Old age poverty in Britain versesw young people

[Ivanhoe]

Gordon Brown "wont" pay out because New Labour's policies are ultra right wing.

Gordon Brown has delayed restoring the link with earnings for electral purposes in my view.

Gordon Brown and New Labour are arrogant and they are complacent, because they have no effective opposition.

[John]

If this weak and ignorant  mob have no opposition. The UK is in a
very sad position.

There is no Party that could make a worst job of running a Country
than Labour.

If this Country was a business it would either be shut down now or sold
off to foreign interests.

[Ivanhoe]

When you say Labour, are you refering to this particular government ?

[Papaumau]

Well, I think Gordo doesn't want to pay out because his policies, both as Chancellor and PM have brought Britain to the brink of bankruptcy.

Yet he still pays millions to send soldiers to fight in wars, which I feel are not our business, and still plays Dame Bountiful with Foreign Aid, whilst not recognising the problems here at home.

He's like a child playing on thin ice.

Cheers, HG

I don't think we can blame Brown for giving international aid as any country that is civilised has to spend some of it's riches trying to help the worse off in the rest of the world. I don't think this is an either/or situation it is more a can or won't situation.

After the very small part of our GDP is paid to foreign aid there is no reason to think that this should reduce the amounts that are spent on aiding our own people.

I agree though that much more SHOULD be spent on the worse off in Britain and that many wasteful pet-projects of government could be happily scrapped to pay for it.

Here is one interesting view of foreign aid: http://www.sovereignty.org.uk/features/articles/aid.html

And here is where our money was spent last year:


I am sure that many of you could find ways of saving a lot of that money so that it could go in many more-important directions.

[Ivanhoe]

Papaumau, Heres an expenditure fact that came from The Guardian in 2000.

"In Gordon Brown's first three years as Chancellor, 1997- 2000, he spent £840 million more, means testing pensioners, than it would have cost to restore the state pensions link with national average wages.

[Papaumau]

You should already know that I am in the anti-means-testing camp and that as far as that is concerned we do not have any argument !

It would be a simple and inexpensive matter to connect benefit payments to income tax, ( including all of the income taxes that are unpaid by non-domiciliary fat-cats ), so that the people who needed the money would get it and the people who had plenty of it would not need to get any more.

If this was done efficiently and effectively there would be no need for the complicated means test at all.

[Ivanhoe]

The reason for means testing is to detere people from claiming, to make claiments feel inferior.

It is our class system at work here.

Paddy Ashdown made a similar point whilst addressing the Lib-Dem conference way back in 1992 concerning Tory education cuts.

Paddy Ashdown stated to his fellow Lib-Dems, the following.

Tory education cuts, are not a sasving, they are an arrogance.

[Hells Granny]

I'm not against the Government giving International Aid, but it should put it's own house in order first.

Cheers HG

[Papaumau]

Ivanhoe said:

The reason for means testing is to detere people from claiming, to make claiments feel inferior

And I agree that that is an integral part of the meant test. Also it is so complex and so difficult to fill in that many potential claimants just don't even try to claim what they are due. ( Hence, saving the government a fortune ).

Hell's Grannie said:

I'm not against the Government giving International Aid, but it should put it's own house in order first.

I DO see what you mean their HG, but I have always said that both can be done at the same time.

If we wait for them to get their "own house in order" before doing anything the needy peoples in the thirsty, starving and diseased third-world would get nothing from the richer nations.

[Ivanhoe]

Papaumau, This is just it, it isnt a saving, because means testing pensioners since 1997 under this government is costing more of tax payers money than the restoration of the earnings link would cost.

[Papaumau]

The means test is much older than that my friend !

In Britain:

In 1931 an act was passed in the UK Parliament that restricted the use of the employment insurance fund to the payment of limited, short-term benefits. The longer-term unemployed and those not covered by the scheme were to receive assistance only after a ‘means test’ had been applied and the amount of unemployment benefit assessed. The Unemployment Act 1934 retained the means test as a method of administering unemployment benefit.

This government was the first true tri-partite coalition National Government government with Ramsay MacDonald, Stanley Baldwin and Neville Chamberlain at the helm at different times.

Since it's introduction at that time the means test has never even been considered as being more expensive to implement and run than any other way to regulate benefits for the different levels of wage-earning in Britain.

I am sure that it could be simplified if "they" wanted to do this but any attempt at getting rid of it would be seen as a general loss of revenue to any government.

DO NOT expect the Tory party or any Tory government of the future to even attempt to overhaul this outdated mode of determining who should get what in this - our supposed civilised society

[Ivanhoe]

I know all that you say, but im refering to the means test system that New Labour inherited from the Thatcher/Major years.

In 2000 it was stated by the Guardian that means testing pensioners 1997-2000 under Chancellor Gordon Brown had cost taxpayers £840 million more than the restoration of the earnings link would have cost.

I still have that snippet from the Guardian.  Tony Benn has also declared this fact.

[Papaumau]

I am sure that you are right there but I would still like to see that "snippet" you talk about.

[Ivanhoe]

ille see what I can do.

[Ivanhoe]

the adminstration costs of means testing pensioners, is much more than the restoration of the earnings link.