So what do we want?

Hurrah someone who speaks sense. I vote Conservative because I believe in most (not all) of their policies. I am not rich, I and my husband both work and at the moment we help our daughter out with paying nursery fees as neither she nor her partner are high earners but they are not entitled to additional benefits. Yes we need more money going into the NHS, education, housing - the list is endless but unfortunately there is no endless cash tree. Yes I am more than happy to pay more tax to help those causes but not to prop up a free for all benefits system for those who cannot be bothered to work.

it - should be it"

Do we want good schools and free education?

I want to stop the destruction of state education. Schools should be for all the children - certainly not Grammar Schools.

I want to see more of the high level apprenticeships. I think we should make our qualifications framework more well-known and understood. This is some idea of it:
Level 1
First Certificate
GCSE grades D–G
Reformed GCSE grades 1–3[8]
Level 1 Award
Level 1 Certificate
Level 1 Diploma
Level 1 NVQ
Level 2 ESOL
Level 2 Essential Skills
Level 2 Functional Skills
Music grades 1, 2 and 3
Welsh Bacc Foundation
Level 2
GCSE grades A*–C
Reformed GCSE grades 4–9[8]
CSE grade 1
Level 2 Award
Level 2 Certificate
Level 2 Diploma
Level 2 NVQ
Level 2 ESOL
Level 2 Essential Skills
Level 2 Functional Skills
Level 2 National Certificate
Level 2 National Diploma
Music grades 4 and 5
Welsh Bacc National
Intermediate Apprenticeship
Level 3
A Level
Access to Higher Education Diploma
AS Level
Applied General
International Baccalaureate Diploma
Level 3 Award
Level 3 Certificate
Level 3 Diploma
Level 3 NVQ
Level 3 ESOL
Level 3 National Certificate
Level 3 National Diploma
Music grades 6, 7 and 8
Advanced Apprenticeship
Welsh Bacc Advanced
Level 4
Higher National Certificate
Level 4 Award
Level 4 Certificate
Level 4 Diploma
Level 4 NVQ
Higher Apprenticeship
Certificate of Higher Education
Higher National Certificate (awarded by a degree-awarding body)
Level 5
Higher National Diploma
Level 5 Award
Level 5 Certificate
Level 5 Diploma
Level 5 NVQ
Foundation degree
DipHE
Higher National Diploma (awarded by a degree-awarding body)
Level 6
Level 6 Award
Level 6 Certificate
Level 6 Diploma
Level 6 NVQ
Degree Apprenticeship
Bachelor's degree
Graduate Certificate
Graduate Diploma
Professional Graduate Certificate in Education
Level 7
Level 7 Award
Level 7 Certificate
Level 7 Diploma
Level 7 NVQ
Master's degree
Integrated master's degree
Primary qualifications (first degrees) in medicine, dentistry and veterinary science
PGCE
PGDip
PGCert
Level 8
Level 8 Award
Level 8 Certificate
Level 8 Diploma
PhD/DPhil
Professional doctorates

I wanted to show these because I really don't feel that by no means all but some understand that what was aimed in our youth is miles away from what is required now and what they need to encourage their children and grandchildren to achieve.

I believe life-long learning should be free at the point it is undertaken and should be paid for by tax. I would think general taxation is fair as we all benefit but it may have to be a graduate tax to get it past the "I didn't get the qualification so I am not prepared to pay for it crowd. Currently 85% of students will never pay off their loans so the tax payer picks these up anyway.

You know the old saying- Give a man a fish and he can eat for a day, teach a man how to fish and he can feed himself. Well here's an addition..... Give a man someone's else's fish and he'll vote Labour.

Well, being one of the WASPI women I wouldn't mind something tangible being done to resolve the problems faced by almost 2.6 million women born in the 1950's who are mostly living on or even below the breadline, due to being shafted over their state pension age twice AND having jolly George Osborne speeding up the transition process in 2011.

It seems we're either:
A. Expected to depend financially on a generous husband.
B. Sign one for Jobseekers Allowance and jump through all the humiliating hoops that process entails.
C. Simply get a job - over 60? Yeah, employers are just throwing well-paid work at us......NOT!

Things have certainly changed. I look back to the war years and commend our mothers and grandmothers for coping so well. Today's kids do not know how lucky they are. I have 2 sons who worked hard (we paid their university grants etc) and still work very hard to this day. Both run their own businesses. Most people in this country do work hard but there are too many who want things for nothing.
Enough said. I too trust Conservatives to run my country. Labour do not know how.

What we have is FANTASTIC, service standards are beyond expectations, education is progressive, benefits are ample, health care is unimaginably excellent and high tech........all this of course for 20years a go. For fifty years ago it would all be the stuff that fantasies are made of, a centuary ago it would be Utopian.

Our expectations exceed delivery only by time, almost everyone can now afford a slim colour telly, only the well off had a 9inch black and white screen when they first came out. Things and norms change over time, look at the baby scans people have, we didn't dream of those, now people have more then one, and then nip off to a private clinic and get some close ups done.

We lose sight of how lucky we are.

I think a bit more tax would be fine.........considerable less waste would be stupendous.

Means testing costs money and means the most vulnerable miss out so as far as heating allownaces and bus passes, telly licences etc let them stay free. The rich have paid in more for them anyway.

Policing, that has changed, not so many muggers now as cyber criminals, so maybe time to make the internet giants finance some of that stuff, life isn't the same as when Dixon of Dock Green was making his prejudiced, snap judgements. We have far more survellience at our disposal than we had 10 years ago, dash board cams, little spy cameras for in home suspicions. Maybe we need something new to supplement the police? Action Fraud seems to have taken over the bank crimes.

Education, more kids could do home ed with computer support. Lots of kids hate school and the time and energy expended on just getting them there is frittered away. On line teaching would save money and they can log on whenever they choose. School and education, needs to be viewed as a privilege again and not the day care option and then nasty imposition that it so often is.

All welfare provisions and social care are administered on the basis of greatest need, a disincentive to independence and pride. Early council housing was viewed as something to be awarded to the respectable........allocations methods have in part created sink estates. The working class have been shafted by the rewarding of failure, in allocation systems across the board.

The 'on your bike' mentality, to get people to move to where the work is, has undermined communities and the abilities of family members to care for each other......housing cost inflation has also scattered people, who otherwise would have been established communities and able to care for each other.

And finally charities and PC meddling have provided us with interference at a previously unheard of level......disrupting local, natural networks in favour of 'schemes'.

I think the government is doing as well as can be expected in a lot of ways, there is always going to be a time lapse between what we would like, what can be delivered and what we can afford. Doesn't mean what we have isn't pretty good because it is.

I have many young contacts who are moaning about 'the rich elites' I remind them that they are the rich elite compared to other places and other times.

Timing perhaps is everything.

I would agree with LuckyGirl and Brixit; it should be cross-party, cross country. Domestically:

I would like to retain our free at the point of need NHS but also Care. I cannot see how one can work without the other. I would also like this to be paid as an insurance as NIC is paid to cover working age benefits and end of work pensions but this would be paid from working age to death . This would/should mean a 1% reduction in NIC and a reduction in taxes as the NHS and care are currently paid for from general taxation (except for 1% of the NIC). This would tell us how big the pot is and allow us to decide whether it should be more or less - putting our NH&CI up or down to achieve this. This will stop the politicians using money we think we are paying for the NHS as they please.

Thanks for all the honest replies. Very refreshing.

I think Maggiemaybe you have (yet again) hit the nail on the head. Why do people think we can't afford these services? Aren't we one of the biggest economies in the world?

Re spending, I have said this before but the National Debt is now higher than it has ever been, so I don't think either party (I can say that it's my thread [ grin] ) has the monopoly on spending and borrowing really.

Crafting Mon 12-Jun-17 20:51:57 food for thought (or should be!)


Fair post Crafting, I am a Labour Party member but have dear friends who are members of the Tory Party
anniebach therein lies the difference because some posters say they know no-one who votes in a different way to them, whether it be the referendum, a GE or local politics so it would be more difficult for them to have a wider view of what makes people vote as they do.

And anyone who votes Lib Dem is beyond help or adding to the problem - apparently.

No government can promise everything...the money isn't there. They have to prioritize...

I want all those things, but to fund it I want gov't to collect taxes properly, to stop the outrageous non-dom scheme, where people whose ancestors had a certain standing are allowed not to pay taxes in return for a minimal sum each year.
Also, make businesses pay their taxes, Tory advisor Lynton Crosby earns £500 an hour and it all goes offshore.
Also make Eton etc pay tax, they are not charities they're businesses.
These are a crucial difference between Labour & Tory, Tory are happy to let these things be

I will tell you what I want. I want the government to stop treating Brexit as if it was a party political issue; to stop commandeering it as theirs to negotiate as they see fit.
I agree Luckygirl and I want all parties to stop using the NHS as a political football and would like to see it taken out of the political arena altogether.

Yes, I agree with your list Anya - what right-minded person wouldn't?
But I am not sure who would deliver it - it's easy to promise oranges and sunshine when your party is in opposition but the reality when in power is never so easy and, as has been proved time and time again, one party in power for too long starts to become arrogant and lose the plot imo.

Perhaps a cross-party group of MPs is needed to examine how other countries deliver their essential services and decide on what is best for the nation and all its citizens.
If any country has ever got it right.

Yes, Anya, of course I want everything on your list. And struggle to understand why so many people think we can't afford them, when countries poorer than ours can (the health services funded differently, in most cases, but still effective and efficient). And I'd add integrated and affordable public transport to the list.

We are a wealthy country, not on our uppers as the current government would have us believe.

I want good schools for all children. ( not just the lucky few).
I want a social care system fair for everyone ( paid for via a dedicated tax based on income and accumulated wealth)
I want government to engage with business and understand how difficult it is to be an employer in this day and age. I would go a step further and like to see help for small businesses to enable them to compete and invest in their future growth.
I would like to see the NHS and education taken out of the political ping pong and make them cross party priorities .
There's more but I'm in a hurry ......

Thank you for your reply Anya. I think norose4 sums up pretty much the way I feel. I don't think either party is 100% good or bad for the country. I voted Tory but think they have miscalculated the thoughts of the people which is why their marjority got reduced. They got it wrong but I vote Tory because I trust them more to look after the country than Labour. No I don't expect them to get it 100% right and there are many things I think they got wrong but I am more inclined to think overall that they will do a better job than Labour. That is just my opinion and others are just as entitled to think otherwise. Tory voters are a varied bunch, this constant criticism that we are all well off and don't care about others tend to put me off commenting but the fact is I do care about people. The homeless, helpless, jobless, those in need and those in care.

Please don't bother sending a rocket in my direction telling me if that is the case I should vote Labour (not a comment directed at you Anya) I have an opinion, it is mine and I am entitled to vote the way I choose. I just happen to trust the country more in the hands of the Tory MPs than the Labour ones. Of course I realise that many Tory MPs come from wealthy backgrounds (At least Jacob Rees Mogg is what he is and if we're talking money what about Blair and wife!).

Rude, just plain rude.

@MargaretX

No, there isn't one. This one looked promising until Annie came storming in

Can anyone tell me which thread dealing with today's politics I can read and join without barging into a row between posters?

Your post is particularly amusing, norose in view of the fact that May has just announced a U turn on 'austerity' economics.

So you've now got to stop saying that spending money will bankrupt the country and say that government investment from the magic money tree will be a Really Good Thing.

Will it hurt very much?

So far -

Brass neck

Ff sake

Dead duck again

Addressed to those who have tried to join in the conversation

That will encourage anyone who isn't a Corbynite not join in.

Are you talking about my post, Annie?

I don't think anyone is going to join in to say that they don't want the things on Anya's list. Which makes the thread a little pointless really,(no offence meant to you, Anya)

Unless,of course, you can turn it into a 'let's slag off everyone I think voted Labour (excepting yourself, of course), and Corbyn while we're at it' thread.

Oh FF sake it has been said so many times that the Tories have borrowed far more than Labour ever did. Not that dead duck again.

I have tried many times to understand why people who vote Tory can't appreciate that the party has at its heart people like Jacob Rees Mogg ( in his own way fascinating) who believe in a 'small state' where taxes are low, provision of services is small and people spend their money as they wish. Financial problems gave them a great cover story but the reality is this has always been their agenda.

Ohhps meant main parties not many!