I completely agree and have told my daughter who has apathy written on her forehead. She's always voted since she was allowed, but can't think who deserves her vote this time.

But surely that's due to Karlo's predicted cyclical collapse of Capitalism.  Twas nothing to do with the party in power, although who knows? If they had brought in a traditional Labour policy it might have been a slightly different story.

Hi lee..The amount received now in child tax credit (family allowance) and working tax credit is relevant to the times.
Both are calculated according to earnings...seperately. For example, middle/high earning couples with 4 kids might now only receive £10 per week in CTC, whereas before, they would have had family allowance for each child. Obviously they wouldn`t be eligible for WTC. WTC helps low earners/part-time workers/seasonal workers etc.

Those with dependent children and a family income less than £58,000, or £66,350 if you have a baby under 1, a disabled child or a large family and you spend a lot on childcare.
.Scotty I think you'll agree that's a substantial amount....Hardly low earnings.

I thought 'family allowance' was now called 'child benefit'.

The tax credit system was brought in to make it worthwhile working, instead of staying on unemployment benefits.

I do think Child benefit and Child tax credit are 2 different benefits Blizz.

I don`t know what you mean Lee. They wouldn`t be eligible for WTC. I was talking about low earners receiving WTC.

Yes, they are.

Child Benefit is paid to everyone with kids, working or not (same as Family Allowance was).

Child Tax Credits and Working Tax Credits are only paid to those in work, to encourage people to stay in work, or to get a job.

I think.

The figures are the current threshold for eligibility of WTC Scotty.

So they are..I want to delete my posts  

What are you like madam.

Now I`ve definitely got this right.  That`s the current threshold for CTC. Any earnings above £17968 either disqualifies you (depending on the circumstances) from WTC or reduces it.

The Tories have a confirmed safe seat in my end (Paul Beresford) so Labour and Liberal Democrats will hardly waste their efforts here in Mole Valley campaigning.

I suspect we will be left with a hung parliament in a couple of months.

Personally I would like all the house flippers of the present government, irrespective of the party, to be evicted from their jobs.

I'll second that!

I believe as many people as possible should vote.
People have died and suffered to give us our freedom to vote.
We shouldn't moan about our government if we haven't voted.
You have an opportunity to get which party you prefer/dislike the least

I can't think of a good reason not to vote.

Its all very simple.

If you are rich vote Tory, if you are poor vote Labour.  If you are somewhere in between then toss a coin.

On the question of WTC, I don't really know what to say here, except to put my 'circumstances' in print. I worked for nearly thirty years in admin for Safeway, earning (at the end before they made me redundant round about £11,800 (yes, I know.shit wages). Never claimed anything in that time. was out of work for two years and finally got a job in reception/admin for a training company, salary having gone up to £14,700. They lost one of the contracts and have been Tupe'd over to another training company (still on same T's and C's) but now claiming WTC. I get about £200 a month which pays for a loan to install a new boiler, pay my credit card debt off and also buy a new telly and washer. It's just odd the way peeps qualify, to my mind  I'm thinking we really need a 'standard' here

Cut THAT chauvinistic nonsense out RIGHT now sir. Our forbears (in reality wealthy, educated females) protested for the right of certain designated females to vote (educated, upper class, land owning females). The quibble here is the word "right". It's not compulsory for those of us without a penis.

Now I'm dead keen on the idea of an active voting public in principle. But here I am, stuck on the fringes of Rhondda Cynon Taff - a county that could field an amoeba as the Labour candidate and it would get in - and I'm not surprised at the apathy amongst local voters given the current system.

Well, I feel a bit uncomfortable about advising anyone how to vote (it's such a personal thing), but if you're struggling with the parties, I would suggest you consider the individuals.


After all, we don't don't elect political parties or prime ministers in this country - we elect MPs. Whoever we elect will be our representative for the next 4-5 years, so I would suggest we need to select someone because they deserve that role, and not just because of the colour of their rosette. Considering the recent nonsense over duck houses, bath plugs, etc, I think this is more important this year than ever...

But surely it's the party thats controlled by the individual, Eugene's Lair  it's party policies we're sposed to be voting for. Or have I got it wrong, please forgive me if I have and would welcome any other views

I agree that it is no more a duty for women than for men, although we may come to a better conclusion.

You're right of course onetoo. My problem is that I'm fed up with Labour controlling every last bit of our lives, but the Tories are going to cater for the rich and disregard people who need help. So what is a girl to do?

Probably snp.
It'll end in a np anyway?

So, is that not where we vote for A. N. Other party to register our disgust for the 'so called' top three.............or even spoil our vote

Don't scare me!

Bollox to them all... VOTE QUIMBY.

I can't actually vote being a bleeding foreigner , but I'm trying to convince my daughter to go and use her vote (although she tells me that the wants to vote for 'none of the above')

That's better than nothing, cologne.

At least she is using her vote.

My comments were really aimed at those who were having difficulty deciding which party to support - the OP was talking about a "slim level of choice". If you can't decide between policies, then consider which individual would represent their party (and more importantly, you) better.


Expanding on the "party controlled by the individual" line: will the candidates in your constituency be able to influence their party's policies, or will they just be "yes men"? Will they defend your community's interests no matter what, or just toe the party line?
I won't go into the details here, but this is likely to be the deciding factor as to how I cast my own vote: I'm naturally biased towards the party of my local MP, but I'd find it difficult to bring myself to vote for her this time because she refused to vote against a bill damaging to my local community (despite originally giving support to the local campaign). When it came down to it, she chose to toe the party line rather than support her constituents.

working tax credits  were a way of removing working families from the benefits system, which is the right thing to do, i reckon.

now if some one would grasp the nettle of the holy cow (not you ditty..) of the universal child benefit  and make it earnings related, they'd get my vote.

I agree tbh....I cannot quite fathom how folk earning double ,treble perhaps more your salary still qualify....That is why I would be in full agreement to the threshold being reduced.

Lee, the figures you quoted above were the income thresholds for Child Tax Credit not Working Tax Credit, as you thought. The income threshold for qualification for WTC is just under £18000.00.

Scotty the posts on page 1 explain it better....The Lib dem's propose to lower the threshold to 24k which I fully agree with....From what I have always saw it's usually single parents who are blamed for draining the governments coffers which tbh I do find unfair when we have families in excess of the national average income being able to receive all sorts....Certainly give money to low earners and households on below average incomes but definitely not anyone above.

If you look closely enough there is a non sequitur in there, somewhere though.

I`ve read the first page Lee, I was just pointing out the income threshold for WTC is not what you thought...it stands at just below £1800.00.  As far as CTC and high earners, even the threshold it`s at now, which is silly money, I know from experience ( I used to work for tax credits) they receive zilch unless it`s extremely exceptional circumstances like disabled children and huge childcare costs..even then, it`s minimal ( I`ve seen awards for £100 per yr) and they are few and far between. They don`t qualify for WTC. The threshold that the Lib Dems propose would make no difference to the high earners but would definitely effect the middle income bracket.

I haven't a clue about it Scotty but my DiL actually does work with it (Poor thing lol)....I did think though they were seamless benefits,one often enabling entitlement to the other (CTC and WTC) ...Any road either way imo yes look after the low income below average income households ,without a doubt yes.... Middle and high income brackets, a big fat no.

Exactly  anyone on any kind of benefits or in a low paid jobs
.will be worse off  under the tories they always are, pensioners never benefit under any party they get a heating allowance every year I can see that going under the tories, they want to cut taxes for the millionaires but say there might be tax rises for everyone else,I read somewhere dont know how true it is that they want to do away with the free bus passes pensioners get,I will vote labour who are not perfect but the best of a bad bunch, I dont trust any of them but trust tories the least

I agree with the point of view that it's those from the past who fought to give us the right to vote etc, but, what if, when we reach a point of realising after many years of voting that there's more self interest to the politician to reach what they perceive as the pinnacle of the career, i.e. becoming Prime Minister, than there is of them being able to do what will improve the life of day to day folk struggling to get by and survive, rather than those who don't know what struggle is.


Why should anyone feel the pressure to vote if they've realised after years of voting that in the end nothing's changed for them positively whichever way they voted, that the candidates talked up a promising future but the reality was everything financially that affected their lives personally was still hiked up causing financial stress from whichever source. I'm tempted to vote Liberal for the first time as I'm sick of the 2 party system but probably won't be voting this year as whichever way I vote it will all end up the same in what affects me personally,

so will I

It is perhaps fair to say that the reputation of MPs and the standing of parliament is at a pretty low ebb.
Which makes it all the more surprising to me that the standard of debate in this pre-election period is terribly poor.
There seems to be an even greater desire than usual to tarnish the opposition (which is difficult when there is tarnish on oneself.)
The confrontations appear to be on a very infantile level. We are seeing childish verbal skirmishes, which makes me further disillusioned with all of them.