cyu
20th April 2010, 06:46
Excerpts from http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article7096786.ece?print=yes
I keep having flashbacks to 1997... In January that year, I was a single parent with a four-year-old daughter, teaching part-time but living mainly on benefits, in a rented flat.
I had become a single mother when my first marriage split up in 1993. In one devastating stroke, I became a hate figure to a certain section of the press, and a bogeyman to the Tory Government... The Secretary of State for Wales, John Redwood, castigated single-parent families from St Mellons, Cardiff, as one of the biggest social problems of our day.
Between 1993 and 1997 I did the job of two parents, qualified and then worked as a secondary school teacher... I was clinically depressed. To be told, over and over again, that I was feckless, lazy even immoral did not help.
only 13 per cent of single parents are under 25 years old, the average age being 36. Fifty-two per cent live below the breadline... In spite of all the obstacles, 56.3 per cent of lone parents are in paid employment.
the Tories aim for less governmental support for the needy, and more input from the third sector: charity. It also reiterates the flagship policy so proudly defended by David Cameron last weekend, that of sticking up for marriage. To this end, they promise a half-a-billion pound tax break for lower-income married couples, working out at 150 per annum.
Maybe you know people who would legally bind themselves to another human being, for life, for an extra 150 a year? Perhaps you were contemplating leaving a loveless or abusive marriage, but underwent a change of heart on hearing about a possible 150 tax break? Anything is possible; but somehow, I doubt it. Even Mr Cameron seems to admit that he is offering nothing more than a token gesture when he tells us its not the money, its the message.
Nobody who has ever experienced the reality of poverty could say its not the money, its the message. When your flat has been broken into, and you cannot afford a locksmith, it is the money. When you are two pence short of a tin of baked beans, and your child is hungry, it is the money. When you find yourself contemplating shoplifting to get nappies, it is the money. If Mr Camerons only practical advice to women living in poverty, the sole carers of their children, is get married, and well give you 150, he reveals himself to be completely ignorant of their true situation.
How many prospective husbands did I ever meet, when I was the single mother of a baby, unable to work, stuck inside my flat, night after night, with barely enough money for lifes necessities? Should I have proposed to the youth who broke in through my kitchen window at 3am?
Let me therefore state, for the record, that I do not think it any more his fault that he spent his adolescence in the white tie and tails of Eton than that I spent the almost identical period in the ghastly brown-and-yellow stylings of Wyedean Comprehensive. I simply want to know that aspiring prime ministers have taken the trouble to educate themselves about the lives of all kinds of Britons, not only the sort that send messages with banknotes.
David Cameron tells us that the Conservatives have changed, that they are no longer the nasty party, that he wants the UK to be one of the most family-friendly nations in Europe, but I, for one, am not buying it. He has repackaged a policy that made desperate lives worse when his party was last in power, and is trying to sell it as something new. Ive never voted Tory before ... and they keep on reminding me why.
I keep having flashbacks to 1997... In January that year, I was a single parent with a four-year-old daughter, teaching part-time but living mainly on benefits, in a rented flat.
I had become a single mother when my first marriage split up in 1993. In one devastating stroke, I became a hate figure to a certain section of the press, and a bogeyman to the Tory Government... The Secretary of State for Wales, John Redwood, castigated single-parent families from St Mellons, Cardiff, as one of the biggest social problems of our day.
Between 1993 and 1997 I did the job of two parents, qualified and then worked as a secondary school teacher... I was clinically depressed. To be told, over and over again, that I was feckless, lazy even immoral did not help.
only 13 per cent of single parents are under 25 years old, the average age being 36. Fifty-two per cent live below the breadline... In spite of all the obstacles, 56.3 per cent of lone parents are in paid employment.
the Tories aim for less governmental support for the needy, and more input from the third sector: charity. It also reiterates the flagship policy so proudly defended by David Cameron last weekend, that of sticking up for marriage. To this end, they promise a half-a-billion pound tax break for lower-income married couples, working out at 150 per annum.
Maybe you know people who would legally bind themselves to another human being, for life, for an extra 150 a year? Perhaps you were contemplating leaving a loveless or abusive marriage, but underwent a change of heart on hearing about a possible 150 tax break? Anything is possible; but somehow, I doubt it. Even Mr Cameron seems to admit that he is offering nothing more than a token gesture when he tells us its not the money, its the message.
Nobody who has ever experienced the reality of poverty could say its not the money, its the message. When your flat has been broken into, and you cannot afford a locksmith, it is the money. When you are two pence short of a tin of baked beans, and your child is hungry, it is the money. When you find yourself contemplating shoplifting to get nappies, it is the money. If Mr Camerons only practical advice to women living in poverty, the sole carers of their children, is get married, and well give you 150, he reveals himself to be completely ignorant of their true situation.
How many prospective husbands did I ever meet, when I was the single mother of a baby, unable to work, stuck inside my flat, night after night, with barely enough money for lifes necessities? Should I have proposed to the youth who broke in through my kitchen window at 3am?
Let me therefore state, for the record, that I do not think it any more his fault that he spent his adolescence in the white tie and tails of Eton than that I spent the almost identical period in the ghastly brown-and-yellow stylings of Wyedean Comprehensive. I simply want to know that aspiring prime ministers have taken the trouble to educate themselves about the lives of all kinds of Britons, not only the sort that send messages with banknotes.
David Cameron tells us that the Conservatives have changed, that they are no longer the nasty party, that he wants the UK to be one of the most family-friendly nations in Europe, but I, for one, am not buying it. He has repackaged a policy that made desperate lives worse when his party was last in power, and is trying to sell it as something new. Ive never voted Tory before ... and they keep on reminding me why.