This Parliament's key dividing line?

seb

I don't understand Ed's position. Does he believe that the middle classes - those people who go on expensive holidays, have the builders in to extend their home and whose kids get all the A-levels - need handouts from the state and will be cheesed off because a bankrupt state can't afford to sub them any longer? Any middle class voter venal and pathetic and selfish enough to believe this certainly deserves to endure the consequences of the moronocracy electing another Labour government in 2014 or 2015.

TrevorsDen

All of which just highlights labour's hypocrisy. Where will they find the money from?
Labours policy has been and always will be to spend to support itself not the nation and it cares little where the money comes from - or indeed if there is any in the first place.

The point perhaps being missed is what will happen to the basic benefits. If some money goes to say the basic pension then the middle classes will see some justification.

The other thing the middle classes and all of us need to remember is that the alternative is higher taxes and or more cuts elsewhere (not that you will hear labour mentioning this).

Richard of York

Universal benefits are a contract the people have with the state....a minimum standard for all.
In a society where so much is extracted in taxation the people expect something back.
If you do not need the rebate Which is what it amounts to then fine, however just because a pensioner has a taxable income it does not follow they are not entitled to their share of the rebate for past contributions.
Some pensioners may still be paying a mortgage or supporting family.
Middleclass benefit is something that may divide conservatives and Liberals but the general public understand the contract.
If you pay taxes to put food in the mouths of the poor then why should you not be rewarded with a rebate for your children or a contribution to your living expenses in old age.

AndyLeeds

They really are stupid. Most people I know would merely shrug their shoulders and say, 'well I didn't need the money'. Paying child benefit to a multi-millionaire is simply stupid. So lots of these 'middle class benefits' could be easily abolished and could be abolished with little or no political cost if you sell the idea. Also there is an easy way to counter this: attack these Labour politicians by high lighting how wealthy they are and what benefits they get ! The Daily Mail will love it !!

Nickle

So its simple.

The middle classes pay all the tax and get nothing back in return.

Just what is the purpose of government?

It's to provide services collectively because its cheaper to do so.

That's being completely subverted.

There is no point to government. It's not the solution, its the problem.

strapworld

The point missed is surely the simple fact that if Labour had not been so cavalier with the nation's finances, perhaps there would be no need for cuts- just adjustments!

I listened, on the World at One, yesterday to a breathless spokesperson from The Fabian Society trying desperately to support the position of one of the Brothers Grimm.

It would be extemely interesting, changing the subject, if you Mr Hoskins, would concentrate on Simon Hughes and his jack in the box appearances on the media. A little truth about this gnat on the back of the coalition would be interesting.

Why not an opinion poll of Liberal Democrat supporters, asking them whom they stand behind. Clegg or Simple Simon?

Neil Staton

Anyone on a decent wage should'nt be getting handouts full stop.

Child benefit should end at the second child too.

Simon Too

The mere removal of "middle class benefits" is something tat is bound be resisted, particularly after years of stealth taxation. Removing them as part of a rebalancing of taxation could be acceptable, but so far there is no suggestion of a quid pro quo. (Just several quid less for the pro classes).

Alex Gallagher

"one thing I'm sure of, at least: the government is doing the right thing by the public finances if it decides to limit universal benefits..."

Tories have always preferred the workhouse to the helping hand.

"modern" Tories think that money ("the public finances"), is more important than social cohesion, "maintaining public support for the Welfare State".

Labour thinks that social cohesion is more important. There is, after all, such a thing as society...

It is a Key Dividing Line, but it's still the same old line....

Simon Stephenson

It doesn't really surprise me very much that the socialists are in favour of maintaining middle-class benefits. This fits in perfectly with their philosophy that any free-spending choices you may have are what the state allows you to have. If we look deeply into the real purpose of maintaining middle-class welfare benefits, it's apparent that this is just part of a Fabian progression designed to remove choice by steadily increasing taxation.

Has either Miliband, or Balls, or any other socialist who's commented on this, actually mentioned that the inevitable corollary of maintaining universal middle-class benefits is higher middle-class taxation? No, I thought not.

SouthEastVoter

Is David smoking a pipe?

Labour will not win the south east until they start to be honest about debt and deficit.

BigAl

What a peculiar dividing line! The Socialists object to higher rate tax payers getting tax relief for a pension but want to give them money for nothing tax free......

R

Labour's interest in universal benefits is, in large part, party political.

By making more and more people direct recipients of state largesse they increase the size of their client group, as well as serving an ideology of reliance on the state.

This is a bad thing on every level and should be combated. The easiest way to do this is to roll back beenfits for higher earners and reinvest savings in funding more imaginative / better benefits for the poor.

This will

a) put Labour on the back foot and
b) is the right thing to do

Chris Cook

Just who is the middle class here?

For the last 30 years real incomes have been pretty much flat while the benefits of productivity increases went to investors.

The middle classes made up for this de facto recession through the credit-driven property bubble and the 'wealth' it created.

The result is that 90% of the population is now in debt to the other 10%, while 0.3% of the population owns 69% of the land - which is a banana republic statistic.

But the angry middle classes populating this site actually blame those worse off than themselves for this, rather than looking for the real culprits.

You couldn't make it up.

Systemic fiscal reform is certainly needed: but not the voodoo insanity of applying leeches or even lopping off the limbs of a patient bleeding to death internally.

Victor Southern

The middle-classes will be well able to understand why this situation has come about. Many of them may rue the support they gave to Blair and Brown over 13 years of the runaway train of state spending.

The shirking class will only care if it is their personal benefits that are hit.

The working class will be slightly better off as indeed they should be.

Last point, the views of any of the contestants in this turgid leadership contest are of little importance as they are no longer in office and hopefully never will be.

Billy Blofeld

So Labour's plan for the middle classes is to take money off them, waste a chunk of that in administration and government debt interest, then hand a smaller pot of money back as a gift. Idiots.

Grumpy Optimist

Can someone please tell me what the costs of these middle class benefits are. Being 60 last year I received the £240 Winter Fuel Allowance. Now how much of that was required to raise that from taxation or borrowing and then how much did it costs to give it back to me. Are we talking of 5%, 15%, 25%. Surely this needs to be known and put into the public domain.

When I received the Winter Fuel Allowance, the last thing I felt was grateful. Just sick - that a great bureaucracy existed, paid for me me whose purpose was to tax me and then give what it had taken, back to me.

GeoffH

Simon: "It doesn't really surprise me very much that the socialists are in favour of maintaining middle-class benefits"

I am not a socialist. I am in favour of universal benefits. They can always be taxed away for those who are affluent enough not to need them.

But they should get them in return for the NI and tax contributions paid. They are the price for a Welfare State that is necessary to provide the safety net any of us may need if misfortune were to strike.

Of course you can means test all benefits to the point where taxpayers who are always shut out will rebel against paying the tax and NI contributions that fund them.

Then, you'll get your lower middle-class taxes but no Welfare State. And the unfortunates amongst us will starve. If you're happy with that then please say so, rather than throw barbed comments about socialists about these boards.

local local

IDS's preferred solution is a "universal benefit" which will be set by household need. If the household doesn't earn enough to meet their needs, they will get some help, if they do, then they will start to pay tax.

This preserves the concept of universality, because you would still benefit from the needs assessed "tax code" you will just get less help the more you earn.

Expect the announcement of the actual policy to differwidely from the rampant speculation evident in the papers thi slast week.

General Zod

Utter nonsense, as ever, RoY. Universal benefits are not, and never have been, "a contract the people have with the state".

The purpose of benefits is for society to help those who, whether temporarily or permanently, cannot help themselves.

For the tax-paying middle classes to be paid back some of their taxes in the form of benefits is absurd. It costs money to take money away from people in the form of taxes and then pay it back to them in the form of benefits.

Mycroft

Cuts v. investment: do we have to use this dishonest terminology? Only a small proportion of public spending is anything that could be rationally described as 'investment', and it has to be justified in its own terms.

Simon Stephenson

Richard of York : 9.24am

1. How much extra tax does the middle-class have to pay for universal benefits, compared to a system where welfare is restricted to those who need it?

2. Why does the socialist argument for universal benefits never mention that the quid pro quo is higher taxes?

3. Do you actually believe that the middle-class should have a choice in this? Or is the entirety of your philosophy that this state of affairs should be the end-result, irrespective of what the people who make up society actually want?

4. If socialists are determined to create a society that most of us don't want, what grounds are there for we free-thinkers refraining from collecting you all in a huge net, and dropping you off in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean?

Yorkshire Pit Village

Grumpy Optimist

30% I believe.

They skim £1.30 to give back a pound.

Liz Brown

Of course welfare/benefits/handouts should be directed only at the poor. It is arrant nonsense to suggest otherwise

justathought

Whatever the decision on benefits first the budget deficit has to be addressed if they are to be affordable.

The coalition can take consolation from the Germans who have concentrated on building exports coupled with a plan to reduce spending by 80 billions Euros over the next four years. The result is impressive (helped by the 10% fall in the euro over the past year). Germanys foreign sales are 41 per cent of GDP in 2009 compared with 11 percent in the US and 13 percent in Japan.

The IMF says Germany will have a 5.5 percent surplus, right next to China's 6.2 percent surplus,whereas the US shortfall will be 3.3 percent of GDP.

In short the German policy of reducing the state overheads and keeping corporation taxes and red tape leaves industry to invest and expand/export. This in turn will secure future state benefits which the Germans are rightly concerned about with its aging population.

Wage restraint has taken its toll on the German consumer but the growth in productivity through private investment has made the country 13 percent more competitive in the past 11 years compared to its neighbors in Europe.

Lower taxes mean that Germans can save more, a staggering 11.4 percent compared to consumers in the US who only saved 5.5 percent of their disposable income.

To me this says that the coalition is pursuing the correct path and this will become apparent over time.

Tarka the Rotter

The dividing line should be - not what the state graciously decides to give us after we have paid our taxes but what we decide to give to the state in the first place. Government is, or should be, for the people: the people are not government's milch cows... time to renew the contract I think

Richard of York

Ok so you think that universal benefit is wrong.....take it away then, remove all benefit from those who earn a combined income of more than 25K.
Anyone think that will make your tax go down?
Anyone think that the majority of middle England will be happy with that?
Now get real and go talk to a few mums and pensioners and ask them what they think.
Just consider this.... not all thriving middleclass households thrive for all their lives...illness and circumstances change.
The once prosperous middle manager can suffer a severe loss of income or increase in commitment in mid-life due to all manner of reasons.
If you do not need or want your benefit then give it to charity they will take it and use it for something else.

EC

Shouldn't we stand by wot Dave said?

http://bit.ly/bRPXo4

John Findlater

I have no problem with the government scrapping Universal Benefits for the middle classes ,,,,,,,,,,however ,,,the honest position is to allow us to opt out of paying National Insurance.

NI was introduced by the Socialists and meant to be a "Cradle to the Grave" system whereby you pay weekly in return for health care, employment benefit and pensions,, we all ahve to pay so we are all entitled to the benefits.

Or at least thats how it was supposed to be however this system has been so Bastardised by all governments, especially he Blair and Brown governments that its now no more than a tax raising scheme to pay for dole scroungers.
If you have more than £16,000, have lived and worked and paid taxes all your life and never been on te dole, then you get nothing, apart from a pittance of a pension.

So Cameron and Clegg, by all means scrap the benefits for us hard working rax paying classes that have never sponged welfare in our lives, but please have the honesty to allow us the opportunity to opt out of paying NI.

I,m 59, been paying NI since 1966 so pay me back £10,000 of perviously paid NI money, let me opt out of paying NI and stick you benefits, pensions etc up your jumper,,,because us hard working tax paying Non-Scrounges are perfectly capable of taking care of ourselves.

Simon Stephenson

Richard of York : 11.44am

"Just consider this.... not all thriving middleclass households thrive for all their lives...illness and circumstances change. The once prosperous middle manager can suffer a severe loss of income or increase in commitment in mid-life due to all manner of reasons."

Yet another in a depressingly long list of false, and knowingly false, arguments from the keyboard of Richard of York.

No one's suggesting that those falling on hard times are disqualified from receiving benefits because they were once middle-class. The entire philosophy of safety-net welfare is that this doesn't happen.

So why do you persist in structuring your argument around a postulation that is false? Is this the foundation of all socialist politics?

normanc

Being taxed an extra £10 to get £5 back in benefits doesn't sound like a great deal to me.

How about giving us 'middle-class benefits' directly - via the old fashioned conservative way of tax cuts due to smaller government. That's a benefit I'd vote for.

Bill Brinsmead

Richard of York points to something key to the Welfare State.

It is the provision of universal benefits that ensures middle class support for the Welfare State. They are of course a fraud - as we always get back far less than we pay for.

But if removed or reduced then implicit middle class support for the Welfare State is fatally undermined.

This is why maintaining universal benefits is so important to Labour - and to Richard of York.

Simon Stephenson

MEMORANDUM

From : Socialist Politician

To : Middle Class

Re : Universality of Welfare

Many of you have questioned the rationale behind the state taxing you with one hand, and then using the other hand to give back to you through universal benefits and welfare. The answer is that we socialists believe that individual choice is not conducive to a healthy society. This is not to say that we believe in no choice, but we do believe that the choices on offer should be controlled and pre-approved by the state - for your own good, and the good of others.

The principal cause of disharmony in modern society results from the choices that have become more widespread as individual financial prosperity has expanded. We believe that this process is contrary to the development of a truly happy society, and so our principal aim is to steadily reduce financial independence through increasing taxation. Of course we need to sweeten this process by diverting some of the additional tax revenue back to the middle classes from which it came, and we believe the most effective way to do this is through the universal provision of benefits. This way there is the added benefit of normalising within the middle class the ideas of individuals being subordinate to the state, and free thought and choice being subordinate to conformity.

Is there a socialist politician honest enough to admit that this, in a nutshell, is their thinking on universal benefits?

denis cooper

The tax system is a mess, and the welfare system is a mess, the two of them together comprising a closely interlinked mess, and I wouldn't seriously expect that this or any other government would be able to properly sort out that mess over the duration of a Parliament.

It would be better to start again from scratch, but even if we could agree on a desired end point there'd be no simple way to make the transition when over many years large numbers of people have paid taxes which they shouldn't have been required to pay, on the basis that they would become eligible to receive benefits for which they should never have been considered eligible.

Really we would need to define a point in the future, say January 1st 2015, when the present tax and welfare regime would be replaced by a completely new regime, with rights to benefits which could be considered to have accrued under the previous regime being somehow translated into the new regime.

I think that in my ideal new regime I'd keep an integrated lifetime tax and benefits account for each individual; I'd have no universal (monetary) benefits at all; I'd aim to make sure that at any time at least 90% of the population would very clearly not be eligible for any means-tested benefits at all, so there'd be no point in wasting their time and energy and that of civil servants by even applying; in many cases I'd only allow repayable welfare loans rather than non-recoverable welfare grants; and to avoid unnecessary churning of money I'd try to ensure that nobody was in the nonsensical position of paying income tax and national insurance at the same time as they were receiving welfare grants.

Jonathan Woolf

Labour's ideal is high taxes on everyone and everyone on benefits. Taking with one hand, giving (less) with the other, with the difference paid to a vast bureaucracy who administer the mad fiddle. This way, all become clients of the state, whether by working directly for it or receiving benefits from it.

Brown took them a long way down this path.

The alternative should be the classical tory position of low direct taxes, private charity, and a residual safety net for the most deserving only. The Coalition is making baby steps towards this but is frightened to death of what it actually means in practice. Labour, of course, are defending the current system to the hilt, which makes welfare junkies of vast numbers of people in the country.

The answer is pretty obvious. Universal benefits should cease in all forms, but the money should be handed back to the losers in the form of income tax cuts. No 50% rate, a sharp rise in the lowest personal allowances, and a sharp rise in the 40% threshold, this being cut into the 30s, and personal allowances once again made to apply across the board. This will of course stimulate growth leading to an overall absolute rise in tax revenues (heard of the Laffer curve, or read anything about the Lawson tax cuts, George?) so this would more than pay for itself.

If we also dropped our corporation tax to Irish levels, and became the HQ of choice for every worldwide multinational overnight, we might even start getting rich...

Richard of York

O Simple Simon
you are surely not that stupid are you?
How many 40/50 somethings end up looking after elderly parents?
The wellfare payments for caring for a disabled child are not great.
Pension plans now with returns so low 50'sh managers having to contribute 200 quid a month more just to get a decent pension pot.
Do you live in the real world young man?
Your rosie specs on the wellfare net are in need of cleaning. There are 65 year old pensioners forced to care for their 90 year old parents now we are all living longer.
A means test would effect some very needy people who would not qualify under your criteria.

Simon Stephenson

GeoffH : 11.04am

I think if you re-read my comment, nowhere did I write that all supporters of universal benefits are socialists. I was responding to the original post which wrote, specifically, about the Labour Party's stance on universal benefits. My ponit was that people who are socialists would see the provision of universal benefits as a helpful nudge towards their ultimate goal of removing the freedom of people to make financially independent choices.

As far as your argument is concerned, I'm sorry, but I can't see how safety-net welfare would lead to a rebellion among the comfortably-off non-beneficiaries. On the contrary, I should have thought that most pro-social people would have little objection to funding welfare for those who are unable to care for themselves, but that they'd look askance at a process that created a costly bureaucracy to take money from them through taxation only to give it back to them through benefits.

Don't get me wrong, however. I do believe that there are some public services that are more effectively state-provided and funded through taxation. I just don't think that such things as the winter fuel payment are amongst them.

alexsandr

what is NI for?
Roll it into income tax

Simon Stephenson

Richard of York : 1.07pm

What is this drivel all about?

I'm in favour of a situation where those in need get help, statutorily, and those who aren't in need don't. You appear to be suggesting that my policy would deny help to those who need it. It isn't, it doesn't, it won't.

Or are you suggesting we should give welfare to everyone irrespective of need, because we're unable to devise a system of administration that would ensure that all those who do need help get it? If so, how do you explain this to people who are denied help in other areas because the immense additional cost of providing universal benefits has swallowed up all the budget that would otherwise be available?

Scott

Richard, why tax me then to give me money back? Why not tax me less and not give me money back! much simplier. I am on a middle income, and I do not mind paying my fair share in tax, but just to pay more tax then have it given back so the state can have some form of control over me is madness. Only give to those that really need, then help everybody by reducing the tax take. Simples!!!!!!

Grumpy Optimist

Thanks Yorksire Pit Pony.
So ROY - 30% swallowed up in costs is a price worth paying? Maybe we should be allowed an opinion on it.

Richard of York

Simple Simon listen closely I shall say this only once.
You are deluded if you think means testing benefit for middle classes is fair.
To put an income cut-off does not make it fair.
Are you aware that billions in benefit go unclaimed by those who need it not because they are well off they are too embarrassed to claim it or too senile.
When its a universal benefit the take up is higher and the needy do not fall through the net.

David Vinter

The Labour party due to poor leadership for the last 13 years have lost any idea about just who are the middle classes.Most of them have never done a real days work in their lives. They have had the kind of education that looks down upon anyone that can change a car wheel, or tackle serious DIY. We don't all drive computers for a living, I was brought up on a farm, [technically middle class], but know what it is to have my arm deep inside a cows uterous to help calving, have helped my brother carry 50 tonnes of fertilizer on our backs in 50 kilo bags over two days! What snobs we must be to live in the green of the country, [neither of us nor our children went to public school], I have however a degree from a 'Russel University' however we pay our taxes but are totally not represented in parliament.
Can you just imagine any of the current crop of labour leader hopefuls ever doing anything requiring any technical knowledge? No just too clever by half!

denis cooper

If anybody's genuinely worried about old people not being able to cope with the complexities of claiming means-tested benefits then there are ways in which they could help needy old people directly, rather than by spending their time arguing that welfare benefits should be universally available even to those who don't need them. Eg:

http://www.ageuk.org.uk/get-involved/volunteer/

Richard of York

@Scott
If your idols paid tax at all, you and I would not have to pay as much. But sadly you and I are too poor to ever reach the higher level where tax no longer effects your income.
Still if you stop paying and I stop paying and everyone else stops paying then there wont be a problem because the little old lady in Dagenham will mysteriously receive a cheque every month from a mystery benefactor from Belise. Yeah right.
No taxation = no services. You might not use the M25 but millions of others do and your contribution helped make it happen same with the new maternity unit in some Welsh village.....its called collective responsibility. If you don't need help great but to stop helping others because you feel like you are being short changed is wrong. Like I said in a previous post billions of benefits go unclaimed because people ar too ashamed to claim or too senile to fill in the forms.
Is this govt going to make sure all those who need it get it or will they trouser the bit thats not claimed.......dont worry you have all day to hink about the answer.
Or I can help you out....NO!!!!!!!

Simon Stephenson

Richard of York : 2.18pm

So what you're saying is that there is no effective way of distributing welfare to the needy that doesn't involve giving it to everyone.

Baloney!

Tell me Richard, would you be prepared to stand with a Bible, or whatever you consider holy, in your hand, and swear that your enthusiasm for universal benefits is in no way heightened by the fact that they make the imposition of higher rates of taxation politically more acceptable?

Simon Stephenson

Richard of York : 3.11pm

More deliberate misrepresentation of what someone else has written.

Try again, only this time start from what Scott actually wrote, which is about less tax, not no tax which is the false absurdity to which you chose to respond.

Richard of York

Simon
What I am saying is that to attack universal benefits is wrong. What are you achieving? A saving that in the great scheme of things is peanuts just for an ideology.
If Sir Phillip Greene paid his share you would not have to withdraw these benefits from people who give more than they get back. Free bus pass WFP TV licence, free prescriptions, eyecare and much much more. I dont care if some people can afford to pay, it is a minimim perk for being a life long tax payer and a citizen of the 5th richest country in the world.
The problem with people like you is, you always look downwards for the cause of social problems why not just for once take a glance above the horizon.
Millions unemployed so industrialists can cut their wage bills and draw a bigger slice is that fair. Dyson moved his factory to India just so he could avoid our taxes. Why blame the poor for being poor when Rich people employ football teams of lawyers and accountants to keep them there.
What happened to our oil wealth where did the money go? If invested it would have paid for all our social needs. Who's account is the money sitting in yours? mine or some BP shareholder? Every job moved abroad is a worker that will need to be supported by us not the rich industrialist who ultimately benefits while we pick up the tab.
Maggie used the money to run down our industry and kick start the finacial services revolution, who brought this country to its knees The Banks. Who is now living off average wages of £300k pa while everyone else is asked to take deep cuts..The casino bankers.
re-adjust those specs and take a good look, see the unfairness around you. Then ask why?

Simon Stephenson

Richard of York : 3.49pm

We're discussing the pros and cons of universal provision vis a vis safety-net welfare. Why then do you go off into a long ramble about the inequalities of life when people are allowed to make their own choices?

Being against universal provision is nothing to do with ideology - it's about efficient use of resources, and employing one army of officials to take money off people only to give it to another army charged with giving it back to them is a ridiculous waste of resources. Worse, what it means is that resources needed elsewhere cannot be deployed there because they're committed to this pointless money-shuffling elsewhere.

Are you socialists congenitally incapable of understanding that your critics are concerned not just because your designs are anti-individual, but also because they're usually preposterously inefficient in their use of resources. Universal provision is just one such inefficiency.

A pensioner

I'd gladly give up my WFA (which is the only cash benefit I get) if I didn't have to pay tax on my pension, thus leaving me more money to pay the fuel bills. Having paid NI all my life I appreciate the WFA as a small part of my contributions back.

Holly ......

Are Labour trying to make out they are the 'nice' lot?
Haven't they been slating the multi millionaires/rich/better off people & Tory toffs like Cameron & Osbourn for years?
Yet now they are crying into their breakfast
because the nasty Tories are saying multi millionaires/rich/better off people do not need these benefits.
I do wish they would make their brain cell up.

Mrs.Josephine Hyde-Hartley

Perhaps we could cut a long story or dividing line short by focusing more correctly on basic biblical principles re; notions of need, universality and even charity.

In the Bible Jesus tells Judas ( ie the one who sold him for silver) that he will always have the poor with him. He said this to Judas in particular most probably because it remains true even to this day that people like Judas who erroneously set themselves up to be judge, jury and executive director in order to effectively sell somebody else's rightful position will of course create poverty and the poor, one way or another.

The point of universality is bigger than all of this tittle tattle about mythical middle classes because it can understand all our rights and civil liberties including privacy here in the UK and not just the rights and so-called "needs" of any chosen few.

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