"A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury" Lord Woodhouselee
Perhaps it's just easy to scoff at the "free stuff" when you can afford all that stuff and more. But not so easy when you can't. Not so much a case of expecting "free stuff" so much as needing it to exist. As I watch the queue outside my local food bank grow longer every week - I don't have much time for this punching down rhetoric..Just saying..
In referring to a food bank you remind us just why the system of free stuff is so appalling. We spend over £200 billion on alleviating poverty yet people are still queuing up for charity.
What I don't ever read is a full and empathic understanding of why people are poor.
It seems to me obvious that the reason most people are poor because the money they earn in employment no longer covers the basics in life - let alone luxuries.
Ever hear anyone (other than trades unions) calling for higher wages?
No. Because, the logic goes, if wages go up, costs go up, businesses go out of business, public services have to make cuts.
No we're all better off in UK plc if wages are allowed to stagnate. Our businesses thrive, our public sector is more efficient.
Which begs the question when does a rise in pay ever become justified.
Since Scargill's miners' strike, the answer to that question has been: never.
So the one thing which would guarantee a rise in living standards of the working poor - cannot happen.
And so we try to ameliorate poverty with an ever increasing number of benefits - winter fuel allowance etc - whose specificity implies the underlying causes are specific and temporary rather than permanent and institutional.
There are lots of reasons why people are poor - hence my borrowing of the Anna Karenina opening. For some it is pure misfortune, for other mental health problems or substance abuse, some get trapped in a place they feel unable to escape from. Most poor people aren’t in work so this isn’t about wages. I agree however that we need some economic growth. And we need a different narrative and different strategies for responding hardship. We spend over half our welfare budget on directly alleviating poverty. And there are still poor people. That is a failing system.
That is not how titles work. If I refer to the Earl of Beaconsfield people know I speak of Disraeli and Lord Salisbury, the British PM at the turn of the 20th century was seldom referred to as Robert Cec
You are right in every particular. Unfortunately we are plagued by the No Change lobbyists who whip up a campaign of resistance to every attempt to implement financial sanity. The recent ticket office cave in is but the latest example of the ever present phenomenon.
Perhaps it's just easy to scoff at the "free stuff" when you can afford all that stuff and more. But not so easy when you can't. Not so much a case of expecting "free stuff" so much as needing it to exist. As I watch the queue outside my local food bank grow longer every week - I don't have much time for this punching down rhetoric..Just saying..
In referring to a food bank you remind us just why the system of free stuff is so appalling. We spend over £200 billion on alleviating poverty yet people are still queuing up for charity.
You think if we spent less on alleviating poverty the queue will get shorter?
There's an argument that this is correct but that isn't the argument I'm making. I do think we need to rethink how we alleviate poverty recognising that private initiative and charity is part of a good society's response to hardship. I wrote about it here... https://simoncooke.substack.com/p/poor-laws-witches-and-welfare-why?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=4bs8h
What I don't ever read is a full and empathic understanding of why people are poor.
It seems to me obvious that the reason most people are poor because the money they earn in employment no longer covers the basics in life - let alone luxuries.
Ever hear anyone (other than trades unions) calling for higher wages?
No. Because, the logic goes, if wages go up, costs go up, businesses go out of business, public services have to make cuts.
No we're all better off in UK plc if wages are allowed to stagnate. Our businesses thrive, our public sector is more efficient.
Which begs the question when does a rise in pay ever become justified.
Since Scargill's miners' strike, the answer to that question has been: never.
So the one thing which would guarantee a rise in living standards of the working poor - cannot happen.
And so we try to ameliorate poverty with an ever increasing number of benefits - winter fuel allowance etc - whose specificity implies the underlying causes are specific and temporary rather than permanent and institutional.
There are lots of reasons why people are poor - hence my borrowing of the Anna Karenina opening. For some it is pure misfortune, for other mental health problems or substance abuse, some get trapped in a place they feel unable to escape from. Most poor people aren’t in work so this isn’t about wages. I agree however that we need some economic growth. And we need a different narrative and different strategies for responding hardship. We spend over half our welfare budget on directly alleviating poverty. And there are still poor people. That is a failing system.
Alexander Fraser Tytler said it. Lord Woodhouselee is a Title, not a name.
That is not how titles work. If I refer to the Earl of Beaconsfield people know I speak of Disraeli and Lord Salisbury, the British PM at the turn of the 20th century was seldom referred to as Robert Cec
Right. I always forget the class marking thing.
You are right in every particular. Unfortunately we are plagued by the No Change lobbyists who whip up a campaign of resistance to every attempt to implement financial sanity. The recent ticket office cave in is but the latest example of the ever present phenomenon.