Wednesday 27 October 2010

Quote of the Day - 27 Oct 2010

Commenting on John Rentoul's PMQs Cam/Ed Mili encounter, and in particular the government reforms on Housing Benefit, this from Merlin007:
"The idea that denying people rents on the state above £400 a week will make them homeless is like arguing that refusing to feed them at The Dorchester will make them hungry."
Absolutely right! The vast majority of those actually bothering to go out and earn their money couldn't afford that level of rent, yet they are subsidising (through taxes) those who don't yet are living the life of Riley at others' expense. They certainly aren't "poor" by any sensible definition of the word! It's all part of Labour's anti-work pro-state dependency culture that was intended to "bribe" millions of non-working voters to support them at the ballot box.

There are attempts being made by Labour people to muddy the waters by mentioning that many folk in work also receive Housing Benefit (why, though?) but it still doesn't change the underlying argument: a lot of us are subsidising others' enhanced lifestyles on some pretext of necessity; but that has never been a necessity before in our history.

With today's technologies and other advances it is even less significant than it could have been (but apparently wasn't) in the past. It has certainly become apparent that, although there are a fair number of supporters of the status quo who are prepared to state their case publicly (e.g. in such newspaper comments threads), there are far, far more who support the government's reforms.

Interestingly, as this exchange between Iain Duncan Smith and the then Housing Minister, James Purnell, shows (starting half-way down this page), back in 2008 the Labour government of the day was aiming in the same direction as the current proposals, and had even introduced a White Paper!

No comments:

Post a Comment