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“A funny thing happened to me on the way to work today…...............”
(It was actually two things but the title didn’t look as good)
1. One of this morning’s newspaper headlines was something along the lines of ‘PM signals the end of compassionate conservatism’. I am struggling to think of anything to say about this other than that I don’t see much evidence of compassion around now so perhaps we won’t notice when it stops.
2. I heard part of an interview with IDS on ‘Today’ in which he seems to have had trouble distinguishing between the payment of Housing Benefit (which should in any case have become part of UC by the next parliament) and the provision of social housing.
He was also very reluctant to answer questions regarding the proposal of a whole new raft of plans before the ‘biggest overhaul of welfare benefits in a generation’ has even been tried out. He was also reluctant to concede that the whole thing may be nothing more than a political ploy to appeal to some of the more hardline elements of the Tory right. I didn’t hear the rest of the interview so may be doing him an injustice but to me he seemed ill prepared and quite evasive and I can’t help but wonder if the PM’s announcement was a bit too ‘off the cuff ‘.
From my perspective this is all very unhelpful, all it will do is cause further anxiety amongst the people I deal with who are often only just coping with things as they are now, and I think thse fears are likely to be made worse when certain newpapers latch on to the more right wing /sensational aspects of the story.
It all reminds me of the old Chinse curse; ‘may you live in interesting times…...’
Problem - questions being raised about the morality of various Tory bigwigs utilising tax avoidance schemes of exactly the same nature of those of a certain comedian?
Solution - mount yet another attack on “welfare scroungers” who are ruining the country apparently.
Paul
If you haven’t already, I recommend reading “Chavs - the demonization of the working class” by Owen Jones. An excoriating attack on the organized prejudices that many of us attack on here.
Yes, a few people have been recommending this book, will pick up a copy soon.
New Statesmen have published a response to Cameron’s attack.
With these words, Cameron is perpetuating the biggest myth about housing benefit: that it is a benefit for the unemployed. The truth is that just one in eight claimants is out of work (not a statistic that you’ll find reported in most papers). The majority of those who claim housing benefit, including the under-25s, do so to compensate for substandard wages and extortionate rents. A recent study by The Building and Social Housing Foundation showed that 93 per cent of new housing benefit claims made between 2010 and 2011 were made by households containing at least one employed adult.
It is meaningless of Cameron to claim that the housing benefit budget is “too large” without considering why. The inflated budget, which will reach £23.2bn this year, is the result of a conscious choice by successive governments to subsidise private landlords rather than invest in affordable social housing. Yet rather than addressing the problem of stagnant wages and excessive rents, Cameron, in a bid to appease his querulous party, has chosen to squeeze the already squeezed.
Now the proposal to exclude under 25’s from housing benefit.
Where are these people going to live if their parents won’t have them back
For example, overcrowding or the evil step father etc etc
Not to mention that even if willing, if the parents are benefit-reliant they will already have been penalised when said child left home due to being over-occupied and have therefore probably already moved to smaller accommodation.
And I see the latest gem from Mr C is ‘regional’ benefit payments. I can hardly wait for the next nail-biting instalment.
It would seem that Mr Cameron, having tired of trying to rid the Tories of the “nasty party” tag, has decided to go for the “even nasitier” or even “downright malevolent” tag.
It appears that they have now abandoned al pretence of being “all in this together” and have openly declared war on the poor and vulnerable.
If there is any justice in the world the Tories will be in oppostion for a couple of generations, and shame on the Lib Dems for continuing to prop up this appalling administration.
Rant over!!!
Does anyone remember Rik Mayall’s series The New Statesman where he played Alan B’stard, an ultra right wing domineering tory bigot with a largely ineffectual and cowed sidekick called Piers Fletcher-Dervish. Not that I’m making any comparisons ................................
When the Tories were elected in 1979 Thatcher was tentative at first, despite the bravura, that her planned class war (drawn up with Keith Joseph as early as 1975 in the Plan for Coal) would be too much too soon. She was sustained and emboldened by some of her more robust advisers. The Trades Unions were powerful then and victory was no sure thing in spite of her large majority.
Cameron, it seems, had to be as equally circumspect but for different reasons. His was to be a minority government without Lib Dem support. He couldn’t have come out with this nonsense in 2010 or the coalition would not have got off the ground. It is playing to the right wing of his Party. Inequality is wider in this country than at any time since the 1970’s and this has allowed class to enter political discourse in a way that wasn’t possible 10 or twenty years ago. The Tories know that its policies are a direct attack on the working class and they are not afraid too say so, even though they choose their words carefully.
The economic crisis in the world’s banks and in the Euro zone has created a largely unspoken coalition of the victims of recession. Politicians and financiers are less trusted now than they probably ever have been. More and more people are coming to realize that globalization has benefited the few and failed the many. The risible notion that we’re all in it together has been torn asunder in full view of the public glare. The poor are, once again, being blamed by the multi millionaire cabinet for their own predicament. As austerity bites class tensions across Europe are beginning to sharpen. As working class people begin to find, even if nebulous at first, some sense of lost class consciousness and the means to express that, then Cameron feels he must go on the offensive.
It is a distraction technique. It is unlikely that much, if any, of what he proposes will ever see the light of day. It is not to be introduced in this Parliament. And, as for the next? Well, Daniel Dorling in his book “Injustice” shows that each successive government since World War 2 has been elected with a smaller share of the popular vote than its predecessor. If the trend continues the predicted share of the popular vote for the Tories at the next election would sweep them from power completely. They must know this and so can afford to bluster. Now is not the time for appeasement. The right of his Party requires tough talking. Now is not the time to disappoint them.
[ Edited: 25 Jun 2012 at 03:21 pm by nevip ]Not to mention that even if willing, if the parents are benefit-reliant they will already have been penalised when said child left home due to being over-occupied and have therefore probably already moved to smaller accommodation.
And I see the latest gem from Mr C is ‘regional’ benefit payments. I can hardly wait for the next nail-biting instalment.
This was dropped from the speech apparently.
Maybe because the name Universal Credit doesn’t fit with a tailored benefit.
(plus regional differences are accounted for via housing costs anyway.)
I’ll check that out. Thanks Chris.
At the end of the article in the Guardian it’s pointed out that the Tories realise that they’d probably never get this one past the Lib Dems, so it would be for a “majority Conservative Government some time after 2015.”
Paul
If you haven’t already, I recommend reading “Chavs - the demonization of the working class” by Owen Jones. An excoriating attack on the organized prejudices that many of us attack on here.
Can I make a plea for “Damned Scroungers” by Felix McHugh as well, please?
You might send a copy of The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist to Mr Cameron as well.
Given that about 7 out of 8 working age claimants receiving HB are in work why aren’t the Tories asking why so many working people rely on HB/CTB and WTC to pay their rent and other bills? Why don’t they ask why wages are so low that many people rely on taxpayers to help them reach a living wage? Should the state be giving indirect handouts to employers who pay low wages? Either these businesses are not viable without these indirect state subsidies (surely a pointer to wider structural problems in the economy) or they are making excessive profits on the back of taxpayers. Why haven’t we heard the Taxpayers Alliance and other such lobby groups raising these questions?
Having pushed more people into poverty and broken britain a bit further (what happened to that Tory slogan?) a govt. could then launch an initiative to ‘help’ 120,000 problem families and possibly give the cash to the private sector as they will always deliver, unlike the public / voluntary sector, given sufficient incentive. A bit like a job creation scheme only for old mates and supporters rather than the unemployed.
Where has this ‘7 out of 8 HB claimants are working’ come from?
The latest stats, released last week, summarises the benefits in this way.
At March 2012 there were 5.01 million recipients of Housing Benefit, of whom almost three-quarters were aged under 65. The average weekly amount of Housing Benefit was £87.04.
67% of Housing Benefit recipients were tenants of Social Sector with 80% of Private Sector tenants receiving the Local Housing Allowance.
65% were also in receipt of Income Support, income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance, income-based
Employment and Support Allowance or Pension Credit (Guarantee Credit).
Given that 65% of claims are passported and over 25% are over pension age, 7 out of 8 looks unlikely.
A closer look shows the detail for the March 2012 figures.
March 2012
All HB recipients 5,014,650
Non-Passported (Standard Claims) 1,739,890
of which, in employment 882,890
Passported 3,274,760.
So those in employment and not passported make up 17% of all HB claims.
Some of those passported will be in part-time work - but not that many.
It’s a misrepresentation of a figure they got from Shelter. 1 in 8 on JSA, other 7 pensioners, sick, carers, workers etc.
If anyone is interested in reading the document that, more than any other, set the political agenda for the next 35 years and beyond, then here it is. However, one should read carefully between the lines. There was an unwritten agenda behind this one, nasty and pitiless.
A recent Guardian article on those people who seek to take something for nothing from society, also illustrated the links between Thatcher and Cameron, in stark detail.
David Cameron’s father ran a network of offshore investment funds to help build the family fortune that paid for the prime minister’s inheritance, the Guardian can reveal. Though entirely legal, the funds were set up in tax havens such as Panama City and Geneva, and explicitly boasted of their ability to remain outside UK tax jurisdiction.
At the time of his death in late 2010, Ian Cameron left a fortune of £2.74m in his will, from which David Cameron received the sum of £300,000.
Ian Cameron took advantage of a new climate of investment after all capital controls were abolished in 1979, making it legal to take any sum of money out of the country without it being taxed or controlled by the UK government.
Not long after the change, brought in by Margaret Thatcher after her first month in power, Ian Cameron began setting up and directing investment funds in tax havens around the world.
For a copy of the full article, see here Cameron family fortune made in tax havens
Thanks Chris. Thats very kind of you.
Picking up from my previous post. While it would be absurd to say that Tony Blair was an unreconstructed Thatcherite, the New Labour project’s seismic fault was its uncritical acceptance of the changed relationship between capital and labour. Thus, in order to implement its programme it became an inevitable hostage to the forces of global capitalism, a prison cell it could not escape from without, in its eyes, sacrificing its hold on power.
Two imperatives flowed from that. First, the requirement to give capital a free hand. Second, the necessity to neutralize what was left of organized labour, a strategy for which the Party throughout history had had plenty of experience. Years after the miners’ strike Norman Tebbitt, of all people, conceded that in laying waste to working class communities the Tories had probably gone too far. The difference today is that Cameron and his friends probably think that the Party didn’t go far enough.