The Post General Election Thread

[The perfect fumble]

I understand the Left's point that restricting child benefits will harm the child rather than the parent.

However, can you not concede that there is a huge problem when someone can be given a decent 'salary' and is put up in a house out of the price range of their working peers just because they've had a few kids? It's totally unfair on the working frugal who wait until they can financially support a family before they start one.

The issue then is how you solve it. Surely there is a middle ground option between giving these people nothing, causing children to suffer, and giving them what they receive now.

A starting point would be to pay them with food stamps instead of cash and only allow them to be used to purchase food no fags no booze as this is very bad for the children.

make it a criminal offence for retailers to break this rule and make the punishment so severe no one would do it.

Give out clothing vouchers so the Children could be clothed and shod
Explain to parents that Benefits are a short term Safety net and not a lifestyle choice

Having sky and games consoles isn't an automatic right so the tax payers will not fund either of them

make parents attend full time back to work classes and the children could be cared for in state run nurseries ( this would create quite a lot of full time jobs)

Make sitting on your arse being paid for nothing not an option I bet the numbers claiming benefits would drop immediately unemployed males could be made to do work that benefits the community making pensioners lives easier would be rewarding and satisfying

You have to admire the Tories, they've framed the debate on cuts as a battle against "welfare as a lifestyle", and re-defined the poor as nothing more than victims of their own poor life choices. "The battle against the deficit" they've framed as a growth strategy, which it isn't, rather than an ideologically driven attempt to shrink the State, which it is.

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

Perhaps "incongruous to" would have been more apposite.

You're welcome ;-)

Or perhaps "That makes no fucking sense at all and are you sure English is your main language?" would be.

"This is one issue where I suspect the parties are incongruous to the public" doesn't make sense to you?

Or 'with' even!

'With' would be better.

 

[manchester blue]

I'm not going to quote Damocles' post but worsleyweb makes valid points as does Damocles. For every policy one can always find someone who genuinely needs the said benefit through no fault of their own. You watch, the stories will flood in. But there does need to be a panel to grant discretionary payments for unique circumstances where people would face hardship. I work in social housing and our allocations teams get lots of requests for transfers because their increasing families are outgrowing the perfectly adequate houses they rent. Then it's the fault of the landlord or the government that they have created a family too big for the house and not planned as a homeowner would and they demand to be moved to bigger properties. I can't afford to have 4 kids, my house or income isn't big enough so I don't. Having large families should not be a career. Regarding Child Benefit I would support this being paid up to two children, although this would not be immediate. It would come in for the third child born a year hence so everyone knows what they are getting. It would be unfair to bring this in straight away.

 

[The perfect fumble]

So negative was the Tory campaign based on the "chaos" of a Labour/SNP cabal, which they believed to be the most likely outcome, that they appear as shocked at the result as Labour is.

Francis Maude on Question Time looked like a man who'd won the lottery without buying a ticket.

 

[Dave Ewing's Back 'eader]

For the greatest happiness for the greatest number, a small Tory majority seems a suitable price to pay for the next five years. Certainly preferable to a LabNat shambles!

 

[Damocles]

I'm not going to quote Damocles' post but worsleyweb makes valid points as does Damocles. For every policy one can always find someone who genuinely needs the said benefit through no fault of their own.

Actually my main point is that for every 10 policy ones there are 50 genuine ones and the amount of attention that the very slight number get is more about ideology than it is about finances or anything.

You watch, the stories will flood in. But there does need to be a panel to grant discretionary payments for unique circumstances where people would face hardship. I work in social housing and our allocations teams get lots of requests for transfers because their increasing families are outgrowing the perfectly adequate houses they rent. Then it's the fault of the landlord or the government that they have created a family too big for the house and not planned as a homeowner would and they demand to be moved to bigger properties. I can't afford to have 4 kids, my house or income isn't big enough so I don't. Having large families should not be a career. Regarding Child Benefit I would support this being paid up to two children, although this would not be immediate. It would come in for the third child born a year hence so everyone knows what they are getting. It would be unfair to bring this in straight away.

This argument is basically "I'm clever enough to not do this so other people should be as clever as me", the error of which I've pointed out earlier. Some people aren't as organised as this or circumstances present themselves where they have children that they don't want and feel the societal pressure not to give up. Especially if they already have children, giving up a child for adoption is essentially telling every social worker or care team that you're engaged with that you do not feel you can look after your child.

 

[whp.blue]

I understand the Left's point that restricting child benefits will harm the child rather than the parent.

However, can you not concede that there is a huge problem when someone can be given a decent 'salary' and is put up in a house out of the price range of their working peers just because they've had a few kids? It's totally unfair on the working frugal who wait until they can financially support a family before they start one.

The issue then is how you solve it. Surely there is a middle ground option between giving these people nothing, causing children to suffer, and giving them what they receive now.

A starting point would be to pay them with food stamps instead of cash and only allow them to be used to purchase food no fags no booze as this is very bad for the children.

make it a criminal offence for retailers to break this rule and make the punishment so severe no one would do it.

Give out clothing vouchers so the Children could be clothed and shod
Explain to parents that Benefits are a short term Safety net and not a lifestyle choice

Having sky and games consoles isn't an automatic right so the tax payers will not fund either of them

make parents attend full time back to work classes and the children could be cared for in state run nurseries ( this would create quite a lot of full time jobs)

Make sitting on your arse being paid for nothing not an option I bet the numbers claiming benefits would drop immediately unemployed males could be made to do work that benefits the community making pensioners lives easier would be rewarding and satisfying

You have to admire the Tories, they've framed the debate on cuts as a battle against "welfare as a lifestyle", and re-defined the poor as nothing more than victims of their own poor life choices. "The battle against the deficit" they've framed as a growth strategy, which it isn't, rather than an ideologically driven attempt to shrink the State, which it is.

you say this as if it is a bad thing which it isn't

 

[The perfect fumble]

For the greatest happiness for the greatest number, a small Tory majority seems a suitable price to pay for the next five years. Certainly preferable to a LabNat shambles!

Harold Macmillan is long dead.

 

[The perfect fumble]

A starting point would be to pay them with food stamps instead of cash and only allow them to be used to purchase food no fags no booze as this is very bad for the children.

make it a criminal offence for retailers to break this rule and make the punishment so severe no one would do it.

Give out clothing vouchers so the Children could be clothed and shod
Explain to parents that Benefits are a short term Safety net and not a lifestyle choice

Having sky and games consoles isn't an automatic right so the tax payers will not fund either of them

make parents attend full time back to work classes and the children could be cared for in state run nurseries ( this would create quite a lot of full time jobs)

Make sitting on your arse being paid for nothing not an option I bet the numbers claiming benefits would drop immediately unemployed males could be made to do work that benefits the community making pensioners lives easier would be rewarding and satisfying

You have to admire the Tories, they've framed the debate on cuts as a battle against "welfare as a lifestyle", and re-defined the poor as nothing more than victims of their own poor life choices. "The battle against the deficit" they've framed as a growth strategy, which it isn't, rather than an ideologically driven attempt to shrink the State, which it is.

you say this as if it is a bad thing which it isn't

Really? If it's such a good thing why didn't the Tories sell it for what is?

 

[whp.blue]

So negative was the Tory campaign based on the "chaos" of a Labour/SNP cabal, which they believed to be the most likely outcome, that they appear as shocked at the result as Labour is.

Francis Maude on Question Time looked like a man who'd won the lottery without buying a ticket.

The problem is despite all this they still won so the point you should be making is just how bad and unpalatable was the LABOUR alternative?
Also if the Tories were just negative it should have been a piece of piss for labour to beat this unpopular bunch of right wing toffs who had held power for the last five years shafting all the electorate, funny people voters though despite all the left wing logic on display on Bluemoon the labour campaign made the failed campaigns of Michael foot and Gordon Brown look like good grounded popular politicians