Saturday 9 October 2010

Coalition scorecard - child benefit

-1 ... Scrapping child benefit for high tax earners, creating a glaring anomaly. A tiny tweak to the top tax rate would have been fairer, but blind ideology stops the Tories being sensible.
-1 ... Stupid and unnecessary law allowing councils to prioritise locals over immigrants in allocating council housing, rather than simply basing it on need - even though immigrants only make up 2% of the social housing sector.
-1 ... Reneging on pre-election calls by both coalition members for an inquiry into energy pricing.
-1 ... Ending secure tenancies for council tenants. Missing the heart of the problem (stock supply) and acting as a disincentive for people to better themselves.
+1 ... Nick Clegg calling the Iraq invasion illegal. And Damien green declaring a burqua ban would be 'unBritish.'
-1 ... Ill conceived NHS reforms.
+1 ... Scrapping the police's power to stop and search without suspicion.
-1 ... Cancelling school building programme. Idiotic, both in the short and long term.
+1 ... Inquiry into allegations of torture.
+1 ... Raising the tax free threshold a touch.
-3 ... VAT at 20%. Take that, pensioners and unemployed types! And for all the other ridiculously unnecessary austerity measures.
-1 ... Not changing the CGT rates to match income tax rates.
-1 ... Cameron and Osborne going overboard with the debt crisis rhetoric. Don't they realize they've won the election and have to actually act responsibly, now?
+1 ... Opening the books on spending. Possibly just to humiliate the last administration, but still a good move towards openness.
-1 ... Hague's empty words on IDF killings. After ripping off our passports, why are we still talking to these murderous savages?
-1 ... Cutting business tax. Don't these fuckers know there is a DeT MowTIN?
-1 ... Osbourne trying to hold off on it, pandering to wealthy Tories.
+1 ... Increasing the capital gains tax, but ...
-1 ... Plans to reduce the number of constituencies a VERY BAD THING.
+1 ....$10 billion of new spending. Even better, it makes the Tories look like scaremongering hypocrites.
+1 ... The 55% rule is a good thing, would be even better at 66%.
+1 ... Tax cut for the poorest, funded by the wealthiest. good and redistributive.

OVERALL: -1/10. The coalition moves into negative territory following the stupid decision to cancel child benefit for high earners (1), creating a disparity where families with two income may still receive the benefit when they earn far than a family on a single income. Simply unfair, stupid and wrong. A tweak to the top tax rate would have accomplished the same saving far more equitably, but the Tories are simply too ideologically blinkered to consider something as straightforward as that.
1 - "David Cameron 'sorry' child benefit cut was not in Tory manifesto," by Patrick Wintour and Nicholas Watt. Published in The guardian, 5th of October, 2010. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/oct/05/david-cameron-child-benefit-cut)

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