http://www.theguardian.com/politics/201 ... e-miliband

Anyone else thinking, 'Hmm, we'll see.'?

I don't have kids but I think it'd be a good idea. There'd need to be much better inspection of child care facilities that it applied to though - you just know some gits would try to take the money and run. Look at the way housing benefit has massively inflated prices in the private rental sector while not actually increasing the quality much at all..

Both of my sisters have worked in childcare, it's essentially a licence to print money and the staff get treated like crap. These places totally rely on and abuse how much some of the female staff love kids. The work contracts have all sorts of ridiculous clauses like if you're wearing a coat outside it has to be one of ours, can't attend granny's funeral etc.

That's how they are today, never mind more parents taking them up on it. The issues will go a fcuksight deeper than just being part of a benefits system, that's for sure.

Promise the earth and let the future pay the bill.
What ever happened to bringing up your family according to your means? Or does the state therefore the collective taxpayer now have to pay for everything?

Or is just a preelection promise that will disappear if they get into power?

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 4

You're looking at this from the wrong angle. The point is to free adults from looking after their children, so they can go out to work at their minimum wage zero hour contract jobs and thus generate even more profit to be passed into the coffers of 'wealth generators' in the city and merchant banks. This is nationalising childcare to aid corporate profit, the same way tax credits and other benefits nationalise low wages to increase corporate profit.


That's pretty much all pre-election promises isn't it?

How could they possibly afford to offer that?!

What Jon stated is exactly what I was thinking. One of the problems with a routine 24 hr gp workforce is that 60% are female and a large proportion of that have childcare issues and hence work part time. This would effectively result in the govt saying "we will look after your kids, you go work ridiculous shifts". I also suspect they will extend school hours to result in extended sftersochool care for older children.

This is another Scandinavian idea that is already shown to have positive results in Sweden (and I think Denmark?).

It works for the left and the right, it does indeed increase labour force participation among women and therefore overall, which does raise some handy tax to help offset the costs. It is also supposedly good for the child as measured in those "outcomes" that sociologists and economists adore.

As for who the workforce will be for this, expect a decline in young women taking the role. There will, over the next couple of decades, be some demographic changes going on. Lots of ladies who will retire over the next few years will want part time work, partly to supplement pensions; partly because they are in better health overall than generations who precede them were at the same age; and also because they spent more of their adult life at work and less as housewives (cumulatively) and so are becoming less inclined to fully retire than their predecessors unless forced to do so for health reasons.

Keeping labour force participation in the high 60s to mid 70s range in spite of expanding lifespans is the basic idea. Failure to do so would require huge structural reforms. This is a sensible way to free up young women who are locked out of the workforce, and provide work for the semi retired at the same time.

The situation in the UK is crazy concerning childcare.
From my experience of France, schools take kids from 2/2.5 year old onwards, from 7.30 am til 6.30 PM 4 days a week. On top of the extortionate costs of nurseries, the short schools days here are an absolute killer.
Surely someone in the government must see that it's stupid to train and spend money on someone to do a qualified job for them to stay at home with kids instead of doing that job?

Yes there needs to be a way for women who want to do this in small groups from home. As it stands now I think you need a raft of certificates to look after any child other than your own, even grandparents have problems with the current system.

Is your source for that one of the Daily Mail's health-and-safety-gone-mad pieces?
My mum looks after my sister's nippers quite often, thus far without any interference from the state.