Monday 4 July 2011

... Cameron and the coalition have got it wrong,...

... very wrong, the logic behind this particular cuts programme, the Social Security "Benefits Cap Plan", our "society safety net", is political bullying of the most vulnerable.

If you read the Benefits Cap Plan fully you will, at the very end, encounter the slide show entitled "Impact of housing benefit changes", slides 1 and 2 are the overview, our attitude towards people becomes clear thereafter ...
  • slide 3 ... restrict housing benefit for working-age tenants who are occupying a larger social rented property than required, such as a couple in a three-bedroom house.
  • slide 4 ...  This means LHA tenants will have, in theory, access to the bottom 30% of the market instead of the bottom 50%.
  • slide 8 ... Single people under the age of 25 receiving local housing allowance are restricted to the rate for a single room in a shared house, rather than for a one-bedroom property. The restriction to this lower rate will be extended to those up to the age of 35.
... the disturbing element for me is the term "claimants affected", in each slide there is a determination to penalise a percentage of our neighbours by differing amounts, in a time of real need the rug is effectively pulled from under the feet of those in most need.

The stupidity of the approach taken by bureaucrats, and bureaucrats it is, who will determine the extent of hardship felt by our friends across the garden fence, will themselves rarely feel the pinch of poverty, protected as they are from the vagaries of economic life.

There is only way to treat our neighbours in time of need, and that is in exactly the way you would have them treat you, and the only civilised way to fund this fairness is through full employment, this in a world where accountants, bean counters, switch work between countries.

The call should be, "if you want to sell it here, then make it here", then the claimant count would reduce to the manageable percentages, or thereabouts, society are able to help without resorting to imposed hardship.

And the work-shy, that's another story ...





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