AIBU about Tax Credits cuts,

[Weathergames]

Commons back Osborne plan for tax credit cuts
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-34260902

I don't claim anymore because I now earn enough to support myself - because I could work and progress my career as well as my life while being a single parent.

AIBU to think this is a total travesty and so many single parents are going to have their life's devastated by this - and what about people in domestic abuse situations who will now be more unable to leave?

Maybe I some benefits scrounger - but the tax credits enabled me to be a good parent and role model to my kids - without their feckless father affecting that .... AIBU?!

But back to my point before red, Central london needs people who don't earn enough to commute and pay for additional child care. The caps on all benefits e.g £26,000 to one family, which include CB/TC/HB mean that we are not supporting people really to live in central London at all, just helping people who provide essential work.

The politics of envy have got to stop.

Circles.

We are supporting people in central London; I don't know why you say otherwise. we are just helping corporations (which you seem to be against supporting) not pay reasonable wages.

But corporations won't pay the wages out of their profits, they will just increase costs to consumers, which will cause more whinging on here.

I don't mind supporting corporations to invest either, but I think if they want them they have to contribute more.

Needsasockamnesty - £417 is the correct figure. I just looked it up here; lha-direct.voa.gov.uk/SearchResults.aspx?LocalAuthorityId=20&LHACategory=999&Month=10&Year=2015&SearchPageParameters=true

£417 is the 4 bedroom rate for LHA in the Borough of K&C (Central London rate).

So to get £417 a week in K and C you must have around 8 people living there, otherwise the bedroom tax would kick in and you wouldn't get half of that for a couple. The one bed allowance would give you £1126 a month, which is well below the average in Kensington and Chelsea, I also imagine there are very few available for that rate.

This argument is about people talking about piddling numbers that support people doing valuable jobs.

Stop your freaking jealousy.

longtime What about the 30,000 people in subsidised social housing in Kensington?

Why are you bothered about social housing? They pay rent, they pay the cost of their living. Social housing rents just are fixed with inflation and not the market so they don't rise at the same rate.

What would you do sell off the social housing and subsidise people to come in to do your poorly paid jobs from outer London? I reckon that would cost more than anything paid for social housing.

I reckon you won't have to worry about it much more anyway, from what I read K and C is selling a lot of it.

And while we're on something for nothing.. why is the nation subsidising inheritance tax, unearned income? Most of which will be from London, why not change it back and keep the £1 bn it will cost us?

I wonder if occasional residents and live-in staff of embassies and palaces count as people having subsidised housing in Kensington? There must be a fair few of them.

I have no beef with changing inheritance tax back to were it was, or making it bigger. I just think you need to accept that certain, poorer, people have a huge benefit of living in a very desirable area which is denied to others who pay significantly more tax. This benefit also subsidises the rich in these communities who can get low wage employees for significantly less that it ought to cost them.
If this subsidy did not exist, then the rich of kensinton would have to pay more for their lattes in order to get staff to work there. Surely this would be a good thing.

But Carol, you still sound like the policics of envy, I can't live there so why should they? Why don't we charge the residents of K and C more tax? Like their council tax, how is it possible to top rates are the same there as they are in Blackburn? Oh btw the Sultan of Brunei gets a discount on his Kensington Palace Garden House cause its his second home, wonder how many dodges there are like that. Whilst your "subsidised" housing pay the full charge.

Also, it would have to be a lot more to cover, travel, extended childcare, etc etc. Firms would lose sales, and the government would listen to them more.Listen to how many firms are complaining about the "living wage" which is still too low for London !

I think the subsidy is probably the most cost effective way of doing this.

Just thought I'd leave this here before I go to bed, makes me wanna go all American and say: "Preach"

"The Conservative party is, in the main, the party of the rich against the poor, of the classes and their dependents against the masses, of the lucky, the wealthy, the happy, and the strong against the left-out and the shut-out millions of the weak and poor."
-Winston Churchill

It wouldn't surprise me at all if the establishment's live-out equerries were given priority for social housing in certain London LAs, thinking about it.

I need to turn in too.

Amen, longtimelurker

The other thing about social housing is that so much if it is now Housing associations, which are private non profit organisations. So its not council subsidised either.

Are you saying that these have to go too? I bet Peabody and Guiness make up a fair whack of your 30,000

Just seen George Osborne on GMB evading all questions about how are people already earning the "living wage" are going to survive.

God - what a dick.

How can a nation subsidise inheritance tax?

Because losing the net take is the same as granting a subsidy really, tax cuts on inherited wealth are subsidies for the rich.

The same way as the bedroom tax is not really a tax?

Im still not sure why its the governments responsibility to pay for people to live in subsidised zone 1 housing just so businesses there can continue to pay people minimum wage?
If businesses want to operate there, if people want to privately hire staff there, then they are going to have to pay higher wages to offset the travel costs. Isnt that how a free market works?

Osborne was so good on Radio 4 this morning. He did really well. Made all my points and more.

He also made the point no one makes but we wll know and is why the people chose the Tories - that if there is no money, a poor economy etc then you cannot help the poor. It's the core of the Tory policy and how most families run their finances. You don't buy those new fancy shoes because you want to feed the children next week. Ditto you don't spend what you don't have now with the biggest proportionately welfare bill on the planet if it means you cannot house and feed the poor a bit later down the line.

I just hope he can take over from Cameron for another Tory victory in 5 years time. We'd be in very safe hands.

Im still not sure why its the governments responsibility to pay for people to live in subsidised zone 1 housing just so businesses there can continue to pay people minimum wage?

there is no answer to this. There is no answer to why we should give a select few discounted access to one of the hottest items in the world. We aren't providing needs to the needy. We are providing luxuries to incumbents. The big winners are companies paying NMW, landlords, and the few that can take advantage of this. The losers are everyone else, in particular those unable to find suitable homes centrally because those places are being taken by housing people (who may or may not be working centrally) at taxpayers expense. While HB supporters aren't at all bothered by the fact that those displaced by the people living centrally on HB at taxpayer's expense (who may or may not be working centrally) have to endure long commutes, they seem to think it's a crime against humanity to make those lucky enough to have these central places make the exact same commutes. It's bizarre.

But the people getting HB are on lower wages than those commuting aren't they, if those commuting were on low wages they would get HB.

if those commuting were on low wages they would get HB

not necessarily. but also, they couldn't live in London. That's the contentious part. Living in the most desirable part.

I am, unlike others ambivalent about tax credits. I can see people need them, but I also see companies use them to pay less.

But the point about tax credits vs HB is that property is scarce. pound for pound, money is the same. Housing is different. given two 3 bed houses, one could be highly desirable, and the other not.

We're not going to agree red, its been a good debate. I see HB as an essential, I agree that we shouldn't be paying for people to be long term unemployed and living centrally on HB, that defies logic. But as most are in employment, and will have to pay some towards their rent.

I feel this is often the politics of envy too, but the jealousy is focused at the wrong points.

I feel this is often the politics of envy too, but the jealousy is focused at the wrong points.

no, we aren't going to agree.

Whatever you mean by the politics of envy, I think a fundamental principle is being broken here. People are being given a luxurious and scarce resource, not a need, at high public expense. Furthermore, while you label it envious, I label it unfair. People don't want to support other people (through taxation) in positions they themselves could not afford, a completely natural impulse in my view.

I'll add, that I support huge parts of the welfare state, and wealth redistribution. In particular, I think we should be supporting and investing in things that promote social mobility (great state education for example). Things like HB, that do invite the politics of envy as you call it, really undermine the welfare state.