Why Every Political Party Should Support "Stay at Home Working" Mothers or Fathers as well as "Working" Mothers and Fathers

If you think a about it, Stay At Home Mothers (or Fathers), certainly of small children aged 0-3, should fit in to each Political Party's idealism, along with Working Mothers, who currently fit into the supposed "economic model family" currently being pushed in society.

Here we go :

Green Party

A Stay at Home Mother (or Father) is a Green alternative. Not adding to the materialistic push to own belongings (usually made of the earth's valuable resources). And taking time to appreciate such things as the local park and to get out and about to appreciate the environment. Not adding to the carbon footprint by driving to a nursery etc.

Conservatives

A Stay at Home Mother (or Father) is taking responsiblity for their own children and their upbringing. Standing on their own two feet. Taking time to educate children about society and values. Mums or Dads often volunteer as part of the "Big Society" taking part running playgroups and toddler groups etc.  And if parents do their own childcare then those young workers who are employed on low wages in childcare could get out and train for a better paid job which would bring in more tax return.  The mums or dads can then return to the workforce rejuvenated once their children are a little older.

Labour

Labour had the Sure Start centres which seemed like a good idea. A place where mothers and fathers could go to find out more about parenting. By looking after your own children, this is often the first real responsibility many people have had to care for another human being. But we need to care for families and those who have family responsibility so that they are supported in this vital role for society. Being a parent of a young child gives you a chance to get out and meet people and mix with others. You can learn new skills and take this chance to learn about parenting etc. Labour should be ensuring that every mother has the option to take a few years out with their children and not just those who have saved beforehand or who have a partner working. And Labour should prioritise a review of family budgeting and finance to find out why so many families are currently visiting Food Banks.

LibDems

The Liberal Democrats are famous for being "Liberal" - what does that mean exactly ? Well the definition in the Oxford dictionary should mean that Stay at Home Mothers are definitely on the agenda !
1   Willing to respect or accept behaviour or opinions different from one's own, open to new ideas
2 (of education) concerned with broadening a person's general knowledge and experience, rather than with technical or professional training.

SNP and UKIP

See above - or are you just here to add some colour to the political party spectrum !!

So overall I would suggest we need a major review of Family Policy as this new Parliament of 2015 starts out.  We need to review taxation and benefits.  Obviously benefits must have limits, there is not enough money to go round to support everything, but we need to think what is it we want from and for families if our society is to improve.  We also need to look at the school years and work out how to improve our education system and set higher standards for our teenagers. And we need to review such things as internet access, pornography etc. and how this is affecting all of our children, whether they are directly viewing these things or being affected indirectly.  And.... as well as young children, we should look at how society is treating our older family members and also how this impacts on wider families as well. There is a big difference between having a grandparent who needs help, whether a small amount or large amount to having either no grandparent around or having a very active and involved grandparent who is lucky enough to have retained all physical abillity. And in fact the age range of grandparents that I know varies from 40 right up to about 80 - now that is going to make a lot of difference in a family.

So let us all call on our Political Representatives to make the case for ALL  WOMEN, MEN and FAMILIES !!

The "Middle" needs a voice in politics or we will never see sense in the UK

The UK has been ruled for my whole life by extremes. We have swayed between :

• left wing governments who were profligate with spending and had little understanding of the private sector 

and .....

• right wing governments who had little understanding of caring roles or of valuing the NHS

But.... the problem is   THE MIDDLE GROUND DOESN'T HAVE A VOICE !!!

Because we have a constituency based voting system for the UK Parliament, where areas are either well off areas with perhaps some less well off or poorer areas with perhaps some slightly better off areas .... but overall the "middle" vote is spread country wide, while the Conservative, right wing vote is focussed in affluent areas and the left wing Labour (or SNP if in Scotland) vote is focussed in other areas.

So the result for the General Election 2015 shows that from 36.9 % of the vote, the Conservatives have over 300 seats.

If we portray this graphically :

And then if we add in the Number of Seats each party got, the discrepancy in our voting system shows up.  

But its only when you look at how % of vote translate into % of seats held in House of Commons that you realise how great the discrepancy is. (this graph exludes votes for "Others" eg DUP/Plaid Cymru):

As a frequent Lib Dem supporter I am used to this ! Often 30% of the vote lead to hardly any seats.

And were you aware that big names like Tony Blair, Margaret Thatcher often had only small percentages of the vote. Rarely a majority of the "popular vote" across the UK.

So if you want to change this lets work towards it. The electoral Reform Society works to improve things. We have Proportional Representation in the Scottish parliament and it works reasonably well. Certainly better than the Westminster System.  Because just think for example, how many more would have voted Green if they had had the remote chance of getting in in many constituencies. Proportional Representation means "YOUR VOTE COUNTS" and you can vote for the Party you REALLY BELIEVE IN !

And ... perhaps we can have a re-run of the 2011 vote on Electoral voting system reform. I personally do not remember this vote. And it was based on a low turnout and I suspect people just did not understand the issues. Or if you were a Labour or Conservative you understood it all too well and voted to protect your situation where you receive an unfair number of seats for your percent of the vote. But is that really a healthy situation ? No! Because it does not reflect the electorate. And parliament will only work if everyone has a say in it. The situation now in Scotland at General Election 2015 means that 50% of the vote has taken almost a clean sweep of the seats. Now that is not a healthy situation.
(Ref: 2011 voting system vote : http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/find-information-by-subject/elections-and-referendums/past-elections-and-referendums/referendums/2011-UK-referendum-on-the-voting-system-used-to-elect-MPs) and what we voted about :: http://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/alternative-vote