What has any of that got to do with the debate of whether Universality or means testing is the way to go?

Also if you are really serious when you say "The state should not pay people to have kids if they can't afford to bring them up." then you represent a victory for the governments deliberately divisive policies. If you ask that question surely you must be also asking "Why do I pay toward the NHS when I am not ill?" or perhaps you should advocating people don't "pop" kids out unless they themselves are prepared to pay for their education in its entirety?

I would also suggest the indignation of those losing the benefit isn't because they are losing it but because other households earning twice as much are keeping it.

Says who? It is a philosophical stance pretty much in the same way someone of a right wing persuasion might argue for the scrapping of all but the bare minimum of benefits and the implementation of a very low taxation because they believe that is an incentive to people to work. It is far from irrelevant in the wider context.



That is a complete generalisation and an opinion whereas what I have said about this is in fact one of the accepted cornerstones behind the concept of universal benefits. It is not what they get but the fact they have to pay in so others get it that becomes the problem. You often see on here statements along the lines of "Why should I pay for....." when it comes to paying taxes toward something they do not directly benefit from.



Well its not capable as the current farce over child benefits shows. The benefit is paid to the mother so that immediately makes it a more complicated system to administer as they have to find out the fathers tax position assuming they are still together that is.

Even if they sort this out using taxation is far from flawless anyway. For example if you do a salary sacrifice for anything such as pension payments then HMRC sees you have a lower tax bill and if that takes you below the threshold you won't lose the benefit. (Eligibility for University subsistence loans is similarly affected).

So if you can reduce your personal taxation liability this way or if you are not on PAYE as many self employed are not you can arrange things so you are missed from the net.

There are so many anomalies in the removal of child benefit through the tax system it is a complete joke.

Also regarding self assessment, many high earners are not self assessed. You will only be self assessed if your tax situation demands it such as if you receive a benefit on kind from your employer which they notify HMRC of. If you just take a salary then your tax affairs are simple from their point of view and HMRC leave you alone. This is what happened to me when I gave up the company car for a car allowance. They were only too pleased to have one less self assessment to deal with.

Is this 2013 or 1973?

These ba[is[/itards are looking to send us back to 1873

What makes me particularly sick to the stomach about these people is that the majority of them will be drawing huge pensions that make an average OAP's pittance look like peanuts, much of it extracted from the taxpayer. Not least the scumbag [url=http://hat4uk.wordpress.com/2012/10/24/peer-who-wants-the-retired-to-work-for-their-pensions-is-a-sir-humphrey-retired-on-120k-a-year/"Lord" Bichard[/url who used to run the DWP and floated the "make pensioners work or cut pensions" idea, and who is ironically is already on a taxpayer-funded pension is estimated to be £120,000, having been obscenely overpaid in the first place, and having retired from the civil service at just 53. So since he jacked that job in, we've already paid him one and a quarter million pounds for absolutely nothing (as he works for a private organisation, and as he's no doubt trousered a few grand for House of Lords appearances and expenses too.

If there is to be any talk of means testing pensioners, then until we start with former politicians and functionaries who have whacking great private funds and private pensions becoming disentitled to [iany[/i income from public funds, they should all shut the feck up, the hypocritical s.

Some people have quoted figures indicating that 12% of the UK’s debt liability is down to [url=http://hat4uk.wordpress.com/2010/08/22/exclusive-senior-treasury-source-alleges-ballooning-civil-service-pension-cost-deliberately-hidden/600,000 Whitehall civil service pensions[/url, and that the figures have been cynically and deliberately massaged and hidden.

But I suppose stealing the odd twenty quid from 80 year olds on subsistence income will help to balance the books.

You can't use facts to attack politicians anymore, they got their beasting during the expenses row, everything that has come since has been their retribution, with hindsight we should have let them continue to build their duckhouses, employ their wives and rent out their parents houses and none of this would have happened, its like when Flashman thrashed the whole of the first form because they squealed on him to the head.

Its just like that in their heads actually.

The fact they accept them isn't the point. Far from it. There are plenty of people who take a view of "Why should I pay for...." when they do not directly benefit from whatever payment the government is making.

The government itself uses this argument all the time, for example as justification for putting up tuition fees. "Why should the postman pay for the university students education?" was what David Willets never tired of saying and once you get society as whole thinking like that you are on a road to ruin IMO. I am sure the very rich can live without child benefit but I think you underestimate the impact of actually receiving something from the government has on the way people think whether they need it or not. That is what lies behind the principle (as well as more mundane things like it being cheaper to administer a universal benefit than means test it).

Oh there are plenty of them here too.

i'm sure there are, i bet there's also plenty of people who take the view 'i'm entitled to...' 'i need...' . people are inherently selfish, but it doesn't mean they're wrong and in an ideal world they cancel each other out.


was this the justification for labour introducing tuition fees? therefore, was it labour who set us on this road to ruin?
as it happens, the answer is, if the postman gets ill he'll need a doctor. however, i study a part time chemistry degree at mmu, and to be honest the standard of maths in particular of the full time first years is shocking. i watched one student try and multiply 47x34 without the use of a calculator. his 'effort' consisted of (30x40) + (4x7). he should have been booted off the course there and then, but because i'm not paying for him, he can do what he likes.

well, i don't think i do.

FFS, can you not get out of the if you don't support the Tories you must support Labour argument? Most of the ideology behind the last administration was born of Thatcherite thinking.

Thats the problem, they can't, its football supporter politics and they'll never shake it off while the actual politicians behave like petulant kids in debates and in leadership.

If you brought out a new footbal style shirt every year for the parliamentary party's the fools would buy them...

FFS will you please refrain from giving Gideon tips to kick-start the economy

It'll come, and they'll change the design every six months.

Indeed.

As it is 2013, three years since a Labour government, it will be interesting to see who the Tory supporters blame for the current state of the economy.

We know how much they like to go on about the Labour government that replaced Ted Heath in 1974, and had to go cap in hand to the IMF two years later in 1976, as a warning of what happens when you get a Labour government. Of course Ted Heath's Tory government would have had nothing to do with this.

On the other hand I've noticed another pattern.

Margaret Thatcher comes into office in 1979, we have a recession from 1980-81.
John Major comes into office in 1990, we have a recession from 1990-91.
David Cameron comes into office in 2010. Guess what happened from 2011-12.

Strange how it's only 'footballer supporter politics' when it's people defending Tories and attacking Labour. Not the other way round.

To be fair it's not like the tories come into office and instantly plunge the country into recession, the seeds are sowed by previous successive financially inept (usually Labour) governments.

I hold no kind of allegiance with any particular parties though, I just see who's looking the best bet at election time and go with them.

No, it can easily be football supporter politics the other way around and I saw enough of it the other way around when I lived in the north east for some time where you'd still be a brave person to go canvassing wearing a blue rosette, certainly in the cities anyway.

Although that wasn't the case with at least two out of three of those example dates.

There is one serious, major flaw in your observation: John Major tookover from Thatcher. Are you now asserting that her government were financially inept?

There's also the fact that the deficit was lower in 2007 (prior to the bank bailouts) than it was when Labour took over in 1997

And they also finished paying back our war debts from WWII which governments of every hue failed to do in the 60's. 70's and 80's.

Which two were they - Cameron inherited a mess from Brown and Thatcher inherited a mess from Callaghan!!

It also smacks a bit of Keynes' 10 year economic cycle?

Politicians of both major parties have done nothing but mess things up (and not just the economy) during my lifetime. They are inept.

On a wider point, I don't hold out much hope for the UK's medium term future for many reasons.

1. Extremely indebted.
2. Ageing population.
3. Becoming a low-wage economy, causing lack of demand.
4. No sign of being able to develop new, strong export creating business.
5. Property prices too high to enable efficient movement of labour or to permit businesses to flourish (look what's happening in retail with their city centre shop rents).
6. The fact that the country is wedded to high property prices in order to support our overly large financial sector and so a downward correction in prices is the last thing any policy maker wants.
7. The fact that interest rates will rise and some point and almost certainly before the economy picks up. If and when that happens, unless any rise is modest there will be mayhem - huge number of business failures, job losses and people unable to afford their homes. All of which will hammer the banking system, which has not been shrunk back sufficiently.

As I said when the financial crisis kicked off and Gordon Brown said we were better placed than most of our competitors, no, we are actually desperately poorly placed. In fact, I would say worse than Greece, Italy or Spain. At some point reality will bite unless the policy-makers can pull a rabbit out of the hat.

Interesting www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/ramesh- ... 07552.html

Interesting www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/ramesh- ... 07552.html

Almost as predictable as Liverpool fans singing "You'll never walk alone" or West Ham singing "Bubbles".