PM urged to tighten teenage mum benefit rules

[Dennis the 'Bloody Peasant']

This kind of attitude, combined with the current policies and laws, should mean they get decimated in 2015. But they won't..fuckers will get in again, I can feel it.

Tories in the most marginal seats in parliament are urging David Cameron to bring in tougher conditions on housing benefit for some teenage mothers.
The 40 Group also wants the party to make an election promise of a cap on the number of non-EU foreign students allowed into some UK universities.
The group represents Tory MPs from the 40 seats with the thinnest majorities.
The ideas are among dozens featured in a pamphlet, seen by the BBC, which is due to be published soon.
It covers a diverse range of policy areas and has taken a year to compile.
West Midlands MP James Morris, who is one of the authors, described the proposals as "an offering to the prime minister from the battleground".
He said "quite a lot" of the 40 proposals came "from the mouths of swing voters".
In a foreword seen by the BBC, the prime minister described the proposals as "interesting" and "valuable", although he added that he thought party members would "inevitably have different views" about them.
The Tory MPs admitted their proposals on benefits for teenage mothers were "controversial", but they said a "more radical approach" was needed to get pregnancy rates down.
They claim the current system has led some young people to think, incorrectly, that they had an automatic right to free housing if they got pregnant, "encouraging them to have a child".
So they suggest "all benefits to teenage mothers should be made on the condition of them living with their parents or in supervised hostel accommodation".
The group is calling for a tougher approach to truancy. It says parents of children who persistently skipped school should have fines automatically deducted from their child benefit.

(BBC News)

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

I'm sure many liberal types will side with the Torygraph-readershit and go on about the need to stop the "overpopulation" and how "poor people need to breed less" and so on so forth, as they always do. What's with the British obsession around teenage mothers and making things hard for them, though? There's some serious classism going on there, even within segments of the working class.

[Invader Zim]

This kind of attitude, combined with the current policies and laws, should mean they get decimated in 2015. But they won't..fuckers will get in again, I can feel it.

Nah, the Tories are going be destroyed in the next election. Too many of their would-be voters in key constituencies will vote UKIP splitting the rightwing vote to the cost of both parties, leaving them for Labour. But UKIP voters are too busy missing the forest for all the trees.

That's my prediction. Not, of course, that a term with the Lesser Millipede in office fills me with any joy. But the prospect of Tory rage when they are flattened is something of a silver lining. I also look forward to the Liberal Democrats being cruelly punished for their many sins.

[brigadista]

doesnt matter who gets in they will all do the same . Bob Crow's speech at the durham miners gala was interesting ...

[precarian]

I'm sure many liberal types will side with the Torygraph-readershit and go on about the need to stop the "overpopulation" and how "poor people need to breed less" and so on so forth, as they always do. What's with the British obsession around teenage mothers and making things hard for them, though? There's some serious classism going on there, even within segments of the working class.

Indeed. The Tories are already claiming that their benefit "reforms" are being pushed through because they're popular with the electorate - which I don't doubt! It illustrates the way in which the dominant ideological paradigm affects the mentality of ordinary people.

This is supposedly "the end of history" after all! We are no longer even allowed to envision a future "good society" and, additionally, we're commanded, at every turn, to modify our behaviour according to the demands of the market. Anything that lies outwith market rationality is to be rejected.

Consequently, neoliberal assumptions are internalised as "common sense" - as a set of values vital to anyone who wants to "get on" in society. Hereafter, anyone who isn't playing the game according to neoliberal rules is viewed as a problematic deviant who is the architect of their own misfortune.

According to this twisted view of the world, bankers and corporate vultures are merely rational economic actors pursuing their own legitimate interests, whereas "chavs" and single mums have failed to act "rationally" and should be disciplined for it.

It's fucking sickening to hear this kind of prejudice being spewed forth by fellow working class people, to be honest.

[Quail]

You know what might reduce the rate of teenage pregnancy more than cutting benefits for teenage mothers? Giving young women support, education, access to contraception but most of all something more to aspire to/live for than just being a mother.

[The Feral Underclass]

Nah, the Tories are going be destroyed in the next election. Too many of their would-be voters in key constituencies will vote UKIP splitting the rightwing vote to the cost of both parties, leaving them for Labour. But UKIP voters are too busy missing the forest for all the trees.

I don't think this is true. A recent Guardian/ICM (http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/jul/15/tories-labour-ukip-guardian-icm-poll) poll has them dropping 5 points. I don't think there are enough UKIP voters to make a real difference.

[RebelDog]

They claim the current system has led some young people to think, incorrectly, that they had an automatic right to free housing if they got pregnant, "encouraging them to have a child".

The current system has led some election candidates to think, correctly, that they have an automatic right to a free house when they become MP's, ecouraging them to stand for parliament.