Sunday, 28 April 2013
IDS's Bright Idea
I see that Iain Duncan Smith is urging those of us who have spent decades forking a huge proportion of our hard-earned money straight into the ever more voracious and insatiable maw of the Exchequer and are now, in our 60s, finally getting a few quid back, to return any of said few quid we don't really need into the hands of the State. Here's a better idea: save it up until you happen upon a three-testicled sailor on shore leave and hand it over to him - he'll spend it more wisely than the State.
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Up until the moment a read this recently, I was shoulder to shoulder with IDS - trying, against all the odds, to make some sense of a labyrinthine benefits system that has sprawled, out of control for decades, and making a reasonable fist of it. But what was he thinking of here? Did somebody not sit down with him and say "Iain, this is a 'brain on holiday' idea, and furthermore, it makes you look stupid - and you're not. These people read The Daily Telegraph not Dubai Today. These people are unfamiliar with the mooring arrangements in Monte Carlo Harbour - they have paid their taxes for more than 40 years, and whatever we have paid them in recognition of that fact, they will be keeping not giving back. The longer the driveway, the smaller the tip, Iain"
ReplyDeleteMaybe, but I find I'm remarkably untroubled by the idea that boomers - with their uni grants, jobs for life, final salary pensions and massive houses bought for two shillings now worth half a million quid - might pay for their own bus rides rather than passing the bill to me.
ReplyDeleteBut Brit, do you honestly think that handing it back to the Exchequer would actually benefit anyone? Anything saved wld likely be consumed by the costs of setting up the recovery mechanism (which at present - as someone shld have told IDS - does not exist). We still have the option of leaving a bequest to the Treasury in our will - apparently a few dotty old ladies do this...
ReplyDeleteNote Brit's rhetoric, Nige. When his generation wishes to show traditional patience, honour and respect to the old wrinklies, they call them senior citizens or the elderly. When they express resentment over tied-up wealth and sense of entitlement, they're called boomers. I think the idea is to convey we're still figuratively blowing dope and rutting at Woodstock while they work long hours cleaning up our mess.
ReplyDeleteThey do, of course, have a point... Not when it comes to the likes of you and me of course, Peter!
ReplyDeleteOn Today this morning IDS seemed to imply that he wasn't appealing for benefit sacrificing volunteers, but answering a question about them and pointing them to a mechanism that did already exist.
ReplyDeleteBut anyway, these non-means tested perks are so obviously anomalous that we can be quite certain that, as per all the other nice things I listed above, the boomers will be the last generation to enjoy them.
Of course they have a point, Nige. The elderly today are a challenge even the most impatient and forward-thinking couch in euphemisms. Who wants the tell Grannie she's past her due date? But as I reluctantly begin to glimpse the horizon of a future of crankiness, dependency and confusion (still-a ways off, God willing), I am resolved not to surrender my timeless birthright to whine about the selfishnes and disrespect of the young, and I damn well trust you are too. We shouldn't go down without a bloody good fight.
ReplyDeleteThat's the spirit, Peter!
ReplyDeleteMy lovely daughters, god bless 'em, are accomplished strategists of ways to transfer some of my prodigious boomers' wealth to them.
ReplyDeleteI have 3 beautiful kids of my own, why should i fork out for th upkeep of other people's children? Pocket the money....i spend it on a really nice bottle, and drink to the health of the poor, floundering in our wake! Why confound evolution?
ReplyDeleteSuch an attitude can be made to sound almost respectable!
Brit, i too keep a limp Red Flag flying here...