Remember a year before the last election when Gordon Brown bribed pensioners will an extra £200 fuel rebate, whether they needed it or not? Well, he's at it again. Apparently, according to the Sunday Times, he is going to give everyone who receives Child Benefit a payment of £150 to help them with fuel bills. Repeat, everyone who receives child benefit will get it. It will cost around £1 billion.
Would it not be better to target those who actually need the money, rather than give a good proportion of it to those who don't. Sorry, silly me. Those who actually need it probably don't vote at all or already vote Labour, don't they?
29 comments:
A greater act of electoral desparation I cannot imagine. What a scared little man Gordon Brown must be at the moment
The fact that the basis is child benefit rather than family credit,free school meals, Sure-Start, or jobseekers allowance does rather give the game away, doesn't it?
Why he still persists in the Blair tactic of 'floating' an idea to guage the reaction - then either dropping it saying they never had any thought of bringing it in, or announce it as a winner!!
Brown is now a complete loser. He is a man who has no leadership qualities whatsoever, a person who cannot delegate, an individual who has a few close comrades and talks
about 'us' as 'real people'.
He works and lives in a cucoon and in this bunker state cannot ever understand people.
My advice to him, rather belatedly, is to join a choir, such as The Royal Choral Society - The City of London Choir certainly not an all male one! go and be seen at football matches amongst real people - not directors etc.
Attend The Royal Festival Hall/ Royal Albert Hall/ The 02 Arena. Go to Boxing Matches/ get seen at a pub in the east end. Do karoake!! Make a bit of a fool of yourself. ENJOY YOURSELF. Get rid of the suit and tie Create a far more casual and smart image. Red/Yellow/White jumpers. Pastel shades. GET REAL>
LABOUR NEED someone who CONNECTS to REAL PEOPLE Gordon.
Means tested benefits are hideously expensive and so complicated that the people who most need help tend to lose out. Better to CUT TAX!
He could begin with the taxes on fuel.
What an absolute loser Brown is.
There are plenty of people without kids who could do with help too. In fact the whole country could do with being given some of their own money back!
The whole process of policy making these days seems to be leak it to the press and hope there is not too much pushback. Where's the leadership?
Buit even so, there still doesn't seem to be much being actually offered though to us "ordinary voters".
Can the Labour party please spare us any more of this? Brown is begining to make Bush look like a great leader of our times.
Yes because childless people, be they couple or individuals, deserve NO HELP AT ALL. In fact, they are expected to pay for it.
Why doesn't nuLab just come out and pay people to have children or directly penalise those who don't? They are getting there by salami-slice anyway but lets be honest about the end game here...
Means testing, rather than low or no taxes for the poorly paid, and universal benefits for particular stages in life (old age, having young children, being temporarily out of work) is the means of choice for creating a client voter base. It creates moral hazard as potential recipients deform their lives and choices to conform to the means test criteria and qualify for hand outs.
The cost of universal benefits arriving where they are sometimes not needed (which is by no means as obvious as external appearances might suggest, particularly among the elderly) is infinitely less, and infinitely less degrading for many means tested 'claimants'.
Brown is a control freak and a micro fiddler with other people's lives. It would be good to hear from the Conservatives that they intend to restore universal benefits in a small range of policies, remove low earners from the direct tax and national insurance system, and reduce indirect taxes widely. And no, that does not mean limiting services in education and health. It does mean losing much of New Labour's governing, appointed infrastructure and a return to local elected government of over-centralised powers and expenditure.
According to reports Darling is seriously p***ed off with Brown over the leak on Tuesday regarding the will it won't it happen stamp duty freeze(which was complete news to both Darling and the Treasury who were then left looking like complete schmuks ! Whilst our "Dear Leader" jetted off to face tough questioning by Iain Rankin at Edinburgh Book Festival) and the fact that he sees it as an attempt by Brown to find an excuse to dump him in the September re-shuffle in favour of Miliband to,in the words of Downing Street source, "cement him in to the Brown leadership"(or should that read debacle?)and the unspoken intimation that Miliband will then be anointed by Brown as his "chosen one" although I don't know if that is actually a help or a hindrance.
It's also reported that Alan Johnson is off Brown's Xmas Card List after having a pretty hot argument over he,Johnson, being linked to a Miliband challenge.
I suggest this latest "cunning plan" by McBroon is another desperate electoral gimmick floated without the werewithal to actually fund it or even having it run past Darling at the Treasury.
God help us all ! These guys are actually supposed to be "the government" and responsible for "running the country"!
"He is going to GIVE everyone etc" He has nothing to give all he is doing is adding to the horrendous National Debt which eventually the tax payer...i.e. every single one of us in direct or indirect taxes, will have to pay back.Saddling the next generation with debt, but all labour governments do it...when will the electorate learn.
Our revered ex Chancellor and champion of the poor has ensured that someone on Minimum Earnings pays tax at 20% and National Insurance at 11% whilst someone earning over £100,000 a year pays 40% tax and only 1% National Insurance. Presumably because they have no need for benefits they don't need to pay for them. The Treasury under his direction is making the same mistakes on Stamp Duty as it did over Northern Rock. The first statements caused the run on the bank, the second statements are causing the collapse of the housing market. Thank heavens his prudent policies put an end to 'Boom & Bust'.
fony blair: You are so right. When McBean spouted on about the 10p tax rate being abolished he claimed no one would lose out.
He forgets that millions of us don't have or don't want kids.
That was why he got such a kicking over the 10p rate.
Millions of single people or married people without children lost out.
Guess what McBean, people who have children only get one vote each in an election as well you know!!
If you are single in society and work you are the cash cow for the vile Government who continues to take money and give it to those that insist on breeding like flies.
Why doesn't the green lobby attack people who breed? Every baby born today will generate millions of tons of CO2 in it's lifetime.
Fewer babies means we won't need so many cars, planes, schools, houses, power stations and so on.
Shaun said...
Yes because childless people, be they couple or individuals, deserve NO HELP AT ALL. In fact, they are expected to pay for it.
Not just childless people.
Those of us with children still living at home and too old for child benefit will be paying for this hand out for others too.
Presumably those caring for adult children with long term health problems or disabilities won't qualify either?
Brown is doing the only thing he's good at yet again, squandering our money to buy votes.
So, are Tory ideas like extra benefits for Married Couples 'bribes'? or are they only bribes when it comes from people you oppose, Iain?
Gordon, we aren't stupid. We know that we are being bribed with our own taxes.
Again I am feeling left out. He never offers me any extra money.
One off payments are no more than bribes. Anybody that really needs the bribe will not be able to afford a car. And many that needmoney will not have children.
How many rich labour MPs that get child benefit and be honest how many of them are the type to turn down the chance of a little extra at the tax-payers expense will get the bribe.
Given the current error rates om Child Benefit, how much of this is likely to go to the wrong people? More than 300 million pounds worth?
And how many can expect to get the bribe next summer, after the winter (maybe to pay their air conditioning bills?)
When we had our only child,a son, I wondered about the child benefit and did not want it despite harassed for not claiming it by GPs, social workers,health visitors, class teachers, head teachers and the whole gang! Every one of them was looking at us with suspicion! In our opinion, no children unless they can be supported by parents without the State help. He is now at the university, ready to earn and contribute to this benefit now having not received it! The child benefit and closely related appendages, council house preference for example, are the very reason that attracts so many to this country including the influx from new EU countries.
It is the last throw of dice from a desperate Brown.
The best approach is to stop all this benefit nonsense which encourage families to live off the State, reduce the taxes on income.
He could give the winter fuel payment to ALL old age pensioners first. If anyone thought he did, they're wrong. One winter fuel payment goes to one household, regardless how many pensioners may reside there. A pensioner couple gets ONE payment, not one each. They do, of course, both individually pay tax however.
Unlike married MPs who both claim additional costs allowance of £20,000+ each, for living in the same (two) houses........
In favour of means testing now, Iain?
If Brooon thinks people can be bought for £150, he is mad. That equates to less than a week's petrol money for me..
How about this for a wheeze... lets find a gay male couple and fund them to challenge this policy of the grounds of being anti gay?
so both gordon and blair will get £150 of my money hmmm very fair
We all know McBean is trying to buy our votes with our money, on a personal basis I am doing quite well out of his 'generosity' reducing tax from 22p to 20p, asisted nursery places etc, I would rather just not be taxed in the first place then I could decide how I wanted to spend my money. Even though I am doing allright I still wouldn't vote for either him or labour as long as I had a hole in my proverbial
If only Gordon would believe that Ed and Yvette support him he wouldn't have to bung them £150 to ensure their loyalty. By the way, is the £1billion coming from the same public expenditure pot that cannot fund life-extending cancer drugs because they are not cost-effective or is Gordon dipping into the Sith Institute's reserves?
Come on Iain he has been bribing people with Child tax credits for ages. What's the difference, other than the blatant electioneering? No that its going to do much good come next year when repossessions hit the roof.
How amusing that those on the right who for years have whinged about how "hard-pressed" middle class families are now bemoan something that will help that very same demographic. There's no pleasing some people, especially hypocrites.
Means testing is hardly a ringing success story so if help is to be given that, i think, is not on. But just to give it to couples (OK and single parents) with children is really to miss he point badly.
Brown may choose to give his £150 to charilyt but that still means lots will get it who are less needy than others.
Its the old who need real help so maybe a significant sum could be palmed off to say pensioners over 70 (or 70 and over?).
Where will this billion come from? I smell a windfall tax or some other stealth tax in the offing.
Meantime - just who is Chancellor? How long can Darling withstand this endless humiliation.
I am a parent. I will get the £150 and I will not vote for Labour because of it.
"Those who actually need it probably don't vote at all or already vote Labour, don't they?"
Glasgow East, Iain?
I've been loyal to Labour all my life but has the 10p tax fiasco taught these idiots nothing! Another pathetic attempt to buy back the middle class vote!
There are awful lot of single and childless couples who could do with a bit of help as well as some double earners claiming child benefit who probably don't need it quite as much (not all granted).
The very thought that they're even considering it and have put it out there to gague a response, I despair!!
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