[Solved] Politically incorrect

The joke, before I get to the serious bit.
Lucy, says teacher, can you say a sentence with the word politics in it?
"Yes, of course" said Lucy "just this morning my parrot ate my moms watch and now polly ticks!"

So, fathers who split up from their partners are given the short end of the stick according to current laws. On separation, I imagine that most mothers take the children rather than the fathers and as a result of that, are awarded benefits (or the benefits will naturally have been in the mothers name anyway) and are considered the resident parent.

Housing, if required through the councils, is only offered (with enough bedrooms) to the mother and a father is offered a one bedroom place which is hardly suitable for a father to have one child, let alone more than one. To be eligible for more bedrooms, councils require a court order to show that you have agreed equal access despite the "Homelessness guidance to local authorities" which says they don't. This document was pointed out to me by my CAB and is apparently as legally binding as a love letter written by a hormonal teenager on a slip of toilet tissue - it may as well not exist and the CAB may as well have not pointed it out. To add to this there is the "no order principle" which means that the courts will not get involved unless there is a dispute between the parents. So you can't get a court order for the council to show equal access has been agreed - it's simply not possible. Agreeing things amicably (even through mediation) is not good enough for the councils. Case history (Holmes v Moorhouse, Richmond upon thames, 2009) is the legal precedent where it was decided that the family courts had no business deciding equal access to children when council resources were not sufficient to deal with housing mother and father with extra rooms for the children. There seems to be some vague possibility that councils would be able to provide extra rooms to the non-resident parent as long as a court order hasn't been issued and things have been agreed amicably - can anyone clarify this?

If there is the law of the "no order principle" (Section 1 of the Children Act 1989) surely the councils are going against legislature by demanding a court order to show equal access? By definition, if it is in contradiction to existing laws, it must be illegal. The government, family courts and councils cannot have it both ways - children's lives are severely affected by this impossible situation.

Fathers are forced to go through the mediation process before they can take their ex partners to court, which in my case took months. Legal aid is then available but again you have to jump through hoops to get it and again in my case this took months.

Once at court, I'm told that the magistrates will tend to keep the children where they are unless safeguarding issues are raised. So if the mother has had the children living with her since separation, several months have passed to get to the point when you can go to court - as far as I understand despite following all the procedures that the law requires it's considered in the children's best interests to keep them where they are as it will cause too much disruption to their lives. Isn't the disruption to their lives caused when they are taken from their fathers, I would imagine in most cases against their wishes and the fathers, and given whatever access the mother deems fit! In my case an average of approximately 4 hours per week.

Mothers can accuse fathers of all kinds of things and never be accountable for their actions. I believe a woman falsely accusing someone of rape would be committing an offence, yet they can get away with all kinds of accusations when it comes to keeping the children from the fathers and absolutely nothing can be done about it? Fathers can be forced to see their children through contact centres because of a tiff where the mothers are as argumentative as the fathers. Or even for no reason at all as far as I can see.

Fathers are forced to pay child maintenance whilst the mother can also claim benefits and in some cases keep the family home, while the father struggles financially to rent a property or is at the mercy of the local council who basically aren't interested in any kind of justice, equality or fairness (see above).

Am I understanding this situation correctly? And am I missing anything?

My question is this - after reading the gingerbread societies "Shared care" pdf - see "http://www.oneplusone.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/firm-foundations-report.pdf" the following on pages 5 and 7 raised an eyebrow...

Page 5 "Parental separation affects around three million of the twelve million children in the UK" - a quarter of all children in the UK!!!

Page 7 "Whether someone is designated the main carer of children also affects the allocation criteria for social housing (priority need) as well as housing benefit entitlement (number of bedrooms) and council tax benefit calculations. Government proposals to introduce major changes to the benefits system through a universal credit are predicated on an assumption that child benefit will not be shared.
Sharing benefits might appear to be a fairer solution where parents are sharing care, but in practice is likely to mean that both households will face financial hardship, and that neither will have adequate funds to cover the costs of looking after children. In most cases it would lead to a transfer of income from the poorer to the better off parent, and from the mother (generally on a lower income) to the father, with a negative poverty and gender impact.
Benefit sharing would also add significant complexity to a system that the government is currently attempting to simplify. For the above reasons Gingerbread and One Plus One do not think that sharing benefits is the right solution".

"...Both households will face financial hardship and that neither will have adequate funds to cover the costs of looking after children." So the alternative is, despite the fact that children will cost no more to look after by two parents than one (other than fuel costs - they still eat the same amount, wear the same amount of clothes, etc) that one parent is forced into a situation where they cannot afford to look after the children and the other can. Sharing benefits makes perfect sense and allows the children to live with both parents, something which the courts are supposed to be supporting.

What about cases where it would lead to a transfer of income from the better off parent to the poorer parent?

So my question is, apart from recent laws which seem to tell the courts that the children's interests must be considered above all else (which seems to be contradicted by the idea that they should remain where they are and the laws on benefits, that shared care is regularly denied), are there any recent laws or is anything been done to change the situation for fathers in the UK? I don't mean protests, but actual tangible improvements in the way our country deals with separated parents and the children it affects? Are any bills being passed or considered that will help the hard-done by fathers of this country who have split from their partners for no other reason than domestic arguments about the tv license bill or who should do the vacuuming?
Or to put it another way, who should I be voting for and why? My vote will go to the party who is doing something to change this situation. To be honest, it's all a bit of a headache...

And to finish, because I'm fed up of the joke of the way the government is dealing with this issue, another joke.

Why aren't there any aspirin in the jungle?
Because the parrots-eat-em-all.