Is it really so bad that Sure Start centres are closing? That depends what is being put in their place.

Small children need their mothers. It used to be the pride of Social Democratic and Christian Democratic West Germany that matters were carefully arranged to ensure that mothers did not need to go out to work, unlike in East Germany, where they were conscripted into the labour force and where their tiny tots were duly put into institutions suspiciously similar to Sure Start.

Not only in this regard, the Surveillance State of Bloc Party Britain seems to want to be East Germany rather than West Germany.

I see Dave has found a nice little B&B for the summer hols...

http://www.petrolo.it/petrolo_estate.html

Siamo tutto in quest'insieme

(il mio asino)

First thing a baby Tory learns to do before they even learn to crawl is to lie through their eye teeth.

Sure start is an elasterplast trying to hide a problem. It would be better to fix the problem.

What we want is a thriving UK Industry taking on young people and giving them skills and money.

The last government precided over the fastest decline in "grubby" UK Industry, as the elite calls it, since the 1970's

Why is anyone remotely surprised?

The Tory Party is idealogically opposed to such things and always seeks to cut such Public Expenditure. This is what they mean when this call for a reduction in "waste".

Unfortunately the Left (especially the Labour Party) are usually so piss poor at challenging them. Only when it's too late of course and the damage has been done. In fact they fall into the trap of trying to appear more frugal than the Tories at times and accept their agenda of "cutting out waste", instead of getting the smug arses to explain to the electorate just what they actually mean by this seemingly reasonable policy, and which services they are planning to cut.

Who in their right mind would want to admit to wasting the taxpayer's money in any case?

It's about time this argument about "waste" was redirected somewhat. If I were on trial (Which the Welfare State has been ever since it was inaugurated) and the prosecution was constantly using the term waste to attack it I think I would want the Defence to have come up with a better response than meekly agreeing with its adversary all the bloody while.

@ Luddite "...poverty of a lack of desire for high achievement."

@ Indu Pendent "They are all nasty in that they undermine vested interests but overall there have progressive [sic] as they will benefit the least well off relative to Chinese workers."

Taken together these mean we should desire high achievement so that we can be better off than Chinese workers (I have assumed that both stem from right-wing viewpoints, or perhaps it is a problem with the centre ground).

@Robert Lynch
What? Babies dont have teeth.

If what you say is true then the first thing a baby anti-tory does instinctively is poo everywhere and and leave the growns ups to clean up the mess.

luddite what were thpse broken labour promises, apart from now more boom and bust or having a EU referdum,
cameron in getting elected admitted what the tories did on poverty in the 80's was wrong, yet he's doing it again, he shoould be ashamed

It is futile criticising Cameron for breaking his promise on Sure Start. Please read again [assuming you, “the critics”, collectively, have already read at least once] the utterances of Frank Field, John Hutton, James Purnell, David Blunkett, et al, about “welfare cheats” and so on! You will find that there is no ethics or morality in the so-called Labour “welfare” “policy”. Then read the contents of the de facto silence of Liam Byrne, the so-called Shadow Welfare state Secretary. If that were not proof enough then add to the evidence that killer phrase “cutting far too fast” that Ed Balls, Ed Miliband, Yvette Cooper et al have used as their “criticism” of the Cameron-CONDEM cuts. There is no opposition in the UK Parliament to the CONDEM CUTS agenda. There is no evidence that there is! And all this even before we begin to expose the emptiness of the “Labour” “Opposition” on the DWP Select Committee of MPs! No wonder that when the likes of Channel 4 News can find evidence of a state of nightmare in which the most denied and disenfranchised are being driven to suicide by state policy brazenly pushed by breaching over a dozen existing UK statutes and international Treaty obligations that are still on paper “peddled” as proof of the “welfare state”, the “democratic” “elected” Opposition in Parliament is sterilised by opportunist careerists into dire silence DE FACTO. That must be something to do with the frightening “vah-loos” that Gordon Brown used to brag and boast about when he occupied Cameron’s complacent seat at that so comprehensively discredited “political” address!

Lets not start talking about broken promises. Labour turned that into an art form..

"Lets not start talking about broken promises. Labour turned that into an art form.."

Luddite: the tragedy of your logic, is when confronted with the lies of the current government you rely on the stock answer, the fall back position of Labour's fault.

I hope thats not your strategy for the next 4 years, because it would certainly become stale.....

The only poverty we find in Britain these days is the poverty of a lack of desire for high achievement. This 'evil' coalition government is doing more for the working poor than Labour ever did. State dependency doesn't help the poor, it traps them in poverty. To quote 'Indu Pendent'
What we need is a thriving UK Industry taking on young people and giving them skills and rewarding them with a life time of employment. Sadly the left doesn't much like independent people, beholden to none. The left prefers slaves dependent on the state...

SureStart it big a waiste of money as our economy does not have real jobs for people. It is all about Tory bashing to win votes, not about being progressive or the national interest.

The money would be better spent makign it easier for business.

I couldnt careless about personal tax. Given the vast crises the UK is in the only thing that matter is doing what ever it takes to resuccitate UK Industry.

That means
- making the UK the No 1 place to set up business in
- tax breaks for SMEs and entrepreneaurs
- a total bonfire of the UK's obsene level of employment regulation
- government spending on strategic projects
- a bonfire of anything in the public sector which does not create value
- a new governament agency focussed on exports especially to China (we should be spending £1Bn per year on this)
- a vigorous macathy stile witch hunt of corruption of UK politics and public money
- replace dole with work to earn schemes
- strategy relocation of the population
- re-introduce boarder controls (which we are legally allowed to)
- re-allocate the military to high tech fighting to support UK industry
- give personal tax break to encourage lower middle class into private sector education
- give tax breaks for Bupa contributions
- introduce the bacelariat
- reverse the anti-pension legislation
- switch public sector pensions from funded to funded for all new recruits
- reverse the obscene decision to cut the 10 pence tax

They are all nasty in that they undermine vested interests but overall there have progressive as they will benefit the least well off relative to Chinese workers.