Comments on: When was Broken Britain intact?

By: placid

placid — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 17:58:36 +0000

Talk about a policy that misses the point: people don’t break up because they dont have the money to be together. There’s simply no connection as to why paying people to stay married would make them happier – it just makes no sense, if people split up its because they’re unhappy together, why try an make them stay together.

Crucially, its not even a question of what you think of marriage as an act, what kind of life or community you think is better or worse, whats good or bad for children growing up (hint – as long as you’re spending more on weapons to kill people than on education to improve them, everything else is pretty irrelevant).

Its a simple fact that if you want people to be happier, marriage tax breaks is just not a cause related to that effect. It only makes sense if you want to force people into a way of life they spent that last 100 years freeing themselves from precisely because it made them unhappy.

By: tigershungry

tigershungry — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 10:12:29 +0000

Marriage tax incentives make me very angry. Same as yourself my parents were much better off separate and the whole family suffered during the latter years of their marriage, which in turn affected both mine and my sisters education at a crucial age. If anything we would all have been better off had their been support and help to aid a separation and single parenting.

I’m not saying my situation is by any means true for all but thinking that tax based incentives should ever be a reason to get married or stay married is truly baffling- nor the concept that we are ‘all’ better off locking ourselves into one person from the age of 30 up.

Exactly as you say I’d much rather the government accepted the myriad variations of what constitutes a family and started support from here.

By: Hackreads – some of the stories and posts I’ve been reading today « Grace Fletcher-Hackwood

Thu, 07 Jan 2010 00:44:17 +0000

[...] the Tories on marriage and it always goes to a 1500-word rant, so I shall spare you. Instead, read this by Hannah Nicklin – I particularly love PennyRed’s quote describing the Tory obsession [...]

By: Alexander Walsh

Alexander Walsh — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 11:58:52 +0000

Well that’s good. I’ve been getting tired of the bad science and statistics that say that being a single parent is damaging to children. It must put horrible pressure and guilt on people who need to separate.

By: Hannah Nicklin

Hannah Nicklin — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 11:29:58 +0000

Thanks for commenting Thomas, yours is a good post but I think you underestimate the importance of a ‘few grand’ to people who only earn a few a year – this will certainly be a substantial amount to a great deal of people.

I would much rather our tax schemes kept people happy, healthy, housed and educated, and that relationships were the province of the people concerned. Couples being together does not have to mean ‘married’ and it is not always desirable that they should be. We certainly need to remove the pressures that drive them apart, however, and I’d consider that to be appalling imbalances in parental leave, workplace rights, childcare etc.

The ‘family unit’ as envisioned by the family fetishists of the Tories and the right wing press is outdated, never was. We need to work for family cohesion, but first we need to reform what we mean by ‘family’. Deal in now, not never-was.

Thanks, and merry Christmas!

By: Thomas Byrne

Thomas Byrne — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 11:14:19 +0000

I would rather our tax schemes kept couples together rather than drove them apart. The prospect of some extra money each year isnt going to keep a truely rotten marriage going, but that few grand not being there could well cause rifts over finances or push couples into splitting up so that they are better off. At the end of the day council estates are full of fatherless/motherless homes because their benefits or tax allowances will drop if they keep a relationship going for more than five minutes. Perhaps it’s about time we try a different tack that actually keeps the family unit together.

Sadly though IDS’s current plans don’t do that.

http://byrnetofferings.co.uk/2009/12/marriage-tax-breaks/