At 02:56 22/08/2012, Viggo wrote:
---->
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/david-cameron/9354163/David-Camerons-welfare-speech-in-full.html
This asshole of a prime minister pretends that the same hasn't been going
on in the UK for at least 15 years with benefit cuts and still more and
more harsh conditions for welfare eligibility.
This is simply not true. For 13 of the last 15
years -- 1997-2010 -- welfare benefits gushed
forth from the Labour government. In many cases
(such as Disability Allowance) it was given after
self-certification without being seen by any
official or any doctor. One of many recent cases
coming to light now (and being pursued in the
courts) is of one who "resided" in three houses
and drew housing benefits (while leasing them
out), drew a disability allowance and then lived
in Spain for most of the year. He had received
over £500,000. But before I go any further let
me declare an interest -- or a lack of it. I have
never voted Tory in my life. I regard David
Cameron and his principal sidekick, George
Osborne, as being spoiled brats and having been
(or still are) far too close to some real nasties
(e.g. the Murdochs, Russian Oligarchs, Lord
Ashcroft [principal fund-raiser for the Tory
party] to be trustworthy in any way).
Nevertheless, Cameron's speech is broadly
correct. Paradoxically, his welfare reforms might
succeed better than the Labour Government's.
(There were more poor children in the UK in 2010
than there were at the beginning of Labour's four
terms.) But he's only placing himself on the side
of the angels because he'll have to face a
general election sometime and he knows he'll have
to clear out the huge number of welfare
malingerers and restore morale if enough of what
I call the 80-class are going to vote for
him. This has been about half on average in the
last few decades. It's not so much that Cameron
fears that they'll turn to Labour in any large
numbers (that's very doubtful) but that they'll
go further to the right and vote for UKIP (United
Kingdom Independence Party) which already
threatens scores of Tory seats, or the nastier
British National Party (already with many local
council seats and one European Parliament seat)
and the even nastier English Defence League (the
nearest thing we have to the Nazis, and growing
fast among the unemployed young of the northern
cities, already attacking Hindus and Muslims in the streets).
No government tried harder to reform health,
education and welfare than Labour between 1997
and 2010. Spending on all was more than doubled.
The result, however, was that the NHS became, if
anything, slightly worse, educational results
declined significantly and many aspects of
welfare and transfer payments ballooned out of
all sense and control. This not only deprived
benefits to the genuinely needy but also added to
the demoralisation of the welfare state which,
when added to the free-and-easy entry to illegal
as well as legal immigrants going on in parallel,
is now leading trends well to the right of anything seen since the 1920/30s.
Keith
Keith Hudson, Saltford, England http://allisstatus.wordpress.com
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