Something positive about this government

Must share this with you even though off topic, I was a widowed mother age 33 and received widowed mothers allowance, one Tuesday I bounced into the post office to cash it and it was ten pounds less, I telephoned and asked why , cut backs by the thatcher government meant a decision had been made to set an age for widowed mothers, I should have become a widow at 35 not 33 so £5 for each of those two years were taken off me. Chatting to a friend in the then social security office I learned it had been decided the younger the widow the better chance she had of getting married , I felt I should have been in cattle market

That's appalling, Anniebach.

Long time ago now Maggiemaybe. It was distressing at the time , I thought of it now because we must remember we are speaking about people, people who have to cope with what life throws at them , to the government I was a statistic , it meant ten pounds less a week for me and this was the eighties . Still not married again , pity I can't claim it back !

The only time I claimed for myself was when we moved back up north with my husband's job.
I went to the jobcentre as I was looking for work, hopefully as a teacher, and was told I wasn't entitled to any for six months because I had given up my previous job. this was despite the fact that I had been paying full NI for years
It wasn't because my husband was in work; it was because I had had a job in Hampshire and should have stayed down there in that job, despite my husband having moved to Yorkshire because we couldn't afford to have a life down there after paying the mortgage.
Thatcher's England.

Good grief - what has Thatcher's England got to do with anything!

Our son came home having suffered a life changing stroke after working abroad for a few years. He had previously worked and paid taxes etc here but was refused assistance until he had been back in the country for 6 months. Luckily, we could afford to support him or he would have been on the streets. That was Blair's Britain.

Anniebach, I'm a tax paper and I expect my taxes to be used for people who need help. Surely, that's the point.

Lots of labour supporters do seem to enjoy putting words into the mouths of people who don't agree with them.

Exactly, kittylester.

It's like All Our Yesterdays on some threads at the moment...

Are you a tax paper as well?

Why would you expect anything different from Blair's Britain?
I know lifelong Tories who voted for him, son of Thatcher.

And another terrible idea to add to the list: De regulation of university education so anyone and everyone can set up a "University". Blank cheque to rip people off. (mainly foreign students and immigrants)

www.theguardian.com/education/2016/mar/20/tory-plan-worthless-degrees?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

This sort of thing. I've seen it happen before when there was encouragement to set up private providers for NVQs 20+ years age. Lots of hard selling, rule bending, poor provision and outright fraud.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-south-east-wales-35163258

Low blow dj.

kittylester it is perfectly reasonable for you to complain when your son didn't qualify for benefits on his return to the UK but surely with would have been true under any government.

I really don't think any of this childish tit for tat will stop until benefits relate to what has been paid in. I am sure most people would not mind paying a little more if, for instance, they knew that if they were unemployed they would automatically receive say 2/3rd of their previous years income for a fixed period - which you could choose to shorten as much as you can to maintain your levels of insurance for other things. Some money would have to be taken from tax to pay for the credits we deem necessary for some people but while we only have benefit on the basis of need there will always be squabbles about my taxes paying for your benefits. Of course there will be some who need help and haven't, for whatever reason, paid in but the armies of those currently dealing with who does what when and who earns what when and retrain people to actually work with what are often very chaotic families and very chaotic lives. There is only a small percentage of these and they need more help than we give them.

Exactly, gracesgran, I was pointing out that the rules didn't just apply under Thatcher.

And, I don't resent my taxes paying anyone else's benefits - I repeat, surely that is the point of them.

There seems to be a view that Tory voters are evil.

Mmm Kittylester "That was Blair's government" didn't sound like "that happens under all government's" to me but I accept that was what you meant and it wasn't just tit for tat.

I don't think Tory voters are evil, I think capitalism is because it equals greed and greed is evil . I don't know why every Tory voter chose to vote Tory at the last election, but they did so in the full knowledge that the government they voted for was harming the most vulnerable

AB yes, our choice, go on benefits or go where the work was.

gracesgran, did you read dj's post?

AB "Be a good idea to make landlords who buy social housing rent them for the cost of social housing rents, they wouldn't be eager to buy would they". I'm sorry but that is such limited thinking. How exactly do you think that would solve the problem? Landlords would not run their properties at a loss, it doesn't make sense.

In NL if you have worked long enough you get 70% of your previous earnings when unemployed but only for a fixed period of time. After that the amount you get is extremely low. Sounds to me like it gives security as well as an incentive to get a job. Sound spretty much like what Grace is suggesting.

Of course in other ways they are not as generous as here, I think they only get a very short maternity leave for example.

I must remember to ask how they treat the disabled.

I know that if you have lived in an area for long enough you will qualify eventually for social housing but that it can be very expensive. Far more than one person on an average wage can afford. However, if you are a home owner and want to downsize to a social housing rental flat you can do that too.

Nonnie, we just don't share the same sense of humour .

Now your solving of the unployment problem, a get on your bike mantra.

How is a family with the bread winner out of work going to find work ? You say go where the work is, where will they live ? Unless you know of areas with plenty of jobs going and plenty of houses to rent ? Perhaps you would say where?

AB what was supposed to be humorous?

"Now your (sic) solving the unemployment problem", where did I say that? What is wrong with following the jobs? Didn't know that was another thing that was wrong. Is everyone supposed to be able to get a job doing just what they want where they want? If we had done that we would have lived on benefits for a long time. We left all the support one has with family and friends for a financially more secure life where we had only ourselves to depend on.

Actually I do know somewhere with plenty of jobs and I suspect there are others as I hear that employers are looking for good, reliable, people and having to get them from abroad. Where I live we have 0.9% unemployment so it seems to me they must have either just lost their job or be idle. In our county we have masses of new houses being built and on the local news last week they quoted how much better we are doing than the rest of the country. It is not all doom and gloom everywhere.

Annie was right, Nonnie.

"your solving of....."

That's good to hear Nonnie. Sadly the media aren't interested in good news stories. Travelling to find work has always been done. My GF and Uncles all had to go far from home to find work. Its the way it was. I suppose that made them economic migrants long before the term was coined. DH took any job he could and travelled the length and breadth of the country. He had to. That's life.

Jane10 DH has been doing a little family history and his antecedents many years ago did just that. I left home at 19 because I was stifled by a father with Victorian attitudes to women's education and it most definitely broadened my horizons. I wasn't allowed to go to university but living in different places and meeting people from varying backgrounds was most certainly a good thing for me. My children have done the same and found it very rewarding. These days with Skype and Facetime it must be so much easier for people to keep in touch with their families and friends so it would seen very narrow minded to refuse to move.