You could simply link to the papers. But you won't 'cos you can't 'cos they don't exist

And you would simply pipe up with another stalling tactic, perhaps "I don't have access to academic journals, could you upload the PDFs somewhere for my perusal?". I'd be here for the rest of time.

As for debt:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/may/05/uk-budget-deficit-worse-than-greece
From that well known reactionary right wing Murdoch owned rag, the Guardian…

It's more a case that low income couples are penalised for staying together, and are driven apart by the tax and benefits system. You are effectively removing a penalty on couples, not penalising single parents.

Seriously where is the evidence for that?

Tron – you know you are wrong on marriage- just admit it,

Seriously where is the evidence for that?

It's in the papers on marriage on the CSJ website. Couples recieve considerably less than singles, so there's a huge incentive to not live together, or to commit benefit fraud.

I voted Lib Dem do I win a prize?

Let s see th links to these papers then- come on Tron – put up or shut up

http://www.centreforsocialjustice.org.uk/default.asp?pageRef=266

Don't know what all the fuss is about regarding Thatcher's quote – she was pretty much voicing an understanding of citizenship that's been going the rounds since John Locke:

the locus of human well-being is the pursuit of one’s own interests. where these cohere with the interests of others, pursuit of common interest leads to the development of communities.

You either agree with the position or you don't, but it was pretty clear that the dominant view of the 'citizen' in the social policy of the time was in that mould. A quick read of any social policy textbooks relating to the period with confirm that.

My bigger concern at the time, and I'm yet to be convinced that the Conservatives have moved from this position, was the kind of dogma typified by Bruce Anderson in the 90s:

“We are in the grip of the post-modern vagabond. We have expensively constructed slums full of layabouts and sluts whose progeny are two-legged beasts. We cannot cure this by family, religion and self-help. So we will have to rely on oppression”

It concerns me because it appeals to a wide constituency who have no direct experience of working in peripheral estates and so don't know any better. It's a simplistic response to a complex set of social problems which wasn't effective in Victorian times when we had the 'deserving' and 'undeserving' poor, and won't be any more effective this time round. The last time round, the 'cure' actually exacerbated the problems, and all the Labour party's investment has only just begun to change things.

tron – I just read that paper – it's full of moralising and massive logical fallacies.

Eg

Marriage leads to better mental health for children. Children of lone parents are more than twice as likely to suffer mental health problems than children of married couples, and those of co-habiting couples are 75 per cent more likely to have mental health problems than their peers with married parents.

That's like saying that 60% of people who develop lung cancer are smokers, therefore lung cancer causes smoking. 🙂

Ta mogrim – I just read one of the papers.

Lots of assertions without evidence and nothing that I would recognise as research.

clear use of couples and marrige as synonyms – now i ( nor anyone else sensible) am not arguing that children are best brought up by single parents – two parents are best. However marital status is irrelevant to this.

As the graph above shows, the proportion of people choosing to form couples decreases
slowly and steadily as the earnings of the primary earner decrease. However, for earnings
below £15,000 p.a. there is a marked drop in couple formation which is out of kilter with the
general trend. Those with the lowest incomes – and therefore those to whom modest
changes in income back a big difference – are choosing not to live together as couples.

Classic bit of bollox. This is simply an assertion without evidence. Yes it is true that lower income people are likly to be single – but there are many reasons for this. so the fact is right – the analysis is simply rubbish. Its could as well be that couples are richer than singles because they have two earners!

And nothing there about marriage – only couples.

Let s see th links to these papers then- come on Tron – put up or shut up

Right TJ, here's how you do it. Go to google.com, search for the Centre for Social Justice, and navigate to their papers on marriage. If you think I'm going to waste my time looking up academic papers and the likes for you, you're wrong.

tron – mogrim gave the link – I read one of the papers and it is rubbish – as in my post above. No research, no evidence, muddy thinking. No proof of what you assert at all.

that low income couples are penalised for staying together, and are driven apart by the tax and benefits system.

I thought love could ovecome any barrier '''old romantic eh…..never knew the divorce rate and the tax system was so intrinsicaly linked.

couples are richer than singles because they have two earners!

primary earner

And nothing there about marriage – only couples.

That's the issue. It's fairly easy to see that having two parents has a lot of advantages in practical terms, earning potential being one of them. But marriage? That's just traditionalism.