Tuesday, Apr 13, 2010
The lunatics have taken over the asylum
Express: EXPENSES SCANDAL MPS GET LEGAL AID
Take your blinkers off for a few minutes, forget that this and the article on the link below are from the Express and Mail respectively and be honest.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1265446/Single-mother-soldier-wins-discrimination-case-Army-failed-provide-adequate-childcare.html
The 3 politicians are just taking the p*ss.
As for the single mother soldier, in any job there has to be discipline and if you sign up for the armed forces you expect and accept that.
To quote the ancient proverb: "Those whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad."
However, the following ancient Greek proverb may be more to the taste of HPC’ers: “The company of just and righteous men is better than wealth and a rich estate.”
Posted by mr g @ 02:20 PM (910 views) Add Comment
14 Comments
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1. yorkshireman said...
I can sense your indignation Mr G, but are we the lunatics for putting up with it ?
Here is another example
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1265508/Peter-Davey-gets-42-000-benefits-year-drives-Mercedes.html
I hope that a Tory government will deal with this sort of thing, but I am not holding my breath.
2. tenant super said...
I agree with you Mr G but the Expressmailsun has to be taken with a pinch of salt. The Mail in particular runs stories seemingly railing against litigation culture. This has led to the slagging off of 'ambulance chasing' but I studied medical law as part of my MA some years ago and the vast majority of those instigating medical litigation aren't greedy chancers. They are people's whose live have been wrecked by preventable medical mistakes. They then have a battle to prove liability and the often insurmountable hurdle of proving causation against a judiciary which is "excessively deferential to the medical profession" to quote Lord Woolf. They don't want a quick buck, they have often been robbed of their living as a result of incompetent doctors and more often than not just want some acknowledgement, an apology and a resolve to prevent the same happening to others. My point is, until you actually study the facts academically, it is a little premature to make judgements based on right wing journalism.
Employment law is, I admit, more prone to abuse by disgruntled, litagous and still smarting ex-employees. But the whole system needs overhauling.
Can't help thinking all this is, in part at least, a deliberate distraction.
3. alan_540 said...
Crooks
4. mr g said...
@Yorkshireman
Agreed, the family on benefits is yet another example of the taxpayer being ripped off.
@TS
Why do the Express and Mail have to be taken with a pinch of salt any more than say, the Guardian or Independent?
It never fails to amuse me that a controversial article in a left leaning publication is always gospel truth and the world and his dog will take up the cause, yet an equally controversial article in a right leaning publication is always a distortion of the facts.
The reason for that is that liberal thinkers, due to their naivety, rose tinted glasses and the fact that they do not mix with the plebs, cannot face the facts and accept what goes on in the real world.
Abuse of the benefit system and immigration are 2 topics which are automatically dismissed by these superior intellects as Mail / Express sensationalism, an attitude which displays arrogance and contempt for the majority of the ordinary people of this country who are aware of how we are being taken for a ride.
5. drewster said...
We've discussed the benefits system on here many times before, in particular housing benefit and how it distorts the rental market. Personally I'm very surprised that none of the political parties have even touched on these issues. I can understand Labour maintaining the status quo (core votes and all that), but I would have expected the Tories to say something about it.
6. mr g said...
@drewster
IMO, the reason the Tories haven't said anything about this is because NewCon is no different to NuLabour.
Dave is so eager for power that he is simply copying Blair.
7. braindeed said...
Grumpy @6 said...
Dave is so eager for power that he is simply copying Blair.
Blair was vacuous, but I felt he did'nt seem as dark as Dave, who's just selling soap powder.
What a choice.....I'd vote for Guy fawkes if I could.
8. tenant super said...
Mr g, "Why do the Express and Mail have to be taken with a pinch of salt any more than say, the Guardian or Independent?"
Accepted. They all need to be approached with caution, no paper is unbiased, no journalist is a purveyor of fact. My economic leanings are utterly on the right so I trust the left leaning broadsheets with equal or greater dispassion. Yet, I try to be careful not to soak up media articles which illustrate my own bias and prejudices without questioning the truth of the painted picture .
Abuse of the benefit system needs to be stamped out by reform of the system itself. I believe in a move to a workfare and a small standard cash benefit for all those who can't work for whatever reason regardless of household income or assets. Entitlement to the benefit would be accrued on a 10:1 work time: eligible claim time (so you need to have worked and paid tax for ten years for every one year you claim). The immigration problem would immediately start to correct itself if there was no welfare and restriction to NHS treatment if a person is not paying NI.
The total benefit bill is 150 billion quid per annum and this needs to be cut by about 70%. But with an 850 billion quid bank bailout I have more pertinent things to soil myself over.
Yes, we are being taken for a ride but I reckon if you can't beat 'em, join 'em so I'll probably opt for single parenthood one day. I can use all those tax credits to pay for private tutoring so when I send the kids to a mediocre state school, the social engineers in the university admissions department will snap up the intelligent but 'deprived background' little darlings.
I am a libertarian not a 'liberal' or 'socialist' in fact one of my many leftist friends with whom I have friendly online rivalry with for many years said "Left of [my name] is a very big place". So I am, in the main, in agreement with you Mr g!
9. sneaker said...
Sorry I misread this as the more accurate
"EXPENSES SCANDAL MPS GET LAID"
10. mr g said...
Well said TS!
Some fair points in your comments.
11. braindeed said...
Carling Special @ 8 said...
My economic leanings are utterly on the right so I trust the left leaning broadsheets with equal or greater dispassion.
Utterly on the right,eh.....well don't expect Dave to do anything that promotes a 'correction' or offends the petite bourgeois and their housing 'richness'..... especially in favour of the BTL mob's harvest - you renters.
Best of luck anyway.
12. tenant super said...
None of the mainstream parties offer anything on either the left or right of the economic spectrum. They all support corporatism so there is no longer any meaningful exegesis on the moral framework - it's just a game to try and play to our advantage. Not all home owners (myself included) have been blindsided into believing their housing equity is genuine wealth.
13. drewster said...
Let's have a quick look at what the parties are actually proposing on benefit and specifically Housing Benefit:
Labour - All claimants must take a job (or workfare) after two years unemployed. No policy on HB.
Conservatives - End the "couples penalty" in the tax credit system. Vague new "work programme". No policy on HB.
Lib Dems - New manifesto due today (14th). Expected to contain proposals on raising income tax thresholds to £10,000 to reduce the high marginal tax rates suffered by people who are both low-earners and claiming some benefits. Vince cable's "Mansion Tax" too maybe? Nothing known on benefits or Housing Benefit.
UKIP - Scrap all benefits (including HB). Workfare for all which should cover the cost of private rent. Also a citizens' income.
I'll update this after the Lib Dem manifesto is launched.
14. tenant super said...
Conservatives - End the "couples penalty" in the tax credit system.
This is an interesting and misleading proposition. By the couple penalty (or rather the element to abolish) they mean the higher tax credits and other benefits received by a single mother earning say £20K compared to a couple on an identical household income (say Mr on £15k and Mrs on £5K).
There are three contributing factors to the couple penalty:
i) Higher benefits paid to a lone parent because they are a lone parent
ii) Inability to pool allowances so a couple on £40K and £10K pay more tax than a couple on £25k each (this isn't strictly speaking the couple penalty since living arrangements are irrelevant here) due to the progressive tax bands.
iii) The fact that credits and benefits are based on family/ household income and two working people by living together raise their overall assessable income and therefore reduce their eligibility for tax credits and other benefits.
The conservatives propose to eliminate all incidences of i) and permit transfer of allowances as per item ii). However, given that item iii) is by far and away the greatest of the contributing factor, this is fairly cosmetic and the couple penalty will persist. Under Labour's current system, if I had a child now as a single person in my current domestic arrangements and went down to part time work of 16 hours on my current wage pro rata, I would get around 12K in tax credits. If we live together we would get just the £545 family allowance. The cost of Mr TS running his home is probably about £8.5 K per annum so the couple penalty is about £3K pa. If the Tories get in, under their proposals, I would get the same tax credits living apart. If we lived together we would get nothing so the real couple penalty actually increases to £3.5K. The £150 marriage thing is insignificant.
The only way of truly removing the couple penalty is to either move to a fully individualised tax credit system (too expensive) or to assess eligibility on the basis of parental income regardless of whether they are a couple or living separate lives and increase statutory maintenance payments of the non-resident parent. This could plunge single parents back into poverty and has too many practical obstacles.