DEM not gonna CON dis NATION: Rolling UK politics in the short-lived Cleggeron era

I know I don't!

(j/k kids if you're reading this)

One to wash, one to dry.

44k seems like a ridiculous amount of money to be earning to me. If you earn that, you are Richie McRichington from the planet Rich.

It really isn't if you've got one earner and 2 kids. Does £22k sound like planet rich? Because that's what it feels like I'm on. I could probably get more on benefits. Which is exactly what they me to think, damn...it's enough to make you want to vote tory, oh hang on...

they want me to think, obv.

I could give you my outgoings if you like. I am really not living on Planet Rich. Wish I was, then I would let a pissy £1700 a year affect me so much (yes, it's gone up since I last worked it out upthread).

wouldn't let - goddammnit, I've just been cleaning the bathroom, I think the bleach fumes are getting to me.

The tax credits system already exists to means-test families. ok it is appallingly complicated but why not abolish CB altogether, put the money into improving the tax credit system and increase the amount of TCs on a sliding scale.

Current CB changes smack of social engineering. We stay-at-home parents not taking part in the economy (only doing the trivial work of raising our kids). Let's force all parents into the workplace and have kids in nurseries for 12 hours a day instead.

Ned, you could use that argument against paying higher rate tax as well. In fact, it doesn't seem "fair" that one household earning £60k between two parents pays 20% less tax than a £37k househould with one working parent. But income tax is an individual allowance whereas child benefit is a household allowance, which is why the Tories hitching benefits to tax rates seems totally wrong (if quick and easy to implement).

It really isn't if you've got one earner and 2 kids. Does £22k sound like planet rich?

No, but it sounds like planet A Reasonable Amount to Live On.

As I say, though, if they do bloody well have to do this, they could at least invest in making it fairer. But nope, they have to avoid certain buzzwords and push others.

The tax credits system already exists to means-test families. ok it is appallingly complicated but why not abolish CB altogether, put the money into improving the tax credit system and increase the amount of TCs on a sliding scale.

Current CB changes smack of social engineering. We stay-at-home parents not taking part in the economy (only doing the trivial work of raising our kids). Let's force all parents into the workplace and have kids in nurseries for 12 hours a day instead.

― Meg (Meg Busset), Tuesday, October 5, 2010 11:42 AM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark

i've never understood tax credits, even before the terrible implementation -- why not just cut taxes for lower-income earners? at any rate, people on upwards of £40k can hardly claim to be eligible for tax credits.

child benefit keeps paying up to age 19, yeah? i don't want to sound harsh, but ummm

xpost

i don't think £22k is a reasonable amount to live on past the age o 2_.

'social engineering' is usually a slogan of the right aimed at redistributive policies. i dunno how you're using it here.

I don't know if it's reasonable or not. I'm just saying would anyone anyone on £22k (and one child?) be happy with a 3% income drop. If not, please don't expect me to be a cheerful chappie and join in the "we're all in this together" celebrations, because it does not feel like it right now. Matt may be right (he has confused me somewhat) and I'm getting some benefit from taxes elsewhere. I shall ask Mrs.Trifle for a rise immediately.

OK, I'm not going to go on about this anymore. I do actually (generally) feel like I have enough money, I just want to see Osbourne, et al taking a 3% cut too before telling me "it's tough but fair". Is that too much to ask?

'anyone anyone'? OK, i really need to chill and get a cuppa (Co-op economy brand).

Not defending the process of funnelling taxpayers money to buy-to-let landlords, but how exactly is any of this likely to force down rents in the private rented sector? People on housing benefit can't afford to live in inner London > people with more money move in > rents stay high.

― Matt DC, Tuesday, October 5, 2010 9:45 AM (1 hour ago)

I know this isn't what they're saying the point is, but it does mean less rent being paid for social housing tenants. Theoretically, yeah sure a smaller pool of available tenants means property prices might drop (not really tho, as long as that pool is at least +1 the no of properties available etc) but that's not really the exercise here- moving social housing costs to cheaper locations is the point.

once a benefit is only for the poor, powerful interests will no longer defend it, and it can be whittled to nothing.

once a benefit is only for the poor, right-wingers can say "look, they stay poor just so they can receive this benefit".

and once a benefit is only for the poor, we're no longer "all in it together".

means-testing is a bureaucratic maze, and guarantees that those least capable of filling out and understanding the proper paperwork get the benefit, when it's exactly those people who need to be receiving it.

i do like the idea of a single consolidated benefit payment (though it does smack A BIT of those late-nite ads that promise to "reduce all your bills down to one, easy monthly payment!" where you're trading ease for the privilege of being jacked)

also ken c otm that £1bn is fuck all compared to the slippery slope this opens, and compared to the real pinch felt by those on the cusp of eligibility

once a benefit is only for the poor, powerful interests will no longer defend it, and it can be whittled to nothing.

this isn't true of housing benefit/tax credits, but are you really saying that people on less than £44k count as 'the poor' here? people earning up to that, i.e. the vast majority of the working population, will still be eligible.

i didn't know that being 'all in it together' meant that the rich got benefits as well as the poor.

well in an ideal world everyone should be benefited.

an ideal world
e.g. one where everybody is actually in it together.

I'm pretty sure it shouldn't mean that a single parent earning 45k and paying full childcare costs should get nothing while a couple earning 80k between them get CB

well in an ideal world everyone should be benefited.

― HOOS' THE BOSS (ken c), Tuesday, October 5, 2010 12:32 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark

what? kind of think the idea is redistribution. if we were actually in it together we wouldn't have extreme wealth disparity.

I'm pretty sure it shouldn't mean that a single parent earning 45k and paying full childcare costs should get nothing while a couple earning 80k between them get CB

― Meg (Meg Busset), Tuesday, October 5, 2010 12:36 PM (56 seconds ago) Bookmark

of course; the £80k couple should have it cut. the single parent issue -- idk, idk how child support payments figure in that calculation, etc.

how would you feel about the NHS being only available for sub-45K earners? or be generous, say sub-60K.

or heck, public schooling should only be available for sub-60K, everyone else can pay for private school surely!

what? kind of think the idea is redistribution. if we were actually in it together we wouldn't have extreme wealth disparity.

yeah exactly. scale income tax.

kids get £20 a week until they earn their own income.

sorted.

i mean, how fucking difficult does it have to be?

tracer, on this point of principle in re: universal benefits, would you support the elimination of means testing for income support, job seeker's allowance, pension credit, housing benefit, council tax benefit, etc.

the concept of universal income support or jobseeker's allowance is nonsensical.

we could dispense with child benefit completely if we just once and for all dealt with the massive, head-doing expense of child care between the ages of 9m - 4yo. the UK is dead last in the European league table for this IIRC and i guarantee this is where 90% of child benefit goes.

just to give you a taste, in London the average creche cost is probably around £30 a day. if you've got 22 work days in a month that's an expense of £660 a month. EVERY MONTH. FOR YEARS. so of course many women (and men) prefer to simply quit their jobs and spend more time with their kids rather than stump up this massive bill. and now the tories want to punish them! fabulous.

They're only punishing them if they have a partner earning in the top 10% in the country.

finding it really hard to be all ;_; for people earning £40k+

we could dispense with child benefit completely if we just once and for all dealt with the massive, head-doing expense of child care between the ages of 9m - 4yo.

not sure about dispensing completely with, but in agreement with the sentiment, definitely.

JSA was not means tested against income (from investments etc.) until relatively recently iirc. that may be crazy (certainly seems so to me), but it's not nonsensical or a meaningless question.

unless i'm missing something, the benefits in that list are not qualitatively different from universal child support.

so i want to know where you draw the line. what about housing benefit? why shouldn't that be universal?

mortgage/rent relief substitutes for that over here

how would you feel about the NHS being only available for sub-45K earners? or be generous, say sub-60K.

or heck, public schooling should only be available for sub-60K, everyone else can pay for private school surely!

― progressive cuts (Tracer Hand), Tuesday, October 5, 2010 12:45 PM (34 seconds ago) Bookmark

well, in the latter case, they already do, though i can see how this powerful constituency might suddenly turn on the welfare state if we didn't appease them

i paid university tuition fees and did not get a student grant because my parents earned however much; having never earned more than the median income, i owe getting on for ten grand

so yeah, i think the nhs shd be for all. but not cash benefits.

just to give you a taste, in London the average creche cost is probably around £30 a day. if you've got 22 work days in a month that's an expense of £660 a month. EVERY MONTH. FOR YEARS. so of course many women (and men) prefer to simply quit their jobs and spend more time with their kids rather than stump up this massive bill. and now the tories want to punish them! fabulous.

― progressive cuts (Tracer Hand), Tuesday, October 5, 2010 1:11 PM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark

ok, fair play. this sucks. they shd concentrate money on the pre-schoolers. child benefit goes up to 19yo, however, and that's pretty weird for people in the top income tax bracket. not sure what being a stay-at-home-mother of a 17yo entails.

telling them to gtfo

that was a full time job for my dad iirc.

haha

i'm not sure where you draw the line, caek. child benefit seems different from these other benefits you mention in that children come with a unique and unavoidable expense that arrives suddenly in your budget, regardless of how much you make or how much you have saved.

do you want me to admit that rich people don't need it? obviously that's true. look, i am all for progressive benefits and taxation! but in some cases i think there's a real value in having a single, identifiable, universal benefit. it means the powerful classes will fight to keep it. it means the service provided cannot be entirely shitty because coddled stokey milquetoasts will complain about it. and it strips away (ideally) the complexity which would otherwise be a barrier to entry for the people who actually need the benefit (and cost money to administer). these aren't iron-clad justifications for retaining any universal benefits much less this one but i consider them significant especially in the face of the relatively paltry savings to be made

but yeah enough about me and my coddled milquetoast life as a new dad, the stuff about conservatives admitting their strategy is to push poor people out of the city and free up pied-a-terres for the BTL buddies is absolutely sickening

If the shortfall in rent rose to more than £20 per week, almost all landlords said they would evict the tenant or not renew the tenancy.

Tenants are then likely to warn councils they are in danger of becoming homeless, and councils will be under a duty to find them temporary accommodation or relocate them to a less expensive property.

this administration is really learning from the bush years - squeeze federal benefits dry and leave local government to clean up the mess

Trying to think whether argument on this thread is more/less retarded than an argument on iPhone4 vs htc desire

well surely you're here to raise the standard

Argument seems to be, they're rich, so fuck reason

He's got the ball. It's a legal tackle

finding it really hard to be all ;_; for people earning £40k+

Well, if we were both on 40k for sure I wouldn't be complaining. BECAUSE I'D STILL BE GETTING CB!

ned, presumably you will return to the workplace once the kids are old enough to get to school etc?

xp that's the real problem with this. quite pleased to see tories aiming their cuts at the better off, but you can't cut benefits to 1.2 million yet leave 900,000 wealthier people untouched and wave it away as an "anomaly".

Anyways, they're backtracking now...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11473609

Really, it's the "made-up five minutes before we go to conference-ness" of it all that makes me mad.

not debating the whole retardedness of the single vs combo benefit bullshit but still oh no it's a tough life on £45k

Tax high earners and fuck top 10% earners, I'm all for it, but why do things in a way that fucks up the most only people who are at exactly 10% at the bottom of the high scale? when there's already another perfectly good way for people to progressively contribute based on income?

wonder if it's time for a netmums vs mumsnet poll

http://www.netmums.com/coffeehouse/general-coffeehouse-chat-514/news-current-affairs-topical-discussion-12/385877-mumsnet-mafia.html

Tax high earners and fuck top 10% earners, I'm all for it, but why do things in a way that fucks up the most only people who are at exactly 10% at the bottom of the high scale? when there's already another perfectly good way for people to progressively contribute based on income?

― HOOS' THE BOSS (ken c), Tuesday, October 5, 2010 2:03 PM (37 seconds ago) Bookmark

high earners don't pay tax you noob. anyway there's fuck all of them.

tracer, i think we agree that ***if there were no risk to the integrity of the welfare state***, getting rid of CB for two parent families with incomes greater than twice the 40% income tax threshold seems pretty unobjectionable. obviously the issue re: single income homes like ned's is total bullshit and smells late night policy making, but paying 4k p.a. to families with an income of 85k is obviously not the best possible use of ~£1bn.

assuming we agree on that...

i am also saying that the principle of this policy does not represent much of a risk to the integrity of the welfare state. much of the money distributed in benefits/allowances is already means tested so it's demonstrably not a house of cards. i don't think this particular issue is any different. sure there will be further rollbacks during this government because it draws the line in a different place to the previous one, but they'll happen whether or not this policy is implemented, and not as a thin end of the wedge consequence of it.

ken i don't get the suggestion you're making? how do you change the income tax system to redistribute money to families with children? ask them to declare children to their employers?

ned, presumably you will return to the workplace once the kids are old enough to get to school etc?

Yes, I will walk into a job as a 46 year old with an arts degree who has been out of full time employment for 12 years. Anyway, even if it was that easy, you've still got kids going to school at 9, finished at 3, and having (please don't remind me) ten weeks holiday a year.

I know this sounds like "sense of entitlement" bs but please don't get me wrong, if I really thought "we were all in this together" I wouldn't be so pissed about it but, as I keep on saying, as far as I can see we're taking a 3% cut in income that I don't see the (actually, genuinely) wealthy taking. Instead, as per usual it seems, you encourage the non-rich by taking stuff away and encourage the rich by giving them stuff.