Couldn’t think.... part three

alderz

Hamstew said:

Incredible stuff from Marcus Rashford btw

Absolutely. It's a real shame that we have a government that care less about vulnerable people than a footballer. Hopefully these sort of chalk and cheese examples will force people to realise that voting for these clowns will never improve anything.

Fortuneseeker

alderz, they may be clowns but do we want the jokers who are the alternative?

alderz

Fortuneseeker said:

alderz, they may be clowns but do we want the jokers who are the alternative?

My local MP is the minister for children. She voted against extending the free school meals initiative, but voted in favour of the eat out to help out scheme. Social care is consistently being cut to ribbons, but consistently the Tories protect banks, and refuse to go after tax dodging big businesses. As far as I’m concerned, it’s not even remotely close. I’d have Labour over this shower any day of the week.

On a more philosophical note, though, no we don’t want them either. No government can effectively represent us as a people these days, and a new approach needs to be thought up, IMO. Don’t ask me what that is, but this system is broken.

baracks_a_hammer

Labour want to shut the country down completely - so no regard for businesses that will go bust. And then just let the country pay for it all. Because that’s sustainable isn’t it? Hardly an inspiring alternative.

That’s the problem though, the easiest job in the world is to be in opposition right now, because quite literally anything the government does will be wrong.

Every person on the side commenting and criticising should try spend just one day actually executing decisions - they would soon find out it is not an easy gig.

thornburyiron

Just out of curiosity I wonder how many parents do not use the £20 odd per week child allowance actually on the children. Surely some of that could be used to provide food.
I have no strong thoughts either way but there must be a lot of childless people who may object to their taxes being used in this way.

Clactonite

baracks_a_hammer said:

Every person on the side commenting and criticising should try spend just one day actually executing decisions - they would soon find out it is not an easy gig.

In this case the decision was if to let disadvantaged children go hungry or not. Wouldn’t be a difficult decision for most.

baracks_a_hammer

And we know for sure all such cases are genuine? Or do their parents have expensive smartphones, netflix and sky etc? That’s not necessarily an opinion of mine but it’s quite a common thought out there.

Lukerz

Not relevant though. The child suffers.

Regardless of whether the parent has other luxuries (often they do), the point is the child should not suffer for those decisions.

alderz

thornburyiron said:

Just out of curiosity I wonder how many parents do not use the £20 odd per week child allowance actually on the children. Surely some of that could be used to provide food.
I have no strong thoughts either way but there must be a lot of childless people who may object to their taxes being used in this way.

As a childless person, the idea of my taxes being used to feed starving children isn’t remotely controversial. Even the idea that people could feel that way is astonishing to me.

MrsGrey

It's not ' their taxes' though. It's just taxes.

If people only want their taxes spent on things that benefit themselves, then it's not taxation ... More like just buying stuff.

MrsGrey

thornburyiron said:

Just out of curiosity I wonder how many parents do not use the £20 odd per week child allowance actually on the children. Surely some of that could be used to provide food.
I have no strong thoughts either way but there must be a lot of childless people who may object to their taxes being used in this way.

And a lot of people with children also object etc etc. It's a selfish mindset, and one that is based on an idea, popular among some, that there are ' deserving' poor... And by definition'undeserving'.

BubblesNeverDies

Should there not be added a caveat here?
Is it right that some people can have more children than they can support by the efforts of their own labour, and then expect the State to support them when they can't.

alderz

To me, that’s punishing the child who had no say in the matter, just to save money in the short term.

ASLEFshrugged

BubblesNeverDies said:

Should there not be added a caveat here?
Is it right that some people can have more children than they can support by the efforts of their own labour, and then expect the State to support them when they can't.

Some people were in work and could support their children at the time but are now unemployed for one reason or another. Financial situations don't always stay the same but the kids will still be there.

The kids didn't ask to be born but they suffer regardless of what their parents did or didn't do.

alderz said:

Hopefully these sort of chalk and cheese examples will force people to realise that voting for these clowns will never improve anything.

Sadly I doubt it, maybe the penny will drop after the last remnant of NHS is privatised but by then it will be too late. Frankly I've ceased caring, the people have made their choice so they're going to have to live with the consequences.

As much as I love this country I'm certainly considering getting out of here when I retire (which might be sooner than I planned) as I don't think this is going to be a nice place to grow old in ten year's time.

baracks_a_hammer said:

Labour want to shut the country down completely - so no regard for businesses that will go bust. And then just let the country pay for it all. Because that’s sustainable isn’t it? Hardly an inspiring alternative.

That’s the problem though, the easiest job in the world is to be in opposition right now, because quite literally anything the government does will be wrong.

Every person on the side commenting and criticising should try spend just one day actually executing decisions - they would soon find out it is not an easy gig.

Labour want a 2-3 week lockdown like the seven week lockdown we had in the spring so not shutting the country down completely. Wales are having a 17 day lockdown and other countries are having lockdowns, as they seem to regard the economic cost as necessary.

This government has wasted billions giving contracts to their friends and supporters with very little to show for it, in comparison other countries have done a lot better.

thornburyiron

According to reports £1bn was given to local authorities in the past couple of weeks to target the most vulnerable. Surely part of that should be used for free school meals as they are the ones who should know who needs it.

alderz

thornburyiron said:

According to reports £1bn was given to local authorities in the past couple of weeks to target the most vulnerable. Surely part of that should be used for free school meals as they are the ones who should know who needs it.

The issue here isn’t how the LAs spend money, it is that the government haven’t made a decision to extend the programme. Most LAs also support voluntary organisations to support people in these ways, but a central gov decision to do something even remotely pro-people would make the world of difference.

thornburyiron

Extend what program? The LAs have been given the money to spend on the vulnerable so they can decide to extend it where they are. What’s the point of LAs if they have to be told what to do.

alderz

The point of LAs is to provide social care, to provide housing support, to support the education system, etc etc etc as directed by the government. The point of LAs is that they carry out the legislature that central government put in place.

As an example. If central government gives you a pot of money (a pot that gets smaller every year, by the way) and says “LEGALLY, you must safeguard children from abuse, you must provide support to disabled adults and children, fund mental health services, ensuring that children with special needs receive the support that they need, and lots of other things” but the pot isn’t big enough to do those things that you are LEGALLY required to do, how exactly do you think LAs can do extra stuff on top of their statutory responsibilities?

Maybe they should invest the money in magic beans and hope for the best?

thornburyiron

Agree to an extent but they were given an extra £1bn two weeks ago so they won’t need much to provide free school meals.

alderz

There has been a rise in demand in children social care and adult social care since lockdown. A share of a billion across all authorities in England and Wales is not a lot, and will he needed to support the increased demand of those vulnerable people that LAs have a statutory responsibility to support. Frankly, they haven’t been given enough money to support everyone they legally need to support, so extending it to support schemes the government didn’t even sign off on would be out of the question.

Tbh I’m not sure why you have a desire to blame under funded local authorities instead of the central government that has not supported or funded them for the last ten years whilst pursuing their own vanity projects.

thornburyiron

I’m not blaming anybody I’m just saying LAs are in the best position to know where to supply what’s needed or are you advocating that alliances should be made for every under 16 year old to be provided with free meals 7 days per week.
Who feeds these kids at weekends or don’t they eat.

alderz

Knowing where to supply support is one thing, having the resources to actually do it is entirely another. If LAs aren’t funded to extend the FSM scheme into the school holidays, then knowing who needs that support doesn’t mean anything.

EXETERHAMMER

I see Antonio's contract is up in June 2021 (as is Fabs and Balbuena and Snodgrass).
Surely we must quickly offer him another contract of 2 or 3 years.

alderz

We have a one year option on Antonio I think

yoyo

Just a thought, do we have any kind of memorial/recognition of Clyde Best at the ground?

WHU_Champo_league_in_7_years

'Reports' say he wants a 4 year deal, that will take him up to 34

Would be a little surprised if we offer him that as I think he's a very physically dependant player, using his pace and strength which will naturally wane over the next couple years

alderz

I think he’s got another couple of years of being as energetic as he is, and after that he might become more of a traditional target man. I’d give him it tbh

Ace of Clubs

Whitehorsehammer

David Sullivan has donated £25,000 to Marcus Rashford's Child Food Poverty Taskforce.

yoyo

Fair play