Comments on: Ipsos MORI also shows a swing to the Tories

By: colin

colin — Sat, 13 Oct 2007 21:48:52 +0000

Government should recognise the social fracture & family collapse which is occuring now . The Centre for Social Justice have identified the causes & have proposed solutions which build up from the heroic work of voluntary sector groups -not down from Whitehall.
A key problem area is families without fathers.
I favour any measures which try to reduce that factor.
That does not mean that I favour discriminating against children who are in such a position-merely that I accept the evidence that their life chances would improve if they were not.

By: John H

John H — Sat, 13 Oct 2007 18:38:52 +0000

The Conservatives began the erosion of the married couples’ allowance, and had they won the 1997 GE there is little doubt that they would have, in time, abolished it altogether. It is surely morally indefensible to discriminate against children simply because their parents did not attend a ceremony at a football ground or a Miami beach or casino in Las Vegas and thereby do not possess a piece of paper confirming that they are married. For better or worse, society is a very differently structured entity from what it was 30 or more years ago and governments should recognise that reality.

By: colin

colin — Sat, 13 Oct 2007 16:52:21 +0000

Dave Hawk

“A family is a family”

I am sure that you mean that sincerely Dave.
I think I might have agreed with you until recently.

Sadly I no longer believe that it is that simple.Nor is family breakdown to be “solved” purely by tinkering with tax allowances

The Centre for Social Justice has convinced me of this.

By: Dave Hawk

Dave Hawk — Sat, 13 Oct 2007 15:24:34 +0000

Colin,

As far as Burnham’s comments re-married couples go, I’m just going to say this. Labour must make it’s OWN (like it did with IHT and non-doms)pro-family tax proposals, whether married, cohabiting or single parent. A family is a family.

By: Anthony Wells

Anthony Wells — Sat, 13 Oct 2007 14:42:29 +0000

Nothing alledged about it, Tory and Whig both orginated as insults: Tory from the middle Irish tóraidhe for an outlaw, Whig from the Scots gaelic whiggamor for a horse or cattle rustler.