The raison d’etre of the Tories is to ensure the state runs smoothly in the interest of the 1% of the population who own 70% of the wealth. Blair made sure New Labour had the same objective, the only purpose of the party structures now being as career ladders for the likes of Blair to join the 1%.
The Tories have learnt the lesson of Thatcher, that if you keep 42% of the English happy and feeling economically secure, and advantaged over the rest, then you can stay in power through the first past the post system. This needs an inflated housing market, a few tax cuts, and a rhetoric identifying and excluding the outsiders, be they immigrants, benefit claimants or other groups. Osborne has this political truth down to a fine art, as his budget showed. If you are a middle class family able to spend 10,000 a year on childcare, you can now in effect get 2,000 a year from the government. It is complex to administer, but most of the families who benefit much will be the kind who have accountants. Similarly the pensions plan liberalisation will not mean a great deal to the poorest in society, although not wrong in itself. Meanwhile endless benefit cuts are the lot of the needy.
New Labour are left spluttering on the sidelines because the differences in what it would do are so marginal as to be pointless. What the country needs is massive state intervention to extract funds from the financial services industry and from those with obscenely accrued capital, and put them in to infrastructure in transport, energy efficiency, renewables, housing and high tech manufacturing, areas in which economic benefits are broadly spread in society including through employment. There are legitimate areas of debate about how you do that – I favour tax incentivisation, or rather heavy tax disincentivisation of non-productive use of capital, rather than direct state agency, although you would need a mix.
Anyway, there is no radical economic choice of any kind on offer to the electorate, and the Tory/Labour divide is one of tribal adherence rather than real policy difference. But for what it is worth, with New Labour only leading in the polls by 4% just a year before the election, all precedent suggests that the Tories will easily recover that within the final year and there will be at least six more years of Tory government.
I do hope that Scots are quite clear-eyed about that before September. The choice on the ballot is simple: Scottish independence, or Tory rule from South East England for the forseeable future. The rest is smoke and mirrors.
Mark, I’m with Mary on this, responding will just bring subsequent nonsense. I stopped responding when he tacitly admitted he believed in torture. But I have in recent days discovered that ESLO and Resident Dissident are one and the same yet they praise one another to the heights, in other words they praise themselves. How shameful! And how shameful they (it) could call question me having no shame. But I guess when you have few friends you have to create some. Resident Dissident has already been revealed sock-puppeting ‘Mary’s Love Child’ and I wonder how many others there are. Like you I comment under my own name. We do not know who any of those who disrupt are. So leave it alone. Do not feed the trolls. You will find your name mentioned all the time. Consider that a compliment. But don’t respond.
The American health system where millions go bankrupt each year because of medical bills. How complicated it sounds.
A Fatal Loophole?
Too Poor to Qualify for Obamacare? Yes
by ERIC ZEUSS
Some people in some Republican-governed states are too poor to qualify for subsidies to buy insurance under the Affordable Care Act.
You get that right: too poor to qualify for subsidies.
Here is how I discovered this remarkable fact:
There was a Reuters article at Huffington Post on January 22nd, “Target Cuts Health Coverage For Part-Time Workers, Citing Obamacare,” and it reported that Target, “like Home Depot, said it was shifting medical coverage for part-time workers to new public marketplace exchanges,” in order to cut costs.
One of the reader-comments to that news-report came from “Kate,” who said, ”In Alaska, where we have to rely on the federal Affordable Care Act Health Insurance Marketplace, a single person has to make at least $14,350 per year and a family of 4 has to bring in a minimum of $29,440 to qualify for tax subsidies to help pay ACA premiums.”
/..
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/20/too-poor-to-qualify-for-obamacare-yes/
PS Target, discount retailing, second after Walmart. Revenue $72 billion pa.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Target_Corporation
Regarding fecklessness and benefits I am with Tony M.
I was a frontline social worker for 28 years, which means I worked with clients all that time, was not a manager at all for most of it and I worked with a variety of client groups. I can therefore claim a fair knowledge of the benefit system up until about five years ago when I retired, as intervening in it on behalf of my clients occupied a fair degree of my time.
First of all the amount of cash lost to benefit fraud by poor people is tiny compared to the amount lost to legal and illegal fraud by the wealthy and by big business.
The emphasis on ‘feckless’ scroungers is a primitive smokescreen put up by governments to enable them to save money at the expense of those who need it. I am very surprised that so many here seem to be taken in by this fraud.
Finally the benefit system has been deliberately made extremely inefficient and full of red tape which means it is a nightmare to be on benefits – I speak from fairly recent personal experience. No-one in their right mind would choose to be on benefits.
In my view the inefficiency and callous nature of the benefits system and the way it is run contributes significantly to the poor mental health of many claimants, quite apart from their material poverty.
Regarding the NHS – do people really think it is efficient? I am not an expert in this field but when I have made efforts to understand the British system as against say the French system of health insurance the results I have found suggest the French system is far more efficient and better value for money.
Again speaking as a social worker in what is known as a ‘deprived’ area I have heard dozens of frightening stories about care on the NHS.
And why forget the second most important point of all.
Much more money remains unclaimed than is lost to fraud.
The most important point of course is, as some have said, that the focus on benefits is to distract from corporate tax evasion, the billions wasted on shoddy procurement and the selling off cheaply of national infrastructure to corporate vultures.
And let’s not forget the way they collude in privatising profits whilst socialising losses.
There’s the real problem.
Daniel it might apply to the fit, young and healthy, who might occasionally exceptionally offer their services opportunely for a few pounds cash in hand, but which as often as not barely covers their own outlay, travel, food and wear and tear on clothing, footwear etc. It is symptomatic of their desire to do something, to gain experience, socialise cheaply or simply get out of the house or vary the monotony, payment often simply goods-in-kind, necessities of life to eke out the household budget.
Again too as in all, there is a South-East of England/Rest of Britain divide and the circumstances of the ‘great wen’, which by design sucks all wealth unto itself from the rest of the country are in no way found anywhere else and policies to address the ‘special’ problems created by that one region’s distressing concentration of wealth and boundless sense of entitlement would be inapplicable unjust and wrong if applied elsewhere.
I think you grossly overstate from no evidence the extent to which benefits claimants work whilst claiming benefits. I know someone who was carrying out ‘voluntary’ unpaid work gardening at a Buddhist retreat, at the insistence of the Jobcentre and who was repeatedly and maliciously reported to the DWP for working there.
You also fail over and over to distinguish one type of benefit from another, lumping all together as cheats and liars. I’m sure the chronically sick, the disabled, and the greatest recipients of benefits -pensioners are not milking the system but instead are simply scraping by, excluded from participation in their communities and in society by insurmountable economic barriers, condemned to the worst housing the worst food, the worst health, spurned by a society which has become so alien to their experience of existence, that a virtual apartheid exists.
Conjunction,
Tony M attempted to knock down a series of straw men. For instance, I don’t disagree with the assertion that “the amount of cash lost to benefit fraud by poor people is tiny compared to the amount lost to legal and illegal fraud by the wealthy and by big business.”
Also, I agree with your statement that the “emphasis on ‘feckless’ scroungers is a primitive smokescreen put up by governments to enable them to save money at the expense of those who need it.”
I, myself, am certainly not taken in by the fraud and have alluded to this above.
However, I put it to you that welfare fraud is more prevalent than you perhaps think. I too can speak from personal experience. The system is, as you say, a nightmare of red tape and inefficiency.
The governments jobmatch website, for example, is full of duplicate jobs, many of which are non-existent. This kind of callousness is bound to have detrimental impacts on the mental health of claimants.
I agree with you that many people don’t choose to be on benefits. But faced with the kind of objective choices I outlined previously, there is a large swath of people who do. It’s disingenuous to claim otherwise. People do so because they make rational and informed choices.
“What the country needs is massive state intervention to extract funds from the financial services industry”
The removal of the requirement to buy an annuity takes business away from the financial services industry, hence why their share prices fell after the announcement. People who take their pension savings as a lump sum will pay at least 23 per cent of it in tax straightaway, and possibly 40 per cent if a higher rate taxpayer, depending on what the income tax rate is when it happens.
[John Goss please post a link re. your 17:00 comment.]
I presume you mean the sock-puppeting. It began with this comment.
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2014/03/the-wrong-referendum-the-wrong-saviour/comment-page-2/#comment-446625
[Resident Dissident responded]
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2014/03/the-wrong-referendum-the-wrong-saviour/comment-page-2/#comment-446708
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2014/03/the-wrong-referendum-the-wrong-saviour/comment-page-2/#comment-446710
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2014/03/the-wrong-referendum-the-wrong-saviour/comment-page-2/#comment-446826
[The discussion was between me and Resident Dissident but ESLO or RD forgot to change the sock. No idea which is the sock and which the puppeteer]
ESLO
18 Mar, 2014 – 2:03 pm
John Goss
I was talking about Russia – on every sensible measure of left vs right it is pretty clear where your heroes stand. You have no shame whatsoever.
Not sure what’s worse. Being disappointed by Labour or vindicated by how vicious the Tories become in power.
Those creepy Libz give me the willies.
Daniel
I agree with your last paragraph. There is a small proportion of people who ‘work the system’ no doubt. But they are a very long way from being a major problem when you look at the economics of society as a whole.
What got me going were some things you said earlier at 3.23, I quote:
“It is my view that benefit fraud is a major contributory factor in the creation of fecklessness and it’s this that first and foremost needs to be tackled.
In their attempts to undercut fraud, the government would be better redirecting resources to front-line operations.
Instead, in their crude attempts to appease middle England, politicians’ of all shades cynically grandstand against those on benefits for electoral gain.
We should instead be arguing for a two-pronged approach – the consolidation of existing benefits on the one hand, and increased resources on the ground to tackle fraud on the other.”
I have got nothing against attempts to combat fraud per se although I think many fraudsters are cool customers who work the system quite cleverly, no doubt having learnt from the cynical ones in government and business that that is the way of the world. I am not defending this approach just suggesting that its a smaller crime than the way the government approaches the benefit system.
And in case anyone thinks I am a woolly Labourite, it was New Labour who trashed the benefit system first, not the Tories.
Thanks Mary and John for your advice. Stick and carrot; I dangled ‘profit’ and received free space that filled my intention.
Tovarish Goss
“…when he tacitly admitted he believed in torture.”
___________________
So now it’s “tacitly”, eh? You’re improving. Carry on like that and you’ll soon be admitting that you made it all up as an excuse to not defend your views. At least you would if you weren’t entirely shameless.
Conjunction
“Regarding the NHS – do people really think it is efficient? I am not an expert in this field but when I have made efforts to understand the British system as against say the French system of health insurance the results I have found suggest the French system is far more efficient and better value for money.”
________________
Thank you for that post, Conjunction. You will know – and perhaps Mary will please note – that the French system is based on compulsory health insurance.
Sir Gerald Kaufman to the PM
>
Gerald Kaufman (Manchester, Gorton, Labour)
Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this week I received from a Palestinian friend an e-mail telling me that the Israelis assassinated a friend in his house and that
“another brother of a friend has been shot dead by the army. So we spent our time from one funeral to another”?
When the right hon. Gentleman was in Israel last week, did he raise with Netanyahu this constant stream of killing of innocent Palestinians by the Israelis, and what is he going to do about it?
19 March 2014, c773)
David Cameron (The Prime Minister; Witney, Conservative)
I did not raise that specific case, which the right hon. Gentleman quite rightly raises in the House today, but I did raise with the Israeli Prime Minister the importance of how the Israelis behave in the west bank and elsewhere, and I raised the issue of settlements, which I believe are unacceptable and need to stop.
I also strongly supported both the Israeli Prime Minister and the Palestinian President in their efforts to find a peace. There is a prospect and an opportunity now, because the Americans are leading a set of talks that could lead to a framework document being agreed, and it is in everyone’s interest to put all the pressure we can on both the participants to take part and to get on with these negotiations, which I believe would mean so much to ordinary Israelis, ordinary Palestinians and, indeed, the rest of us.
~~~~
http://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2014-03-19a.770.4&s=speaker%3A10327#g773.09
John Goss / Moderator
“[John Goss please post a link re. your 17:00 comment.]
I presume you mean the sock-puppeting.”
______________________
NOT NECESSARILY. You’re being slippery. Please provide the link to back up your claim that I support torture (your new word “implicitly” backtracks and provides you with an escape route).
On the cheater known as IDS who aims to defeat the benefits cheaters. He was claiming £18,000 pa for non existent secretarial services said to be provided by his wife Betsy.
Written statement by Dr Vanessa Gearson, 16 October 2003
[See also Volume III, PCS Oral Evidence 9]
In the matter of the investigation into the employment of Betsy Duncan Smith
Introduction
It is with great reluctance that I find myself having to set out the following facts, as I understand them, after what has been an extraordinarily difficult period in my professional life. I set out in this document everything I can recall to be relevant to the remit of your investigation in the interests of openness and transparency.
From the time I assumed the role of Head of the Office of the Leader of the Opposition in August 2002 my primary concern was to impose an effective, professional and transparent organisation and structure on the Leader’s Private Office that would serve his needs, while meeting the rules set out by the House of Commons Fees Office and the internal audit requirements set by Conservative Central Office (CCO). In an attempt to promote greater vigilance and respect for budgetary procedures, financial control and the requirements for financial record keeping within the Leader’s Office, I repeatedly sought to raise these and other matters with the Leader through his Parliamentary Private Secretary and subsequently, the Chairman of the Conservative Party, the Chief Executive, the Deputy Chief Executive and the Treasurer of the Conservative Party. My job was to protect the Leader.
/..
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200304/cmselect/cmstnprv/476/476we17.htm
Who is this who has made at least half a dozen posts immediately prior to its 6:55pm one, which are themselves wildly off-topic. I would like to thank Mary for that post objected to and express my admiration for the principled Gerald Kaufman in skewering (just one prong) this David Cameron fellow who goes kow-towing to an objectively objectionable rogue state and terrorist regime and dares speak of peace, the two-faced insincere upstart and villain. What did we the people ever do to have the likes of Cameron foisted upon us by a shower of bankers. I don’t know if it was here or elsewhere I seen this link, but others too might be interested in further cases of Israeli inhuman viciousness -the shooting in the legs and feet and crippling of young Palestinian athletes. Truly awful the evil bred in the peaceful, abundant paradise that was once proud Palestine. Since renamed Israel/Sellafield.
http://www.commondreams.org/further/2014/03/13-0
Six more years of Cameron-Milliband PLC. I’d suffer it for the Palestinian families to have just six minutes of bliss and respite from the ceaseless horror that was visited upon that thriving bountiful land and beautiful people in 1948. Thank you Mary, incalculable thanks go too to Mr. Kaufman, it is rare to find an Englishman of stature and note, of courage and of irrepresible humanitarian instincts in public life.
Of course, the 42% had to be conditioned first and Thatcher saw to that. The big giveaways to the unskilled lower middle class in the 1980s (notice how people with a complete lack of skill started to earn more in back offices and estate agencies than those with skills to mine coal, build cars, administer health care etc.) ensured there were a lot of people with a lot to be grateful to Thatcherite economics. I reserve the right to not call it free market.
That has created a glut of people who are now over 50 who like to think that they worked hard for what they got (they didn’t) who rather like the status quo and will keep this kind of politics in power for many years to come. George Osborne’s budget directly targeted this group of feckless, unskilled homeowners.
[Thanks for the links John Goss.
Some personal comments without political content from Habbabkuk have been deleted.]
Mary – do you know the outcome of Lord MacGregor’s inquiry?
Vanessa Gearson and Mark MacGregor have not responded to an email requesting some unclear details that remain.
You’re welcome. I wouldn’t have noticed, because they are so alike, and it was the next morning I found ESLO’s response had it not been for his comment:
“ESLO 18 Mar, 2014 – 4:48 pm
PS Goss
I’m not upset by the referendum – it was a foregone conclusion that anyone could see after the invasion took place – but I suppose you think the population of the Crimea were won over after a vigorous democratic debate or whatever guff RT are pushing at the moment.”
[To which my response was]
“John Goss 18 Mar, 2014 – 5:01 pm
“PS Goss
I’m not upset by the referendum ”
When you’re upset you always call me Goss.”
Then when I checked I found it had been RD who last addressed me Goss.
[Thanks. Results of investigation inconclusive. Craig has been notified.]
John Goss
I have no idea whatsoever why ESLO appeared to be replying in my name – perhaps he just typed “I” rather than “he” or something else – but rest assured we are not the same person – I am sure Craig can at least confirm that I don’t share an IP address – not sure how else I can prove I am not ESLO. As for Mary’s Love Child – guilty as charged, and if I hadn’t outed myself, I would have hapilly confessed if challenged. Just a poor attempt to parody Sofia who I’m afraid is beyond parody.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3578323.stm
All smoothed over Mark by Sir Philip Mawer after which IDS and Betsy did their ‘poor us’ routine.
The committee report
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200304/cmselect/cmstnprv/476/476.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betsygate
btw I don’t think it was ‘Lord’ McGregor. It was http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_MacGregor
Resident Dissident,
I would not have expected you to have the same IP address. If sock-puppeting is taking place I expect each computer to be marked by the name of the puppet, in case you forget who you are supposed to be.
Anyway, you sing from the same hymn-book. If you are different people, as you claim, perhaps you might try attacking me in a more individual manner. I am not as convinced as the moderator of your innocence. But hey, the moderator has the last say, and I am happy to go along with what he/she decides.
I accept what you say about Mary’s Love Child and agree that Sofia is beyond parody.
If the Scottish vote for independence (which I hope doesn’t happen), I predict that Ed Milliband will reinstate the principles of socialism more fully as party ideology. He will have no choice. Without clear water between him and the Tories, his party will have nothing different to offer voters.
Benefits:
Polling carried out by the TUC in January, showed that on average people think that 27 per cent of the welfare budget is claimed fraudulently. The government’s own figure is 0.7 per cent.
http://www.tuc.org.uk/economic-issues/benefit-fraud-just-07-cent-welfare-budget-official-figures-show
NHS: one of the best healthcare systems in the world
The Commonwealth Fund survey consistently ranks the NHS highly on a range of measures looking at how health systems deal with people with chronic and serious illness.
It finds people in Britain have among the fastest access to GPs, the best co-ordinated care, and suffer from the among the fewest medical errors, of 11 high income countries surveyed.
The countries examined were: the UK, France, Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands, the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/8877412/NHS-among-best-health-care-systems-in-the-world.html
John
You really are quite paranoid – no wonder you fall for conspiracy theories so easily. I’m really not too bothered as to your views on my innocence or otherwise, but I certainly have better things to spend my money on than multiple computers and ISPs and I do a little thing called work during the day so I very much doubt that I would be posting at 2 o clock in the afternoon.
Craig wrote: “[…] with New Labour only leading in the polls by 4% just a year before the election, all precedent suggests that the Tories will easily recover that within the final year and there will be at least six more years of Tory government.”
I think you are right that the governing party tends to recover support as the general election (“GE”) nears – but under FPTP Labour will probably only need a 35% share of the vote. In the February 1974 GE, Labour won fewer votes than the Tories but Harold Wilson became PM.
“Should Scotland be an independent country?”
On the day, I wonder how many in favour of maintaining the Union will baulk at ticking the ‘No’ box? Or perhaps find an excuse not to attend the polling station.