1. People will be forced to take a job or have their benefits cut for three years. Where are these jobs, as there is a shortage of jobs now surely it makes sense to let those who want them have them.
2. Poor children can be given extra tuition e.g. on Saturdays Problem is that poor childrens parents don't want them educated in many cases and wouldn't let them go or take them there.I think what was more important was what wasn't said rather than what was:
Why did no one spell out how they were going to fill the deficit black hole that will range between £30-50bn depending on who governs.
Why did none of the other leaders take Gordon to task over his overspending during the boom years leaving public finances in such a perilous state?
Why did none of the other leaders point out that the huge immigrant influx over the last few years was deliberate in order to have a labour pool to replace the millions of additional people being employed in public services?
Why did no one come clean on how many of the above public service jobs are totally unnecessary and will probably be made redundant?
Why was so little political capital made by the other two parties on the huge amounts of red tape caused by Labour's statistical targets in police, the NHS and schools? They are manipulated by everyone involved and are an expensive joke.
And talking of red tape, this is what is stifling British industry, not the threat of 0.5% on NICs.
Why were all three leaders so supportive of tax credits? Means testing in this way is incredibly inefficient and expensive. The figures are also often wrong, resulting in people getting demands to repay what they've been given.
How on earth can Nick Clegg afford to give every earner £700 per annum by raising the income tax threshold to £10,000? Doesn't he know the country is skint?
Why are all three leaders supportive of partial ownership of housing? All this will do is get more people on the housing ladder and push prices up still further.The Great Redundancy re public sector jobs will start in April 2011, except it might be managed by not filling vacancies as there a big retirement bulge in the next few years if where Creature works is any guide.What this will mean is that necessary staff will retire, loading extra work onto those remaining, while those in pointless quangos or those whose job it is to manipulate target data and make the government look good will continue to drain the economy.
There was another point that I should have mentioned on immigration: It costs a lot of money to put a student through medical school. Is it morally acceptable for the UK to leech qualified medical staff from countries that can ill afford to train then lose them?staff will retire, loading extra work onto those remaining
Yes this is what happens in the evil private sector and has driven me to despair.I don't see that any of them have a plan that will work on this planet as opposed to those they all seem to live on.
Raising the income tax threshold instead of tax credits might make sense since it would be a lot less admin. Surely those who get tax credits now will roughly be those who would gain from this?
I've always thought it would be better/cheaper to give people more rather then spend a fortune working out exactly who needs what. Anyone in a job administering benefits may as well be a benefit claimant themselves in terms of the economy.
Eccles, I hadn't spotted that about retirement removing the wrong public service people. The retirement bulge that Midge mentions then will make it seem that the government is taking action to reduce numbers when it is not really.
Furby, I agree that there are not enough jobs and yet this government seems to be in favour of people working longer hours (instead of pay rises as far as I can see) which reduces available jobs at the expense of the worker.
It's no good them creating fake jobs. If someone is going to do a make-work job anyway the economy would be better off if we paid them to stay at home.
I'm no expert, but since I've heard politicians say (gleefully) that encouraging immigration helps keep wages down I think we should put a stop to that and let the shortage of workers force wages up so that people don't need benefits on top. It can't be right that people go to work, but the government has to top up their income so they can live.
Raising the income tax threshold instead of tax credits might make sense since it would be a lot less admin. Surely those who get tax credits now will roughly be those who would gain from this?
No it doesn't work that way. If they raise the threshold EVERYBODY gets the 700 quid extra. Even people like Furby and OC who would be refused tax credits for not having children and earning above the minimum wage. They would have to also increase the tax percentage to make sure they took the 700 quid back from undeserving cases like us.Are tax credits just to pay people to have more children? aren't they meant to be for poor people generally?
Maybe we should pay people not to have kids.You can get "Working Tax Credits" if you don't have children but have to work at least 30 hours (so you can't work part time and have your wage made up to a full wage as people with children can) and you have to be on almost minimum wages to get them.Actually Pani has a point. Administrative costs to deliver tax credits are so high, it's almost worth giving the same amount to everyone. So although a straight £10,000 threshold is too expensive, abolishing tax credits altogether could probably finance a smaller sum, say, £8,000 The version for pensioners, namely pension credits, is equally expensive, and it has been suggested that a large proportion of the average pension credit could be paid to all pensioners in additional basic state pension if means testing was abandoned. This is the problem with a 'fair' system because being 'fair' costs more money to those that might benefit, as well as the rest, than being unfair does. Dragging everyone down to the lowest common denominator may be fair, but it is also stupid.Next Page...