I wasn't aware that Streatham was significantly short of Daily Mail readers.
Oh well, you live and learn.
However: you're right: the system is a mess, and it's hardly unreasonable to look for solutions. Here's mine.
If people can't afford to live in London, ship them out elsewhere. Stuff benefit caps. The big problem here is that you have totally unproductive members of society in places where they are, by definition, going to be costing the welfare state twice as much as they would be in a less obnoxiously expensive part of the country.
Stuff this "right to buy" nonsense. If you have enough money to buy your Pimlico council flat (to use an example near to hand where I work), then that's fine. Otherwise, here's £5000 for relocation, and there are some pretty fine places in Wales and Northamptonshire and dare I say it the West Midlands that are far more affordable on a cap of £26,000 a year.
OTOH I think Birks is going overboard with the anti-child-campaigners thing. As he well knows, there is a long tail involved here. It isn't typical of benefit claimers in general (although it does, as you say, make a luvverly headline in the Daily Beast), and in all honesty I think the absolute, aggregated, sums are not that damaging.
I find myself in the unusual position of both agreeing with Duncan Smith in general, and with the Lords (Statutes, Amendments thereof) in particular.
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Date: 2012-01-24 10:52 pm (UTC)Oh well, you live and learn.
However: you're right: the system is a mess, and it's hardly unreasonable to look for solutions. Here's mine.
If people can't afford to live in London, ship them out elsewhere. Stuff benefit caps. The big problem here is that you have totally unproductive members of society in places where they are, by definition, going to be costing the welfare state twice as much as they would be in a less obnoxiously expensive part of the country.
Stuff this "right to buy" nonsense. If you have enough money to buy your Pimlico council flat (to use an example near to hand where I work), then that's fine. Otherwise, here's £5000 for relocation, and there are some pretty fine places in Wales and Northamptonshire and dare I say it the West Midlands that are far more affordable on a cap of £26,000 a year.
OTOH I think Birks is going overboard with the anti-child-campaigners thing. As he well knows, there is a long tail involved here. It isn't typical of benefit claimers in general (although it does, as you say, make a luvverly headline in the Daily Beast), and in all honesty I think the absolute, aggregated, sums are not that damaging.
I find myself in the unusual position of both agreeing with Duncan Smith in general, and with the Lords (Statutes, Amendments thereof) in particular.
I'm quite queasy about this.