Friday 18 March 2016

Rebellion's In The Air

A Tory rebellion is brewing, over the chancellor's cuts to Personal Independence Payments to the disabled. Which are unconscionable. It's a very interesting scenario; Labour will say he's cutting benefits to the disabled to fund tax cuts to the wealthiest, but it's not as simple as that. Don't get me wrong the chancellor is absolutely out of his tree to cut PIPs, especially since he wants to be Prime Minister, but the tax cuts are something separate, they make sense because they are intended to stimulate the economy and often times when you cut taxes revenue actually goes up, and although that's another topic it is true. In addition Labour would try to stimulate the economy by borrowing even more which is bonkers given the size of the debt as my previous post points out.

The Conservative party is divided and in this instance the rebels are right, over Europe another load of rebels are not right in my opinion. Ironically the Conservative party would be more united were they still in coalition with the Lib Dems.  There is nothing like an 'enemy in ones midst' to pull people together, BUT ALSO the Lib Dems would not have stood for a cut in PIPs and no rebellion would have been necessary. I hated the idea of a coalition government, but hell it actually worked, while the divided Conservatives risk bringing the house down over Europe.

On PIPs the media last night cited a disabled lady who lost her home and her job as a result of losing her Personal Independence Payment, an extreme example but I'm sure it's not unique. I don't know what benefits she is claiming now but she said 'I'm now a drain on society'. I'm sure she was being honest and straightforward and we want people who want to work to be able to. I applaud her unreservedly. A civilised country looks after the disabled and we can afford that.

In his budget speech I'm pretty certain I heard the words 'increasing disability budget' escape Osborne's lips, there was something of the sort and it threw me off the scent about PIPs. At one point I wondered if I'd gone over the top in my last post when I said that all politicians are 'manipulative lizards'. Perhaps that was over the top but with the chancellor cutting PIPs and Labour misrepresenting what's going on, many obviously are.

I woke screaming last night after dreaming Trump was in the White House, Boris was in number ten, the Lib Dems had shut up shop completely and we were the pariahs of Europe. Use your vote wisely!

It's about decency

1 comment:

  1. Coalition oftentimes works. The USA could do with borrowing the idea, because the Republicans are about be wiped out (White House and Senate/Congress).

    ReplyDelete