Benefit changes

Sadly 32 years ago when my child was 4 months old l became a homeless single parent. Luckly l was able to move into my parents home, but l was on benifits. The local council run nursrey offered single parents full time nursery places for £1 per week .That enabled me to go to work full time. Within one year l had bought a little two up two down terraced house on 100% council mortgage, which meant that
1.I was paying a mortgage
2.Council Tax
3.Tax
4.National insurance
5.Gas and electric
6. Telephone
7.Water rates
8.T V licence
9.And all be it with second hand furtiture, furnished a house.
So with the right help from govenment run agencies l went from taking from the system to giving to the system. I have never been out of work since. What happened to the child of a singe parent. Well he went on to do a Degree and a Masters and now works in banking, he has never been out of work since he had his first job delivering papers at 13, and worked all the time he was at University. He and his wife are expecting their first child. The moral of my tale is, with the right help anyone can go from a very bad situation to a very happy productive one.

Totally agree Hovis. Under the proposals the opposite might happen. Like I said earlier, the state supported child more than likely will become a tax paying adult, in fact all people pay tax.

Sadly due to age and most body parts heading south, l now have to pay the men for their company.

UP THE DALE wrote:Now where and when did I say that? I was merely pointing out possible consequences of cutting out entitlement to benefits! I made it clear to those who wish to see it that I support people working !

And where did I say 'cutting out' benefits?, all I support is the stopping of the EXTRA benefit paid automatically for every child born !
I dont mean the child benefit, thats available to everyone working or not.

I never said you had. But there's plenty who believe that kind of thing. Limiting entitlement to benefits will more often than not have some negative consequences for those missing out on them.

People should think what they can afford and not over extend themselves. I agree with you Charly. Also I agree with Hinch that this could be the thin end of a wedge.

Lets not have children full stop and see what happens for the future...

The main population boom in the UK is with recent arrivals in the last few years, People and families coming from countries and places with poorer living standards think the UK is a brilliant place to have children, with opportunities for them, and by comparison with many places it is. I can't see any danger of us suffering a drop in population. We really need to be planning for massive expansion of housing and infrastructure to cope with what we already have. On the question of cuts to benefits, some may be needed, but as you would expect, it's being done in a typical ham-fisted way by politicians who know very little about real life situations for ordinary people.

Irishman wrote:Lets not have children full stop and see what happens for the future...

There is a difference between responsible and irresponsible breeding Irish.
I find along with a few of my friends, their children, who are of similar ages to my kids have taken the decision to not have children.
2 out of my 4 have made that decision, of the others 1 has 2 children, and 1 has 1.

Charly wrote:There is a difference between responsible and irresponsible breeding Irish.

Are you allowed to say that?

I dont know, why wouldn't I be allowed to say it?

Trouble is, the ones most likely to breed to excess are the ones least likely to improve the gene pool.

Why do people think that if they have more children that everyone else has to pay for them. It is their children as parents they should pay and be more responsible for the children.

It's maybe some old embedded idea people have about a nation, that a nation would want children, and they are basically doing everyone in the nation a favor by having them, so they expect the nation to want to support them, as workers, soldiers, citizens of the future, but the idea of a nation is a thing of the past, is it? Or at least it's a very fuzzy idea now.

No cyfrifia. A nation only survives on its future generations as can be seen with the many around the world who have tried to restrict or enhance their respective birth rates. Some now have a big problem of insufficient young people (as the old get older and last longer) Italy and most recently China who, although haven't made waves regarding more than one child, have recently stopped penalising its citizens for going 'over' the limit.
Others have too many and are building up problems for themselves as work dries up and the young find themselves with little to no future.
Children are very important and have always been a nations future - and like everything else they have to be paid for one way or another. It is debatable as to just how many the 'state' should raise (financially) per household but I personally think 3 should be the limit on child benefit if only to instill a sense of reason and responsibility in some.

johnb wrote:Trouble is, the ones most likely to breed to excess are the ones least likely to improve the gene pool.

Ah! you mean the plebs JohnB

Atlas wrote:
Children are very important and have always been a nations future

Yes Atlas, I was answering Teamplayers' question, "Why do people think that if they have more children that everyone else has to pay for them."

It depends what people think of the idea of nation now in the UK. Nationalism is a contentious idea. With devolution of the UK, and being part of Europe, globalisation and so on, the idea of the British or the English as a nation is not clear or uppermost in many peoples' minds now. So they resent the idea of the taxpayer supporting 'other peoples' children.

It fits jut as well to the Patricians, Irishman

johnb wrote:It fits jut as well to the Patricians, Irishman

saved me a post there Johnb.

The 'State' has a duty of support for all its people, children being part of that. The healthier and more educated (and I mean that in terms of literacy and reasonings) the better the future - all other things being equal.
Britain and the British (and I mean all who choose to live and work here) would do better to remember the old adage a divided house is never a home or better still united we stand divided we fall. Only a fool would think nationalism a good thing. We have seen,and still do see, how nationalism divides communities and leads to terror and bloodshed when taken to its extremes (and please don't tell me that rarely happens, history says otherwise). I have no truck with minorities who think they can get better deals elsewhere whilst using the cover of stronger neighbours to protect and nuture them - if the cap fits wear it to those who are reading between the lines - . As an island nation we have done well for ourselves considering our size and population. If it isn't broken why try to mend it - or manipulate it?

The phrase 'Broken Britain' has sprung into use of recent years, and it does seem a more fragmented place, but perhaps that's it's nature rather than it needing mending. The 'State' is a rather different thing to the 'Nation', and both words have a rather negative ring to them.

We are more a disparate collection of people from here and there, living on a group of islands off the coast of Europe, than a Nation, and, what 'state' are we in? The European State? Smaller places like Northern England, London, Wales, Manchester, Scotland, Bradford, Cornwall, Northern Ireland have more sense of their own identity now. Whatever state we are in, nobody seems very sure.