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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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| Wiley wrote: | | Dont know. My best guess would be that Haiti is a state of perpetual unrest as there has been a ongoing schism between leadership groups, gangs, who have enlisted factions of the masses to fight for them, against their bitter rivals. |
You have described the problem, not given a reason for it.
| Take these masses away from this enlistment and recruitment, and they are just going to be boring, avearge peaceful citizens and cracking on towards making a better life? |
You have described the goal, not given a routemap for getting there. A typically liberal effort. Recourse to careful ignoral.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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It is becoming more and more clear that the single act that most doomed the Starmer regime was to reverse the Chancellor's decision not to extend the extra fuel payment to pensioners not on pension credit.
Let us be clear, the extra payment didn't affect man or beast. As I pointed out at the time, an extra hundred or so being knocked off your electricity bill (or stuck into your bank account), unheralded and made during some random winter month, amidst a vast number of similar governmental handouts for all manner of things at the time, would scarcely be noticed. Apart maybe for pensioners on pension credit. (Such as me, though I didn't notice it.)
Even so, it was a perfectly proper way of doling out a smidgeon of scarce resources to the worst off, if that was thought necessary. Yet two-thirds of the PLP and every self-respecting leftie in the country was up in arms. It was a betrayal of everything they came into politics for etc etc. Every pensioner must get it or they were going to flounce off back to Jeremyland.
And they never stopped caterwauling until Rachel Reed was reduced literally to tears, forced to change the policy, start making endless rounds of the departments to get the money back from elsewhere. The whole government found itself permanently stranded, in hock to both bankers and the Left.
Welfarism was here to stay. Now we've got Andy Burnham to fight the good fight and cave in his turn at the first growl from his welfarist colleagues. Of whom he is one.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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As the noble Mathew Syed said on Newsnight, the welfare budget and the health budget is out of control, before agreeing on the need for more spending on defence.
That may be true but he should have added 'the defence budget is out of control' since it is not tied to any perceived threat (it can hardly be Russia who is not proving much of a threat to Ukraine). It was
at 1.8% of GNP for many years
raised to 2.0% to propitiate Trump
is at 2.4% now
is planned to be 2.5% in 2027
and 3% 'in the next parliament'.
Everyone keeps moaning that taxation is at its highest level since the Second World War -- when the defence budget was tied to a perceived threat -- so what any government, of any philosophy, can do when tax receipts are not growing but the population is bounding ahead by leaps and bounds is unclear.
To them, of course. Not to me. I'd just attach automatic 'sunset clauses' to all expenditure. You'd be surprised how reluctant even spendthrift people are when it comes to handing over other people's money the second time around.
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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| It is becoming more and more clear that the single act that most doomed the Starmer regime was to reverse the Chancellor's decision not to extend the extra fuel payment to pensioners not on pension credit. |
Most developed and developing nations use a dual system, of providing universal benefits for baseline needs e.g. universal old-age pensions or child allowances, and layer them with targeted assistance.
Its really only very poor, bankrupt nations etc that provide only targeted assistance. Its a question of balanced approach towards each benefit in richer nations, what is the policy intention, what is the cheapest way to implement. Should it be universal or targeted?
Gordon Brown introduced the Winter Fuel Payment in 1997, as a universal benefit designed to help older people afford their heating costs during the colder months. The thinking was that it worked better as a one off non-targeted payment, as this was easy to implement, ie: no or little administration costs.
Rachel Reeves decided to change that, deciding it should now be targeted. This change took away payments from 9.3 million people. Whilst some losers were rich pensioners many were undeniably poor.
As these poorer folks lost Winter Fuel Payments they were signposted by Dept Work and Pesions to claim Pension credit if needed. The net result of this was we then got many more claims for Pension Credit, which is a 52 week year round payment of up to £238.00 per week as well as a free TV licence for those 75 and over, help with NHS dental and glasses costs, and council tax reductions.
Folks being denied one benefit, and then claiming a more beneficial one is referred to as (err...) "an unintended consequence". In the example provided you dont need many new 52 week Pension Credit claims at up to and over £238.00 per week to cancel out the modest savings generated by stopping what were previously a one off £200.00 once a year Winter Fuel payment......(Key figures 52 and 1)
Net result Rachels policy made little if any savings, whilst infuriating many of the 9.3 million people who had lost out. It actually lost the Labour party so much support, the policy had to be largely reversed.
So yes it was a strange hill, for Labour to fight and die on.
Why? Why?
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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| Wiley wrote: | | Most developed and developing nations use a dual system, of providing universal benefits for baseline needs e.g. universal old-age pensions or child allowances, and layer them with targeted assistance. |
OK
| Its really only very poor, bankrupt nations etc that provide only targeted assistance. Its a question of balanced approach towards each benefit in richer nations, what is the policy intention, what is the cheapest way to implement. Should it be universal or targeted? |
So what sholuld very rich, non-bankrupt nations like us do?
| Gordon Brown introduced the Winter Fuel Payment in 1997, as a universal benefit designed to help older people afford their heating costs during the colder months. The thinking was that it worked better as a one off non-targeted payment, as this was easy to implement, ie: no or little administration costs. |
That was just the moment when 'older people' were becoming the wealthiest demographic in Britain. Typical.
| Rachel Reeves decided to change that, deciding it should now be targeted. This change took away payments from 9.3 million people. Whilst some losers were rich pensioners many were undeniably poor. |
She's no radical, she wouldn't dream of it. The emergency aspect had passed, an add-on had come to an end so she decided (I rather think without giving it much thought, it was so diddly) to keep it on for us 'demonstrably poor pensioners' i.e. in receipt of pension credit which is means tested (and itself worth about forty quid a week, i.e. we're covered for these diddlies anyway).
| As these poorer folks lost Winter Fuel Payments they were signposted by Dept Work and Pesions to claim Pension credit if needed. The net result of this was we then got many more claims for Pension Credit, which is a 52 week year round payment of up to £238.00 per week as well as a free TV licence for those 75 and over, help with NHS dental and glasses costs, and council tax reductions. |
Yes, all this happened, making the whole exercise -- from the Treasury's POV -- massively self-defeating.
| So yes it was a strange hill, for Labour to fight and die on. |
Not strange at all. They just lurve these convoluted exercises in going through the motions making sure no disadvantaged stone is left unturned. Beats governing the country every time.
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