Iain Duncan Smith vs. The Telegraph

Iain Duncan Smith, the Coalition’s Work and Pensions Secretary, says that the benefit system has ‘trapped generation after generation in a spiral of dependency and poverty’. I don’t always agree with everything Iain Duncan Smith says, but I do think that on this occasion he has a point. So I was not at all surprised to see a rebuttal in the Telegraph. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/7919479/Iain-Duncan-Smith-is-wrong-about-the-benefits-system.html “The Coalition wrongly assumes that poverty is the result of worklessness caused by barriers outside individual control, writes David Green”.

“Imagine that the only help available for a person losing his job was from a family member. Your brother or sister says ‘OK I will pay you £300 a week until you get back on your feet’. A month later you are asked how the job search is going and reply, ‘Well I found a job for £310 a week but it’s not worth taking because I will lose the £300 you give me. In effect I will be working for only £10 a week.’ The kindest of siblings might find this a little selfish. But this is exactly the attitude being taken by people on benefits who will not work because it does not pay.”

Mr. Green might have a point if that was how the situation actually worked, if the person finding work could actually be sure of being better off, even by just £10 a week. But that is not how it works at all. What happens is, the government pays an unemployed job seeker various allowances, such as Housing Benefit and Job Seeker’s allowance, which together usually amount to just enough for a frugal person to scrape by on and they are conditional on the recipient being able to prove that he or she is actively seeking work. I’ll use Mr. Green’s figure of £300 (well above the minimum wage) for the sake of argument, but usually the figure will be nothing like that.

The job seeker then finds a position which pays £310 per week, but since it is a considerable journey to work, the fares are £12 a day, or £60 per week, leaving a net income after transport costs of £250 per week. Then there will be new clothing and shoes to be bought, since the stuff that was good enough for at home won’t be good enough for the work environment. The benefits will stop straight away while the wages will probably be paid a month in arrears, leaving a one-month “black hole”. Then there are taxes to pay, and all the other incidental expenses that arise from having to travel … the result is that for someone who was just scraping by on benefits, the effect of actually finding a job can be financially devastating, unless that job pays very significantly more than benefits. That’s why benefits shouldn’t be an all-or-nothing thing, cut off instantly and in their entirety the moment a person finds employment.

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Retirement Age

Are you looking forward to retirement or is it the moment when you will be forced to leave the work you love? The fixed retirement age is 65 for men and 60 for women but in October next year there will be no compulsory retirement. At first glance this is a great step forward. You may now choose to continue to work if you love your work. If you don't then it doesn't matter because you can still retire.

For the individual the great advantage is that you have greater earnings. What is wrong with working five or ten years longer if you feel fit to do so? The coalition government agrees. Money would be saved on paying out pensions, the workers will still be paying tax and the biggest advantage is that the move provides freedom of choice to individuals.

On the other hand many people will choose to extend their working life simply because their pension is not good enough. They may well choose to work when they are not capable and employers will have a much greater incidence of having to sack failing employees - not an easy process at the best of times. If it is alright to work for five of ten years then what about fifteen or twenty? Is it possible to have an 85 year-old postman? If there is no compulsion then who is going to tell them they can't deliver letters? I have also heard the criticism that businesses will be limited in their ability to manage their workforce. At the moment they know when their staff will retire. Also, if members of staff are not retiring at 60 or 65 then there must be fewer jobs for a younger, more able workforce.

It looks like there is more adverse criticism to the move than there is praise. How do you reconcile the complaints? Well the demographics are looking like we have no choice. We need people to work so young people will be employed. We do need a simple method of ensuring that members of staff are fit for their work, but this shouldn't be beyond the wit of this government.

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A small victory for sanity

So bull fighting has stopped in Catalonia. It may have been part of Spanish culture for centuries but barbaric blood sports have no place in the 21st century. They have no place in any century but we may think of ourselves as more civilised than our forefathers.

These moves are bound to put more pressure on other areas of Spain to ban bullfighting but the vote was not that convincing with 68 voting for the ban and 55 against. It seems likely that we will have to live with bullfighting for some years to come.

Rome wasn't built in a day and Catalonia is only one of seventeen autonomous areas of Spain, however not too far away is Pamplona where they think it is fun to allow bulls to get excited, run with people in the streets and gore a few of them. Today's news is a small victory for sanity but we have a long way to go.

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Letters to the editor

I have heard others complain about bias in Morecambe's local press but so far I have refused to believe them. I don't normally send letters to the paper but I have sent three this year. The first was published, the second wasn't but it was just before the election. However the editor could have quite easiliy used her powers and published half of it. Two weeks ago I sent my third letter and it hasn't yet been in the paper. This letter may be seen at http://politicsfornovices.blogspot.com/2010/07/letter-to-morecambes-local-newspaper.html

So I sent the following email to the editor:-

Dear Ingrid,

I was sorry to see that my letter, sent by email on 14th July wasn't published last week or this week. I thought it gave a better balance to the debate than the article about the "Councillors wage war on VAT hike" article. I had written quite a long letter that I revised a few times to get it to your 300 words limit. Could you let me know how I need to change it to get it published? Thanks.

I am adding the letter just in case it got lost in the ether. I did send it to visitor@lmnews.co.uk Was this correct?

Michael Gradwell

I'll let you know if I get a reply. For that matter I'll let you know if I don't.

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P.S. My letter was published in the paper on 4th August. No reply from the editor but I did send an email saying thanks.

Well done M&S

Marks and Spencer has made the news by selling a 'Plus' range of school clothing for overweight children. Well done to their advertisers. They have recognised that obesity is rife and managed to obtain more advertising space than money can buy.

The debate has moved on to how we as a nation tackle obesity but Marks and Spencer has managed to get its name into this debate. I don't think children went to school without a uniform prior to this initiative. Billy Bunter cartoons may have made it look like pupils attended school with a uniform that didn't fit but the answer is not to label bigger sizes as 'plus' but simply to buy a size of uniform that does fit the child.

I am sure there is a simple answer but how did M&S manage to create a difference between a larger size and a plus size, or is it all just a marketing ploy?

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Acceptable Cheating

Even if you didn't follow the German Grand Prix closely you will probably know about the controversy surrounding Felipe Massa and Fernando Alonso. On the news we heard an order going out to Massa telling him that Alonso is faster, and then Alonso overtakes. Some may call this cheating.

In the same weekend Alex Higgins dies and we see old news reports of him saying that there is no game that is more corrupt. He is said to have refused to accept money to throw a game on more than one occassion. About ten years ago one person told me to bet on a particular horse the next time it was running in Scotland. I didn't know enough about racecourses never mind betting to have taken this advice.

I am sure that many will be aware of corruption in sport. Most accept professional sport as a form of entertainment or a financial commodity rather than a competition between individuals or teams - ask Manchester United fans if you want an explanation. Does it matter? Well it probably does to the fans who jump up and down when a goal is scored. It matters to people who watch cars go round a racetrack without any overtaking for 18 laps. It matters to me because many will accept that cheating is acceptable.

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Aesop and Morecambe

In Morecambe and Lancaster there is not much point in breaking the speed limit. If there is a gap in the traffic in front of you then there will be more congestion just around the corner. Even if you wanted to break the speed limit then you would be caught by the car driver who is not speeding. Aesop could have based his tortoise and the hare story on Morecambe traffic.

I drove through Preston on Friday and yesterday and here things are different. I noticed that cars were accelerating faster than I am used to. I noticed cars routinely breaking the speed limit. I would guess that on average Preston cars were travelling at 35/40 mph. It took me two trips but I realised that the cars that accelerated and broke the speed limit managed to get through the next set of lights.

I don't know if there is a great traffic plan in Lancashire but it certainly looks like there is a reward for speeding in Preston.

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