Had we achieved the 7% growth Ireland managed we would, thanks to the miracle of compound growth, be nearly 4 times better off than in reality.

By comparison even the most extreme redistributive "anti-poverty" policies can do little significant to help even the poorest, though they do keep anti-poverty campaigners in jobs.

It is also worth pointing out that fuel poverty kills 24,000 a year, according to Help the Aged, yet the "anti-poverty" lobby has nothing to say in support of nuclear which they know could cut electricity prices by more than half.

According to a piece in the Guardian in 2000, on the report of the Joseph Rowntree foundation "Thousands of people die prematurely each year as a direct result of government policies in the late 1970s and 1980s that increased unemployment, child poverty and inequality of income and wealth". It concluded "If the government achieved a modest redistribution of wealth and eliminated child poverty and long-term unemployment, .. deaths could be avoided".

It is generally held that Labour have addressed this, making the poor better off. In the run up to the 2005 election the BBC asserted:

"During the years when the Conservatives were in power, inequality rose sharply and taxes increased faster for the poor than the rich"

The BBC article continues:

"The result of Labour's changes to the tax and benefit system, particularly after 2001, have been strongly redistributive.

On average, people in the bottom 20% of the income distribution have gained over 11% per year more from the government, and are £1,430 per year better off.

Those in the top 10% of the income distribution have received about 4% less from the government, an average loss of £2,243."

Tucked away near the bottom is this:

"..but a two-earner couple with no children is over £1,000 worse off"

The upshot is this;

"One in four children were in poverty in 1997/8, and more than one in five were still in poverty in 2003/4.

Poverty rates among pensioners have fallen even more slowly, and they have not fallen at all among people of working age without children.

Many experts believe that Labour will have to spend even more to reach its target of reducing child poverty by half by 2010, and much of initial gains from poverty reduction have come as more people returned to the workforce."

(Sorry about the cutting and pasting.)

By the end of 2005, even the Tories were singing from th same hymn sheet:

"We do redistribute money and we should redistribute money" said Oliver Letwin.

My reaction to this information is as someone who is caught in the very unfortunate position of being someone dependent upon an average income. It is that this is all very well, but we are bearing the brunt of all this worthiness. We have been taxed and taxed and taxed again. Our income is taxed and we work for that. In travelling to work we are taxed again. When we get home we are taxed locally on income that was taxed.

I do not believe it is my sole role in life to support an underclass. Mrs Thatcher was clear that redistribution of wealth had gone far enough, in 1975. So what changed?

I think that bribing a random group of people (those who happened to own property) with other people's debt millstones is just as bad (morally) and as we are seeing now, a lot worse economically (government spending can always be cut back – recent homebuyers are stuck with horrendous debts).

Yes.

Smaller government, lower taxes. Libertarianism – you know it makes sense.

I also believe the state should provide essential public infrastructure and services, that private individuals or the market is unwilling to provide. This could be anything from cleaning the streets, to educating the young and caring for the sick, right up to a space program. Different people will take different views about the desirability of each of these activities, but the majority opinion in society should prevail. You make distinctions between the state granting money to me or to others, and public services used by me or by others. Public services should always be about others or there is nothing public about them. There is no reason for the state to take my taxes and give some of it back to me unless some public good is achieved in the process.

Some people might say that we should all act on individual self-interest and reject public services we do not use ourselves. Other people would like the public purse to pay for things they desire for themselves. The 1st group is turning a blind eye to social ills; the 2nd group should pay the market price to satisfy their self-indulgence. In a democracy there are no doubt votes to be garnered from either of these short-sighted groups, but the state should, in my opinion, only provide public services that society demands be performed (i.e. is unwilling to accept the consequences of not performing them) for individuals who are personally incapable of paying for them.

I regret, with three line whips and many, many self serving MP's (a category from which I specifically exclude you), parliament does not seem up to the job of running a balanced budget, so why not let the people try?