Let me surprise those of you who do not know me well. I do not wish to see any cuts in benefits paid to those in need. In some cases I would like us to be more generous. In that sense I am like Mr Cameron a One Nation Conservative. I accept the UK cross party tradition that people who are better off pay more in tax to provide incomes for those in need.I do not wish to see people who require welfare made worse off. I do wish to see fewer people needing welfare.
So how then can we find the welfare savings Mr Osborne talked about in the run up to the General election? The main way is by getting to the happy position where fewer people need the benefits. If we tackle poverty by helping the creation of more jobs for those who are out of work, and better paid jobs for those who are in work, so the need for benefits declines. IN the last Parliament many people moves from being unemployed to being employed, cutting their need for state income. Some people got promoted or found better paid jobs, reducing their need for top up income from the state.
If we stop paying any benefits to European job seekers who have been here for less than four years, that will save us money. If we ask unemployed Europeans looking for jobs to leave after six months if they have found nothing, that will reduce some of the pressures on the jobs market which keeps some wages down. If we say to all European migrants they do not receive benefits for children who live in another country, that too will save money.
In this Parliament it is the government’s aim to create conditions where many more jobs are created. This should drive unemployment down further. We also want to raise skill levels, and see more higher paid jobs, which cuts the need for benefit top ups.
Most jobs are in the private sector. Tax cuts for all will help boost living standards and will reduce the need for top up benefits as growth in the economy boosts in work incomes. Wage rises based on gains in productivity are also needed, so that more people have a good income from their employment.
When Conservatives argue that welfare cuts come from better economic growth they are right. It takes good growth to generate more jobs for the unemployed, and higher wages for the employed. That is how the welfare bill will be cut.
It is also important not to be mean to people in need at a time when welfare is being reformed. Reform requires sufficient money so there are no unfortunate loers.
May 11, 2015
I’m not a gambling man JR. But I’ll wager the new Conservative gov. will be prevented from blocking benefits to new arrivals from the EU. As for ‘asking’ them to leave after six months, if they fail to get employed, It’s laughable.
The EU will be slapping Cameron down firmly……………..
May 11, 2015
‘asking’ being the operative.
May 11, 2015
Asylum is an EU competence. It is not up to Cameron what they decide, he will have to implement and we the taxpayer will pay the cost, both financially and socially. Asylum seekers do not work to start with as their status is examined. They are a huge cost to the taxpayer. Free furnished housing andocket money to the children to help them speak English. Good old Cameron, this is not even part of overseas aid. JR could tell us if they are counted on the immigration figures? One problem being a large number disappear before their application is processed.
May has lost so many asylum seekers, foreign criminals etc it is astonishing she is allowed back in cabinet let alone the same Job!!
May 11, 2015
And what is going to happen to those who have been here less than four years, if we dont pay them benefits? Are they supposed to sleep on the streets? I too have my doubts that this policy will work.
May 11, 2015
They can go home and claim benefits from their own taxpayers.
May 11, 2015
Matt
“They can go home”
Exactly.
Indeed I think Mr Cameron is proposing that if after 6 months they have no job, then they will be sent home.
Only problem with that, is finding them !
Our record of sending people back, even if illegals are caught, work permits have run out, is not good.
May 12, 2015
Last week it was not a one nation message Cameron was giving, it was scaring people the Scotts would take over, pitting the Englaish against Scots- that is what won the day for him. This week he wants us to forget it by his one nation nonsense because nationalism is frowned upon by the EU. It causes resistance as Cameron saw to his advantage last week!
May 11, 2015
@Matt; “They can go home…
Indeed they can — assuming they can afford the travel expenses, even hitch-hiking costs real money!
May 11, 2015
The EU is their home since they, like us, are EU Citizens.
It is all a question of perspective.
May 11, 2015
“E U citizen” is a misnomer.” The EU is not (yet) a state. One of the characteristics of a state might be equal access to benefits. That is an additional reason for denying them to anyone but UK passport holders. If the SNP can roll back the UK Union after 300 years we can surely roll back the EU after 40.
May 11, 2015
Cheshire Girl, this is where the whole lefty argument falls flat. We keep being told that the vast majority of immigrants come here to work, not to claim. But when you say ok, come here, work, pay tax but don’t claim, then they say that is unfair.
No other country in the world will pay unemployed (often unemployable) immigrants to come over with their families and start looking around for work. Plus housing, medical, schooling, etc.
You can have a welfare state or you can have open borders, but you cannot have both.
May 11, 2015
We cannot be responsible for the population of the world. We can only try and help where we can. Our own people must come first. Why are immigrants offered homes when many of our own population are in bedsits and have been waiting for a proper home for years?
May 11, 2015
@Old Albion; “The EU will be slapping Cameron down firmly”
I expect them to allow some slack for now, otherwise Cameron will be wasting his time trying to renegotiate, not because the EU are unwilling but because the British people will have already made their minds up on the desirability of a Brexit!
May 11, 2015
I am a gambling man and I am still annoyed that I chickened out of my large bet (at 11 to 1) on a Tory overall majority. Thinking he might perhaps fall a seat or two short.
I see no sign that we will get anything of any substance from the EU and very little sign that Cameron is even asking for anything real or substantive.
The BBC has already started its pro EU campaign with the CBI on radio 4 this morning. An organisation they falsely see as representing business. They are trying to pretend that a few trivial concessions on benefits for migrants and child benefits for children overseas will do. It does not even begin to be enough, the restoration of the supremacy of Westminster democracy, control of UK borders and the supremacy of UK courts is very the minimum starting point needed.
I certainly will not be betting on the EU negotiation offering anything of substance even if Cameron tries to present it as such.
May 11, 2015
Lifelogic
Sorting out the BBC should be another of Mr Camerons priorities.
I believe their Charter says “unbiased” and “Public Broadcasting service” which has to be the biggest farce in history.
May 11, 2015
Indeed on the quack climate catastrophe scare “science”, on expensive intermittent greencrap energy, on the love in with the anti-democratic EU and on bogus, lefty every bigger state economics the BBC is wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong and hugely biased.
They set a “BBC thing” lefty agenda on the whole nation.
May 11, 2015
“BBC think”
May 12, 2015
Furthermore why should anyone at the BBC earn more than the PM (£142,500). Plus they get their gold plated pensions on top.
There is clearly no shortage of dim, lefty, innumerate art graduates queueing up to work there. Many better people than the current DG could be found who would do the job rather better for nothing at all.
May 11, 2015
Alan.
I am with you 100%.
It should be taken apart or just sold off.
Problem is what will take its place?
The Board should be reminded of their Charter and who pays them and then it is a case of sign on or ship out.
May 11, 2015
@alan jutson; Indeed but “unbiased” doesn’t mean being biased towards the right instead, also their Charter says the BBC is to inform, educate and entertain, and John Reith (later Lord Reith) didn’t list them in that order by accident.
May 11, 2015
Indoctrinate, misinform, dumb down and bore seems to be their current agenda.
May 11, 2015
Jerry
Do to wanted it biased to the right, it should be simply neutral.
May 12, 2015
@LL; Indeed that is very much the whole of broadcast media (never mind the press, but they have always ploughed such furrows) in the UK these days, not just the BBC, hence why I think there needs to be wholesale industry wide reforms, far to many people on here think that the BBC is the boggy man simply because they see the TVL fee as a tax they would prefer not to pay, but then fail to realise that they are paying for Ch4’s (as an example) far more left wing agenda via the shop tills, whilst also totally ignoring much right wing bias from certain mix-mode funded subscription channels and services.
@alan jutson; Indeed, and sorry my comment wasn’t directed at you. The problem is though, far to many people on our hosts site are not against biased broadcasting per se but just don’t like the perceived biased they see from the BBC. It is not the BBC I’m trying to defend by objecting to the “bash the BBC” type comments but the wish for unbiased, uncompromised news, current affairs and PSB in the UK. It will be a disaster if the UK broadcast industry goes fully down the USA model, even if it is good for commercialised content providers here and in the US..
May 11, 2015
John ,
Would it be unacceptable for the the BBC to accept further pieces of silver from Brussels ? (given the forthcoming referendum)
How about getting a European to present the case for the EU ?
There is nothing more that Briton’s like than to being told what to do in their own country by aliens .
May 12, 2015
@ADS; [my emphasis] “There is nothing more that Briton’s like than to being told what to do in their own country by aliens
The last time I checked Briton and Europe (by which I assume to mean the landmass know as “Europe”) are both on planet Earth, how is the weather on Mars ADS?!
May 11, 2015
It would be for the voters to decide in the referendum whether Cameron had extracted enough of substance to justify staying in the EU, and they would be told that he had done so by those who properly understood such matters AND could get their views repeated sympathetically, or at least uncritically, across the mass media. There might be claims to the contrary but they would either be kept out of almost all of the mass media or their originators would be personally discredited in one way or another.
And there might even be an official government pamphlet delivered to every household, as there was for the 1975 referendum, which would explain all this complicated business for those who had been too busy living their lives to keep up with the details; it would only be necessary to make a few adjustments to the original wording:
http://www.harvard-digital.co.uk/euro/pamphlet.htm
“We explain why the Government, after long, hard negotiations, are recommending to the British people that we should remain a member of the European Community.
We do not pretend, and never have pretended, that we got everything we wanted in these negotiations. But we did get big and significant improvements on the previous terms.
We confidently believe that these better terms can give Britain a New Deal in Europe. A Deal that will help us, help the Commonwealth, and help our partners in Europe.
That is why we are asking you to vote in favour of remaining in the Community.”
May 12, 2015
Rather important comment about what happened during the 1975 referendum missed for moderation here.
May 11, 2015
I am a gambling man and my Tory win bet (see my previous replies on this site) has paid off handsomely. Some of us have got “it” lifelogic, and some just rant about it on right wing websites 😉 .
Anyway, now that the Turkeys have voted for Christmas, thanks entirely to the 5 to 1 rightwing printed media advantage, (newspapers always drive the UK voter decision making); the bottom four quintiles of the UK population need a survival strategy for the next five years. Start off with decent door locks; a burglar alarm and fire insurance. The latter, particularly if you rent a shop with a large glass front.
There has been some chatter about “GDP per capita” and the like recently. Better than straight GDP as a measure, there is a lot it doesn’t tell. Have a read of http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171778_400247.pdf . Then by the time we get to 2018/19, you will understand how the UK Middle Class, got screwed by the very politicians they thought were its financial salvation.
May 11, 2015
The elephant in the room here is in work benefits not out of work benefits. Without in work benefits our cost of living is so high it would not be worth these people coming here, with them they can afford to save for the lives after UK back in their own countries.
Why are we subsidising industry to employ migrants who push up the price of housing and keep us out of schools and hospitals? Tax credits plus housing benefit plus schools plus health treatment. These should be addressed as part of any negotiations. These are my red lines along with repatriation of all powers.
May 11, 2015
Well we need a financial incentive for people to work. Currently after the additional costs of working (travel, lunches, clothing, loss of time, child care) there is often no financial incentive at all. Many on benefits are behaving entirely rationally given the daft system that pertains. Child care, travel to work are not even tax allowable or subsidised in general (unless you are an MP or something that is).
So you need higher wages, lower taxes or lower benefits. Wages are being kept very low by the supply of open door & generally low skilled immigration and by the daft policies of expensive religious energy, bloated government, poor banking, low investment, endless over regulation, poor education, low skill levels, high tax rates, daft employment laws and silly government restrictions everywhere you look.
May 11, 2015
I see that Cameron said, the other day, that “Miliband was in politics for the right reasons”. One assumes these reasons were to destroy the economy with his lefty loon policies and unpleasant politics of spite & envy. Also to thieve off landlords on order to try to attempt to buy the votes of tenants with others people’s assets. Thus destroying the property rental market while helping no one but parasitic lawyers.
He is not in it for the right reasons are all. He is clearly just another cynical, deluded, lefty, career politician, fortunately now a failed one. One who pretends he cares about the poor, but whose policies would make them far worse off. Either he so dim that he he does not realise this or he is totally immoral & realises it full well – but thought that this con was the way to gain power.
I tend to think the latter.
There is of course a similar parallel with Cameron and his expensive greencrap energy religion. Does Cameron actually believe in this scientific & economic drivel or is it merely a cynical way that he thinks he can appear to be “nice/caring” and thus gains votes?
We shall see what ministers he selects very shortly. Is he just another daft Libdim or can he now become a real Tory?
May 11, 2015
Lifelogic,
I’ve never been in politics but I would imagine that there are quite a few friendships in the House of Commons which cross party lines. It will be like any workplace. We don’t always agree with our workmates – but we can argue, but at the end of it all go off to have a drink together without hating each other.
So, it may well be that there is some personal relationship between Ed and Dave. It may be an exaggeration to call it friendship, but it sounds to me that there was enough respect there for David Cameron to not want to kick Ed Miliband when he was down. That’s how it should be.
May 11, 2015
As the saying goes, the people on the other side are just the Opposition, the people on your side are the enemy.
May 11, 2015
But Cameron had been happy enough to kick Miliband to get him down.
Is it not hypocritical to be magnanimous in victory if you have achieved your victory through foul means, including getting your friends to chorus that your opponent is a liar, apart from being a weird sort of person?
Reply Not exactly what Mr Cameron said or did. No part of Lasbour’s claim that the Tories would privatise and undermine the NHS was true.
May 11, 2015
I’m referring to the dismissal of all of Miliband’s clear statements that he would not make any agreement at all with the SNP.
May 12, 2015
Dear Denis–He would necessarily have had to work with the SNP to some degree tacitly or otherwise even if only every now and again. Worrying whether that does or does not meet the requirements for an “agreement” is dancing on the head of a pin. It’s how the House of Commons works, very plainly and very simply.
May 11, 2015
I have no problem with disagreements, but Ed Miliband proposed (by distorting the legal system and tenancy laws) to thieve property assets off Landlords and to use the money to try to buy the votes of tenants. He must have known that this would actually damage both landlords and tenants in the end. Thank goodness the would be thief failed.
Someone as immoral as that need kicking both when they are down and when they are no down, as much as possible.
May 11, 2015
Indeed, it was a touching moment when Cameron had such affectionate words for the man that helped send out ‘search party’s for immigrants’, sell of the gold at rock bottom prices, de-regulated the banks, spent what the nation could afford and more…. etc.
Cameron’s political compass remains broken….
May 11, 2015
Also who doubts he would have opened the doors to any immigrant who might have voted Labour in 2020.
It is a minor miracle that the Tories won in face of that and the boundaries.
This government has to lock the door and throw away the keys.
May 11, 2015
His proposed thieving off landlords seems to have worked with London voters too.
May 11, 2015
Spot on. It’s very possible to do something for the right reasons even if you end up doing what many regard as the wrong thing. Labelling someone you disagree with as ‘totally imorral’ is quite unhelpful.
The company I used to work for had what it called a “newspaper test” – ask yourself if you woudl like to have what you say internally / privately to a colleague published in a national newspaper. If the anwer is no then don’t do it. I would like a few people commentating on politics to reflect on that!
May 11, 2015
Well I did not think Milibands proposed thieving off landlords to buy votes of tenants was “for the right reasons” at all. It was cynical and contemptible.
Your “newspaper test” is a bat test because it hugely restrict what you might say. Something might be a very sensible thing to say to someone in particuar might not be sensible to be broadcast in a newspaper to the whole world.
With that test everyone say nothing but bland vacuous drivel. Rather like so many politicians.
May 11, 2015
Well his party was pleased to see him go.
We now see the worms crawling out of the woodwork to tell us that they really are more business-friendly than Ed & Ed said. Most likely they will mainly disappear aux Kinnocks post-92 into well-paid Euro roles….
May 11, 2015
Hard not to indulge in some Scadenfreude – I think Vince Cable’s result was even more pleasurable than Ed Davey’s. I’m a bit sorry to see Ed Ball’s go though as I warmed to him personally though of course his policies were calamitous.
May 11, 2015
Balls has a new job … flat lining.
May 11, 2015
Is he just another daft Libdim or can he now become a real Tory?
We already know that Logic – Mr Cameron couldn’t have been clearer.
Mr Cameron (and now Mr Redwood?) has jumped on the ‘One nation Tory’ bandwagon nailing their colours to the blue Labour mast.
He is signalling that he isn’t the man to seriously tackle ‘welfarism’ or the ‘dependency culture’. His mantra is Keynesian economics.
Personal responsibility will continue to take a back seat until the inevitable clash with reality…..
I cannot see why Mr Redwood would wish to go down with this sinking ship – if you are going to sup with the Camerooons you better use a long spoon….
Reply Silly comment. I have always been a supporter of generous treatment for the disabled and those who cannot earn their own living. I also think the big issue is eligibility for benefits, and encouragement of work.
May 11, 2015
Thanks JR,
I’m also in favour of generous treatment of the genuinely sick, disabled and elderly – this group should be given MORE help which would be possible if less deserving cases were weeded out…
However it is neither sustainable or desirable to maintain public spending at near to 50 % of GDP…
Under Labour we saw an explosion in incapacity benefit in a time when the nation was living longer, supposedly getting healthier (and fatter)! – some work has been done on this but there is more to do.
There is also much resentment about the generous level of benefits given to those that do not want to work or take responsibility for their actions.
If your party wishes to be seen to be ‘generous’ and not ‘mean’ you must explain what part of Labour’s decision to increase spending from 36% to 49% of GDP you disagreed with ?
Are we really that much better and stronger a country after all these years of high spending ?
May 11, 2015
To reply:
How about top-ups for those proud people who work hard for such low pay that they go for days without food? If the tax that I pay which goes into the welfare budget was refunded with the caveat that I gave it to someone like that I would happily oblige.
May 11, 2015
Sorry – that was in response to your reply to Ken Moore.
May 11, 2015
JR: “I do not wish to see any cuts in benefits paid to those in need.”
Who could disagree with you?
It’s the rest of the benefit industry that needs to be dismantled.
May 11, 2015
To pay more to those in real need you perhaps have to pay less to those who could work but choose not too. The more you pay the more are in the line to be paid.
At the very least you need so real incentives to work, Being say £2.50 per week better of after, bus fares and child care, is not a real incentive. Many are still actually worse of in real terms after the cost of working are added in.
May 11, 2015
So we are to get Amber Rudd an Edinburgh history graduate at Climate Change and Energy – it hardly sounds very encouraging.
Let us hope she is at least numerate and realises that climate has (and always will change) and that so called renewable, intermittent energy is rather pointless, uncompetitive, exports jobs, destroys the countryside and is unaffordable.
Fracking, gas, oil, coal and nuclear are the ways to go. If “renewables” ever do become competitive then fine go for them at that point, they will then need no tax subsidies.
“Amber Rudd insists smart meters will bring bills down” – I read, well she go that one wrong already.
Reply She has to implement the Manifesto pledge to stop subsidising onshore windfarms, and to facilitate extraction of oil and gas.
May 11, 2015
Good we shall see, but offshore wind farms make even less economic sense than onshore, so why only stop onshore wind?
May 11, 2015
I dont’ think it should be about economics only Lifelogic. If you lived in Scotland then you could be surrounded by enormous turbines only a few hundred meters from your home and nothing would be done about it. We have had water contamination to deal with and noise, the likes that many just wouldn’t comprehend. Two families that we were friends with have at last been bought out because of noise from a large wind farm and the prospect (now reality) of another one to the rear of them. They have had to fight for justice for over 8 years and have only now been able to move. Sleepless night and noise during the day (constant thumping) is not acceptable. People have tried to compare this to living near to an airport etc but what they fail to understand is that these people bought their homes at full market value unaware that this was going to happen to them. Their homes are not able to be sold now. This is happening on a massive scale in Scotland where the SNP is very keen on wind. All they talk about is the community benefit they can gain and again, all paid for by the whole of the UK. People are under siege up here and around us it is one application after another literally. We are constantly fighting wind farm applications and that is really a big ask of our local councils to plough through all the EIAs they have to look at only to find that when they refuse permission they are overridden by the Scottish government when the developer goes to appeal as they do every time. This is why subsidies for onshore need to stop first but I do see that offshore needs to stop soon for economic reasons.
May 11, 2015
Your manifesto says it will continue to support the Climate Change Act. Therefore you not only voted for it last Thursday, if you voted Tory, you stood as an MP hoping to be elected on this pledge despite numerous blogs and replies claiming the contrary. Your party is wedded to ED Miliband’s implementation of the EU policy and Cameron reaffirmed this last October at his Brussels meeting. Stop misleading people. This will cost households and business a fortune.
May 11, 2015
John, your reply to Lifelogic is music to my ears. I really do hope Cameron sticks to what is in his manifesto. Please don’t make us wait years though. I could even come back into the Tory fold if Cameron leads a true Tory party again! Always voted Conservative for the last 42 years and this was the first year I didn’t. I would dearly love to again in the future.
May 11, 2015
Devolved powers include the environment. Reserved powers, coal gas electricity- no mention of wind. It will be interesting to see whether the Scottish approved schemes will be halted.
They manifesto promises to decarbonise the cheapest way possible. As a start, the offshore will be vastly expanded at twice the cost or more of onshore, coal stations are being given loans by the Green Bank to burn American trees at 3x the cost of coal, and we have ordered a french nuke at twice the cost of the one the Finns have ordered from the Russians. The Guardian reports the Green industry is delighted at Mrs Rudd’s appointment.
May 11, 2015
And if you had checked a bitty more on the web (instead of writing like a headless chicken), you would have seen she’s all for fracking.
May 11, 2015
Nothing wrong with that!!
May 12, 2015
Good let us hope so, but they need to repeal the Miliband’s moronic, climate change act. The billions wasted on it could do so much good rather than the huge positive harm it is currently doing.
May 11, 2015
What about a moratorium on shutting down perfectly good coal and gas stations which are required for frequency control. You cannot do frequency control with windmills and pv but I don’t suppose that will bother politicians who seem illiterate on the subject of power generation.
Is there anyone at all John who understands mechanics and physics or are they all arts graduates.
May 12, 2015
Well you cannot really expect history or PPE graduates to be other than illiterate on the subject of power generation. They rarely know the difference between power and energy often even getting the wrong units I note.
Some even think positive feedback on global warming terms is a good thing. Just how ignorant can they get??
May 11, 2015
Smart meters in the UK cost £420 per house. The cost goes on the bill. They do not save energy if customers already are careful. Will the customers who are not careful check their meters to see how much energy is going where. The Italians are putting them in for a fraction of the cost. I have had 4 offers for installation already. So who is being ‘smart’, the installers or Mrs Rudd?
May 11, 2015
She should brush op on the units for power, energy, what positive and negative feed backs are and the likes. As a history graduate she probably will not have a clue about any of it.
She should cancel the absurd Swansea barrage lunacy as a first step and cancel onshore & offshore wind lunacy and all the PV grants.
She should spend a month with a sensible physicist like David MacKay and he could explain the laws of economics & physics to her.
May 11, 2015
Well you could stop free NHS for everyone without “indefinite leave to remain here”, or married to a Brit, from countries which do not provide reciprocal free care for Brits in their country. Make them pay for medical insurance before they enter the country. Put in place special measures for folk like diabetics who will need regular insulin, since the NHS is a monopoly care provider in much of our country, maybe ask for a “one off” payment to be allowed in.
You could stop free schooling for children of families where nobody in the family is entitled to “indefinite leave to remain”, unless their home country provides reciprocal free schooling for British families in their country. The many families here on work or student visas, getting perks of free schooling for their children, and free operations for already seriously ill family member before they even came here, should be stopped. If a Brit working or studying in their country would have to pay to educate his children, and for his families medical insurance or bills, then they should be paying here.
Those two measures above are significant savings on the public purse.
On the opposite side of the fence:
Genuine asylum seekers, and their families need medical care and schooling. Although the worldwide asylum rules need revising to entitle folk to asylum only in the first safe country they come to. And we need systematic ways to help people return home, a six month war in their home country should not be a ticket to a lifetime here – they should be going home after the war ends.
Anyone married to a Brit needs to be looked after. Including other European nationals. So your “If we ask unemployed Europeans looking for jobs to leave after six months if they have found nothing” etc should not apply if they are married to a Brit.
Europeans should be able to attain “indefinite leave to remain” like any other national, at which point they should be entitled to full access to public funds, welfare, and so on, like any other permanent resident.
You need to be careful about the rules for genuine couples where one partner is British and the other is a foreign national. The reality is after 9 months many have British children. If the breadwinner loses their job, or worse still is incapacitated or dies, then the rest of the family should be entitled to welfare etc here. The rules here are already too harsh, although hardly ever applied as far as I can see. As far as I am concerned if someone is married to a Brit, and has British children, then they should have “indefinite leave to remain here” regardless of whether or not they have lived here 2 years after the marriage, or whether they have subsequently been abroad for a while (maybe while the breadwinner was working abroad for a while).
The other big way to cut the welfare bill is to look at the big sink estates. There are some big council housing estates (some now housing association) which were originally built to house the workers of mines, shipyards, steelworks, and so on. In cases I know about where the mine, shipyard, or steelworks shut here we are many years later with a big publically funded housing estate isolated far removed from travelling distance to any realistic jobs market for that volume of people. The residents are unable to move, as the system keeps them there. The local schools are generally rubbish, meaning the next generation cannot escape through education. If any kind of market existed the residents would have individually decided to take their benefits and housing subsidy and move closer to jobs markets, as it is they are forced to stay in those houses. The way social housing subsidy works, and benefits, needs changing to empower those people to make individual choices to move closer to jobs markets like they would naturally without all the state intervention imposed on them. In the ultimate analysis if no big jobs market appears after a few years of a big employer, like a mine or shipyard, shutting, then those housing estates should become ghost towns. Not centrally planned by the state. Or propped up by state subsidy as they are now. The money should be redirected to help the people live near a current jobs market.
May 11, 2015
Trouble is when you think and act along the lines you express along comes the EU and its little helpers to saddle us with …asylum seekers/refugees. etc ed
Just amazing stuff!
May 11, 2015
UKIP will return because the bad news will just keep on coming, Colin.
May 11, 2015
Farage has returned and not before time! We will need his voice when the EU referendum comes up. He is the only politician that will not hold back and tell us the truth. No bias!
May 13, 2015
@fedupsoutherner; “We will need his [Mr Farage] voice when the EU referendum comes up.”
Well the europhile “In” camp will…
May 11, 2015
He’s back!!!!
May 12, 2015
The MSM will be doing overtime as he is a threat to the sham negotiation that Cameron will be engaged in. Like his actions with the EU over the last five years.
May 13, 2015
@Hope; “The MSM will be doing overtime as he is a threat to the sham negotiation that Cameron will be engaged in.”
Mr Farage was only going to stand down as leader, his voice would have still been heard in the EU parliament, on the hustings here in the UK.
This UKIP ‘love-in’ with Mr Farage is doing nothing for the parties (never mind that of the man himself) already shattered image. Resign on Friday, to accept the old job back on Monday, if that was to happen within the EU Mr Farage himself would be the first to rip both the EU and the Eurocrat concerned to shreds – one rule for UKIP and another for the rest of the politicos so it seems, do as UKIP says, not as we do….
May 11, 2015
James Delingpole wrote on Breitbart that it is time to reclaim left wing words.
He mentioned the word “bum” – now translated as the “homeless”.
A big thing we could do, costing absolutely nothing in cash, is to reclaim words. For instance: benefit fraud: = bedroom tax. For instance: “drug addicts”, “drunks” and “spongers” instead of “the vulnerable”. For instance: “adulterers” instead of “alternative lifestyle.”
Gramschi noted that the culture of Italy was carefully slanted towards the middle class instead of the working man. That has now happened here except that the real working man is now faced by the very Metropolitan Elite which has caused all the trouble in Scotland. Down here, you see, I know several dole scroungers, not all of them born in this country. I watch Jeremy Kyle when I am at the gym. I can see the difference between the abandoned mother and her feckless “long term special other.”
Shame is such a powerful weapon. But – hey – wouldn’t that make us the Nasty Party all over again?
Just go on the left wing blogs and see what a really nasty party looks like – oh I forgot, they paraded outside Downing Street after the democratic election! So you have already seen them on TV.
Reply The language of moral reproof is not appropriate for many of the people you seek to describe
May 11, 2015
Tax cuts for all will help boost living standards and will reduce the need for top up benefits as growth in the economy boosts in work incomes.
Yes I’d go along with that. To the right it’s known as Reaganomics. A better explanation is that it’s just a form of Keynesian stimulus. President Reagan was persuaded by people like Arthur Laffer that reduced taxes would bring in more revenue. I don’t believe it worked quite the way Laffer predicted, but of course a healthy economy will generate more revenue than a sick one. Instead Dick Chaney was famously heard to remark ” Deficits don’t matter” when confronted with the evidence of a buoyant economy and a rising dollar.
Those tax cuts need to be given to those who are are likely to go out and spend some money. So lower VAT would be a good choice. There’s no point giving tax cuts to billionaires. They aren’t going to do anything with it!
If inflation gets up again then there would need to be a rethink. Not until then though.
May 11, 2015
You say:-
Those tax cuts need to be given to those who are are likely to go out and spend some money. So lower VAT would be a good choice. There’s no point giving tax cuts to billionaires. They aren’t going to do anything with it!
This is not really true. People who might not spent their money will still invest it in shares or businesses, put on deposit at the bank (where it is lent on to others) or they might lend it on to others to spend or invest. Or they might give it to charity or employ more staff. Where is the advantage in giving to people who spend it all probably, on balance, on things built overseas anyway?
Even the rich have to do something with the money after all. People with money are more likely to use additional money wisely. This as the fact that they have money is a clear indication that they tend to use money sensibly.
May 13, 2015
Lifelogic,
A billionaire can only wear one pair of shoes at a time so even though they may spend more on shoes that I do they aren’t going to spend a thousand times as much even if they earn a thousand times as much.
The same goes for cars and just about anything else you can think of too. Spending has to equal income in any economy. All incomes are someone else’s spending. To the penny.
Spending isn’t the same as saving.
Banks do not create loans by lending out deposits BTW! That’s kindergarten economics. Google the phrase “banks create money out of thin air” for more discussion. Not all of it is accurate though!
reply People on lower incomes may also choose to save. You always seek to oversimplify
May 13, 2015
If I was wanted to complicate the argument, I’d use terms such as “marginal propensity to consume” but wherever possible I avoid economic jargon. It puts people off, for one thing.
Yes, people on lower incomes can save their money, and yes, some higher income people can blow the lot every week on fast cars, drugs, drinking, gambling and women etc but on average the tendency is the opposite. Readers of this blog might recognise their own spending and saving pattern being along these lines as they increased their income over the course of their working lives.
May 13, 2015
@LL; “People who might not spent their money will still invest it in shares or businesses, put on deposit at the bank (where it is lent on to others) or they might lend it on to others to spend or invest.”
The problem is, without customers for the products of the business your billionaires (or indeed the banks) might as well be investing in a dead or permanently lame horse!
May 11, 2015
“If we ask unemployed Europeans looking for jobs to leave after six months if they have found nothing”
Perhaps, assuming that this is not off-set by our own ex-pat citizens returning as any tick-for-tack ‘social cohesion’ measures are applied in other EU member states.
“If we say to all European migrants they do not receive benefits for children who live in another country, that too will save money.”
Will it, surely it will just mean that such people (certainly those living as a family, but whose spouse and children remain in their own member country) simply move lock, stock and kids to the UK, this will actually increase over all government spending as it will further stretch GPs and schools etc.
Both were good policies for a headline, I predict both will give a headline for poor results…
May 11, 2015
Eh “tit for tat” measures exactly how many British expats are in the EU’s basket cases like Latvia, Lithuania, Romania and Bulgaria? If there are many British citizens there I bet not many of them are native born British
May 11, 2015
@DRW; Who said anything about ‘basket cases’ cases, after all new UK laws would not just apply to the countries you cite but to all EU member states, perhaps even Ireland.
May 11, 2015
Quite right on the children then perhaps coming to the UK. The UK then havign to provide schooling, health care, dentistry, policing, social services and the rest for them too.
A points based system taking the best (and those we actually need) for around the World is clearly the sensible way to go. The Tory party are alas clearly still Libdims at heart – in the main.
May 11, 2015
Thus the folly of giving out any benefit at all to migrant labour.
It behaves as a subsidy to undercut our own workforce.
May 11, 2015
@Anonymous; “Thus the folly of giving out any benefit at all to migrant labour.”
If they are “migrant labour” then presumably they will also be income tax payers [1], perhaps even paying NI contributions, if so they are as entitled to the “insurance” by the state to whom they have paid direct taxes to as anyone born here.
[1] if they have not been working but have not at least registered themselves for Tax at the HMRC then that should be reason enough for expulsion back to their home country or a country willing to take them
“It behaves as a subsidy to undercut our own workforce.”
Tripe on stilts! Any in-work benefits available to EU economic migrants are also available to the UK’s indigenous workforce, the real problem being that for far to many able bodied British it is to comfy sitting on JSA, watching daytime TV, rather than doing what so many migrants are doing – being out side working on farms,. dirty recycling centres or NMW factory work or what ever.
As for undercut UK wages, it’s globalisation and cheap labour in the developing countries such as the BRICP nations etc.
May 11, 2015
Once again the arguments are all about economics, benefits, and so on – backed up by people like the chairman of the CBI and even our host here.
The argument over the EU for many many people is the changing face of our country, overcrowding, and the issue of sovereignty.
Mr Cameron should have realised by now that unless he negotiates a total return of sovereignty he can wave as many bits of paper around as he likes and he will still lose his referendum. History tells quite clearly that people on this island don’t like being in any kind of union where they are subservient to continental European powers, and that if people feel strongly about something they are more likely to vote than if they are a bit undecided. (And from my experience, people who want to leave the EU are far more passionate about it than people who don’t really mind either way.) See AV and PCCs for recent examples.
We have always tried to look after our poor better than anyone else in the world, and I have no doubt that we will continue to do so, and quite rightly where it is deserved. But we do not have an obligation to look after the rest of the EU’s poor and, increasingly, the world’s poor. Neither do we have an obligation to pay benefits to the children of migrant workers (who probably send half their money home anyway, thus reducing the benefit to our economy still further). We give billions away in foreign aid as it is. Which means that we will continue to struggle keeping up with the welfare bill until we can leave the EU, close our borders for a while to sort ourselves out, then control immigration at a rate which we can afford.
May 11, 2015
The issue is still open door immigration.
One fails to see how filling the country with poor and unskilled people will raise living standards.
Let’s hope you can create jobs – for the simple fact that we’re going to need them.
The increasing national debt doesn’t contradict my feelings on this. Deficit reduction targets will be hit and miss and until it is eliminated it is still debt.
Austerity is bad enough.
The government still importing cheap labour to undercut me makes it worse. And it is subsidised – even if that’s via access to unpaid-for public services or the cost of the indigenous unemployed or the supplements paid on top of depressed wages.
May 11, 2015
“One fails to see how filling the country with poor and unskilled people will raise living standards”
Indeed perhaps paying just a couple of thousand in taxes PA net. Yet needing housing benefit, health care, schooling, policing, social services, roads, defence, child benefit, dentistry, the legal system and other endless government bureaucrats doing nothing much of value …….
May 11, 2015
John, the comments regarding the EU are bordering on staggering. I heard this morning whilst on my exercise bike listening to breakfast on the BBC that the EU is meeting on Wednesday to allocate refugees from North Africa to all members of the EU. They are thinking of making them legal immigrants who will be free to settle in Europe and as usual, the faceless wonders in Brussels will be calling the shots. How the hell are we going to get our benefits and welfare bill down with all these extra people coming into the country ‘legally’? They will be eligible for welfare from day one, housing, schooling, medical care etc etc. Who will pay for it all? Got it in one. The British public and those paying taxes. This could fare well with the EU referendum coming up as the British people will be more likely to vote out! Nigel Farage, where are you when we need you? Come back please and argue our corner.
Reply One of the advantages of having a Conservative government is that they oppose this proposal!
May 11, 2015
John, I appreciate that fact but will it be enough if Merkel wants it? Whilst I haven’t a problem with a few genuine refugees, how can we be sure many of them are not just coming for a better life? All the new housing promised by government will be taken up with more immigration. We are a small country by comparison and because our economy is doing well it will be seen as a sign that we can afford to take more. Just how many can we take? Our social services etc are already under enough strain. Until we are out of the EU we have no chance of containing our borders and no control over immigration. I just hope this is the straw that break the camel’s back.
May 11, 2015
Fed Up – About the only thing blue about me is my face !
May 11, 2015
The EU plans to allocate the many thousands of economic migrants and refugees arriving illegally are questionable. They are saying that countries should take their share according to size and economic performance. Economic performance will put the UK into line for extra and what do they mean by size? Population density would mean less for the UK but population size would mean more. Once the migrants arrive in a country, would they have to stay there. What would stop them from getting on a bus with an EU permit and head for the UK or Germany. What about the position for all the Christian and other faith refugees who have not taken illegal entry and are patiently waiting for help, sometimes in freezing cold conditions.
May 11, 2015
My forecast for the new head of DECC seems to be coming true. Amber Rudd, experience- degree in History, Edinburgh, investment banking, responsible previously for Green Bank (which is lending vast amounts of taxpayers money to burn American trees in modified coal stations), and previously responsible for Mr Huhne’s Geen Deal, which lends mugs large amounts of money, at high interest rates, to pay regulated businesses to insulate houses in very expensive ways- and has been shunned by anyone not being given a large grant. Expect more of the same. Cameron really does not have a clue.
People will die when energy prices are forced up and few older houses have their badly insulated walls and floors insulated or draughts eliminated. This need not be expensive but regulations will be made even more onerous next year and only builders who pay to be regulated are allowed to do the work.
May 11, 2015
The problem lies with the EU machine not the member states themselves. Germany has taken in the most and if you think things are strained in places like Lincolnshire take a visit to some of the cities in the Ruhr. Remember the German government won a case in their courts about paying handouts to a Romanian woman. Up till then Cameron ………. always said we have had to cough up because any decision to stop paying would be reversed by the courts. It can be done, but their is no will to do so, as the prevailing neo-lib agenda says we need that cheap labour regardless where it comes from and how much it ultimately costs. Just expect more BS from Dave on this and many other related issues.
May 11, 2015
John you may oppose it, but can you stop it. The EU have you between a rock and a hard place, squeal though you may you are powerless, and it is all of your own making. Wise up and start muttering Article 50 every time DC passes.
May 11, 2015
JR, I read the Telegraph article today with the headline:
“Britain will be ‘forced’ by Brussels to accept Mediterranean migrants”
And there was a Times article with a similar headline.
But according to this usually reliable source:
https://euobserver.com/justice/128655
“The plans would not be binding on the UK, Ireland, and Denmark.”
May 11, 2015
Wait for it. Mr Cameron’s “WE WILL NOT BE ACCEPTING REFUGEES – until they are granted asylum by another EU state.”
As with “I WILL NOT BE PAYING THE EU TAX DEMAND – this year”
or
“WE WILL LIMIT MIGRATION – from outside the EU” whilst opening the doors to record levels of incomers.
With this man you really have to listen out for the small print.
May 11, 2015
When they have an EU passport or permit, what is to stop migrants from getting on a bus to any other country in the area?
May 11, 2015
Reply to reply,
But how many of the remaining 27 support it? Not an auspicious start to EU negotiations.
May 11, 2015
Do we have a Conservative government, that is yet to be seen I suspect not?
May 11, 2015
As we haven’t had a Conservative government for 20 years or so the jury is still out – deeds not words define reality
May 11, 2015
Reply to reply
There is nothing the Conservative government can do about the refugees. Even if you refuse to accept them, once they are granted asylum by the Italians then they are free to move here as European citizens if they wish.
The French leader cottoned on to this last week. Exhorting refugees to seek asylum in his country. Why ? Because then they are free to wander into Britain away from France.
Whoever switched from UKIP to Conservative will be kicking themselves pretty soon.
May 11, 2015
“Nigel Farage, where are you when we need you? Come back please and argue our corner.”
Well happily he is back where he is needed.
Day 1 after the relief of Day 0, and Cameron has his first “Just say NO” test, but will he? He hasn’t yet… Come on Dave, just say NO, pal.
We will see.
May 11, 2015
Reply to reply
The Tory party may oppose it, but they cannot stop it. All thanks to the same Tory Party that took us into the then EEC without asking the people first and hiding from them the true nature of the Project. ie Political UNION.
May 11, 2015
Nigel is back!!
May 11, 2015
Can you remind me again, who was it that created the Libya refugee problem? Who bombed that country into a regime change and left six million Libyans in chaos with no functional government!!!???
PS. I don’t know if you have met any of the squaddies involved in the Libya bombings but they were pissed off. The army squaddies had tents in the desert while the fly boys were were going back to their five star hotels in southern Italy.
May 11, 2015
The only time I ever saw benefits up close, it was not a pretty picture. The aim was to drive the claimant into default and then the state would start to pick up bills. The plan seemed to be to force people into dependency, and keep happy those who were already there, either by choice or inheritance.
Benefits should help people through bad patches so that they have minimum anxiety while trying to get their lives back on track. Dependency fuels criminality and then fills prisons. It drags the economy and pulls everyone down. None of this is rocket science.
May 11, 2015
Correct. That is why I believe people should be given the choice of opting out of State assistance and allowed to have insurance instead.
May 11, 2015
Why should foreigners get any benefits regardless of the duration in the UK. I worked overseas for over 20 years and we had to pay for everything. There was never any question of receiving any benefits.
Coupled with the fact that you have no idea who’s in the country how are you going to get them to leave.
May 11, 2015
Indeed. We always hear the arguments about all the UK citizens who live abroad who would suffer as a result of the removal of the ‘freedom of movement’ rules.
But I am not aware of anyone who has moved abroad to get benefits, free housing, or free healthcare. If they did I think they’d be disappointed!
May 11, 2015
“…for those who are in work, so the need for benefits declines…”
I think it is demeaning that working people need hand-outs from government (despite paying tax in most cases).
Why can’t the tax system be changed and simplified to eliminate this? Allow working people to keep more of the money they earn and avoid them being dependant on the state.
A secondary advantage of this would be to stop pushing voters towards the ‘party of benefits’.
Reply That is the direction of travel of the reforms, but people on low incomes are already paying no tax but do need a top up to afford housing and other costs.
May 11, 2015
The minimum wage should be raised so that it is also a living wage. Then in-work benefits can be abolished, to the relief of the taxpayers, and if some employers cannot afford to pay a living wage then they should take their “jobs” out of our country – a job which does not support the worker is not a real job, it’s a scam.
May 11, 2015
In work benefits should be stopped. End of, they were just introduced by Brown to increase the cl;ient state.
Child benefit should be stopped, you don’t need to pay people to breed after all they start teaching them the basics in school at about 5 years of age.
May 11, 2015
British Nationalist .
Quote “if some employers cannot afford to pay a living wage then they should take their “jobs” out of our country – a job which does not support the worker is not a real job, it’s a scam.”
We are living in a global economy and typically UK wages for are 4-5X higher than in China or India and much higher than most of Europe .
Try and raise them to 6-7X and many of those jobs will just go overseas as you say but the people who used to do them will end up being worse off .
The problem is not the level of wages , it is the level of accommodation costs .
The only way of turning the minimum wage into a living wage is to radically reduce the cost of living – specifically accommodation .
May 11, 2015
The reason is they want to tax as much as possible. So for example a young person still living at home rent free has plenty of income free to be grabbed by the state so they do so. Yet a young person with children and perhaps a partner, in a rented house has no free income at all.
The system is structured to tax the former and give benefits to the latter. If they just reduced taxes they could not tax the former so much and they like taxing as many as they can.
May 11, 2015
Now is the time to clamp down on all those left-wing organisations including charities which sprang up during the Blair years to encourage and facilitate the exploitation of our benefits system by so-called asylum seekers and others.
May 11, 2015
Oxfam lefties were using their funds given for the ‘fam’ in their nameto take adverts arguing against the so called bedroom tax. Perhaps they could set up as a political party and extend the benefits to private lets, where extra bedrooms already do not qualify for HB.
May 11, 2015
If actions support the words in today’s blog , I will be pleased and surprised . Being able to avoid EU control over what we can and cannot to with the immigrants in this country is a matter for further negotiation – indications so far are not positive . It is ludicrous that we have a budget based on our own needs and forecast and , at the same time , an over-riding mechanism from Brussels that prevents all of its implementation .
Battle lines have to be drawn before the negotiations take place with the Brussels bureaucrats . It would be better , once the lines are declared , that the referendum happened 6 months afterwards ; this approach would show that the electorate was involved and did matter . As far as benefits to the immigrants from Europe are concerned , they should be frozen until an agreement has been reached . The same approach should be taken by Michael Gove in his efforts with the ECHR . Theresa May has already shown her mettle and I applaud the way she has stuck her chin out by “exporting” certain immigrants and not waiting for EU approval beforehand .
May 11, 2015
Careful of those splinters sitting on the fence JR – I think your position would be clearer if you defined what you mean by ‘need’. I don’t recognise this world in which ‘need’ can be so neatly defined.
I seem to remember Mr Clarke describing himself as a ‘one nation, pro European Conservative’. In that sense the term ‘one nation’ is highly toxic so perhaps you are most unwise to associate yourself to it. There is no need to rebuff the idiotic left wing characature that all Conservatives are mean and heartless – it is beneath you.
Ofcourse everyone wants ‘one nation’ like we would all like free ice-cream and money.
Nobody sets out to deliberately divide – but is ‘one nation’ really possible when we have sections of our society that feel it acceptable to riot and deface war memorials because they do not agree with a general election result ?
Do you mean the ‘need’ for a roof over a persons head and enough food to eat ?..or..
Is ‘need’ the means to pay for cigarettes, alcohol and 3 take away meals a week ontop of basic provision ?
Or are we talking about the ‘need’ to have a foreign holiday and a large flat screen television that is superior to what a working neighbour can afford ?
Aside from a good level of care and whatever mobility aids are needed, should the taxpayer pay for a brand new high spec car for those with not so severe disabilities such as children with ADHD ?
etc.
Do you agree with the left’s view that providing free food in foodbanks is a barometer for overall poverty and thus ‘need’ ?.
Has the whole definition of ‘poverty’ and ‘inequality’ been hijacked by the left and become totally detached from the real meaning of the term?.
Put meat on bones please Mr Red!
Reply I mean that if someone is disabled, or unable to work the state should provide them with an income related to the living standards of our country, the system we currently enjoy. The issue is eligibility, not need.
May 11, 2015
Yes, what is ludicrous is that in many cases (and I know of 3 personally) the family gets given a brand new state of the art car for a disabled and then provides a taxi to take and collect them from school while the parents languish in bed in the mornings. It is this kind of thing that should be stopped. Why aren’t these parents made responsible for getting their own children to school? There are many grown ups in our local villages who claim disability benefit, get cars etc and have nothing more wrong with them than irritable bowel syndrome. I think the definition of disabled needs to be clarified more.
May 11, 2015
Perhaps the ‘disabled’ could become ‘apprentices’ instead.
May 11, 2015
If you give things away for free (or just less than they are worth) you tend to get long queues. Food banks show nothing at all but the normal workings of a free market.
That and a desire by lefties to augment them at every turn for pathetic political reasons.
May 11, 2015
Why not make people work more hours before they get tax credits?
I know someone who works 15 hours a week. Assuming she earns £7 per hour, loss of tax credits if she worked 35 hours a week would mean that she would get only £3k more take home p.a.
Of course the benefit cap should be lowered asap to £20K and £15 K for long term people and single parents.
May 11, 2015
Quite right John, our benefits system should be reserved for British people in need and should not act as an incentive for people overseas to migrate here.
What chances do you give your ideas while we remain under EU domination?
May 11, 2015
I would also increase the minimum wage. Taxpayers are subsidising employers who pay their staff less than they need to live on by topping up those wages with benefits. In many cases, Amazon being the obvious example, those companies are not declaring any profit in this country so there would be no impact on corporation tax.
Of course this should be done in conjunction with other measures to avoid sucking in even more labour from the rest of the EU.
May 11, 2015
I don’t think many people would disagree with the proposition that welfare benefits should only be paid to those in need.
There is a small minority who believe that every citizen or resident should be entitled to a basic income from the state irrespective of their needs, but they are only a small, rather extreme, minority; and the most notable advocate of that policy, the Greens, actually dropped it from their manifesto in February, relegating it to the status of a long term aspiration:
http://policy.greenparty.org.uk/assets/files/Policy%20files/Basic%20Income%20Consultation%20Paper.pdf
However serious differences of opinion will still arise among the rest of the population over what should be considered as “need”. It could be argued that those who take an expansive view of “need” have just lost a general election, but on the other hand their most signal defeat was actually at the hands of another party which would be even more generous with taxpayers’ money, at least on the face of it.
May 11, 2015
“If we ask unemployed Europeans looking for jobs to leave after six months if they have found nothing, that will reduce some of the pressures on the jobs market ”
Honestly that is just nonsense. If you ask them to leave and they refuse then what ? Do you mean deport them ? If so then say it.
On benefits cuts I think child benefit should be rolled into universal credit and pensioner benefits like free TV license and fuel allowance should be too. On another topic charitable status for all private schools should be removed and the additional revenue spent on state free schools/academies.
May 11, 2015
Agree that the country should help those genuinely in need.
For my part, there are two other questions:
1. Why is it that so many people are willing to make the hazardous journey to Europe from Africa? It must be utterly terrible in those North African states. If this is so, then surely attention should be given to improving conditions in those states so that people no longer feel so desperate that they are willing to risk drowning in the Mediterranean.
2. Where does our overseas aid budget go? We should focus it on North Africa.
May 11, 2015
Britain has become nation of invalids with aged and disable where later throwing up emotive (claims ed) of persecution. No one questions how many are swinging the lead to beat the system by getting those in work to pay for these shysters.
Reply Disabled people are handicapped and need financial and other support. A small number of cheats can be dealt with by the authorities.
May 11, 2015
Except that they’re not. We all know who they are and even when reported they just carry on as usual. How can someone claiming to have a bad back run a logging business where much is done by hand in the open street and get away with claiming disability? That’s how blatant it is in some places.
May 11, 2015
‘A small number of cheats’
I should cocoa !.
A Mr X came regularly into my workplace to buy steel products in his Motability car. He moves around with a sort of comedy limp and then amazingly is cured of his affliction when the time comes to lift heavy sections of steel into his vehicle without difficulty. This individual runs a small cash in hand business welding and fabricating.
An Mr Y tells me he has ME which ‘comes and goes’ but his condition is deemed sufficiently bad for him to claim higher level disability living allowance and drives a new Renault that gets replaced every 2 years. I saw him happily cutting his hedge last week using a stepladder.
A Mr Z enjoys free road tax on his well used car as on rare occasions he has to take his father to the hospital for treatment. His father is poorly but is still fit enough to erect a greenhouse.
That’s just 3 people I know of in a quiet market town…and politicians wonder why we think they are out of touch with the real world!
Reply Anyone claiming disability benefits has to go through medical tests to establish need.
May 11, 2015
Anyways I am off to work in another European capital. A country which has not printed uncapped ICT work visas for Indian nationals to flood in. Will get paid a lot more there, as my rate will not be undercut by non EC workers. Will actually get a job. And as a side benefit I can afford to buy a house out of loose change, no mortgage required, and certainly not the fantasy prices here. Have not decided whether to keep paying my taxes here, or whether to pay there instead, I can do either depending how I set things up. I may come back, I may not. Good luck UK.
May 11, 2015
word of advice from a long term expat now retired, keep paying NI, it’s the cheapest insurance around.
Good luck, bin there done that and got the tan. Keep blogging.
May 11, 2015
The great skills shortage swindle. All us Brits refuse to compete on money with cheap labour from abroad, and go abroad ourselves to where immigration is a bit better controlled. No doubt this lack of skills here will be used as justification for more work visa printing. An endless cycle.
Anyways I may pay my taxes abroad and leave my kids in state school here. There you are UK that’s really going to help your finances. Loss of revenue and keep the cost of non contributing dependants.
Is this really the best the country can do in organising things?
May 11, 2015
If you don’t mind me asking Iain , which country are you going to ?
May 11, 2015
Iain Gill
You’ll be back in a couple of months as you won’t cut it. Your skills are out of date if you can’t earn big money here. As I’ve tirelessly told you and provided links for a paltry 27,000 IT Visas have been issued. You need to face facts, its not overseas workers its you skill deficit .
May 12, 2015
Full of insults arnt you.
I’ve done it before, I don’t need to prove I can “cut it”. I probably will be back after topping my funds up, for family reasons, more likely I will split my time.
You analysis of the skills issue, the workplace, the flooding of the country with cheap ICT work visa entrants is laughable and so plainly wrong. You are delusional.
May 11, 2015
My one BIG ask – is to remember that recent studies on memory show that we have two different memories for fear and reward. Perched in the fear and reward centres of the brain.
Just doing good things will not overwrite the bad things – it’s not a points system. People first vote to avoid punishment before they vote for rewards. Labour lost this election because people feared them not because of their history because of future rewards that were intangible.
May 11, 2015
One easy way of directly assisting those in receipt of welfare as well as the minimum waged and others would be to scrap the compulsory nature of the BBC licence fee and let that organization receive its funding only from those who take its product. As Michael Portillo has said, the licence fee represents two weeks living expenses for the poor.
Alas, today Mr Cameron tells us “I have appointed John Whittingdale as the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport”. Whilst our new Culture Secretary apparently told us hitherto that the licence fee is “worse than the poll tax” he also is reported to have said “I don’t think there is any serious possibility of the licence fee going this charter renewal” – a charter renewal he will now oversee. Let us hope some resolve was instilled on appointment or can be in the coming days.
May 11, 2015
And even worse, Mr Whittingdale has said about the BBC licence fee that some universal levy might be appropriate: – “I think there’s quite an attractive option of linking it to a specific household tax – maybe council tax”.
So the very limited accountability licence fee payers can exercise upon the BBC would be lost and even those without a television at all would become part of its funding base.
May 11, 2015
Perhaps we should work out just what support each constituency pays out in Working Tax Credits, Child Tax Credits, Housing benefits, disability benefits so that each MP knows what social need there is in their patch in hard figures.
Say we are asked to take 650 asylum seekers, how do we decide where they go? Does each constituency have to support one each?
The Country has very different housing costs, the cap should be lower for benefits in areas with lower cost housing because most of the benefits goes on housing don’t they?
I think most people just don’t know the support costs and if we zero’d in area by area it would give us a better idea of what we’re dealing with.
May 11, 2015
Disappointing to see that Cameron has not appointed a Climate Change sceptic to the role of climate change and energy secretary.
Amber Rudd is a believer so we are unlikely to see any real reduction in the amount of Green Crap.
A wasted opportunity.
May 11, 2015
Exactly what I thought too. We may get some movement on shale if the lefties and greenies actually let us get on with it but we will still have renewables in some shape or form. If Cameron doesn’t get rid of subsidies for onshore wind then he will lose a lot of support. He now has the opportunity to do this and not just talk about it. I know many, including yourself John, don’t support subsidies for intermittent power and would like to see us going back to a sensible energy policy. What chance of that with Amber at the helm?
May 11, 2015
We have Amber Rudd and Oliver ‘fill a jerry can’ Maude made a full time cabinet member. Any suggestion that Cameron is listening and responding to public opinion seems far fetched.
According to the Guadian Mrs Rudd’s opinion is that the climate science is ‘compelling’.
How come lefty Maude gets a place at the table but not John Redwood ?.
Maude is more tainted by ERM and the 15% interest rate fiasco – atleast JR made the right calls.
May 12, 2015
But not particularly surprising.
May 11, 2015
John, off topic, but highly topical, can we put aside all sentiment for the moment and get down to the practicalities?
David Cameron has said we are taking no refugees from the African exodus. However, we know from past experience that Merkel and the UN are directing these operations, not Cameron.
Therefore, being at the mercy of the EU, we have to play our so-called EU “partners” at their own game.
If any EU countries hand out passports to these African asylum seekers, the passport should show that they are only eligible to live, work and claim benefits in the country to which they have been allocated.
We are not in a position to take any more immigrants, from the EU or the RoW. Annually we have been exchanging c200,000 of our own skilled people for c500,000 low skilled immigrants. How can that be sustainable?
How about, instead of interfering in EU and UK affairs, the United Nations works at combining all countries’ (global, not just EU) overseas aid to provide a “state”, similar to Israel, within the African continent where true African refugees could claim asylum.
It will be interesting to see how David Cameron deals with the first real test of a Conservative government. Any ideas? A topic for discussion on your Diary?
May 11, 2015
Everyone here thinks that if everyone here has a job all problems would be solved – that would be a disaster environmentally and if world wide would be the end of us all . But which party/economist has ever thought about that?
The pickle we are in seems that only massive unemployment and real poverty can save us! The unawareness of this is quite amusing.
May 11, 2015
Just seen this:-
I sincerely hope, for the sake of posterity, that they will be content to be stationary, long before necessity compels them to it. –John Stuart Mill, On the Stationary State
May 11, 2015
Dennis – We are set on a trajectory where job creation is essential.
In fact it seems as though jobs are used to beget industry rather than the other way around in these times.
It’s certainly so with housing – building houses on reclaimed flood plains and prairies where there are no jobs or industry, in the hope that the work will materialise afterwards (in fact the major local industry seems to be in building the houses themselves !)
I’d sooner we weren’t the ‘jobs factory of Europe’ if it means overcrowding and overstretch of our infrastructure and resources.
May 11, 2015
John: I see you and others in the awkward squad pledged loyalty to Cameron at the meeting today. I wonder how long this unusual unanimity in the Tory ranks will last ? about as long as it takes to publish that deliberately supressed report on Heathrow 3rd runway I expect.
Reply We supported him in the election, and wish to help him implement the Conservative Manifesto. Surely no surprises there.
May 11, 2015
“We supported him in the election, and wish to help him implement the Conservative Manifesto. Surely no surprises there.”
We had a few surprises with the last Manifesto:
Gay marriage and a referendum on the breakup of the Union. Both totally out of the blue.
I’ll tell you what would be a surprise under Mr Cameron. Some properly Conservative, Eurosceptic policies !
May 11, 2015
Although I agree with the principles and logic of the benefits vs migrants (and I should say I am an expat as I currently live and work in Brussels – for a private company!) I would doubt the numbers saved would be so high, happy to be told otherwise.
Housing costs must be pretty high, as rents go ever upwards so does housing benefit – it has to to ‘stay still’. If a large increasing in housing can be achieved so suppressing rents / rent rises then this can help reduce the bill probably over time by a significant ammount.
However getting more people into better paid work must be the priority. The last government did well on the more jobs part. To address the better paid part then we really need to address the productivity gap vs many other countries, not least Germany & France, without trading jobs vs productivity as at least France seems to have done.
May 11, 2015
While agreeing with the thrust of your thinking, there are far more pressing problems we need to deal with before the EU gets carried away with itself.
We have a growing crisis of increasing Mediterranean Boat People arriving on Italian shores. The EU has just proffered a solution whereby they are shared around all EU states. Problem is that this type of solution only encourages more to come. I do not blame them trying, but the UK in particular has reached it’s limit, physically and politically.
I have suggested that the EU set up a new nation on the shores of North Africa, with the agreement of the existing North African country. I know most such countries are in a dreadful state but might be bribed into accepting the idea. With the aid of Israel to show them how to turn dessert into fertile land, UK and EU overseas aid money, and the gestating EU army to provide security, it might just work.
We would at least see that Overseas Aid was doing something really useful, rather than propping up dubious regimes around the World. Our electorate might then be less critical of it. Lets discuss the problem and come up with some clear solutions.
May 11, 2015
I can almost hear the squeal of brakes as John Redwood jerks to the left and dismisses reforming the benefit system so that work pays as being ‘mean’. Ah yes , Cameron’s modernising agenda has worked and is being embraced by a grateful nation…I will jump on the bandwagon. Anyone who draws this conclusion hasn’t been paying attention.
Hope that the ‘right’ wing of the Conservative party might finally get their act together and keep Cameron’s absurd Blair copycat politics in check seems to be slipping away.
You can’t have it all ways – reform the economy to make it more competitive (by reducing tax) and at the same time turning your nose up at any attempt to reduce benefit payments.
There is nothing mean about incentivising people to find a job and regain their dignity – it is wicked and unkind to pay people to be idle thus trapping them. Who in their right mind is going to take a job if they are always better of on benefits?.
May 11, 2015
“Who in their right mind is going to take a job if they are always better of on benefits?.”
And nor would I take a job if my government kept importing people to undercut me.
We Mondeo Men were prepared to accept that we had to compete globally under Mrs Thatcher – we didn’t expect that this would extend to the whole world being invited here to compete with us, with our own state subsidies.
May 11, 2015
Can we have an English referendum on getting rid of the Scots?
May 11, 2015
Seconded.
May 11, 2015
Thirded! 🙂
May 11, 2015
Off-topic, I reached for my calculator after reading this rough and ready estimate of how this election would have played out if the proposed new constituencies had been in force, but without that changing the distribution of the votes between the parties:
http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/archives/9413
Tories 322
Labour 204
SNP 50
LibDems 4
out of a new total of only 600 seats, a Tory overall majority of 44.
Looking at the numbers of votes cast, here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election/2015/results
I find that:
For the Tories, if 11,334,520 votes would have got them 322 seats then that would have been 35,200 votes per seat won.
While for Labour, if 9,347,326 votes would have got them 204 seats then that would have been 45,820 votes per seat won.
In other words, on average Labour would have needed to get 30.2% more votes than the Tories to win a seat.
Given that the main Tory argument for greater equality of electorates in constituencies was that it would remove an inherent bias against their party and in favour of Labour that would be a staggering outcome, albeit one very welcome to the Tory party.
Going back some time, to April 2011, it was pointed out here:
http://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2011/04/12/lambs-for-the-slaughter/
that in the 2010 election the average number of Tory votes per Tory MP worked out at 34,940, while the average number of Labour votes per Labour MP worked out at 33,370, so on average the Tories needed 4.7% more votes per seat won, but it would only have needed the Tories to have won 6 more seats and Labour to have won 6 fewer to correct that disparity; however it was being suggested then that the proposed changes to the constituencies could lead to the Tories winning up to 20 more seats.
That would itself have been a substantial over-compensation, but less than that which is now being estimated using the shares of the votes for the 2015 election rather than the 2010 election; with the shares of the votes in this election it would need 33 seats to be transferred from the Tories to Labour to equalise the number of votes per seat:
For the Tories, 11,334,520 votes divided by 289 seats rather than 322 would give an average of 39,220 votes per seat won.
While for Labour, 9,347,326 votes divided by 237 seats rather than 204 would give an average of 39,440 votes per seat won.
Furthermore even with the existing constituencies the previous inherent bias if favour of Labour over the Tories has already flipped over to a strong bias in favour of the Tories over Labour; in this election the Tories got 331 seats on the strength of 11,334,520 votes, = 34,243 votes per seat, while Labour got 232 seats from 9,347,326 votes, = 40,290 votes per seat, so on average Labour needed to get 17.7% more votes than the Tories to win a seat, and it would be necessary to transfer 22 seats from the Tories to Labour to equalise the number of votes per seat, 36,681 versus 36,800.
So even without changing the constituencies the system has now worked in favour of the Tories to about the same extent as they had hoped to achieve through the reform of the constituencies, and with the reform it is projected to work even more strongly in their favour; a large part of this must be because the inherent systemic biases are not just down to inequality of the constituencies but also to the geographical distributions of support for the different parties, and in particular the Labour party has just needed 0.7 million votes in Scotland to get a single MP elected.
None of this is to argue against the move to more nearly equalise the numbers of electors in the constituencies, although preferably without becoming fanatical about that, nor against a move to reduce the total number of MPs if there was a valid reason for doing that, such as much of their work being hived off to other elected representatives in a devolved Parliament for England.
May 11, 2015
With your years of political experience, Mr Redwood, you will be aware that the benefits system is a two-way street for members of the EU. That means British taxpayers and contributors to the national insurance scheme living in other EU countries are entitled to certain exportable benefits. Your party’s proposals to stop exporting benefits will affect these British taxpayers, in which case I sincerely hope your government has the resources to welcome those affected back to the UK if Brexit our removal of theses benefits occurs.
May 11, 2015
All these people coming over from Africa have paid for the trip.
Where do they get the money from?
If IDS wants assistance to his plans on benefits then why on earth has Cameron not closed down the DECC and scrapped all susbsidies and other payments on existing as well as new ones. I read that the Solar Body are moaning about not enough capacity on the grid. Number one rule of marketing before you sell your product makes sure that there is reliable market and infrastructure to accomodate it.
How many more billions are going to be wasted on all this green crap on top of what has already been spent, which could be used to help those really in need? Over the last few weeks food banks got mentioned occasionally but not a lot said about the millions in fuel debt and poverty. Just about says it all
Does anyone know how many RE projects have been installed and those that have received planning and the true cost to the country in subsidies and real jobs?
May 11, 2015
The alternative to paying the unemployed for doing nothing is to pay them, slightly more, for doing something. If we look around our towns and cities there are lots of things we can notice that need doing but don’t get done when local councils are strapped for cash.
Labour’s manifesto had a positive proposal for a job guarantee for 18-26 year olds which the Govt might want to adopt as its own, although with some modification. It would be better to remove the compulsory aspect of it, at least to start with, and there’s no reason to limit it to the age group proposed by Labour.
I’d like to see it initially trialed in areas of highest unemployment. Of course, the objection will be that ‘we cant afford it’. But, maybe we can! The difference between a relatively low paid job and benefits isn’t that much from the POV of the unemployed. Therefore from the POV of the taxpayer, the difference between helping provide that job and providing the benefits can’t be much either. When the value of the work is factored in, the taxpayer should come out ahead.
A pilot scheme will help gather the facts on that point. I would expect that it would show that the scheme will help the unemployed to find that first job in the non JG market much better than any training course that may have been on offer previously. Not that the JG shouldn’t include an element of training, but what prospective employers want to see is a credible work record and the JG will give the long term unemployed an opportunity to provide that.
It also provides an element of hope to those who may not have much at present. Therefore we can expect to see real benefits in terms of a reduction in crime and a reduction in anti-social and self-destructive behaviour. There’s a lot of money to be saved if we can keep youngsters out of the prison system and drug rehabilitation centres!
May 11, 2015
Will there be policing of the welfare agencies such as Atos?
Common sense suggests that if your enemies are looking for the slightest excuse and your working majority is quite thin you cannot afford for your proxies to screw things up by going off-policy.
May 11, 2015
The Cameron Deception on the refusal to accept refugees.
Take them once they’ve become EU citizens instead.
“We will reduce immigration from *outside* the EU”
There will be a stitch up. Don’t fall for it. And don’t believe the baloney about Germany or Sweden granting the highest levels of asylum.
Many of theirs will be coming here too.
May 11, 2015
The problem with “benefits” is that they are very fragmented, so much so that it is unclear who is in receipt of them and whether the distribution is equitaable.
Subsidised council houses are but one example; by all means have them but make sure the benefit is to those in need. Don’t tax the third bedroom simply start charging commercial rents and pay the subsidy direct to the housing asssociation in respect of those in need.
Child allowances are another. Announce that from next year they will be abolished for children born after that date and use the tax credit system to provide general support where deemed necessary.
A little off topic, I see Dave is starting to show his true socialist colours.
If he were the boss of his own company then it would be entirely reasonable for him to select by gender but this is UK Ltd and it deserves far better. Selection by ability is the only fair way to run a country; fair to the electorate, not to the whims of political correctness.
May 11, 2015
Whilst thinking too many commentators here focus too much on one issue I think the media and Labour have got it wrong on the EU being as divisive in the 1990’s.
In the 1990’s only the politically engaged public had a view on the EU whereas MP’s who have first hand experience very much had a view. Twenty years on I feel the public have caught some way up and , unlike the 1990’s now see it as an issue they are also concerned about.
The media is behind, lets face it they were well behind on Labour’s spending in the early naughties and reliance on a credit fuelled economy that had a limited lifespan. I don’t think it will be as party divisive as was back then. Maybe between the public but I don’t think this time it will split the party as before.
On welfare and the NHS if we loose fiscal prudence we will loose the ability to fund those to any level we have been used to so agree with the blog. Good times.
May 11, 2015
John Redwood’s normally thoughtful and incisive column seems to have been hacked by the Guardian newspaper. I trust that normal service will be resumed tomorrow.
May 11, 2015
Mr Redwood I am sure you believe in equal pay for equal work. So why on earth does Scottish/Welsh/NI MP’s get equal pay with English MP’s when they have far less responsibility to their cconstituents.
May 11, 2015
Have just watched Panorama in which our host gave good account of the Conservative view on issues however Jeremy Vine gave the SNP representative far to much of the stage.
Why is it that whenever the SNP go on about increasing spending in Scotland to “end Austerity” nobody asks them on what basis they should expect English taxpayers to hand over even more of their cash to increase the subsidy which is already running at £7.5bn pa !
Give Them Full Fiscal Autonomy Now !
May 12, 2015
Conservative and Labour, have homogenised in to one indistinguishable, Big State, Europhile political class – you cannot have growth in real jobs they will be strangled by the big state both party’s are wedded to.
May 14, 2015
The proposals to delay benefit payments to EU migrants who have been here less than four years, and not to pay family allowance for children living outside the UK, are likely to be resisted strongly by Poland, Hungary and other Eastern European Member States.
The EU is perceived as having a common citizenship by the EC and by the European Courts, who will be likely to find in favour of the objectors. Will we then insist on a Brexit? Will we replace EU passports by old style UK ones?
May 14, 2015
When the state sector still takes up a large proportion of the economy and has such low productivity our overall growth will continue to lag.
Mark Carney is correct, the only option we have is to increase growth by raising productivity and that must include the NHS which can no longer be off limits.
We have all experienced waiting in various NHS hospitals, clinics, GP’s surgeries and seen staff obviously under employed and badly managed. Just look at any episode of 24 hours in A&E and see what I mean.