Latest Moan From You and Me 2025

There was also the idea that having a child/ several children meant there was more chance of obtaining social housing or at the least climbing the "ladder" above other needy people. Not sure whether or not that still applies ?

 

I had a cousin, 9 years older then me who produced her first child at 19, when 21 was the age of majority. Her partner had TB so was always deemed unable to work and she couldn't work as she had to look after husband and child. Both were utterly feckless and wnet on to have 3 children and were housed in a 4 bedroom council house with all sorts of other benefits.

During the miners' strikes, her mother, my aunt, woke up to just how much her own feckless husband was drinking away each week at the miners' club whilst pleading poverty at home and sending her out to work long hours in a corner shop in order to feed them. They lived in a council house too and, because he worked in the mines, had free coal to heat it. She then revolted, sorted out her OH and took her 3 grandkids in hand. They all grew up to have jobs and also find partners at Nissan in Sunderland, buy their own houses and bring up their own families without sponging off the state.

My husband's niece has 3 kids with 3 different men and the first has Aspergers. She used him to claim benefits without ever doing anything to get him the help available. The last man was epilectic and alcoholic so that meant housing association house and a people carrier. The world owes her a living. No 2 son abandoned ship and went to live with his grandma aged 16 and managed some CSEs. No 1 son joined him a few months later but is now so damaged he has full on autistic episodes and can neither work no train. Grandma gets nothing for either one.

 

I was one of six children, and despite my dad having a full time job doing shift work, plus window cleaning and gardening as extra part time income, the children’s allowance was a life saver. I have a vague idea that in those days, there was no allowance for the first child, only subsequent ones? In my mid twenties, working in clinics in deprived areas of the West Country, early motherhood was almost seen as a career choice by many local girls. In those days, a baby got you allowances and a council flat, and the opportunity to spend your days hanging around the estate with your mates from school and their babies.
Not sure what the answer is, but somehow getting money spent directly on the children would have been more acceptable. Free school meals, uniform, and breakfast and afterschool clubs might help, with the bonus of making getting an education easier.
An enormous shame that more taxes weren’t put on non essentials like all forms of gambling.

 

Horse racing and betting shops rate of tax remains the same at 15%, they have increased the taxes on gambling. Online casinos will increase from 21% to 40% from April next year with all other forms of online sports betting increasing from 15% to 25% from April 2027. With most forms of gambling and sports betting now done online, then it will hit the sector

 

These payments should be in the form of vouchers maybe, that can only be spent on certain products.

Regarding the tax, she is only "asking " us to contribute more, at least that is how she keeps putting it.
I had no idea tax was optional.

 

@Ergates Motherhood was still seen as a career choice until the 2 child cap was applied. Having a council flat/house plus rent, rates etc paid for them plus benefits and it's easy to see why. The change back to effectively unlimited benefits will see that happening once again.

 

Is that why labour wants to build 1 million house's

 

No that's so they can stop the illegal immigrants staying in hotels

 

@Jiffy Whatever the reason for Labour wanting to build, it isn't going to happen in the timeframe they state. Lack of materials, lack of builders, lack of land are just 3 of the reasons. I wouldn't want to live in any of the houses I see being thrown up currently. Timber framed with a brick or block outer skin, rendered externally to hide the terrible quality of work.

 

Lots sat in land banks (which is that farmers have sold land to middle man and still farm it and middle man pushies for planing and find devloper)( farmer get good price but not full building price)

 

Evri, order something on tuesday and it had free next day deliver tis now thursday and they put up an update that they are sorry for the delay, yeh right, even when it out for deliver it's the day after that they deliver

 

Which is why they should tax the house builders for the amount of land they are sitting on and doing nothing with.

They have sat on land for 20 plus years around here and keep putting in plans for higher density until the local planning gives in.

 

That would be like the food stamp system in the US - now known as SNAP (Supplemental Nutritional Aid Program). The benefits are paid onto a card and can only be used for food and non-alcoholic drinks.

 

The last thing we should be doing is building on agricultural land. The way the world is currently, we need to be able to produce as much food as possible for ourselves.