. I don't care if they pay a pound a week out of disability or £1,000 out of salary the point is if something has to be paid and you cannot avoid it then there will be less dicks dipped.

The old VAT on school fees argument really annoys me... If we had to pay VAT on school fees then my children would have to go into the state system and that would cancel the extra VAT out - in fact it would cost even more! Why is there always an assumption that if you have chosen private education you can afford ANY fees regardless.

Well Rocky I wouldn't specifically address VAT onm priavte for the reasons you state but
if as some say zero rated items are wiped out neither would I give a special exemption: if we lose 9and many others lose) zero rating on the specilaist disability equipment our kids need, I don't see why anyone else should be given special proiveledges.

And YYY to prison for non payers: I'd make it quite possible for men to be forced to pay without knowing where said child is in cases of eg DV or the twat H of my friend who was finally jailed for sex trafficking this week and got a measly 2 frigging yeras, but they would pay. If, like said twatto, they tried to earn abroad so they could keep money then they could hand their passports back- stay here, stay there, but actions have consequences (bitter? Moi? oh god yes- my lovely friend's life has been shredded and her kids put on SSD lists becuase of this man, why wouldn't I be?)*

Oh and as an addendum though quite irrlevant: if said twatto then harrasses woman from priosn with phone calls, the subsequent term penalty extension should not bloody concurrently! WTF is that about? Once you've harrassed her once you can do it freely without consequence.

(sorry. rant. )

'to those who say they don't understand why anyone would make a choice to be on benefits, perhaps you should take the issue up with the patient of my mum's who said to her not long ago that he didn't want a referral to a consultant to deal with his persistent low-level respiratory problems, becasue if he made him better then "they'd stop my benefits". Or the burglar represented by a friend of mine (who'd limped to court in chronic pain to see him I should add) who told him that while he had certainly committed about 15 pages-worth of offences he was on incpaacity benefit and couldn't possibly work becasue, wait for it, he had depression. I realise these sound like despatches from a very crazy world but the fact is it exists and while these people are certianly not representative of all benefit claimants they do need dealing with mainly becasue their existence undermines the legitimacy of what is broadly a good and humane system. '

Couldn't thast be summed up as 'some people are twats?'

I think so.

There are some people who choose it, bastards. I mean technically I do, I could hand over the boys. But whilst there are upsides (it is ni ce being a sahm to the youngest after going back at 9 weeks with ds1/2 (olden days, no decent mat leave) the downsides are far bigger: and the biggest one is the knwoledge that with a stroke of a pen any Government / twatto DLA investogator having a bad day 9and you do ehar stories) etc could wipe out everythging.

Once ds4 starts nusery schoo, (everyone in Wales gets a palce, different system) the only upside will be gone: it'll be a mix of boredom and painful appts. For anyone not with a small child to care for, I think they are nuts

(and if anyone doesn;t know our story, may I just mention that yes of course there was a minimum of a decent full time job, usually more, in the family at each conception and birth- and even now DH is combining full time study with self employment so is anything but slacking off in his attempts to change things)

mamatomay - ah ok - as a method to encourage men to be more responsible rather than a means of providing for children a lot of the issues I raised disapear.

TCNY 'male ability to reproduce can outstrip their ability to earn'

Yes, which is why we should be strongly encouraging young women to think very, very carefully before they allow themselves to become imgregnated by someone who is clearly not in a position to support them, financially, or emotionally. It's a two-way street.

Of course none of us have a crystal ball - we don't know what fate has in store for us in relationships and our financial future after babies are born. But we do know, at the point of conception, and the point at which we decide to continue with a pregnancy, whether or not we are equipped to take responsibility for our own children without relying too much on the state to house us and feed us.

My dh is the sole breadwinner in our family, the poor sod spends everything he makes on me and the ds. If we were to suddenly split up he would still provide for the ds and me. Why would I suddenly be entitled to hand outs because my husband leaves????

Noooo we are not pushing this back on to women again, it's bad enough we are literally left holding the baby without being demonized for mens shortcomings.

mamatomany - I don't think Fellatio is pushing back on women just saying everyone should be responsible for their own reproduction.

Alouiseg - I don't know, why would you? I'm not sure what you are referring too, if it's even me ;)

Alouiseg - I don't know, why would you? I'm not sure what you are referring too, if it's even me ;)