To be sick of politicians using 'fairness' as justification for tax rises?

[Itchthescratch]

Fairness is completely subjective and I notice that this is often shorthand for giving more money to those that contribute the least.

Of course there will always be those that can't contribute much due to factors outside of their control, but we are kidding ourselves if we pretend that there aren't already lots of people that are scraping by doing the bare minimum (sometimes even less) and making completely irresponsible decisions knowing the state will ultimately insulate them from the consequences.

I personally know people that have had lots of children that they can't afford and can't parent properly simply because they wanted to. They are now on an incredible amount of money as the two child cap has been lifted. I know people that have stopped working because they weren't much better off than being on benefits and they couldn't be bothered with the hassle. I know young people that are already planning to stay on disability benefits their whole lives for mental health issues as they want to stay home and game.

Is it really 'fair' to charge the rest of us more to subsidise all of this?

It's as valid as any other poll on this forum. Yougov and other major pollsters have covered many adjacent questions and show that again, the majority of the population generally agree with me:

https://yougov.com/en-gb/trackers/do-brits-think-that-benefits-are-too-high
https://yougov.com/en-gb/trackers/are-we-taxing-and-spending-the-right-amount

You can get any poll result you want if you phrase the questions in the right way and/or ask a group of people who know nothing whatsoever about what they’re being asked.

I haven't been anything of the sort.

That says a lot about political and media discourse during the time period specified. It's very interesting to see the after effects of austerity rhetoric.

Okay.

Andy Burnham has been PM for all of 5mins, so I doubt he’s had much of an impact yet.

It seems pointless to me discussing how we’re being asked to pay (more than) our fair share, but not discuss why - what it’s going on and how that money could be better spent.

Do you have any particular ideas on how to encourage the takers to put in their fair share, at least?

If the British public do think benefits are too high, it surely is more productive to discuss what we can do about that, to either lower the bill or spread it more widely?