OMG!

[CardyMow]

Could they POSSIBLY hit low single income families worse? Freezing child benefit for 3 years, abolishing the Health in pregnancy grant from April 2011, Getting rid of the baby element on CTC (how that helps us when I'm 3 months pg and DP only earns £16,000 is beyond me...), Lowering the thresholds for Housing benefit (we won't be able to pay our rent without the money we get on housing benefit), saying that people in social housing may no longer have a reasonable housing benefit allowance or entitlemnet for a suitably sized property. I note that they are CUTTING tax rates for businesses. Nice to know that they are hitting the poorest of us that chose to work. We are now in the situation where we are really going to have to consider whether we can AFFORD for my DP to have the luxury of having a job when we will be so much worse off than we would be on benefits, I think we may end up homeless otherwise. It might make DP feel like more of a human being to go out to work and slog his guts out for £16,000 pa, but if we can't feed our kids and pay our rent....

The tories said a lot prior to the election. They always do. It's how they operate.

But if you are not old enough to have experienced that, how are you meant to know that. And considering labour nigh on bankrupted the country, that only leaves the Lib Dems. Who didn't actually seem to have a clear manifesto or any real tangible policies...

Exactly, lego. We are working poor. We live in social housing. I am foreign-born, this was my first time being eligible to vote in a general election.

And I didn't buy their line of bullshit for a minute.

But I'm sorry you did, LL.

We're very fucked, tbh.

We're done having kids (DH had the snip), but nonetheless, between VAT hike and freezes and the paltry £1000 tax threshold hike we're fucked. Especially because it will cost more to heat our home. We can't afford to carpet the wood floors and are stuck with the crap electric storage heaters in here.

Oh, and now DH's and DD1's DLA will be re-assessed (can't imagine the cost of that!).

I won't even go into the whole neighbour crap.

The flat below us is used by the council to house every thug going.

Oh, I dunno, LL. All those pictures of Cameron with Thatcher were enough to convince me.

Tarty thats horri; I have two with same DLA amounts as you and a hell of a lot of other bad luck to boot (DS2 lower elvel SEN, DH redundany) but I can quite clearly see why LL would be bitter about her lot: in and out of care, epilepsy, child with SN on top........ nah get a grip isn;t appropriate.

Although wrt to voting Tory- er yes this was going to happen. Which is why I am so glad I didnt; belelive a word of their claims. Shame to be proven right though; would have loved to be proven wrong, esp. as the LibDems are now their buddy-buddies.

LL. Celibacy schemellibacy!. You will cope with 4 in a 3 bed- nan managed 16 in hers (!!!). And you're being sterilsied anyhow so what is the point of yelling if you cannot be bothered.... er she is being bothered.

sorry to hear all that expat.

They are doing what they always do. Even on the bbc news they said it...the budget has effected the lowest paid and the high earners have hardly been effected.

LL, labour only did that if you believe they did that...it depends on what you read [imo].

I think they had a long plan, a long game and every bit of hard work they have put into reducing poverty in the UK; the Tories have ripped every bit of it away today and will continue to do so.

They have lied about the NHS; waiting lists for example, education, SS, welfare...everything. They simply do not care. full stop.

Lib Dem policies in the budget:

increase in personal tax allowance
increase in capital gains tax
banks tax

all of them less than ideal level (although personal allowance to rise further) but wouldn't have happened at all if was just the Tories.

Not that there aren't some dodgy things in there too, of course.

I don't remember thatcher. I am 28 years old (well, for another 3 days, anyway lol). I vaguely remember John Major, but only vaguely, the first prime minister I really properly remember is Tony Blair...I disagreed with labour's idea of minimum wage, as all it has done is keep people who are working poor POOR, and made their bosses RICHER. In 1997, at the election, I was 15 years old.

The trouble is vesela that for me the dodgy things are not outweighed by the benefits. I can see the LD influence but its so barely there it's incredible.

So the memebrshipc ard is being returned tomorrow. Specifically for the number of scared e-mails I had received within two hours of the DLA decision (17). Exactly what NC told me was against LD belief and whereas I relaise he does not have all the say it's too much for me to support.

SMA, I can see that with the DLA change. Very weird. The fact that it's not happening until 2013 = time to campaign against it IMO, though.

OH, and Londonone, you might just want to get a larger size of judgypants....I think your current size is cutting off the blood supply to your brain...

loudlass

I have defeneded you quite strongly. However I am only one year older than you yet somehow remember both the miners strike and the thatcher regime.

You voted Tory.

You are a fool and I withdraw my support for you.

I suggest you make some effort to educate yourself.

oh FFS get a larger pair of judgypants as well, Stuck.

and in my next breath I'm going to judge anyone who ever voted Labour, including myself in 2001, the shame.

"YES I voted Tory...I am too young to remember a Tory government,"

Loudlass lies. Sorry.

I am one year older, just one year. Yet I remember. She is trying to dodge ideological responsibility and it does not wash.

I remeber the pickets, the shouting, the banners. I remember painting them - paid in Cherry B's!

I remember when no money came home and we had "mum know's best" colesaw on toast. I remember the wierd situation of the USSR giving out stuff..

I remember the mess that was the compensation for pneumoconiouisis.

Age is no excuse for ignorence.

FFS! Give the OP a break you lot!

And Stuck, I'm 32 and can barely remember the ins and outs of what was happening in politics when I was a teenager. Just because you remember doesn't mean everyone did, so I don't think you should be calling Loudlass a liar!!

she voted tory, nough said.

The housing entitlement thing worries me far more then anything else actually. I have families in very substandard housing with damp and mold growing up the walls. It's next to impossible to get the council to deal with it. Bearing in mind I am a HV and that many children I see are still under one with developing immune systems I dread to think what it will mean for their respiratory health as they get older. Am so fed up with it and the lack of council action I have started photographing it and placing copies of photos in babies medical records for future reference when those babies become children with chronic asthma/respiratory problems. Which by the way will cost society far more than providing decent housing in the first place. Most people/families need a 3 bedroom house at most, there's not as many needing 4 bedrooms and many three bedroom places are large enough to cope with extra people. Leave people in anything smaller though and their health suffers - proven again and again.

What I read between the lines of the budget today was "if you have more than one child you have no entitlement to anything bigger than the place you are in which might be a one bed flat". Well I have seen the results of that under the Labour Govt - families of 4 in one bedroom flats (use the living room as a sleeping area according to the council). What they don't take into account is that people = condensation = mold and damp on walls no matter how many windows you open. Frankly the state of some housing is a disgrace.

Here's to the nation's health!

God I hate the tories, I really really do.

I'm astonished about the harsh tone some of you are taking with the OP. Come on...

I don't remember Thatcher, either, because, well, I was not here.

I never lived in the UK till 2001.

But, well, it really wasn't that hard, online, to discover the history of Tory party policies and see that their current policy hadn't changed.

The minimum wage was brought in by Labour.

Tory wanted to keep the working poor even poorer.

I mean, duh!

Both governments keep the housing bubble going because inflated properties keep people rich.

But as for the rest, well, c'mon. Tory = Whig = capitalism = very few rich, many poor.

I knew this would happen ok so the labour party had its faults but they had done so much good work in bringing people out of poverty and investing in health and education. Unfortunately a lot of people who it has helped did not appreciate it and voted tory. Its only now they are feeling the pain they will understand.