THE ENTITLEMENT CLASS RALLY…
By David Vance On May 28th, 2012You have to laugh at the sheer hypocrisy of it all…
Social Development Minister Nelson McCausland has promised to intervene on forthcoming cuts to housing benefit that could affect thousands of families across the north west. The DUP man said he intends to commission reports to assess the impact changes being introduced by the Westminster Government will have in Northern Ireland. His department yesterday gave the confirmation after warnings were issued in Derry about the…cough splutter…potentially catastrophic impact of the cuts.
That would be warnings from the professional whiners who think they are entitled to sit on their backsides care of the State. The fact that McCauseland even considers the shroud waving banality from the usual suspects tells you all you need to know. No politician here is prepared to stand up and say that Welfarism MUST be cut and cut now. Instead they play along with the nonsense that every recipient is worthy and needy. I’m surprised they don’t argue for an INCREASE in welfare, even though the State cannot afford that which it currently hands over to Generation Idle. We live in a society where most think it reasonable that they can stay at home and the State will fund them, regardless of their capability to work. That is the real cancer that devours Northern Ireland but few seem even willing to discuss it.
Maybe he has woken up to the fact that not all Housing Benefit recipients are scroungers, and that by literally ‘throwing the baby out with the bath water’, he will make life very difficult for many deserving cases. I refer, of course, specificaly to ‘Seniors’, otherwise known as pensioners.
There are many Seniors who have, through no fault of their own, been unable to buy their own house or to have put enough into a pension fund, to realise a sufficeint income to pay the very elevated rents being charged by the private sector landlords. That ‘council’ housing has become such a cesspit, that it is no-longer a viable option, even in the unlikely event of a vacancy.
A typical rent for a typical 2 bedroom accomodation in the South is in excess of £600 p.m. While State pension per duo, averages arond £850 p.m.
That for many Seniors their average wage for most of their working lives averaged £20-40 p.w. – if they were lucky, it is easy to appreciate that not everyone could afford to be self sufficient in their ‘golden years’.
That ‘rent elevation’ is exacerbated by high immigration levels is but one of many reasons. Even where annuity funds were built, they suffered at Brown’s hands in 2002, to the point where many pensions literally became worthless.
To reduce ‘HB’ to Seniors would be yet another cynical attack on those who can no longer afford regular inflationary inspired increases in their rents.
As so often happens, and attack on those who have offended the general public i.e. on the scroungers, will also affect those who deserve, and are in genuine need of help.
As almost without exception when politicians thoughtlessly step in where angels fear to tread, – especially when trying to garner votes, they do more damage than good.
Ernest,
You put forward a strong case for Social Welfare housing, however you’ve put up an even stronger case which seems to prove SOCIALISM sucks.
People must not depend on the State to “take care of them” or you wind up with a disfunctional society where 90% of the population doesn’t mature.
Talk about throwing the baby out with the bath water, as you so aptly put it. Government sould get out of the housing business altogether and let Capitalism work its magic.
Eddie,
Quite so, – and believe me, I am no socialist, and yes – socialism does suck…
The problem doesn’t happen overnight. A party in power decides to introduce, shall we say a national insurance and pension scheme. At the time it was introduced in 1948(?) by a Labour government, it was seen by most as a step in the right direction. Each successive governmant has meddled and interefered until the whole idea stinks, – and yet the basic idea still has merit.
At its inception the general opinion was that the first six months of contributions should be invested by the government so that over time the scheme would at least, be partially self-supporting,- but no, poxy Labour put the lid on that one, and so we have the situation today where contributions increase almost annually, and now consist of a combined rate 25%. and instead of investing in our own future we have to borrow from elsewhere, – to the extent that our national debt is now some £1.3 trillion.
But wait life ain’t that simple, – there are now six different categories of contribution, – how’s that for making something as simple as :- “all will pay the same and all will receive the same’ – a quote from Bevan when doing a promo for the scheme, – into something so intricate that no-one really understands it.
However, when the scheme was introduced all working folk had to join via. the NI contribution. Now we are talking of a weekly wage of less than £10 in most cases, – even bank managers didn’t earn £1000 p.a. so – for the aveage Joe there was little left for savings, and as for private pension schemes, there were none available. This was still a time of severe austerity and high inflation.
Those who trusted the government to deliver on their promise of “80% of the average blue collar wage”, as an index linked pension, and a proportionate sum for his spouse, must surely be enough for an ordinary fella to live on, – these are the suckers who are now threatened with reductions, on an already reduced sum.
In those days ordinary folk trusted government, and it is so very easy to be wise after the event, isn’t it? – in this case after a working lifetime
It is the older of Seniors, the ones who were the workers in the 50′s, 60′s and early 70′s who are now the suckers the government takes them for.
If you would like a history of the ‘private pension’ – its creation and demise, just ask…likewise the NHS, all offshoots of politicians mendacity and stupidity. Is it any wonder that many of the truly elderly have such an entrencehed feeling of betrayal.
Socialism is democracy.
Democracy is socialism.